All passengers and crew on a flight which crashed and overturned while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada have survived, the airport’s chief executive has said.

“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” said Deborah Flint of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

One child and two adults were critically injured in the crash, according to emergency services and images shared on social media show a plane flipped over and lying on its roof on the snow-covered tarmac. It appears to be missing at least one of its wings.

Toronto Pearson Airport said the crash involved a Delta Air Lines flight arriving from Minneapolis, and of the 80 people on board, 76 were passengers and four were crew.

Eighteen passengers have been transported to hospital in total.

Ontario air ambulance service Ornge said it had dispatched three air ambulance helicopters and two land ambulances to the scene.

The patients with critical injuries include a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s, it added.

Toronto Pearson Airport president and CEO, Deborah Flint, in an evening briefing, called the response by emergency personnel “textbook” and credited them with helping ensure no loss of life.

• Plane flips over on landing in Toronto, leaving three critically injured

The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said the plane involved was Delta Air Lines Flight 4819, being operated by one of its subsidiaries, Endeavor Air.

Delta confirmed that a CRJ900 aircraft was involved in the incident at about 14:15 ET (19:15 GMT) on Monday afternoon.

Twenty-two of the passengers are Canadian, the rest are “multinational”, Ms Flint said.

The airport was closed shortly after the incident, but flights into and out of Toronto Pearson resumed at about 17:00 local time, the airport said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it was deploying a team to “gather information and assess the occurrence”.

Two runways will remain closed for several days for investigation and passengers have been told to expect some delays.

Toronto Pearson fire chief Todd Aitken said on Monday night that it is early in the investigation but they can say “the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions”.

That contradicts earlier reports of wind gusts over 40mph (64km/h) and a crosswind.

Video footage shared on social media shows people clambering out of the overturned aircraft, with fire crews spraying it with foam.

“We’re in Toronto, we just landed. Our plane crashed, it’s upside down,” said one man as he filmed a video taken from outside the upturned plane.

The video shows passengers being helped out of the plane’s doors by airport staff, with some then running away from the plane’s entrance.

“Most people appear to be OK. We’re all getting off, there’s some smoke going on,” he can be heard saying.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said provincial officials are in contact with the airport and local authorities and will provide any help that’s needed.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was “grateful to the first responders and professionals on the scene”.

After the crash, the airport’s arrival and departure boards showed scores of delays and cancellations to flights.

Some passengers told the BBC that they were now stuck in Toronto for several days after their flights were cancelled, with none available on Monday or Tuesday.

James and Andrea Turner were in customs – located right before the departure gates – when they were suddenly told to evacuate.

“They got rid of everybody from customs to security, and then put everybody back to the general area,” James said, adding that the departures hall was packed as a result.

The couple had been due to board the plane that crashed on the runway. Their flight was then cancelled – the third delay to their trip, after their previous journeys were rescheduled due to bad weather.

Toronto Pearson Airport had been experiencing weather-related delays over the last few days, with heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures battering parts of Ontario.

Two storms – one on Wednesday and one on Sunday – covered the city with a total of 30-50cm (11.8-19.6 inches) of snow.

The BBC’s US partner CBS reports that there was light snow falling at the time of the crash.

Earlier on Monday, the airport warned that “frigid temperatures and high winds were moving in”.

It said a “busy day” was expected, with airlines “catching up after this weekend’s snowstorm which dumped over 22cm of snow at the airport”.

The crash is at least the fourth major aviation incident in North America in the past month – including a deadly in-air collision between a passenger plane and a military helicopter near Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan airport, which killed all 67 people on board.

When US President Donald Trump wanted someone to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to open negotiations for a potential deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war, he didn’t dispatch his secretary of state.

The man he sent to the Kremlin to handle a titanic geopolitical challenge does not even have a diplomatic background.

Instead Trump picked his personal friend, golf buddy and billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff.

The president has made Witkoff his Middle East envoy. But last week the Bronx-born businessman found himself in discussions about ending a conflict in Eastern Europe – having been “with [Putin] for a very extended period, like about three hours”, in Trump’s words.

Witkoff was in Moscow to help facilitate a deal that saw the US and Russia swap prisoners, which was seen as signalling a possible thaw in relations between the two countries.

Witkoff also played a part in brokering the current ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, for which both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden took credit.

Though he was not yet officially in his post, Witkoff flew to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu before the deal was brokered in Qatar. He then spent time with Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk in Doha, who later praised their cooperation, calling it a “very close partnership, even friendship”, according to the Washington Post.

Witkoff is now returning to the region, specifically Saudi Arabia, for the first US-Russian face-to-face talks over the war in Ukraine after Trump had his own call with Putin. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz are also attending.

But the bold moves made by Trump’s team are stirring concern among Western allies, who fear a new world order in which key players are shut out of discussions. Ukraine and other European nations were not invited to the Saudi meeting.

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So, who is Witkoff – dubbed by US media as “the man in the room”, taking centre stage as more potentially consequential international talks take place?

He was one of Trump’s first picks for his top team after his presidential election win in November. Trump wrote: “Steve will be an unrelenting voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

“The president sees Steve as one of the world’s great dealmakers,” a White House official told Axios. Witkoff’s preferred negotiating tactic was to use charm, according to another associate, but he could also turn up the pressure.

The 67-year-old was raised in Long Island, New York and trained as a real estate developer in one of America’s most cut-throat markets.

As a long-time Republican donor, he has known Trump for decades, and, like the president, made his fortune in real estate in both New York and Florida.

Addressing last year’s Republican National Convention, during which he recalled speaking to Trump in the aftermath of an assassination attempt, Witkoff called the other man his “true and dear friend… in good times and bad times”.

The two men are also long-time golfing companions, US Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News. “Steve and I would be the two guys who would play Trump and somebody else, and lose,” Graham said.

It was during a shared golfing session in Florida last September that another alleged would-be Trump attacker was foiled by the Secret Service. Trump said he and Witkoff were bundled into golf carts as agents moved to counter a suspect in the bushes.

Graham also said that Witkoff first mentioned his interest in becoming Middle East envoy to Trump during a lunchtime conversation. “That stunned me, because I didn’t know he was interested in the Mideast,” Graham said.

Witkoff’s remit as Middle East envoy is also reported to include diplomacy with Iran. People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times he had been chosen to spearhead a nuclear deal with Tehran as part of a broader plan to “stop the wars” in the region.

Witkoff’s deal-making skills were on display during Trump’s 2024 campaign. He helped to ease tension between Trump and his defeated Republican presidential primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Witkoff also reportedly met Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to smooth things over, after Kemp drew Trump’s scorn for refusing to support his unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election which Trump lost to Biden.

He currently serves as chairman of the University of Miami’s business school real estate advisory board, and was appointed by Trump during his first term to the board of trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Meta has announced plans to build a 50,000km (31,000 mile) sub-sea cable across the world.

The tech giant said Project Waterworth – connecting the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions – will be the world’s longest underwater cable project when completed.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has sought to extend its presence in technology beyond social media, including in artificial intelligence (AI) and the infrastructure that supports it.

It said its new cable project would provide “industry-leading connectivity” to five major continents and help support its AI projects.

“This project will enable greater economic co-operation, facilitate digital inclusion, and open opportunities for technological development in these regions,” Meta said in a blog post.

The cable would be the longest to date that uses a 24 fibre-pair system, giving it a higher capacity, according to the firm.

Sub-sea cables have become increasingly important as they provide the means to power a variety of digital services and transfer data worldwide at speed.

One regularly-cited statistic suggests more than 95% of the world’s internet traffic is transferred through undersea cables.

Telecommunications market research firm TeleGeography says there are currently more than 600 publicly-known sub-sea cable systems worldwide.

This includes the 2Africa cable, backed by Meta and mobile network operators such as Orange, Vodafone and China Mobile, which links three continents and spans 45,000km.

Tech firms that serve as major providers of web services have invested huge sums in cable infrastructure.

Google said in 2024 it would build the first sub-sea cable connecting Africa and Australia, and announced a $1bn investment to boost connectivity to Japan with two new sub-sea cables in the Pacific Ocean.

“Over the past decade there has been a shift in which these cables are increasingly laid by large technology companies,” Professor Vili Lehdonvirta of the Oxford Internet Institute told the BBC.

He said this is in contrast to the past, where underwater cables were laid and financed by large groups of national telecoms firms, due to their considerable investment needs.

Prof Lehdonvirta said this reflects the growing size and position of big tech firms to be able to fund such infrastructure independently – something that “may be significant to policy makers concerned with concentration in digital markets”.

Telecoms and technology industry analyst Paolo Pescatore said it spoke to Meta’s ambitions.

“Meta has shown a strong desire to own more of the connectivity slice,” he told the BBC.

“This is a further demonstration as it seeks to leapfrog rivals in providing users with an unique experience by tightly integrating hardware, software, platform and its growing aspirations in connectivity,” he added.

The rising importance of sub-sea cables has increased concerns over their vulnerability to attacks or accidents.

Following a spate of severed cables, experts have said undersea communications infrastructure is a growing arena for geopolitical tensions and conflict.

Nato launched a mission in January to increase surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after damage to critical undersea cables last year.

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A UK parliamentary committee recently issued a call for evidence about the UK’s resilience in the face of potential disruption.

This said pointed to growing concern over “Russian and Chinese capabilities to hold undersea infrastructure at risk – particularly during periods of heightened tension or conflict”.

Meta said in its blog post announcing Project Waterworth it would lay its cable system up to 7,000 meters deep and “use enhanced burial techniques in high-risk fault areas, such as shallow waters near the coast, to avoid damage from ship anchors and other hazards”.

Prof Lehdonvirta said the project appeared to diverge from more established routes, such as by skipping Europe and China and avoiding “geopolitical hotspots” in the Suez canal and South China sea.

And he said connecting the US with major, contested markets in the Southern hemisphere could be viewed as “bolstering US economic and infrastructural power abroad”.

Sir Keir Starmer has said any Ukraine peace deal would require a “US backstop” to deter Russia from attacking its neighbour again.

Speaking after a hastily convened meeting with European leaders in Paris, the prime minister repeated that he would consider deploying UK troops to Ukraine in the event of a lasting peace agreement.

But he said “a US security guarantee was the only way to effectively deter Russia”, and vowed to discuss the “key elements” of a peace deal with US President Donald Trump when the pair meet in Washington next week.

Sir Keir said Europe would “have to do more” to defend the continent in the face of the “generational” security challenge Russia poses.

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He was keen to avoid explaining exactly what he meant by a “backstop” – but his allies suggest this could involve air support, logistics and intelligence capabilities.

European leaders convened at the Élysée Palace to discuss concerns over the Trump administration’s decision to initiate peace talks with Russia – due to start in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday – alone.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv did not know about the talks and would not recognise any agreement made without its involvement.

US officials have suggested European nations would be consulted on peace talks with Russia, but not directly involved in them.

The Paris summit also took place days after US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Europe would have to be primarily responsible for guaranteeing its own security going forward.

In his statement to reporters following the talks, Sir Keir said the US was “not going to leave Nato”, but that it was “time to take responsibility for our security, our continent”.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said transatlantic relations were in a “new stage”, and that the meeting had confirmed the time had come for “a much greater ability for Europe to defend itself”.

Sir Keir has indicated any troop contributions from the UK would be part of a multinational force to police the border between Ukrainian-held and Russian-held territory.

But experts say to do so effectively would be a massive undertaking that would require a large increase in defence spending.

Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, said that, unlike UN peacekeeping forces there to observe, if the force being proposed is intended to deter Russian attacks, “it’s a whole different matter altogether”.

“You need credible, well-armed forces – and you not only need frontline forces, you need back-up forces, and air forces, and so on,” he told the BBC. “That’s a much bigger ask.”

General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, a former Nato commander, said: “This cannot be a token force, it cannot be something that observes bad behaviour and stands on the sideline.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that it would have to do “effectively what Nato does on its own turf – really deter aggression”, and would need to be “underpinned by a grand strategy for containment of Russia” that would make clear any future conflict would not be contained to Ukraine.

“Essentially, the force needs to be large enough to defeat an incursion,” he added.

The former head of the British Army, Lord Dannatt, previously estimated such a force would need around 100,000 troops – with the UK contributing about two-fifths.

“We just haven’t got that number available,” he said on Saturday, adding that getting the military into shape to perform this role would come at a considerable cost.

The UK currently spends around 2.3% of its total economic output on defence. The government has committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5%, but has not said when this will be achieved.

Sir Keir earlier told reporters that the government would set out a path to meeting the 2.5% commitment once it finishes its strategic defence review.

“Part of my message to our European allies is that we’ve all got to step up on both capability and on spending and funding,” he said.

“That includes the UK, which is why I’ve made that commitment to spend more.”

Some European figures have signalled their agreement with this.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Europe had to “step up” defence spending and support for Ukraine, as “Russia is threatening all of Europe now, unfortunately”, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a “surge” in defence spending.

Sir Keir was also joined in Paris by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as the president of the European Council and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Prior to the meeting, European leaders had also expressed concern after Hegseth said it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine will return to its pre-2014 borders – before Russia annexed Crimea and took parts of the nation’s south and east in its 2022 full-scale invasion.

Hegseth also downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining the mutual defence alliance Nato – something Sir Keir has said it was on an “irreversible” path towards.

Gen Sir Bradshaw noted these potential concessions to Russia, and said: “If we can’t return Ukraine to what it was as a sovereign nation before this war, we have absolutely got to make it a lasting peace.”

No 10 confirmed Sir Keir’s trip to Washington earlier on Monday, after a minister said the UK could serve as a “bridge” between the US and Europe.

The BBC understands the PM offered to host a follow-up meeting of European leaders following the Washington trip.

Poland’s Tusk has already indicated his nation would not send troops into Ukraine, but would continue to support it with military, financial and humanitarian aid.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, told reporters following the Paris meeting that discussing sending troops to Ukraine at present was “completely premature” and he was “a little irritated” with the topic.

UK government sources argue it is “no surprise” there was a difference of opinion between leaders, and that not every nation is willing to show their hand quite yet.

British diplomats do not believe every nation would need to commit to contributing troops – but some would. And whatever Europe’s eventual role, US involvement would still be required.

Prof Chalmers said: “Having significant numbers of Nato troops on Ukrainian soil after a ceasefire would be a failure for Russia, so it’s hard for me at this point to see Russia accepting such a presence as a part of the deal.”

Deploying British troops would also require the approval of Parliament, something Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said he was confident “all sides of the house are likely to agree with”.

Sir Keir’s spokesperson said Parliament would be consulted “as appropriate” but this was “getting ahead of discussions” with other world leaders.

Meanwhile, fighting on the ground in Ukraine continued over the weekend, with at least three civilians killed in Russian strikes on Sunday, according to local authorities.

Several areas of Ukraine are under an emergency blackout following attacks on energy infrastructure, while Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones on Sunday night.

This could prove a defining week for the war in Ukraine, with two sets of hastily arranged talks taking place in Paris and Riyadh.

European leaders are meeting in France as they scramble for a response to Donald Trump’s plan to open negotiations with Vladimir Putin for an end to the conflict.

On Tuesday Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are due to meet in the Saudi capital.

Ukraine is not attending either set of talks.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls more than a fifth of its territory, mainly in the south and east.

BBC correspondents analyse what key powers hope to gain from two days of intense diplomacy.

The UK

Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to be a bridge between European leaders and Trump’s White House berating them about their defence spending.

Starmer’s offer to put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine is part of that role he wants to play.

The government used to say the terms of any peace deal was up to Ukraine. That has shifted with the new US administration signalling that a return to 2014 borders was “unrealistic”.

Instead Sir Keir will be hoping more European nations in Paris join him in offering their forces to secure a deal – and prevent Russia invading again.

But while the prime minister is in Paris, in Westminster the debate goes on about how much the country should spend on defence.

Labour has promised to “set out a path” to increase defence spending from 2.3% of GDP now to 2.5%. Defence sources say that would be a significant rise.

But there is no date for when that would happen – and many argue it is now urgent.

Germany

It is a sign of how rattled German leaders are by Trump’s approach to Ukraine that just days before a national election Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also in Paris.

All mainstream parties have condemned American suggestions that a peace deal be brokered without Ukraine or the EU. Far-right and populist-left politicians welcome talks with Putin and want to stop arming Kyiv. But they will not get into power.

So, whatever the next German government looks like, Berlin’s support for Ukraine will remain strong. That is because Berlin’s political elite recognises that a bad deal – one that undermines Ukrainian sovereignty – would be disastrous for Germany.

But with Germany’s war-torn 20th century in mind, voters here are wary of militarisation.

Over the past three years the country has successfully pivoted away from Russian energy and massively upped defence spending. But this has hit the German economy hard and the subsequent budget rows sparked the collapse of the German government.

So politicians are trying to avoid public discussions of difficult issues, like higher Nato spending targets or German peacekeeping troops in Ukraine — at least until after the election.

Poland

Poland has been a key supporter of Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion and it is the key logistics hub for military and humanitarian aid entering the country.

It is also a loud voice arguing that Russia cannot be allowed to win the war it launched – because the whole of Europe’s security is at stake. So there is consternation that the US looks like it is conceding to Moscow’s key demands, even before talks begin, when Poland very clearly sees Russia as the aggressor and as dangerous.

Russia is why Poland spends big on its own military – up to almost 5% of GDP now – and agrees with the US that the rest of Europe should do the same.

On his way to the talks in Paris, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X: “If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defence now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war.”

On the question of whether to send Polish troops to Ukraine – to help enforce any eventual ceasefire – government officials have been cautious, ruling it out for now.

The Nordic and Baltic countries

Denmark will be the only Nordic nation at Monday’s meeting. But European diplomats say it will also be representing the interests of its Baltic neighbours to the east – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all of whom border Russia and feel particularly vulnerable to any future Putin attack.

The shockwaves generated by the second Trump term have already been reverberating around Denmark.

Trump’s renewed desire to take over Greenland – an autonomous Danish dependent territory – propelled Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on a whistle-stop tour of European allies last month to shore up support.

On Monday in Paris, Frederiksen finds herself once again in a hastily-convened meeting to respond to Trump’s reshaping of the transatlantic security landscape.

Frederiksen has not yet followed in Starmer’s footsteps of pledging peacekeeping boots on the ground in Ukraine.

Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has been quoted by Danish media as saying he is not ruling it out – but that it is too early to talk about.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday’s informal meeting – not a “summit,” his officials insisted – to help Europe coordinate a response both to Washington’s increasingly unsympathetic posture towards the continent, and to whatever emerges from the White House’s fast-paced negotiations with the Kremlin.

“The Europeans, as we speak, are not coordinated, but that may be the whole point of (this) summit in Paris, and that is the beginning of coordination… Are we ready? The answer is no. Can we get ready? The answer is yes,” said Francois Heisbourg, a veteran French military expert, commenting on the need for Europe to work together to prepare a possible peacekeeping force for Ukraine.

“There is a wind of unity blowing across Europe such as has not been seen since Covid,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s most senior diplomat.

The mood in France – a nation always wary of American geopolitical manoeuvring – is particularly edgy right now, with newspaper headlines warning of a new “Trump-Putin axis” that will sideline or “abandon” Europe over the war in Ukraine.

“We should be in a Europe-wide state of emergency,” warned the former Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin at a recent news briefing, accusing an “arrogant” Trump of attempting to “rule the world without principles or respect.”

Russia

Since the summer, Putin has stated that his main conditions for starting negotiations to end the war are the recognition of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the lifting of sanctions on Russia, and denial of Ukraine’s request to join Nato.

Most European countries categorically reject these demands. The US has been very cautious in discussing what concessions Russia might have to make, though both the White House and the Pentagon have said they expect compromises from “both sides”.

Moscow’s priority is clearly the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he would “first and foremost like to listen” to the American proposals on ending the conflict in Ukraine.

As for Europe, Moscow sees no point in inviting it to the negotiating table.

It is no secret that for many years Putin has sought dialogue specifically with the US – a country he both blames for starting the war in Ukraine and considers the only power equal to Russia.

Moscow may take note of Starmer’s statements about being ready to send peacekeepers to the Ukraine – for the first time in a week, the discussion is about potential Russian, rather than Ukrainian, concessions.

But whether Russia is ready for any compromises remains an open question.

The US

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff will be the public face of the US team negotiating in Riyadh – but perhaps the main voice at the table is more than 7,400 miles (11,900km) away, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Despite Trump’s public engagements in recent days, it is clear that the negotiations with Russia over the fate of Ukraine have been his focus behind the scenes.

On Sunday, Trump told reporters he had been kept abreast of the latest developments and the talks are “moving along”.

His short-term goal is to stop the fighting in Ukraine. Longer term, he appears to want less American involvement, given that the US has sent tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Kyiv.

Trump has also pushed for access to rare minerals in Ukraine in return for aid, or even as compensation for the support the US has already provided.

But he has not yet said what a post-war Ukraine would look like, setting off alarm bells in Europe.

He also notably said that he expects Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to be a part of the “conversation”, but not the talks in Riyadh. Rubio has said the talks in Saudi Arabia are only the start of a longer process that will “obviously” include Europe and Ukraine.

Those remarks are likely to provide little comfort for US allies who have been listening to Trump’s remarks over the last several days.

In response to a BBC question on Wednesday, Trump said he believes he is inclined to agree with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s assessment that a return to pre-2014 borders is unrealistic for Ukraine, although he expects Ukraine might get “some” of that land back.

So far, it appears that solution is not one that is palatable for Zelensky and the rest of Ukraine’s leadership.

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• PM ‘ready’ to put troops on ground in Ukraine to protect peace

The Ukrainian people feel their future is as uncertain as it was back in February 2022.

Ukrainians want peace – so as not to wake up to the sounds of sirens and not lose loved ones on the battlefield and in frontline cities.

Russia occupies almost 25% of Ukraine’s territory. Ukraine’s defence has cost tens of thousands of lives of its citizens.

The country has in the past insisted that any peace deal include the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. That includes not only areas Russia has seized in its full-scale offensive, but also the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russia has backed separatists in fighting, also in 2014.

Ukrainians are scared of a peace agreement like the one in 2014 or 2015 – heavy fighting was stopped, but crossfire on the border continued to bring losses.

With no security guarantees, it would also mean a possibility of a new wave of war in a decade or so.

“Ukraine regards any talks about Ukraine without Ukraine as such that have no result, and we cannot recognise… agreements about us without us,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said about the US-Russia meeting.

Whatever form any peace talks take, Ukrainians want agency over their own future.

Many see previous peace arrangements with Russia as having simply paved the way for its full-scale invasion. So the Ukrainian fear is that any deal agreed over its head could lead to a third round of war.

Argentine President Javier Milei is facing impeachment calls – and legal action accusing him of fraud – over his promotion of cryptocurrency on social media.

Milei posted on X, formerly Twitter, about the $LIBRA coin on Friday, which he said would help fund small businesses and start-ups.

He shared a link to buy it, causing its price to shoot up. But within a few hours, he deleted his post and the cryptocurrency nosedived in value, losing investors most of their money.

Some opposition members of Congress say they plan to start proceedings to impeach Milei. Meanwhile, lawyers filed complaints of fraud in Argentina’s criminal court on Sunday.

Some people online have accused Milei of what is known as a “rug pull” – where promoters of a cryptocurrency draw in buyers, only to stop trading activity and make off with the money raised from sales. They pointed out that the link used to buy the coins referenced a phrase the president uses in his speeches.

But Argentina’s presidential office said on Saturday that the decision to remove the post was to avoid “speculation” following public reaction to the launch of the cryptocurrency.

It said Milei was not involved in the cryptocurrency’s development, and that the government’s Anti-Corruption Office would investigate and determine whether anyone had acted improperly, including the president himself.

Jonatan Baldiviezo, one of the plaintiffs who filed the legal action, told Associated Press “the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president’s actions were essential”.

Milei’s political opponents have jumped on the opportunity.

Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is now in opposition, was heavily critical, calling him a “crypto scammer” in a post seen 6.4 million times.

For its part, the country’s main opposition coalition said it would file a request to impeach the president, calling it an “unprecedented scandal“.

Esteban Paulón, a member of the opposition Socialist Party, said in a post on X that he would also request the start of impeachment proceedings.

Pope Francis is being treated for a “complex clinical situation” and will remain in hospital for as long as necessary, the Vatican has said.

The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday to undergo treatment and tests for bronchitis.

On Monday, the Vatican said the pontiff has a “polymicrobial infection” of his respiratory tract, which has required a change in his treatment.

A later update added that the Pope was “proceeding with the prescribed treatment” in a stable condition and did not have a fever. He also undertook some work and reading while in hospital on Monday.

“Pope Francis is touched by the numerous messages of affection and closeness that he has been receiving in recent hours,” a statement added.

“He especially wants to extend his thanks to those who are hospitalised at this time, for the affection and love they have expressed through drawings and messages of good wishes; he prays for them and asks that they pray for him.”

Before his admission last week, the Pope had bronchitis symptoms for several days and had delegated officials to read prepared speeches at events.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni also told reporters on Monday that the pontiff was in good spirits.

A short statement on his condition said: “All tests carried out to date are indicative of a complex clinical picture that will require appropriate hospitalisation.”

The pontiff’s weekly general audience, which is usually held each Wednesday, has been cancelled for this week, the statement added.

Over the weekend, the Vatican said the Pope was stable and that he’d been told to have “complete rest” to aid his recovery.

On Friday and Saturday he held a video call with the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, led by Father Gabriel Romanelli.

“We heard his voice. It is true, he is more tired. He himself said, ‘I have to take care of myself.’ But you could hear the clear voice, he listened to us well,” Fr Romanelli told Vatican News.

On Sunday, Fr Romanelli said he received only a text message from the Pope, thanking the parish for its well wishes.

The Pope was unable to deliver his regular weekly prayer on Sunday in St Peter’s Square or lead a special mass for artists to mark the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year.

He also held meetings at his Vatican residence last week in an attempt to rest and recover.

Members of the public outside St Peter’s Basilica have been sharing their well wishes for the Pope.

Bernard, an Australian living in England and visiting Rome with his children, said “we will say a prayer for the Pope”.

“They always take up the job when they’re already elderly. So yes, it’s often that they suffer medical issues as a result,” he told the BBC.

Rome resident Armando called the Pope “a great soul” and an “inspiration for us all”.

“All the best, Pope. We are waiting for you back,” he said.

The Pope has been hospitalised several times during his 12 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church and has suffered a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at age 21.

In March 2023, he spent three nights in hospital with bronchitis and in June that year underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia.

Another bout of illness also forced him to cancel his trip to the United Arab Emirates for the COP28 climate summit in 2023.

In December last year he appeared with a large bruise on his chin when he led a ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica to install 21 new Catholic cardinals, which the Vatican said was the result of a minor fall.

More recently, in January he fell and hurt his right arm and a sling was put on as a precaution.

The US State Department has dropped a statement from its website which stated that Washington does not support Taiwan’s independence – a move which has sparked anger in China.

China said the revision “sends a wrong… signal to separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence”, and asked the US to “correct its mistakes”.

The department’s fact sheet on Taiwan-US relations earlier included the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence” – this was removed last week as part of what it said was a “routine” update.

A US spokesperson was quoted as saying that it remains committed to the “One China” policy, it said, where US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan.

China sees self-governed Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be part of the country, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.

But many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation, although most are in favour of maintaining the status quo where Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.

As well as dropping the phrase, the factsheet, which was updated last Thursday, also says the US will support Taiwan’s membership in international organisations “where applicable”.

Commenting on the changes, a spokesperson at the American Institute in Taiwan – the US’ de facto embassy on the island – told local media that the fact sheet had been “updated to inform the general public about [the US’] unofficial relationship with Taiwan”.

“We have long stated that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.”

On Sunday, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung thanked the US for what he called “positive, Taiwan-friendly wordings”.

But in their regular press conference on Monday, Beijing’s foreign ministry slammed the move, calling the revision a “serious regression” in the US’ stance on Taiwan.

“This sends a wrong and serious signal to separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence and is another example of the U.S. stubbornly persisting with its wrong policy of using Taiwan to contain China,” said Chinese spokesperson Guo Jiakun.

“We urge the US to immediately correct its mistakes [and] earnestly adhere to the One China principle.”

Singapore’s opposition leader Pritam Singh has been found guilty of lying under oath to a parliamentary committee.

A court imposed the maximum fine of S$7,000 ($5,223; £4,148) for each of two charges. Singh said that he would appeal against the conviction and sentence.

The charges relate to Singh’s handling of Raeesah Khan, a former lawmaker from his party, who lied to parliament in a separate case.

The verdict in this high-profile trial comes as Singapore is gearing up for its next general election, which must be held by November. Singh’s Workers’ Party holds nine out of 87 elected seats in parliament.

Under Singapore’s constitution, any MP can lose their seat or be barred from running for office for five years if they are fined at least S$10,000 or jailed for more than a year.

The election department has since clarified that the S$10,000 threshold only applies to a single offence, according to local media. This means Singh’s fines will not trigger disqualification.

“The question on most people’s minds is the consequences for the upcoming election,” Chong Ja-Ian, associate professor at the National University of Singapore, told the BBC.

Singh’s case could either be “played up” by state media or “fizzle out” of public attention, he said.

Singh told reporters outside the court on Monday that he intended to run in the upcoming election.

The verdict on Monday, which lasted more than two hours, was delivered to a packed courtroom. Members of the press who could not fit into the courtroom, including the BBC, viewed a livestream of the verdict from a separate room.

District Judge Luke Tan, who delivered the verdict, said several pieces of evidence showed that Singh “never wanted Ms Khan to clarify [her] lie” and had “direct and intimate involvement” in guiding Khan to continue her narrative.

Prosecutors sought the maximum fine of S$7,000 for each of Singh’s two charges, while the defence asked for S$4,000.

Singh, 48, maintained his innocence throughout the trial, arguing that he had wanted to give Khan time to deal with what was a sensitive issue.

Singh’s case has gripped the city-state, where a usually uneventful political scene – dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party – has in recent years seen a rare string of scandals.

The saga started in August 2021 when Khan claimed in parliament that she had witnessed the police misbehave towards a sexual assault victim. She later admitted that her anecdote was not true.

Khan was fined S$35,000 for lying and abusing her parliamentary privilege. She has since resigned from the party and parliament.

During a parliamentary committee investigation into the incident later that year, Khan testified that the party’s leaders, including Singh, had told her to “continue with the narrative” despite finding out that it was not true. This was prior to her eventual admission.

Singh denied this, but also said that he had given Khan “too much time to settle herself before closing this issue with her”.

The parliamentary committee concluded that Singh was not being truthful and referred the case to the public prosecutor.

Judge Tan said on Monday that Singh’s actions after learning of Khan’s lie were “strongly indicative that the accused did not want Ms Khan to clarify the untruth at some point”.

Singh’s Workers’ Party is the opposition party with the largest presence in parliament.

The party made significant gains during the 2020 election, increasing their number of seats from six to 10 – the biggest victory for the opposition since Singapore gained independence in 1965. Singh was named the opposition leader after the polls.

One of those seats has since been vacated by Khan.

South Korea has banned new downloads of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, according to the country’s personal data protection watchdog.

The government agency said the AI model will become available again to South Korean users when “improvements and remedies” are made to ensure it complies with the country’s personal data protection laws.

In the week after it made global headlines, DeepSeek became hugely popular in South Korea leaping to the top of app stores with over a million weekly users.

But its rise in popularity also attracted scrutiny from countries around the world which have imposed restrictions on the app over privacy and national security concerns.

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission said the DeepSeek app became unavailable on Apple’s App Store and Google Play on Saturday evening.

It came after several South Korean government agencies banned their employees from downloading the chatbot to their work devices.

South Korea’s acting president Choi Sang-mok has described Deepseek as a “shock”, that could impact the country’s industries, beyond AI.

Despite the suspension of new downloads, people who already have it on their phones will be able to continue using it or they may just access it via DeepSeek’s website.

China’s DeepSeek rocked the technology industry, the markets and America’s confidence in its AI leadership, when it released its latest app at the end of last month.

Its rapid rise as one of the world’s favourite AI chatbots sparked concerns in different jurisdictions.

Aside from South Korea, Taiwan and Australia have also banned it from all government devices.

The Australian government has insisted its ban is not due to the app’s Chinese origins, but because of the “unacceptable risk” it says it poses to national security.

Italy’s regulator, which briefly banned ChatGPT in 2023, has done the same with DeepSeek.

The company has been asked to address concerns over its privacy policy before it becomes available again on app stores.

Data protection authorities in France and Ireland have also posed questions to DeepSeek about how it handles citizens’ personal information – including whether it is stored on servers in China, as its privacy policy suggests.

It also says that, like other generative AI tools, it may collect information such as email addresses and dates of birth, and use input prompts to improve their product.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the US have proposed a bill banning DeepSeek from federal devices, citing surveillance concerns.

At the state-government level, Texas, Virginia and New York, have already introduced such rules for their employees.

DeepSeek’s “large language model” (LLM) has reasoning capabilities that are comparable to US models such as OpenAI’s o1, but reportedly requires a fraction of the cost to train and run.

That has raised questions about the billions of dollars being invested into AI infrastructure in the US and elsewhere.

A cracked windscreen forced US Secretary of State Marco Rubio into a rapid U-turn as his plane, en route to the Munich Security Conference, had to turn back an hour into the flight.

America’s top diplomat, his senior officials and the travelling press returned to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC on Thursday night.

But despite the mid-air scare the news was already firmly elsewhere. In Europe, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had stunned America’s allies with a speech setting out what many saw as a series of concessions Ukraine would have to make to sign any peace deal with Russia brokered by President Trump.

Hegseth said it was “unrealistic” to think Ukraine could win back its sovereign territory occupied by Russia, as was its demand for Nato membership, adding it was up to European and not US troops to keep the peace.

Critics, including some Republicans in Washington, castigated the speech, saying it gave away all of Ukraine’s leverage ahead of any negotiations. It was, they argued, a US capitulation to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started,” said former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relation, a think tank.

• Ukraine end game: What each side wants from a peace deal
• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

The following day, Hegseth wound back some of what he had said. He clarified that all options were in fact still on the table for Trump to use as leverage between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“What he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, President Trump,” said Hegseth. However he added he had been “simply pointing out realism” and rejected the idea he had offered any undue concessions to Moscow.

As for Rubio, the broken-down plane delayed his arrival in Munich, where his officials were briefing about his own priorities for the trip.

The United States would work for a “just and lasting peace” in which European countries would take the lead in creating a “durable security framework”, they said.

European leaders are expected to meet in Paris on Monday for urgent talks aimed at ensuring that their countries are fully involved in any Ukraine peace negotiations.

The US secretary of state’s position contained no trace of laying out limits for Ukraine in the way the defence secretary had done. Then, also in the German city, Vice-President JD Vance said the US could use “military tools of leverage” to compel Russia to do a deal, appearing to contradict Hegseth who had said no US troops would be deployed to Ukraine.

Later in the Oval Office, the fallout from Hegseth’s speech was put to President Trump – along with the commentary of a Republican senator who described it as a “rookie mistake”, like something a pro-Putin pundit could have written.

Had Trump been aware of what Hegseth was going to say? “Generally speaking, yeah, generally speaking I was,” said the president. “I’ll speak to Pete, I’ll find out,” he added.

The three days of to and fro gave some of the first major insights into Trump’s evolving position on one of the most consequential issues he faces – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and his vow to end the war – and also into how his administration is formulating and messaging its foreign policy.

On the substance, Hegseth’s speech – alongside Trump’s lengthy statement about an apparently warm phone call with Putin aimed at starting negotiations with Ukraine – sent shockwaves through European capitals, despite Hegseth’s attempts to row back.

“Any quick fix is a dirty deal,” said the European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas of the prospect of a US-led deal with Russia that might leave Ukraine’s voice on the sidelines.

Then there is the question of the way US foreign policy under Trump was being communicated. What happened in Munich seemed to be partly an attempt by his senior officials to interpret and relay Trump’s positions, but that effort resulted in sometimes explosive and often contradictory statements – some of which were then partly diluted or reversed.

• JD Vance’s blast at Europe ignores Ukraine and defence agenda
• Trump wants peace. Ukrainians fear what that might look like

It is not yet clear how much this is the result of a new but ill-coordinated administration still clarifying its lines to take internally, as opposed to a deliberate feature of a presidency less concerned about officials freelancing with rhetoric, even if it sows some confusion, so long as they remain loyal to his final word.

Trump’s first term saw a series of high-profile sackings or resignations of top officials who contradicted or disagreed with him, including three national security advisers, two defence secretaries and a secretary of state.

This time around, his appointments have been characterised more frequently by a willingness to show loyalty. Pete Hegseth, who had no previous experience running a military or government or agency, was a Fox News weekend presenter and former National Guard major who aligns strongly with Trump’s thinking and agenda.

His appointment was highly contested and scraped through its confirmation process with three Republican senators voting against him, seeing the result tied 50-50 with JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.

As Trump said himself this week he was “OK” with the idea of taking Ukraine joining Nato off the negotiating table, calling it “not practical”.

Hegseth’s comments were hardly out of line with the president’s position – rather they were an amplification of it to an audience anxious to shore up Ukraine’s negotiating position not weaken it.

The challenge for those affected is that the precise position of US foreign policy is having to be defined. One of its features is uncertainty. This may well be deliberate – Donald Trump using the “madman” theory of foreign relations – often attributed to former Republican President Richard Nixon.

This suggests that being powerful but unpredictable is a way to make allies stay close while coercing adversaries. It would also explain a sense of his own officials going rogue but within the parameters of Trump’s broadly known positions.

But as this theory’s name suggests, it also carries considerable risks of mistakes or miscalculation in an already violent and uncertain world.

Trump’s recent proposals for Gaza – emptying it of its Palestinian population to build the “Riviera of the Middle East” under US ownership – were similarly permeated with confusion and contradiction.

While his officials appeared to try to correct some of what he set out – as only “temporary relocation” for example –Trump later doubled down saying it would in fact be “permanent” with no right of return.

As for Rubio – who wants the state department to be the most influential government agency when it comes to Trump’s decision-making – his colleagues’ comments at Munich were already overshadowing his own.

His smaller, replacement plane finally landed in Europe – windscreen intact but without the press pool on board, while most of the headlines were also going elsewhere.

The choice by the Trump administration of Saudi Arabia as the location for key talks on Ukraine underscores how far the Kingdom has come diplomatically from the near pariah state it became after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The shadow that cast over the country and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in particular, appears to have lifted, although there are still concerns occasionally raised at international forums over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

On many fronts – in entertainment and sport in particular – the country has spent huge amounts of money to further its ambitions to be a major player on the world stage.

Diplomatically, the Saudi leadership has also been enhancing its role. During the Biden years, the Kingdom increased its pivot away from reliance on the US as its key international ally.

The Saudis made clear that they would follow what they perceive as their interests first and foremost – striking up closer relationships with countries viewed as key rivals to the US, such as Russia and China.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House will have been welcomed by the Saudis.

His first foreign visit in his first term was to Saudi Arabia – and the transactional nature of his foreign policy is more conducive to the current Saudi leadership.

One of the possible achievements that Mr Trump would most like to chalk up on his record would be a peace deal between the Saudis and Israel – which would be the culmination of the Abraham Accords that he initiated in his first term.

But the war in Gaza has subsequently got in the way and may well raise the price that Saudi Arabia will demand for a peace agreement.

The Saudis were very quick to announce their definitive rejection of Mr Trump’s plan for Gaza – to remove all the Palestinians and rebuild it as a resort.

It has spurred the Kingdom to try to come up with a workable alternative plan with other Arab states – which would see Gazans remain in place as the enclave is rebuilt and would lead to a two state solution of the conflict.

The Trump administration’s current thinking would seem to be at odds with this – in its policy towards both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

How this will be resolved will be key to the dynamics in the evolving relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US.

What is clear is that the Saudis have no intention of reining in their ambition of becoming an essential player in global diplomacy.

A series of US declarations rocked last week’s Munich Security Conference and caused discord among the European politicians in attendance.

Now US and Russian officials are expected to meet in Saudi Arabia next week to begin negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine.

However, Ukraine and European politicians have not been invited to attend, despite insisting they must be involved for any ceasefire to be credible.

Instead, they will meet in Paris on Monday for an emergency summit to discuss the conflict and the continent’s security.

Here are five takeaways from Munich.

Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949 with the primary aim of blocking expansion in Europe by the former Soviet Union.

Now numbering 32 members, including several Eastern European countries, members agree that if one of them is attacked, the others should help defend it.

But after this week the post-World War Two security architecture for Europe is no more. America is still in Nato but Europe can no longer automatically rely on the US to come to its aid.

In Brussels, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Nato’s European members to spend much more on defence, saying they would have to provide the “overwhelming” share of military funding for Ukraine.

The US and Russia are going to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine, whether Europe and Ukraine like it or not.

The talks in Saudi Arabia will end a three-year freeze in talking to Vladimir Putin, despite urgent warnings by Kyiv that the Russian leader is not to be trusted.

They follow a phone call between Donald Trump and Putin on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be joined by national security adviser Mike Waltz and the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, US officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has repeatedly said he would not accept any deal struck without his country’s input, said Kyiv had not been invited to the talks.

Europe, everyone agrees, needs to rapidly raise its defence spending if it has any hope of deterring a newly emboldened Russia.

The current Nato-mandated minimum of 2% of GDP is likely to rise to 3%. Russia currently spends more than twice that on defence in percentage terms.

In January, Trump urged Nato’s European members to spend 5% of their national income on defence. Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte has also urged member states to boost their defence spending.

But Europe as a whole has already overtaken the US in terms of aid to Ukraine. In total, it has allocated €70bn ($73bn; £58bn) in financial and humanitarian aid as well as €62bn in military aid. This compares to €64bn in military aid from the US as well as €50bn in financial and humanitarian allocations.

US Vice President JD Vance’s blistering attack on Europe’s policies on Friday was called “ill-judged” and “insulting” by many of the delegates at the Munich Security Conference.

They had hoped he would reassure them the US was not abandoning Ukraine.

Instead, he spent the majority accusing European governments – including the UK’s – of retreating from their values, and ignoring voter concerns on migration and free speech.

The address was met by silence in the hall, and later denounced by several politicians at the conference.

But the speech appealed to others on both sides of the Atlantic and Donald Trump called it “brilliant”.

While the Munich conference was occupied by the geopolitical, Donald Trump announced plans to bring in a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports from March.

It was evidence there are now very obvious rifts between Washington’s positions and Europe’s on several issues, from trade to dealing with Russia.

It is a divide that the UK is struggling to bridge, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer telling reporters both relationships were important and Britain was “not choosing between the US and the EU”.

But the Trump team’s own messaging is sometimes contradictory, rowing back on grand pronouncements the day after they have been made.

Europe’s leaders are scrambling. Their hastily convened security summit in Paris on Monday is proof of that.

They are still reeling from not being invited by the US to talks with Russia over the future of Ukraine. US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he could be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin “very soon”.

Can Europe, under pressure, put political differences and domestic economic concerns aside, and come up with a united front on security spending and on Ukraine’s future, including potentially sending troops there – to force themselves a spot at the negotiating table?

They are going to try.

On Monday morning, UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said the UK was “ready and willing to put troops on the ground”. Even in Germany, ahead of a heated election, the foreign policy spokesman of the CDU party, expected to win the most seats, said Europe’s largest country would also be willing to commit troops within an international framework.

The Trump administration is clearly not 100% sure what it wants to do about Ukraine. There were a number of mixed messages over the weekend.

This allows Europe a tiny window of opportunity to try to persuade the American president it’s an invaluable partner.

It hopes to do that via this Paris meeting, getting the ball rolling on two major issues demanded by Donald Trump: That Europe spend and do more for its own defence, and that Europe send troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire.

Europe’s leaders insist Kyiv be directly involved in ceasefire talks too. They’ve long maintained the view that “there can be no decisions about Ukraine, without Ukraine”.

But it’s about even more than that for Europe.

It is the cold realisation – much dreaded, but not entirely unexpected – that the Trump administration does not prioritise relations either with European partners, or their defence.

Europe has relied on a security umbrella provided by the US since World War Two.

Depending on the parameters of the Russia-US talks over Ukraine, and how emboldened Putin feels by them, there is also a European fear this could end up changing their continent’s security architecture.

Putin historically resents the spread of Nato eastwards. Russian neighbours – the tiny, former Soviet Baltic States and also Poland – now feel particularly exposed.

Not all European countries will be at Monday’s summit. Just those with military heft: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark – which is expected to represent the Baltic and Nordic nations, plus the EU Council president and the secretary general of the defence alliance, Nato.

Other countries will reportedly have later, follow-up meetings.

Even at the small Paris gathering, it will be hard, if not impossible, to agree concrete defence spending increases. Poland plans to spend 4.47% of its GDP on defence in 2025. The UK is struggling towards, and hasn’t yet reached, 2.5% of its GDP.

But leaders can pledge to coordinate better, spend more inside Nato and shoulder most of Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. The EU is expected to bolster its defence effort too.

A large part of the Paris meeting will also focus on the question of sending troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire.

The idea being discussed is not for peacekeeping troops but rather a “reassurance force”, stationed behind, rather than on, any eventual ceasefire line.

The aim of a European troop presence would be three-fold. To send a message to Ukrainians: that they are not alone. Another message to the US, to show that Europe is “doing its bit” for defence of its own continent, and the last message to Moscow, to warn that if it breaks the terms of an eventual ceasefire, it won’t be dealing with Kyiv alone.

But it’s a controversial concept and may not be popular with voters. In Italy for example, 50% of people asked don’t want to send any more weapons to Ukraine, never mind sending sons and daughters, sisters and brothers there.

There are so many as yet unanswered questions:

How many troops would each European country have to send, for how long, and under whose command? What would their mission statement be – for example if Russia broke the terms of an agreed ceasefire, would that mean European soldiers would be directly at war with Russia? Would the US have their back if so?

Europe would want a US security guarantee before deploying soldiers to Ukraine. It may not get one.

It’s far too much to be decided on Monday. And leaders, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, come to Paris with their own domestic concerns – can they afford extra defence spending, do they have the troops to send to Ukraine?

Richard – now Lord – Dannatt is the former head of the British Army. He told the BBC that the UK military is too depleted to provide a significant proportion of troops for Ukraine. He said around 100,000 troops would probably be needed in total and the UK would be expected to provide a considerable number of those. The British Army insists it has earned a worldwide reputation for excellence.

But this summit is more broad brushstrokes than fine print. The conversation can at least get started publicly.

Will Donald Trump be paying attention?

Hard to know.

There’s talk of sending an envoy to Washington after the Paris meeting to make Europe’s case. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, is close to the Trump administration, for example.

Sir Keir Starmer has a planned visit to Washington in a few days. This could be his chance to act as a bridge between Europe and the US.

The Paris meeting also offers an opportunity for the UK and other European leaders to further mend relations after the bitterness of Brexit.

Mark Leonard, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations, notes that Starmer could “demonstrate that Britain is a responsible stakeholder for European security … Something that will be noticed and translate into goodwill when it comes to negotiations on other issues”.

Issues like trade relations and law enforcement co-operation which the UK hopes to improve with the EU going forward.

Host nation France is feeling confident. President Macron has long advocated that Europe be less reliant on outside countries for supply chains, tech capabilities and very much so when it comes to defence. He made headlines a year ago by first mooting the idea of troops on the ground in Ukraine.

France is “fiercely proud” that its intelligence and security services are not intertwined with the US, unlike the UK, says Georgina Wright, deputy director for international studies at the Institut Montaigne. That makes it less complicated to untangle, now that Trump is in the White House, demanding that Europe take care of itself.

The US has sent a document to European allies consisting of six points and questions, such as which countries would be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a peace settlement, and which governments would be prepared to increase sanctions on Russia, including more strictly enforcing existing ones.

But Julianne Smith, until recently the US ambassador to Nato, says this kind of complicated diplomatic work normally takes weeks of meetings and can’t be organised by filled-in forms.

She adds that whatever Europe’s leaders achieve in Paris, if they use that to demand a seat at the negotiating table over Ukraine, their hand is weak.

“If Trump blinks and says no, does Europe refuse to help altogether? They can’t cut off their nose to spite their face.”

Essentially, if the US plans to turn away from Ukraine and from Europe more broadly in terms of security, they will have to significantly up their defence game anyway.

If Donald Trump isn’t watching, Vladimir Putin certainly is.

Sir John Major has warned that democracy is under threat as the United States steps back from its leading role in the world.

The former prime minister told the BBC that US President Donald Trump’s policy of American “isolation” was creating a power vacuum that would embolden nations like Russia and China.

Sir John, who was PM from 1990 to 1997, said the gains made since the collapse of the Soviet Union were now being reversed – and that there was “no doubt” Russia would invade elsewhere before long.

He said that “ugly nationalism” growing concurrently was making for a “very unsettled time”.

His comments come as European leaders prepare for an emergency summit on Monday on the war in Ukraine.

US and Russian officials are due to open peace talks in the coming days despite concerns European nations including Ukraine were being locked out.

Sir John also rejected US Vice-President JD Vance’s recent criticism of Europe’s record on free speech, suggesting the remarks should have been directed at the authorities in Moscow or Beijing.

He told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend: “It’s extremely odd to lecture Europe on the subject of free speech and democracy at the same time as they’re cuddling [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.

“In Mr Putin’s Russia, people who disagree with him disappear, or die, or flee the country, or – on a statistically unlikely level – fall out of high windows somewhere in Moscow.”

Sir John said the world was changing and “may not be reshaping in a way that is congenial to the West”.

He continued: “Many of the gains we made over recent years, when the Soviet Union collapsed, are now being reversed and you see a very aggressive Russia again in Ukraine.

“And if they were to succeed with their venture in Ukraine, no doubt they’d be elsewhere before too long.

“There is no doubt in my mind that democracy has been in modest decline over the last 18 years.

“There is an ugly nationalism growing, mostly from the intolerant right… So it is a very unsettled time.”

The former Conservative leader, who presided over a tumultuous time for the UK’s economy, said he sympathised with the challenges the current Chancellor Rachel Reeves faced, but said the global situation may require more defence funding.

“It’s very, very easy to say from outside government, ‘I’d just do this and I’d spend all this money’.

“I would prefer to say I would realise in my plans that we have to make a very material increase in the level of defence expenditure and do it as a priority as soon as it is credible to do so.”

Speaking earlier on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the UK and Europe had to respond to US demands for them to pay more towards their “collective defence” in the face of “greater threats”.

He said the government would set out a roadmap to increase defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of the nation’s economic output, but declined to offer a definitive timetable.

Reynolds also played down divisions between the US and its allies over resolving the Ukraine conflict, insisting there was “still a great deal of common ground”.

Sir John has made public interventions on a number of issues in recent years, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started in 2022.

Shortly after the war began, he and another former prime minister, Gordon Brown, were among signatories of a petition calling for Putin to face a Nuremberg-style trial for war crimes over his actions in Ukraine.

Zeeshan Ali has been a drag artist for 10 years and has taken his show all over India.

Central to his performance is a collection of around 45 wigs.

“It’s an alter of identity, helping me transition from my everyday self into exaggerated, glamorous or whimsical characters. The right wig makes me feel more authentic and empowers me to command the stage,” says Ali, who is based in Mumbai.

But getting that look right wasn’t easy in the early days.

“When I started my career the accessibility of the wigs was extremely difficult in India. Most of them were to be sourced from abroad or I used to make wigs sourced from whatever was available to me like wool, fabric,” he says.

But things are different now.

“The trend is changing. Wigs are no longer just meant for drag or movie artists, but many straight women wear wigs to look different. It’s no longer just a hair accessory but a style statement.”

Indian hair has always been in demand for wig-making. The nation is the world’s biggest exporter of human hair, supplying 85% of global demand.

Kolachi Venkatesh, based in Avadi, Chennai, has been collecting hair for 20 years. He started at the bottom of the industry as a picker – collecting hair from households and rescuing it from the rubbish.

“My parents were hair pickers and then I started doing the same,” he says.

Hair collected by pickers from homes, salons and barbershops is called non-Remy hair.

It requires more processing than Remy hair, which is carefully shaved straight from the scalp. Nevertheless, it has value.

“It’s just thrown away but it’s gold,” says Mr Venkatesh.

Those pickers typically sell hair to local traders like Mr Venkatesh for between 10 cents and $1 (£0.80) per kilogram, depending on the quality and length of the hair.

Shorter or damaged hair fetches less, while longer strands bring higher prices.

For the individual picker, there’s not much money in it.

“A diligent collector might gather 1–5 kilograms of hair in a day, earning anywhere from 59 cents to $6 per day. This income level is often below minimum wage standards, particularly in rural areas,” says Mr Venkatesh, who has 50 pickers working for him.

“While our work contributes to a billion-dollar global market our earnings remain meagre. Intermediaries control prices.”

Most of the Indian hair collected by traders like Mr Venkatesh is exported to China where it is made into wigs.

“China has a huge wigmaking industry which is worth five to six billion dollars,” says Benjamin Cherian from Plexconcil, the hair industry body that promotes the Indian industry and liaises with the government.

If India wants a slice of the lucrative wig market, he says, then it has a lot of catching up to do.

“When we look at China there are hundreds of factories spread across the country which add value to the hair industry, whereas in India the value addition still needs to be picked up,” Mr Cherian says.

He says the government needs to help promote investment in the hair industry.

“It needs automated sorting systems, sophisticated hair treatment procedures for the hair collected, innovative production techniques for manufacturing of wigs which will make India stand out.”

Instead of exporting hair for hundreds of dollars, India should be selling wigs worth thousands of dollars says Mr Cherian.

“We have started working on it but it’s a long way to go. We need to have research and training centres,” he says.

One Indian business trying to make inroads is Delhi-based Diva Divine Hair, co-founded by Nidhi Tiwari in 2009.

The idea was to create high-quality hair extensions and wigs that would appeal to a broader range of customers.

“There is a growing need for these solutions due to rising issues of hair loss and thinning among women in India,” says Ms Tiwari.

The company has been helped by a shift in attitude.

“Once considered a niche or taboo topic, wigs and extensions are now openly discussed, thanks to evolving social norms and a shift toward acceptance,” she says.

Wigs have also seen a lot of development making them more attractive and comfortable.

“Technologies such as 3D-printed wigs and digital colour-matching tools offer highly personalised options. Lightweight, breathable wig caps and improved adhesives have given customers to wear it for long time without discomfort,” says Ms Tiwari.

At the top end of the hair market is Temple or Remy hair.

Much of the supply comes from Hindu temples in the south of the country where hair is shaved off in an act of veneration and faith.

Raj Hair International is one of the biggest traders in the Temple hair business.

Craftsmen at the company’s Chennai factory sort and grade the hair according to colour, texture and length.

“Remy hair has aligned cuticles, hair flows uniformly in one direction, which leads to less tangling and a silkier texture. This is high-value hair,” says George Cherion, the company’s chief executive.

The firm tries to waste as little of the hair as possible. To help with that it developed a machine to untangle the hair. It’s allowed them to work faster with fewer staff.

“Our mission is to constantly upgrade the technology,” says Mr Cherion.

Business is booming.

“Indian human is in demand globally due to its high quality, natural look, and thinness. The demand is skyrocketing,” he says.

Back in Mumbai Zeeshan Ali wants to see more Indian wigs on the market.

As well as making them more affordable, he has a design suggestion: “A wig that can create a wow factor.”

South Korean actress Kim Sae-ron has been found dead in Seoul, police have said.

The 24-year-old was found in her home in the city’s Seongsu-dong district by a friend at around 16:55 (07:55 GMT) on Sunday.

Officers said no signs of foul play had been found and they were investigating the cause of death.

Kim began her career as a child actor and was seen as one of South Korea’s most promising young actresses.

Born in Seoul in 2000, she rose to prominence with her role in 2009 film A Brand New Life – which saw her appear at the Cannes Film Festival.

She went on to star in South Korea’s highest grossing film of 2010 The Man from Nowhere and 2012 thriller The Neighbour, for which she received award recognition.

Other notable roles include the 2014 film A Girl at My Door and television roles such as Mirror of the Witch in 2016.

The actress largely withdrew from the public eye in 2022 due to a drink driving incident, for which she was fined 20 million won (£11,000) in April 2023.

Kim’s last role was in Netflix’s 2023 Korean drama Bloodhounds. Variety reported that most of her role was edited out due to the driving incident.

Kira McCaffery has always had dreams of a TV career.

The 20-year-old from Glasgow started making YouTube videos when she was at primary school.

But it is the newer platform TikTok that has clicked her closer to her goals, her videos catching the attention of BBC Scotland’s hit reality show The Agency: Unfiltered.

And her love of a Glasgow-style crispy roll sealed the deal for the aspiring actress.

Kira – or @iamkirawithnoe if you’re on TikTok -is unapologetically herself on her TikTok account, posting videos about her life as a history and theatre studies student at Glasgow University.

Her 16,000 followers can’t get enough of her chat about fake tan, fashion, nights out and the occasional nod to Czech history.

And her regular critiques of her favourite lunch seem to have got her noticed.

“Crispy rolls – it always makes me laugh,” she tells BBC Scotland News.

“Who doesn’t love them? I love my grub and I get excited about food I enjoy. So I share my excitement with TikTok.

“People have loved it and just gelled with it.”

Kira is one of six influencers chosen to compete in an Apprentice-style competition run by Scotland’s largest influencer agency, Aquarius Creative.

Along with fellow Scottish content creators Ryan, Toni, Livi, Erica and Aicha, she competes for the chance to be given a contract with the agency in the new series of Agency: Unfiltered.

Kira says being selected for the show could be a huge breakthrough for her.

“My mum and I, we really liked the show. We watched the first two series and my mum said to me, ‘How can we get you on this?’.

“I forgot about that and one day, when I was working in my part-time retail job, I got a message through Tik Tok from the programme. I ran to the staffroom and called my mum and we were screaming.”

Kira’s aim is to ultimately become an actress, finish her degree in 2026 and build her following. She believes she can do it all thanks to the support she gets on social media.

“I have created a wee community of young girls my age,” she says. “I’ve been told that through their messages and they say I make them laugh.

“So I am trying to encourage girls to be confident and if I can help someone with that, it makes me feel good – life is too short not to do that.

“It’s definitely a sisterhood of girls like me.”

The Agency: Unfiltered has followed the ups and downs of the company over the past two years, becoming an instant hit with younger audiences tuned to the phenomenon of the social media influencer. It has achieved over 1.2 million streams on BBC iPlayer.

The show has also received critical acclaim, winning a Bafta Scotland Award for Best Entertainment Programme in 2024.

In series three, the programme catches up with Aquarius founders Amy Moore and Kirsten Cameron.

The entrepreneurs have built their business representing influencers – people who have chosen to make money out of social media, by posting original content, attracting followers and being paid or sent gifts to promote specific products to them.

Since filming the last series, Amy and Kirsten have progressed from Instagram influencers to celebrities after teaming up with Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden.

They have a roster of top influencers on their books including Scotland’s Abbie Blyth and Megan Welsh as well as The Real Housewives of Cheshire star Ellie Egar.

This year, their focus turns to TikTok.

The pair have set up a TikTok Academy as they seek to branch into the video platform.

Amy says: “It used to be that the proportion of budget for influencers on TikTok was very small, but we’d say it’s now split 50/50 with Instagram, if not even more on TikTok.

“It’s a massive part of our revenue now, so we’re focusing on growing that side of the business.

“There’s so much incredible TikTok talent out there, no matter the size of following they have. We wanted to find ambitious people, see where they could grow, and guide them along the way.”

In a world where it seems every teenager wants to be a TikTok or YouTube star, Kirsten feels many people underestimate how much work goes into being an influencer.

“It’s not just about snapping a quick picture in your living room and posting it. You have to think about engagement, link clicks, views—your content needs to stand out.

“And they can get knockbacks quite a lot. Some of our girls will send content to a brand, and the brand will say ‘No, we don’t like how this is shot.’

“You’ve then got to go back, get a new creative vision, and do it all over again. It can be a lot.”

Series Three of The Agency drops on BBC iPlayer on Monday – where we will find out which of the TikTokers makes the cut.

The UN climate summit in the United Arab Emirates in 2023 ended with a call to “transition away from fossil fuels”. It was applauded as a historic milestone in global climate action.

Barely a year later, however, there are fears that the global commitment may be losing momentum, as the growth of clean energy transition is slowing down while burning of fossil fuels continues to rise.

And now there is US President Donald Trump’s “national energy emergency”, embracing fossil fuels and ditching clean energy policies – that has also begun to influence some countries and energy companies already.

In response to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” slogan aimed at ramping up fossil fuel extraction, and the US notifying the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Indonesia, for instance, has hinted that it may follow suit.

“If the United States does not want to comply with the international agreement, why should a country like Indonesia comply with it?” asked Hashim Djojohadikusumo, special envoy for climate change and energy of Indonesia, as reported by the country’s government-run news agency Antara.

Indonesia has remained in the list of top 10 carbon-emitting countries for years now.

“Indonesia produces three tons of carbon [per person a year] while the US produces 13 tons,” he asked at the ESG Sustainable Forum 2025 in Jakarta on 31 January.

“Yet we are the ones being told to close our power plants… So, where is the sense of justice here?”

Nithi Nesadurai, director with Climate Action Network Southeast Asia, said the signals from her region were concerning.

She said the “richest country and the largest oil producer in the world” increasing its production gives other states “an easy excuse to increase their own – which they are already doing”.

In South Africa, Africa’s biggest economy and a major carbon emitter, a $8.5bn foreign-aided transition project from the coal sector was already moving at a snail’s pace, and now there are fears that it may get derailed further.

Wikus Kruger, director of Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town, said there was a “possibility” that decommissioning of old coal-fired power stations would be “further delayed”.

However he said that while there was some “walk back” from transition to renewables, there was still growth in the clean energy sector that was expected to continue.

Argentina withdrew its negotiators from the COP29 climate meeting in Baku last November, days after Trump won the US presidency. It has since followed Trump’s lead in signalling it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement of 2015 – which underpins global efforts to combat climate change.

“We now expect our oil and gas production to go up,” Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, told the BBC.

“President Milei has hinted that he intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and has said environmentalism is part of the woke agenda.”

Meanwhile, energy giant Equinor has just announced it is halving investment in renewable energy over the next two years while increasing oil and gas production, and another oil major, BP, is expected to make a similar announcement soon.

Trump has not just said “drill, baby, drill” but also: “We will export American energy all over the world.”

Potential foreign buyers are already lining up.

India and the US have agreed to significantly increase the supply of American oil and gas to the Indian market.

At the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit on 14 February, the two countries issued a joint statement that “reaffirmed” the US would be “a leading supplier of crude oil and petroleum products and liquified natural gas to India”.

A few days after Trump’s inauguration, South Korea, the world’s third largest liquified natural gas importer, has hinted its intention to buy more American oil and gas aimed at reducing a trade surplus with the US and improving energy security, international media have reported from Seoul.

Officials with Japan’s largest power generator, JERA, have told Reuters they too want to increase purchases of liquified natural gas from the US to diversify supply, as it currently imports half of it from the Asia-Pacific region.

“There is certainly a threat that if the US seeks to either flood markets with cheap fossil fuels, or bully countries into buying more of its fossil fuels, or both, the global energy transition might be slowed,” said Lorne Stockman, research director with Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organisation for transition to clean energy.

Scientists have said there can be no new fossil fuel extraction and there needs to be a rapid reduction of carbon emissions (around 45% by 2030 from the 2019 level) if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius compared to the pre-industrial period.

“The economics of energy supply are a key driver of decarbonisation,” said David Brown, director of energy transition practice at Wood Mackenzie, a global energy think-tank.

“The resource base of US energy supports the role of natural gas and liquids production. By contrast, import-dependent economies such as China, India, and those in Southeast Asia have a dramatic economic incentive to decarbonise sources of energy.”

Global energy transition investment surpassed $2tn for the first time last year but studies have also shown that the growth of clean energy transition has markedly slowed in recent years, while many major banks continue to finance fossil fuels.

With two major musicals in the awards race this year, it was only right that host David Tennant opened the Bafta Film Awards with a tune of his own.

The Scottish star kicked off proceedings with a storming rendition of The Proclaimers’ 500 Miles, featuring contributions from Selena Gomez, Colman Domingo, Anna Kendrick, Hugh Grant and Camila Cabello.

The energy remained high throughout the ceremony, which saw Conclave and The Brutalist take the most prizes with four each.

• The winners list in full
• Conclave and The Brutalist win big at the Baftas

Backstage, the stars were in equally good spirits, even if a few of them were jet-lagged, hungry, and remarking on how heavy the Bafta trophy is to carry around.

Here are eight highlights from the winners’ room:

When Anora star Mikey Madison collected the best actress award, she started by admitting to the audience that she hadn’t prepared a speech.

Backstage, she jokingly blamed this on Robert De Niro, whom she recently appeared with on The Graham Norton Show.

“I just wish that I’d had a better speech,” she said.

“I was on a talk show and Robert De Niro told me not to write a speech and I thought, I should probably listen to him. And I forgot to thank so many important people.”

Madison was overwhelmed but overjoyed with the recognition from Bafta.

“I think I’m a little disassociated right now,” she says, “I love making movies, and being an actress is my dream, and for my film to be recognised like this is incredibly special.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever fully grasp the magnitude of being in a room like that, full of my idols, incredible creatives who I admire so much.”

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl won two prizes for its producer Richard Beek and directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. The trio brought their famous characters along with them to the ceremony.

Crossingham reflected on the fact that stories about a cheese enthusiast and his loyal but long-suffering dog always seem to go down so well in the US, despite the films firmly rooted in UK culture.

“It is remarkable that our very Britishness is embraced in America,” he told journalists.

He highlighted one particular reference in Vengeance Most Fowl: the TV presenter in the film is called Anton Deck, a reference to Geordie duo Ant & Dec.

“There are some jokes, like Anton Deck, which are very British. In the American screenings, there was complete silence apart from one Brit guffawing in the corner.

“But we’re very proud of that, we stick to our guns. Apart from one or two very specific gags like that, it seems to be embraced.

“And even if they’re laughing us, not with us, if they’re laughing, we’re still happy about that.”

Jesse Eisenberg, who won best original screenplay for A Real Pain, walked into the winners’ room carrying his Bafta and asking journalists: “Am I expected to hold this heavy thing the whole time?”

After being reassured he was allowed to put it down as he answered questions, he reflected on the fact that the screenwriting prizes he’s won for A Real Pain have both been in the UK.

“The other award I won for this was the London Film Critics prize, so I must be living in the wrong country,” he joked.

“My background is as a playwright, and when one of my plays transferred to the West End it was far more popular. I don’t know what it is, maybe I’m a novelty here and in America I’m boring.”

Eisenberg was also asked about his relationship with co-star Kieran Culkin, who won best supporting actor. But, he said, it’s not as close as people might imagine.

“In terms of our dynamic, I’ll text him today and say, ‘hey you won the Bafta, I’m so proud of you’. And then three weeks later my phone will buzz and it’ll be [Culkin saying]: ‘Hey, I just got this, thanks’.”

“That’s the closeness with which you imagine we live.”

Zoe Saldaña continued her awards season sweep of the best supporting actress category with another win at Bafta, despite the recent controversies faced by her film Emilia Pérez.

Backstage, she reflected on her biggest number in the Spanish-language musical, El Mal, which is also up for best original song at the Oscars.

“Not getting in my own way was the challenge,” she said of shooting it. “Sometimes you can become very heady about something and you overthink it.

“What you have to do is trust the process… Rehearsing the dance was about reconnecting with a part of me I had missed so much but I had since let go of for more than 20 years.

“Reconnecting with that, dusting off all those cobwebs and jumping into the unknown was what needed to happen.”

Asked about the importance of performing the musical in Spanish, she replies: “It’s my first language, I was spoken to first, sung to first, in Spanish.

“We love we live, we fight, we work, in Spanish. And my art has [previously] only lived in a very English way. So that yearning to connect my culture with my art was meaningful to me.”

Warwick Davis was the recipient of this year’s Bafta Fellowship, the British Academy’s highest honour.

“It’s very overwhelming, this whole thing,” he said. “You win the award and then you have to talk to loads of people, feeling very shiny.”

(Everyone was feeling sweaty backstage by this point.)

Asked about the moment he heard he was this year’s winner, Davis said: “I was on the toilet when I found out!

“[Bafta] notified me by email, and I do most of my administration work on the toilet. I might call it paperwork but then you’d get the wrong idea,” he jokes.

“Then I got an email from Bafta saying I’d won the fellowship, and I got all excited, and then it suddenly dawned on me, is this a fake email? Some sort of scam?

“So I clicked on the email address, and it really was Bafta. Then I finished up at the loo, you probably didn’t need that detail, and then went and celebrated with the kids.”

Adrien Brody’s reaction to winning best actor might have been slightly hampered by how hungry he is.

“I haven’t eaten anything yet, so I’m not sure how I’m feeling, but I’m so happy to be here,” he says backstage.

Brody is asked about the surge his career has enjoyed in recent months thanks to The Brutalist, more than two decades after his last awards run for The Pianist.

“The beauty of being an actor is that any life experience, and there have been many since [The Pianist], anything you’ve experienced is so valuable in shaping a sense of understanding,” he reflects.

“So the moments of triumph, loss, complexity along your path, they give you an ability to represent those more truthfully and authentically in your work.

“I’m just so grateful to have had this meaningful opportunity come my way, I’ve been yearning for this for a long time.

“I’ve been working very hard. It’s not for a lack of hard work, but there are so many magical things that have to happen for a film to achieve greatness and I’m so happy that all of those things conspired on The Brutalist.”

And with that, he’s off to have some supper.

Conclave won best film and best British film, becoming the first movie to take the top two prizes since 1917 (the film, not the year).

“I am so humbled and so grateful to be welcomed here so openly with such warmth and open arms,” its German director Edward Berger says of the UK. “Basically, I just want to live here, I’m never going to leave.”

He likens the cast of Pope drama Conclave, which includes Stanley Tucci, Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini, to an orchestra.

“No-one really knows [why a cast works so well], but you have a hunch, so there’s a lot of discussion – we put pictures up on the wall and it just felt like a good combination,” he explained.

“They were all believable cardinals, all different nationalities and accents, it just felt they were all different instruments in a big musical piece.”

The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet might have won best director, but he said he was slightly too “jet-lagged and exhausted” to fully process it.

As much as he’s enjoying awards season, he notes: “It’ll be amazing when it’s done, I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”

Corbet is not shy of hard work – making the Brutalist was famously a labour of love which took several years. “We basically just didn’t sleep,” he says. “I haven’t had a day off in years.”

Now that awards campaigning is in its final phase however, with voting for the Oscars closing on Monday, he should finally get some down time. “The week leading up to the Oscars is actually pretty quiet, I’m looking forward to it.”

The Brutalist, a 3.5-hour film with an intermission, has been a relative box office success despite its intimidating duration.

“I’m not trying to teach anyone a lesson or anything,” he says, “but I do think it’s good for the ecosystem that a film like this which is completely uncompromised – I don’t like too many cooks in my kitchen – for that to have made $30m globally so far, that’s exciting.

“All the things you’re told not to do, when those films are proven to be commercially viable, and people want original, daring movies, it makes me feel more optimistic than usual.'”

It has been dubbed one of the world’s rarest treasure troves of art but few people outside its host country know about it.

For decades, masterpieces by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock have been kept in the basement of a museum in Iran’s capital Tehran, shrouded in mystery.

According to estimates in 2018, the collection is worth as much as $3bn.

Only a small portion of the work has been exhibited since the 1979 Iranian Revolution but in recent years, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art has been showcasing some of its most captivating pieces.

The Eye to Eye exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in October 2024, was extended twice due to overwhelming public demand, running until January 2025.

The display was widely regarded as one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of the museum, and it also became its most visited.

The showcase featured more than 15 works unveiled for the first time, including a sculpture by Jean Dubuffet – marking its first-ever appearance in an Iranian exhibition.

From abstract expressionism to pop art, the collection at the museum serves as a time capsule of pivotal artistic movements.

Among the artwork is Warhol’s portrait of Farah Pahlavi – Iran’s last queen – a rare piece blending his pop art flair with Iranian cultural history.

Elsewhere, Francis Bacon’s work called Two Figures Lying on a Bed with Attendants shows figures appearing to spy on two naked men lying on a bed.

On the opposite wall in the basement of the museum, a portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is on display in juxtaposition.

The museum was built in 1977 under the patronage of Pahlavi, the exiled widow of the last Shah of Iran who was overthrown during the revolution.

Pahlavi was a passionate art advocate and her cousin, architect Kamran Diba, designed the museum.

It was established to introduce modern art to Iranians and to bridge Iran closer to the international art scene.

The museum soon became home to a stunning array of works by luminaries including Picasso, Warhol and Salvador Dali, alongside pieces by leading Iranian modernists, and quickly established itself as a beacon of cultural exchange and artistic ambition.

But then came the 1979 revolution. Iran became an Islamic republic as the monarchy was overthrown and clerics assumed political control under Ayatollah Khomeini.

Many artworks were deemed inappropriate for public display because of nudity, religious sensitivities or political implications.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Gabrielle with Open Blouse was deemed too scandalous. And Warhol’s portrait of the former queen of Iran was too political. In fact, Pahlavi’s portrait was vandalised and torn apart with a knife during the revolutionary turmoil.

After the revolution, many of the artworks were locked away, collecting dust in a basement that became the stuff of art world legend.

It was only in the late 1990s that the museum reclaimed its cultural significance during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami.

Suddenly the world remembered what it had been missing. Art lovers could not believe their eyes. Van Gogh, Dali, even Monet – all in Tehran.

Some pieces were loaned to major exhibitions in Europe and the United States, briefly reconnecting the collection with the global art world.

Hamid Keshmirshekan, an art historian based in London, has studied the collection and calls it “one of the rarest treasure troves of modern art outside the West”.

The collection includes Henry’s Moore’s Reclining Figure series – an iconic piece by one of Britain’s most celebrated sculptors – and Jackson Pollock’s Mural on Indian Red Ground, a vibrant example of the American’s painting technique pulsing with energy and emotion.

Picasso’s The Painter and His Model – his largest canvas from 1927 – also features, a strong example of his abstract works from the post-cubism period.

And there is Van Gogh’s At Eternity’s Gate – one of the very rare survivals of his first printmaking campaign during which he produced six lithographs in November 1882.

But for art lovers in Britain, the collection is out of reach. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Iran and says British and British-Iranian dual nationals are at significant risk of arrest, questioning or detention.

Having a British passport or connections to the UK can be reason enough for detention by the Iranian authorities, it says.

Challenges remain for the museum which operates under a tight budget. Shifting political priorities mean that it often functions more as a cultural hub than a traditional museum.

Yet it continues to be a remarkable institution – an unlikely guardian of modern art masterpieces in the heart of Tehran.

All passengers and crew on a flight which crashed and overturned while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada have survived, the airport’s chief executive has said.

“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” said Deborah Flint of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

One child and two adults were critically injured in the crash, according to emergency services and images shared on social media show a plane flipped over and lying on its roof on the snow-covered tarmac. It appears to be missing at least one of its wings.

Toronto Pearson Airport said the crash involved a Delta Air Lines flight arriving from Minneapolis, and of the 80 people on board, 76 were passengers and four were crew.

Eighteen passengers have been transported to hospital in total.

Ontario air ambulance service Ornge said it had dispatched three air ambulance helicopters and two land ambulances to the scene.

The patients with critical injuries include a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s, it added.

Toronto Pearson Airport president and CEO, Deborah Flint, in an evening briefing, called the response by emergency personnel “textbook” and credited them with helping ensure no loss of life.

• Plane flips over on landing in Toronto, leaving three critically injured

The US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said the plane involved was Delta Air Lines Flight 4819, being operated by one of its subsidiaries, Endeavor Air.

Delta confirmed that a CRJ900 aircraft was involved in the incident at about 14:15 ET (19:15 GMT) on Monday afternoon.

Twenty-two of the passengers are Canadian, the rest are “multinational”, Ms Flint said.

The airport was closed shortly after the incident, but flights into and out of Toronto Pearson resumed at about 17:00 local time, the airport said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it was deploying a team to “gather information and assess the occurrence”.

Two runways will remain closed for several days for investigation and passengers have been told to expect some delays.

Toronto Pearson fire chief Todd Aitken said on Monday night that it is early in the investigation but they can say “the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions”.

That contradicts earlier reports of wind gusts over 40mph (64km/h) and a crosswind.

Video footage shared on social media shows people clambering out of the overturned aircraft, with fire crews spraying it with foam.

“We’re in Toronto, we just landed. Our plane crashed, it’s upside down,” said one man as he filmed a video taken from outside the upturned plane.

The video shows passengers being helped out of the plane’s doors by airport staff, with some then running away from the plane’s entrance.

“Most people appear to be OK. We’re all getting off, there’s some smoke going on,” he can be heard saying.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said provincial officials are in contact with the airport and local authorities and will provide any help that’s needed.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was “grateful to the first responders and professionals on the scene”.

After the crash, the airport’s arrival and departure boards showed scores of delays and cancellations to flights.

Some passengers told the BBC that they were now stuck in Toronto for several days after their flights were cancelled, with none available on Monday or Tuesday.

James and Andrea Turner were in customs – located right before the departure gates – when they were suddenly told to evacuate.

“They got rid of everybody from customs to security, and then put everybody back to the general area,” James said, adding that the departures hall was packed as a result.

The couple had been due to board the plane that crashed on the runway. Their flight was then cancelled – the third delay to their trip, after their previous journeys were rescheduled due to bad weather.

Toronto Pearson Airport had been experiencing weather-related delays over the last few days, with heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures battering parts of Ontario.

Two storms – one on Wednesday and one on Sunday – covered the city with a total of 30-50cm (11.8-19.6 inches) of snow.

The BBC’s US partner CBS reports that there was light snow falling at the time of the crash.

Earlier on Monday, the airport warned that “frigid temperatures and high winds were moving in”.

It said a “busy day” was expected, with airlines “catching up after this weekend’s snowstorm which dumped over 22cm of snow at the airport”.

The crash is at least the fourth major aviation incident in North America in the past month – including a deadly in-air collision between a passenger plane and a military helicopter near Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan airport, which killed all 67 people on board.

Argentine President Javier Milei is facing impeachment calls – and legal action accusing him of fraud – over his promotion of cryptocurrency on social media.

Milei posted on X, formerly Twitter, about the $LIBRA coin on Friday, which he said would help fund small businesses and start-ups.

He shared a link to buy it, causing its price to shoot up. But within a few hours, he deleted his post and the cryptocurrency nosedived in value, losing investors most of their money.

Some opposition members of Congress say they plan to start proceedings to impeach Milei. Meanwhile, lawyers filed complaints of fraud in Argentina’s criminal court on Sunday.

Some people online have accused Milei of what is known as a “rug pull” – where promoters of a cryptocurrency draw in buyers, only to stop trading activity and make off with the money raised from sales. They pointed out that the link used to buy the coins referenced a phrase the president uses in his speeches.

But Argentina’s presidential office said on Saturday that the decision to remove the post was to avoid “speculation” following public reaction to the launch of the cryptocurrency.

It said Milei was not involved in the cryptocurrency’s development, and that the government’s Anti-Corruption Office would investigate and determine whether anyone had acted improperly, including the president himself.

Jonatan Baldiviezo, one of the plaintiffs who filed the legal action, told Associated Press “the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president’s actions were essential”.

Milei’s political opponents have jumped on the opportunity.

Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is now in opposition, was heavily critical, calling him a “crypto scammer” in a post seen 6.4 million times.

For its part, the country’s main opposition coalition said it would file a request to impeach the president, calling it an “unprecedented scandal“.

Esteban Paulón, a member of the opposition Socialist Party, said in a post on X that he would also request the start of impeachment proceedings.

Sir Keir Starmer has said any Ukraine peace deal would require a “US backstop” to deter Russia from attacking its neighbour again.

Speaking after a hastily convened meeting with European leaders in Paris, the prime minister repeated that he would consider deploying UK troops to Ukraine in the event of a lasting peace agreement.

But he said “a US security guarantee was the only way to effectively deter Russia”, and vowed to discuss the “key elements” of a peace deal with US President Donald Trump when the pair meet in Washington next week.

Sir Keir said Europe would “have to do more” to defend the continent in the face of the “generational” security challenge Russia poses.

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He was keen to avoid explaining exactly what he meant by a “backstop” – but his allies suggest this could involve air support, logistics and intelligence capabilities.

European leaders convened at the Élysée Palace to discuss concerns over the Trump administration’s decision to initiate peace talks with Russia – due to start in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday – alone.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv did not know about the talks and would not recognise any agreement made without its involvement.

US officials have suggested European nations would be consulted on peace talks with Russia, but not directly involved in them.

The Paris summit also took place days after US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Europe would have to be primarily responsible for guaranteeing its own security going forward.

In his statement to reporters following the talks, Sir Keir said the US was “not going to leave Nato”, but that it was “time to take responsibility for our security, our continent”.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said transatlantic relations were in a “new stage”, and that the meeting had confirmed the time had come for “a much greater ability for Europe to defend itself”.

Sir Keir has indicated any troop contributions from the UK would be part of a multinational force to police the border between Ukrainian-held and Russian-held territory.

But experts say to do so effectively would be a massive undertaking that would require a large increase in defence spending.

Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, said that, unlike UN peacekeeping forces there to observe, if the force being proposed is intended to deter Russian attacks, “it’s a whole different matter altogether”.

“You need credible, well-armed forces – and you not only need frontline forces, you need back-up forces, and air forces, and so on,” he told the BBC. “That’s a much bigger ask.”

General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, a former Nato commander, said: “This cannot be a token force, it cannot be something that observes bad behaviour and stands on the sideline.”

He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that it would have to do “effectively what Nato does on its own turf – really deter aggression”, and would need to be “underpinned by a grand strategy for containment of Russia” that would make clear any future conflict would not be contained to Ukraine.

“Essentially, the force needs to be large enough to defeat an incursion,” he added.

The former head of the British Army, Lord Dannatt, previously estimated such a force would need around 100,000 troops – with the UK contributing about two-fifths.

“We just haven’t got that number available,” he said on Saturday, adding that getting the military into shape to perform this role would come at a considerable cost.

The UK currently spends around 2.3% of its total economic output on defence. The government has committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5%, but has not said when this will be achieved.

Sir Keir earlier told reporters that the government would set out a path to meeting the 2.5% commitment once it finishes its strategic defence review.

“Part of my message to our European allies is that we’ve all got to step up on both capability and on spending and funding,” he said.

“That includes the UK, which is why I’ve made that commitment to spend more.”

Some European figures have signalled their agreement with this.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Europe had to “step up” defence spending and support for Ukraine, as “Russia is threatening all of Europe now, unfortunately”, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a “surge” in defence spending.

Sir Keir was also joined in Paris by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, as well as the president of the European Council and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Prior to the meeting, European leaders had also expressed concern after Hegseth said it was “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine will return to its pre-2014 borders – before Russia annexed Crimea and took parts of the nation’s south and east in its 2022 full-scale invasion.

Hegseth also downplayed the prospect of Ukraine joining the mutual defence alliance Nato – something Sir Keir has said it was on an “irreversible” path towards.

Gen Sir Bradshaw noted these potential concessions to Russia, and said: “If we can’t return Ukraine to what it was as a sovereign nation before this war, we have absolutely got to make it a lasting peace.”

No 10 confirmed Sir Keir’s trip to Washington earlier on Monday, after a minister said the UK could serve as a “bridge” between the US and Europe.

The BBC understands the PM offered to host a follow-up meeting of European leaders following the Washington trip.

Poland’s Tusk has already indicated his nation would not send troops into Ukraine, but would continue to support it with military, financial and humanitarian aid.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, told reporters following the Paris meeting that discussing sending troops to Ukraine at present was “completely premature” and he was “a little irritated” with the topic.

UK government sources argue it is “no surprise” there was a difference of opinion between leaders, and that not every nation is willing to show their hand quite yet.

British diplomats do not believe every nation would need to commit to contributing troops – but some would. And whatever Europe’s eventual role, US involvement would still be required.

Prof Chalmers said: “Having significant numbers of Nato troops on Ukrainian soil after a ceasefire would be a failure for Russia, so it’s hard for me at this point to see Russia accepting such a presence as a part of the deal.”

Deploying British troops would also require the approval of Parliament, something Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said he was confident “all sides of the house are likely to agree with”.

Sir Keir’s spokesperson said Parliament would be consulted “as appropriate” but this was “getting ahead of discussions” with other world leaders.

Meanwhile, fighting on the ground in Ukraine continued over the weekend, with at least three civilians killed in Russian strikes on Sunday, according to local authorities.

Several areas of Ukraine are under an emergency blackout following attacks on energy infrastructure, while Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones on Sunday night.

When US President Donald Trump wanted someone to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to open negotiations for a potential deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war, he didn’t dispatch his secretary of state.

The man he sent to the Kremlin to handle a titanic geopolitical challenge does not even have a diplomatic background.

Instead Trump picked his personal friend, golf buddy and billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff.

The president has made Witkoff his Middle East envoy. But last week the Bronx-born businessman found himself in discussions about ending a conflict in Eastern Europe – having been “with [Putin] for a very extended period, like about three hours”, in Trump’s words.

Witkoff was in Moscow to help facilitate a deal that saw the US and Russia swap prisoners, which was seen as signalling a possible thaw in relations between the two countries.

Witkoff also played a part in brokering the current ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, for which both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden took credit.

Though he was not yet officially in his post, Witkoff flew to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu before the deal was brokered in Qatar. He then spent time with Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk in Doha, who later praised their cooperation, calling it a “very close partnership, even friendship”, according to the Washington Post.

Witkoff is now returning to the region, specifically Saudi Arabia, for the first US-Russian face-to-face talks over the war in Ukraine after Trump had his own call with Putin. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz are also attending.

But the bold moves made by Trump’s team are stirring concern among Western allies, who fear a new world order in which key players are shut out of discussions. Ukraine and other European nations were not invited to the Saudi meeting.

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So, who is Witkoff – dubbed by US media as “the man in the room”, taking centre stage as more potentially consequential international talks take place?

He was one of Trump’s first picks for his top team after his presidential election win in November. Trump wrote: “Steve will be an unrelenting voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”

“The president sees Steve as one of the world’s great dealmakers,” a White House official told Axios. Witkoff’s preferred negotiating tactic was to use charm, according to another associate, but he could also turn up the pressure.

The 67-year-old was raised in Long Island, New York and trained as a real estate developer in one of America’s most cut-throat markets.

As a long-time Republican donor, he has known Trump for decades, and, like the president, made his fortune in real estate in both New York and Florida.

Addressing last year’s Republican National Convention, during which he recalled speaking to Trump in the aftermath of an assassination attempt, Witkoff called the other man his “true and dear friend… in good times and bad times”.

The two men are also long-time golfing companions, US Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News. “Steve and I would be the two guys who would play Trump and somebody else, and lose,” Graham said.

It was during a shared golfing session in Florida last September that another alleged would-be Trump attacker was foiled by the Secret Service. Trump said he and Witkoff were bundled into golf carts as agents moved to counter a suspect in the bushes.

Graham also said that Witkoff first mentioned his interest in becoming Middle East envoy to Trump during a lunchtime conversation. “That stunned me, because I didn’t know he was interested in the Mideast,” Graham said.

Witkoff’s remit as Middle East envoy is also reported to include diplomacy with Iran. People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times he had been chosen to spearhead a nuclear deal with Tehran as part of a broader plan to “stop the wars” in the region.

Witkoff’s deal-making skills were on display during Trump’s 2024 campaign. He helped to ease tension between Trump and his defeated Republican presidential primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Witkoff also reportedly met Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to smooth things over, after Kemp drew Trump’s scorn for refusing to support his unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election which Trump lost to Biden.

He currently serves as chairman of the University of Miami’s business school real estate advisory board, and was appointed by Trump during his first term to the board of trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

This could prove a defining week for the war in Ukraine, with two sets of hastily arranged talks taking place in Paris and Riyadh.

European leaders are meeting in France as they scramble for a response to Donald Trump’s plan to open negotiations with Vladimir Putin for an end to the conflict.

On Tuesday Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio are due to meet in the Saudi capital.

Ukraine is not attending either set of talks.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls more than a fifth of its territory, mainly in the south and east.

BBC correspondents analyse what key powers hope to gain from two days of intense diplomacy.

The UK

Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to be a bridge between European leaders and Trump’s White House berating them about their defence spending.

Starmer’s offer to put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine is part of that role he wants to play.

The government used to say the terms of any peace deal was up to Ukraine. That has shifted with the new US administration signalling that a return to 2014 borders was “unrealistic”.

Instead Sir Keir will be hoping more European nations in Paris join him in offering their forces to secure a deal – and prevent Russia invading again.

But while the prime minister is in Paris, in Westminster the debate goes on about how much the country should spend on defence.

Labour has promised to “set out a path” to increase defence spending from 2.3% of GDP now to 2.5%. Defence sources say that would be a significant rise.

But there is no date for when that would happen – and many argue it is now urgent.

Germany

It is a sign of how rattled German leaders are by Trump’s approach to Ukraine that just days before a national election Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also in Paris.

All mainstream parties have condemned American suggestions that a peace deal be brokered without Ukraine or the EU. Far-right and populist-left politicians welcome talks with Putin and want to stop arming Kyiv. But they will not get into power.

So, whatever the next German government looks like, Berlin’s support for Ukraine will remain strong. That is because Berlin’s political elite recognises that a bad deal – one that undermines Ukrainian sovereignty – would be disastrous for Germany.

But with Germany’s war-torn 20th century in mind, voters here are wary of militarisation.

Over the past three years the country has successfully pivoted away from Russian energy and massively upped defence spending. But this has hit the German economy hard and the subsequent budget rows sparked the collapse of the German government.

So politicians are trying to avoid public discussions of difficult issues, like higher Nato spending targets or German peacekeeping troops in Ukraine — at least until after the election.

Poland

Poland has been a key supporter of Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion and it is the key logistics hub for military and humanitarian aid entering the country.

It is also a loud voice arguing that Russia cannot be allowed to win the war it launched – because the whole of Europe’s security is at stake. So there is consternation that the US looks like it is conceding to Moscow’s key demands, even before talks begin, when Poland very clearly sees Russia as the aggressor and as dangerous.

Russia is why Poland spends big on its own military – up to almost 5% of GDP now – and agrees with the US that the rest of Europe should do the same.

On his way to the talks in Paris, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X: “If we, Europeans, fail to spend big on defence now, we will be forced to spend 10 times more if we don’t prevent a wider war.”

On the question of whether to send Polish troops to Ukraine – to help enforce any eventual ceasefire – government officials have been cautious, ruling it out for now.

The Nordic and Baltic countries

Denmark will be the only Nordic nation at Monday’s meeting. But European diplomats say it will also be representing the interests of its Baltic neighbours to the east – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all of whom border Russia and feel particularly vulnerable to any future Putin attack.

The shockwaves generated by the second Trump term have already been reverberating around Denmark.

Trump’s renewed desire to take over Greenland – an autonomous Danish dependent territory – propelled Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on a whistle-stop tour of European allies last month to shore up support.

On Monday in Paris, Frederiksen finds herself once again in a hastily-convened meeting to respond to Trump’s reshaping of the transatlantic security landscape.

Frederiksen has not yet followed in Starmer’s footsteps of pledging peacekeeping boots on the ground in Ukraine.

Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen has been quoted by Danish media as saying he is not ruling it out – but that it is too early to talk about.

France

French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday’s informal meeting – not a “summit,” his officials insisted – to help Europe coordinate a response both to Washington’s increasingly unsympathetic posture towards the continent, and to whatever emerges from the White House’s fast-paced negotiations with the Kremlin.

“The Europeans, as we speak, are not coordinated, but that may be the whole point of (this) summit in Paris, and that is the beginning of coordination… Are we ready? The answer is no. Can we get ready? The answer is yes,” said Francois Heisbourg, a veteran French military expert, commenting on the need for Europe to work together to prepare a possible peacekeeping force for Ukraine.

“There is a wind of unity blowing across Europe such as has not been seen since Covid,” said Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s most senior diplomat.

The mood in France – a nation always wary of American geopolitical manoeuvring – is particularly edgy right now, with newspaper headlines warning of a new “Trump-Putin axis” that will sideline or “abandon” Europe over the war in Ukraine.

“We should be in a Europe-wide state of emergency,” warned the former Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin at a recent news briefing, accusing an “arrogant” Trump of attempting to “rule the world without principles or respect.”

Russia

Since the summer, Putin has stated that his main conditions for starting negotiations to end the war are the recognition of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the lifting of sanctions on Russia, and denial of Ukraine’s request to join Nato.

Most European countries categorically reject these demands. The US has been very cautious in discussing what concessions Russia might have to make, though both the White House and the Pentagon have said they expect compromises from “both sides”.

Moscow’s priority is clearly the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he would “first and foremost like to listen” to the American proposals on ending the conflict in Ukraine.

As for Europe, Moscow sees no point in inviting it to the negotiating table.

It is no secret that for many years Putin has sought dialogue specifically with the US – a country he both blames for starting the war in Ukraine and considers the only power equal to Russia.

Moscow may take note of Starmer’s statements about being ready to send peacekeepers to the Ukraine – for the first time in a week, the discussion is about potential Russian, rather than Ukrainian, concessions.

But whether Russia is ready for any compromises remains an open question.

The US

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff will be the public face of the US team negotiating in Riyadh – but perhaps the main voice at the table is more than 7,400 miles (11,900km) away, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Despite Trump’s public engagements in recent days, it is clear that the negotiations with Russia over the fate of Ukraine have been his focus behind the scenes.

On Sunday, Trump told reporters he had been kept abreast of the latest developments and the talks are “moving along”.

His short-term goal is to stop the fighting in Ukraine. Longer term, he appears to want less American involvement, given that the US has sent tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Kyiv.

Trump has also pushed for access to rare minerals in Ukraine in return for aid, or even as compensation for the support the US has already provided.

But he has not yet said what a post-war Ukraine would look like, setting off alarm bells in Europe.

He also notably said that he expects Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to be a part of the “conversation”, but not the talks in Riyadh. Rubio has said the talks in Saudi Arabia are only the start of a longer process that will “obviously” include Europe and Ukraine.

Those remarks are likely to provide little comfort for US allies who have been listening to Trump’s remarks over the last several days.

In response to a BBC question on Wednesday, Trump said he believes he is inclined to agree with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s assessment that a return to pre-2014 borders is unrealistic for Ukraine, although he expects Ukraine might get “some” of that land back.

So far, it appears that solution is not one that is palatable for Zelensky and the rest of Ukraine’s leadership.

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The Ukrainian people feel their future is as uncertain as it was back in February 2022.

Ukrainians want peace – so as not to wake up to the sounds of sirens and not lose loved ones on the battlefield and in frontline cities.

Russia occupies almost 25% of Ukraine’s territory. Ukraine’s defence has cost tens of thousands of lives of its citizens.

The country has in the past insisted that any peace deal include the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. That includes not only areas Russia has seized in its full-scale offensive, but also the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where Russia has backed separatists in fighting, also in 2014.

Ukrainians are scared of a peace agreement like the one in 2014 or 2015 – heavy fighting was stopped, but crossfire on the border continued to bring losses.

With no security guarantees, it would also mean a possibility of a new wave of war in a decade or so.

“Ukraine regards any talks about Ukraine without Ukraine as such that have no result, and we cannot recognise… agreements about us without us,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said about the US-Russia meeting.

Whatever form any peace talks take, Ukrainians want agency over their own future.

Many see previous peace arrangements with Russia as having simply paved the way for its full-scale invasion. So the Ukrainian fear is that any deal agreed over its head could lead to a third round of war.

The US State Department has dropped a statement from its website which stated that Washington does not support Taiwan’s independence – a move which has sparked anger in China.

China said the revision “sends a wrong… signal to separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence”, and asked the US to “correct its mistakes”.

The department’s fact sheet on Taiwan-US relations earlier included the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence” – this was removed last week as part of what it said was a “routine” update.

A US spokesperson was quoted as saying that it remains committed to the “One China” policy, it said, where US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan.

China sees self-governed Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be part of the country, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.

But many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation, although most are in favour of maintaining the status quo where Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.

As well as dropping the phrase, the factsheet, which was updated last Thursday, also says the US will support Taiwan’s membership in international organisations “where applicable”.

Commenting on the changes, a spokesperson at the American Institute in Taiwan – the US’ de facto embassy on the island – told local media that the fact sheet had been “updated to inform the general public about [the US’] unofficial relationship with Taiwan”.

“We have long stated that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.”

On Sunday, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung thanked the US for what he called “positive, Taiwan-friendly wordings”.

But in their regular press conference on Monday, Beijing’s foreign ministry slammed the move, calling the revision a “serious regression” in the US’ stance on Taiwan.

“This sends a wrong and serious signal to separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence and is another example of the U.S. stubbornly persisting with its wrong policy of using Taiwan to contain China,” said Chinese spokesperson Guo Jiakun.

“We urge the US to immediately correct its mistakes [and] earnestly adhere to the One China principle.”

Pope Francis is being treated for a “complex clinical situation” and will remain in hospital for as long as necessary, the Vatican has said.

The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday to undergo treatment and tests for bronchitis.

On Monday, the Vatican said the pontiff has a “polymicrobial infection” of his respiratory tract, which has required a change in his treatment.

A later update added that the Pope was “proceeding with the prescribed treatment” in a stable condition and did not have a fever. He also undertook some work and reading while in hospital on Monday.

“Pope Francis is touched by the numerous messages of affection and closeness that he has been receiving in recent hours,” a statement added.

“He especially wants to extend his thanks to those who are hospitalised at this time, for the affection and love they have expressed through drawings and messages of good wishes; he prays for them and asks that they pray for him.”

Before his admission last week, the Pope had bronchitis symptoms for several days and had delegated officials to read prepared speeches at events.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni also told reporters on Monday that the pontiff was in good spirits.

A short statement on his condition said: “All tests carried out to date are indicative of a complex clinical picture that will require appropriate hospitalisation.”

The pontiff’s weekly general audience, which is usually held each Wednesday, has been cancelled for this week, the statement added.

Over the weekend, the Vatican said the Pope was stable and that he’d been told to have “complete rest” to aid his recovery.

On Friday and Saturday he held a video call with the Holy Family Parish in Gaza, led by Father Gabriel Romanelli.

“We heard his voice. It is true, he is more tired. He himself said, ‘I have to take care of myself.’ But you could hear the clear voice, he listened to us well,” Fr Romanelli told Vatican News.

On Sunday, Fr Romanelli said he received only a text message from the Pope, thanking the parish for its well wishes.

The Pope was unable to deliver his regular weekly prayer on Sunday in St Peter’s Square or lead a special mass for artists to mark the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year.

He also held meetings at his Vatican residence last week in an attempt to rest and recover.

Members of the public outside St Peter’s Basilica have been sharing their well wishes for the Pope.

Bernard, an Australian living in England and visiting Rome with his children, said “we will say a prayer for the Pope”.

“They always take up the job when they’re already elderly. So yes, it’s often that they suffer medical issues as a result,” he told the BBC.

Rome resident Armando called the Pope “a great soul” and an “inspiration for us all”.

“All the best, Pope. We are waiting for you back,” he said.

The Pope has been hospitalised several times during his 12 years as leader of the Roman Catholic Church and has suffered a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at age 21.

In March 2023, he spent three nights in hospital with bronchitis and in June that year underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia.

Another bout of illness also forced him to cancel his trip to the United Arab Emirates for the COP28 climate summit in 2023.

In December last year he appeared with a large bruise on his chin when he led a ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica to install 21 new Catholic cardinals, which the Vatican said was the result of a minor fall.

More recently, in January he fell and hurt his right arm and a sling was put on as a precaution.

The Trump administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, according to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC.

Several hundreds of the agency’s probationary workers – who have generally been in their positions for less than a year – received the news via email late on Friday night, a statement from PASS’s head, Alex Spero said.

It is a part of a cost-cutting drive, driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), that aims to drastically cut the federal workforce.

Spero called the firings “shameful” and said they “will increase the workload and place new responsibilities on a workforce that is already stretched thin”.

The BBC has contacted the FAA and department of transport for comment.

According to Spero’s statement, workers impacted include systems specialists, safety inspectors, maintenance mechanics and administrative staff, among others.

Criticising the move, Spero said the FAA is “already challenged by understaffing”, and that the decision to cut staff was “unconscionable in the aftermath of three deadly aircraft accidents in the past month”, including the deadly crash in Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan airport, in which 67 people were killed.

Jason King, who is among those laid off, said he was worried about how the move would impact aviation safety.

He told WUSA9, an affiliate of the BBC’s US partner CBS, firing people directly involved with air safety is “concerning for public safety in our national airspace.”

Mr King, whose work at the FAA involved directly addressing safety concerns, said the cuts “threatens public trust and increases the likelihood of future accidents.”

“Aviation safety should never be treated as a budget item that can just be completely cut,” he added.

On Monday, a team from Elon Musk’s SpaceX was set to visit the FAA to suggest improvements to the US’s air traffic control system, following the Washington DC plane collision in January.

Though the National Transport Safety Board has not yet determined the cause of the collision, staffing levels in air traffic control at the airport, were reportedly below normal levels on the evening of the crash.

Transport Secretary Sean Duffy said the SpaceX team’s visit to the FAA would give them a “first-hand look at the current system”, and would allow them to figure out how they make “a new, world-class air traffic control system that will be the envy of the world.”

He added that he plans to visit the FAA Academy – which provides training for the organisation’s workforce – later this week, to learn more about staff member’s education “and how we can ensure that only the very best guide our aircraft”.

President Donald Trump caused controversy last month when he suggested diversity programmes supported by his predecessors had lowered hiring standards that could have affected the Washington DC plane crash.

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The Trump administration has ordered government agencies to fire nearly all of their probationary employees, who have not yet earned job protection. It is a move that could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of people.

Among those losing their jobs in Friday’s cuts were half of the Centers of Disease Control’s so-called “disease detectives”, multiple health officials told CBS.

The researchers – officially officers serving in a two-year programme in the organisation’s Epidemic Intelligence Service – are often deployed on the front lines of major disease outbreaks.

Many members of the scheme have gone on to rise in the agency’s ranks.

President Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to allow him to fire the head of an independent ethics agency that protects whistleblower federal employees.

Hampton Dellinger, the head of the US Office of Special Counsel, sued the Trump administration after being fired last month.

It is thought to be the first case related to Trump’s series of executive actions to reach the country’s highest court.

Since taking office, the president has cut more than a dozen inspectors general at various federal agencies.

The choice by the Trump administration of Saudi Arabia as the location for key talks on Ukraine underscores how far the Kingdom has come diplomatically from the near pariah state it became after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

The shadow that cast over the country and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in particular, appears to have lifted, although there are still concerns occasionally raised at international forums over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

On many fronts – in entertainment and sport in particular – the country has spent huge amounts of money to further its ambitions to be a major player on the world stage.

Diplomatically, the Saudi leadership has also been enhancing its role. During the Biden years, the Kingdom increased its pivot away from reliance on the US as its key international ally.

The Saudis made clear that they would follow what they perceive as their interests first and foremost – striking up closer relationships with countries viewed as key rivals to the US, such as Russia and China.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House will have been welcomed by the Saudis.

His first foreign visit in his first term was to Saudi Arabia – and the transactional nature of his foreign policy is more conducive to the current Saudi leadership.

One of the possible achievements that Mr Trump would most like to chalk up on his record would be a peace deal between the Saudis and Israel – which would be the culmination of the Abraham Accords that he initiated in his first term.

But the war in Gaza has subsequently got in the way and may well raise the price that Saudi Arabia will demand for a peace agreement.

The Saudis were very quick to announce their definitive rejection of Mr Trump’s plan for Gaza – to remove all the Palestinians and rebuild it as a resort.

It has spurred the Kingdom to try to come up with a workable alternative plan with other Arab states – which would see Gazans remain in place as the enclave is rebuilt and would lead to a two state solution of the conflict.

The Trump administration’s current thinking would seem to be at odds with this – in its policy towards both Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

How this will be resolved will be key to the dynamics in the evolving relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US.

What is clear is that the Saudis have no intention of reining in their ambition of becoming an essential player in global diplomacy.

UK Special Forces command rejected resettlement applications from more than 2,000 Afghan commandos who had shown credible evidence of service in units that fought alongside the SAS and SBS, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed for the first time.

UK Special Forces officers appear to have rejected every application from a former Afghan commando referred to them for sponsorship, despite the Afghan units having fought with the British on life-threatening missions against the Taliban.

The MoD had previously denied there was a blanket policy to reject members of the units – known as the Triples – but the BBC has not been able to find any evidence that UK Special Forces (UKSF) supported any resettlement applications.

Asked if UKSF had supported any applications, the MoD declined to answer the question.

The Triples – so-called because their designations were CF 333 and ATF 444 – were set up, trained, and paid by UK Special Forces and supported the SAS and SBS on operations in Afghanistan. When the country fell to the Taliban in 2021, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the UK.

The rejection of their applications was controversial because it came at a time when a public inquiry in the UK was investigating allegations that British Special Forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan where the Triples were present.

The inquiry has the power to compel witnesses who are in the UK, but not non-UK nationals who are overseas. If resettled, former members of the Triples could be compelled by the inquiry to provide potentially significant evidence.

BBC Panorama revealed last year that UK Special Forces command had been given veto power over their resettlement applications and denied them asylum in Britain. The revelation caused a wave of anger among some former members of the SAS and others who served with the Afghan units.

The MoD initially denied the existence of the veto, suggesting that the BBC’s reporting had been inaccurate, but then-Defence Minister Andrew Murrison was later forced to tell the House of Commons the government had misled parliament in its denials.

The confirmation of the more than 2,000 rejections emerged in court hearings earlier this month during a legal challenge brought by a former member of the Triples. Lawyers for the MoD applied for a restriction order which temporarily prevented the BBC from reporting on the relevant parts of the proceedings, before withdrawing their application last week under challenge.

Documents disclosed in court also showed that at the same time the MoD was denying the existence of the veto, it already knew that every rejection decision made by UK Special Forces was potentially unsound and would have to be independently reviewed.

• Special forces blocked resettlement for elite Afghan troops
• Minister says Afghan commandos described ‘horrific’ SAS crimes
• SAS unit repeatedly killed Afghan detainees, BBC finds

Mike Martin MP, a member of the defence select committee and former British Army officer who served in Afghanistan, told the BBC the rejections were “extremely concerning”.

“There is the appearance that UK Special Forces blocked the Afghan special forces applications because they were witnesses to the alleged UK war crimes currently being investigated in the Afghan inquiry,” Martin said.

“If the MoD is unable to offer any explanation, then the matter should be included in the inquiry,” he added.

Johnny Mercer, the former Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View, who served alongside the SBS in Afghanistan, testified to the Afghan inquiry that he had spoken to former members of the Triples and heard “horrific” allegations of murder by UK Special Forces.

Mercer said it was “very clear to me that there is a pool of evidence that exists within the Afghan [special forces] community that are now in the United Kingdom that should contribute to this Inquiry”.

The MoD began a review last year of all 2,022 resettlement applications referred to and rejected by UK Special Forces. All contained what MoD caseworkers on the resettlement scheme regarded as “credible” evidence of service with the Triples units.

The government said at the time that the review would take 12 weeks, but more than a year later it has yet to be completed. Some rejections have already been overturned, allowing former Triples to come to the UK. But the MoD has refused to inform the Afghan commandos whether they are in scope of the review or if their rejections were upheld, unless they write to the MoD.

Many are in hiding in Afghanistan, making it difficult to obtain legal representation or pro-actively contact the MoD. Dozens have reportedly been beaten, tortured, or killed by the Taliban since the group regained control of the country.

“Although decisions have been overturned, it’s too late for some people,” said a former Triples officer. “The delays have caused a lot of problems. People have been captured by the Taliban or lost their lives,” he said.

The officer said that the Afghan commandos worked alongside British Special Forces “like brothers” and felt “betrayed” by the widespread rejections.

“If Special Forces made these rejections they should say why. They should have to answer,” he said.

The MoD is now facing a legal challenge to aspects of the review, including the decision not to inform applicants whether their case is being reviewed or disclose the criteria used to select those in scope.

The legal challenge is being brought by a former senior member of the Triples who is now in the UK, on behalf of commandos still in Afghanistan.

“Our client’s focus is on his soldiers left behind in Afghanistan, some of whom have been killed while they wait for these heavily delayed protection decisions,” said Dan Carey, a partner at the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn.

“As things stand they have a right to request a reassessment of a decision they haven’t even been told about. And there are others who think they are part of the Triples Review when the secret criteria would tell them that their cases aren’t even being looked at.”

Lawyers acting for the former member of the Triples also heavily criticised the level of disclosure in the case by the MoD, which has not handed over any documentation from within UK Special Forces or government records about the decision-making process that led to the rejections.

In court filings, they criticised the “total inadequacy” of the MoD’s disclosure, calling it an “an obvious failure to comply with the duty of candour and to provide necessary explanation” of the process.

New evidence that emerged last week in court also showed that the MoD appeared to have rejected out of hand some applicants who served with UK Special Forces in Afghanistan after 2014 – when Britain’s conventional armed forces left Helmand province – without even referring them to UK Special Forces headquarters for sponsorship.

The MoD has not explained the reasoning behind the policy, which was kept secret from applicants. A spokesperson for the MoD said that after 2014 the UK’s role “evolved from combat operations to primarily training, advising and assisting CF 333, who were under the command of the Afghan Ministry of Interior”.

But officers who served with UK Special Forces told the BBC that the Triples continued to support British-led operations after 2014.

“Saying the Triples didn’t support UK Special Forces operations after 2014 isn’t true at all,” said former officer who served with UKSF.

“We had a squadron of CF 333 with us. We worked closely together. These were NATO targets, UK planned operations,” he said.

The Ministry of Defence has previously told the BBC: “There has been no evidence to suggest that any part of the MoD has sought to prevent former members of the Afghan specialist units from giving evidence to the inquiry.”

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A friend of a female soldier has told an inquest into her death that women in the Army are often subjected to “humiliating” comments and “vicious gossip” from male colleagues.

Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck, 19, was found dead in her barracks at Larkhill Camp, Wiltshire, on 15 December 2021 following a block party on site.

Tamzin Hort, who has since left the Army, said female soldiers receive “unwanted attention” from men, and are branded with sexist slurs if they refuse advances.

The inquest has heard how Gunner Beck had been subjected to relentless harassment by her line manager and had been “pinned down” by a sergeant who tried to kiss her.

Ms Hort told the court she recognised this inappropriate and predatory behaviour from her own experience in the Army.

“I was with my partner for three years but as the only girl in my battery, I got a lot of unwanted attention from a lot of the lads – especially if they’d had a drink,” she said.

“I couldn’t walk out of my block without getting nasty comments.”

The former soldier said women were frequently called degrading and “disgusting” names, which would eventually add up.

“I put on weight due to my relationship and things going wrong,” she said.

“I would go to work every morning and get called fat by my training instructor.

“He would say ‘look at you, you are fat, are you pregnant?’ You are just sat there humiliated.

“If you’re told enough times, that affects you. It makes you feel very low.”

Ms Hort said she soon began locking her bedroom door because people would knock on it late at night, and she grew concerned they would let themselves in while she was sleeping.

She described one incident, aged 17, in which she returned home from the pub only to find a sergeant outside her room holding a condom.

“You can imagine how scared I was. It happens to every female, not just in 47 Regiment.”

She added she did not report the incident because on one occasion, when she received therapy through the Army welfare services, “somehow everyone knew about it”.

Ms Hort said although Gunner Beck had never personally confided in her about any similar incidents of sexual harassment, she had overheard plenty.

“She was beautiful, she was going to get comments, but she shouldn’t have had to.

“They would all make disgusting comments like ‘I would do this to her’.

“You can’t react to it because it makes it worse, and they would do it even more.”

The nine-day hearing, which began at Salisbury Coroner’s Court on 10 February, heard how Gunner Beck had repeatedly tried to establish boundaries with her male colleagues, but her efforts were ignored.

In the two months leading up to her death, Bombardier Ryan Mason sent the 19-year-old more than 4,600 messages confessing his feelings for her.

Gunner Beck’s ex-boyfriend, George Higgins, said Mr Mason had also shown her a 15-page “love story” he had written, detailing his “fantasies about her”.

In a WhatsApp message, Gunner Beck revealed she felt “genuinely trapped” by his behaviour, which had taken a “huge toll” on her mental health.

She wrote: “I’m trying to be there for you as a friend but it completely crossed the line of that a long time ago. I feel so uncomfortable.”

Lance Bombardier Jones, a close friend of Gunner Beck’s, told the inquest on Thursday that she never reported this behaviour out of fear it would damage her reputation.

He explained that “she didn’t want be seen as a serial accuser” after making a previous complaint against Battery Sergeant Major Michael Webber a few months prior, following an attempted sexual advance at a work social.

In a text message to a friend, she wrote: “I haven’t done anything wrong, I know that, but it looks [bad] on me. I’m so pissed off with this situation now.

“I’m the only female, so people will begin to think ‘oh she’s making her way round everyone’. It would be so different if I was a lad.”

An Army service inquiry report published in October 2023, said this was “possibly a factor that may have influenced her failure to report other events that happened subsequently”.

It also detailed three additional “contributory factors” to her death:

• The “significant strain” of a sexual relationship with a married colleague in the last few weeks of her life.

• A relationship that ended in November 2021 which involved “repeated allegations of unfaithfulness on the part of the boyfriend”.

• An “unhealthy approach to alcohol, with episodes of binge-drinking”.

The hearing continues.

OpenAI’s board of directors has officially rejected Elon Musk’s nearly $100bn offer for the maker of what is the world’s best-known artificial intelligence (AI) tool, ChatGPT.

But the unsolicited bid might not be a failure – at least as far as Musk is concerned, experts say.

That’s because the offer could still complicate CEO Sam Altman’s plans to transform OpenAI from a non-profit controlled entity to a for-profit company.

Musk is “basically trying to stymie OpenAI’s growth trajectory,” said University of Cambridge associate teaching professor Johnnie Penn in an interview with the BBC.

Last week, Musk and a consortium of investors including Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel tabled a $97.4bn (£78.4bn) offer for all of OpenAI’s assets.

It was a huge sum – but less than the $157bn the firm was valued at in a funding round just four months ago, and much lower than the $300bn that some think it is worth now.

Complicating all of this is OpenAI’s unusual structure which involves a partnership between non-profit and for-profit arms.

Mr Altman is understood to want to change that, stripping it of its non-profit board.

That involves costs which Mr Musk is seemingly trying to inflate.

“What Musk is trying to do here is raise the perceived value of the non-profit arm of OpenAI, so that OpenAI has to pay more to get out of the obligations it has to its own non-profit,” said Dr Penn.

The value of its non-profit assets isn’t clear. With his bid, Musk was floating a price, according to Cornell University senior lecturer Lutz Finger, who is also the founder and CEO of AI startup R2Decide.

“By Musk putting a price tag on the non-profit part, he makes the split way more expensive for Altman to do,” Mr Finger told the BBC. “It’s very simple.”

Mr Musk justified his actions by saying he wants to return OpenAI – which he co-founded – to its non-profit roots and original mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

Others, though, suggest he has somewhat less noble motives linked to his own AI company xAI and chatbot Grok, which have received a lacklustre response from the public.

“Musk has missed the AI train, somewhat. He’s behind, and he has made several attempts to catch up,” Mr Finger said.

Now, Mr Finger says, Mr Musk is trying to kneecap his most formidable competitor.

An already-tense relationship appeared to worsen further last week with Mr Altman taunting Mr Musk’s offer on X, and Mr Musk retorting by calling his onetime partner a “swindler”.

Mr Altman then hit back in an interview with Bloomberg, opining that Mr Musk is not “a happy person” and saying his decisions are made from a “position of insecurity”.

The tit-for-tat is also playing out in court, where US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is considering Mr Musk’s request for an injunction that would block OpenAI from its planned conversion.

He claims that he will be irreparably harmed without her intervention.

“It is plausible that what Mr Musk is saying is true. We’ll find out. He’ll sit on the stand,” Gonzalez Rogers said during a hearing in earlier this month in Oakland, California.

According to OpenAI’s lawyers, Mr Musk’s recent bid contradicts his earlier claims that OpenAI’s assets cannot be transferred away for “private gain.”

“[O]ut of court, those constraints evidently do not apply, so long as Musk and his allies are the buyers,” their reply brief states.

Some observers say making a deal never appeared to be his goal.

“I think he’s just trying to create noise and news and consternation,” says Karl Freund, founder and principal analyst at Cambrian-AI.

But in addition to causing problems for his old rival, that strategy could inflict lasting damage on Mr Musk’s own reputation.

“He’s brilliant. He creates incredible companies that are doing incredible things. But his personal agenda is causing people to question his motives,” Mr Freund said.

Israel’s prime minister has said he is working to make US President Donald Trump’s plan to remove and resettle Gaza’s population “a reality”.

Benjamin Netanyahu said he was co-operating with the US on a “common strategy” for the Palestinian territory after a meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem on Sunday.

The talks come after US President Donald Trump proposed a US takeover Gaza and removal of the two million Palestinians there to neighbouring countries.

The UN has warned that any forced displacement of civilians from occupied territory is strictly prohibited under international law and “tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.

• Trump’s mixed messaging on foreign policy leaves world guessing
• ‘We are tired of war’: Israelis and Gazans fear ceasefire collapse
• How 15 months of war has devastated Gaza

America’s top diplomat said President Trump’s plan may have “shocked and surprised” people, but it took “courage” to propose an alternative to “tired ideas” of the past.

Netanyahu said he and Rubio had discussed ways to implement Trump’s vision, adding that the US and Israel had a common position on Gaza.

The Israeli leader warned that the “gates of hell” would be opened if all Israeli hostages held by the armed group Hamas were not released.

“Hamas can not continue as a military or government force,” Rubio added. “And as long as it stands as a force that can govern or administer or a force that can threaten by use of violence, peace becomes impossible.”

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

The fighting has caused devastation in Gaza, where more than 48,200 people have been killed during the 16-month war, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s population has also been displaced multiple times, almost 70% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed, the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed, and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Palestinian and Arab leaders have widely rejected Trump’s Gaza takeover plan, with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas emphasising that Palestinian land is “not for sale”.

Unlike previous US peace efforts in the region, the US top diplomat did not meet any Palestinian leaders to discuss the future of Gaza.

Speaking at a joint news conference on Sunday, Rubio and Netanyahu outlined areas of agreement, including a desire to eradicate Hamas’s governing capacity in the enclave, prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, and to monitor developments in post-Assad Syria.

Rubio went on to accuse Tehran of being “behind every act of violence, behind every destabilising activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability” in the region.

Netanyahu also condemned what he called “lawfare” from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which he said “outrageously libelled” Israel.

He thanked the US administration for issuing sanctions against the ICC, which last year issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former defence minister over alleged war crimes in Gaza – which Israel denies – as well as a top Hamas commander.

Rubio is visiting Israel on his first tour of the Middle East as the US secretary of state. He is also due to meet Russian officials in Saudi Arabia in coming days for talks on the war in Ukraine – a meeting that neither Ukraine nor other European countries have been invited to.

His visit comes after a shipment of American-made heavy bombs arrived in Israel overnight.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said his country had received a delivery of MK-84 bombs from the US late on Saturday, after Trump overturned a block on exporting the munitions placed by his predecessor, Joe Biden.

Biden initially shipped thousands of MK-84s to Israel after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, but later declined to clear the bombs for export out of concern for their impact on Gaza. The powerful 2,000-pound bombs have a wide blast radius and can rip through concrete and metal, destroying entire buildings.

Katz said the shipment represented a “significant asset” for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and served as evidence of the “strong alliance between Israel and the United States”.

Meanwhile, Hamas said an Israeli air strike had killed three police officers near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday, which it called a “serious violation” of the ceasefire.

Israel said it had struck “several armed individuals” in southern Gaza.

The ceasefire came into force on 19 January and requires a complete pause in fighting for the first 42-day phase.

Fears had been high this week that the fragile ceasefire agreement could collapse after a dispute over a planned hostage release, which was nearly aborted but ultimately went ahead on Saturday.

Netanyahu’s office confirmed on Sunday that an Israeli negotiating team would travel to Cairo on Monday to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire.

The Princess of Wales and her children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, have revealed their artistic skills in four portraits of each other.

It’s believed to be the first time that a drawing by Catherine of one of her children has been shown in public – with a picture of her six-year-old son, Prince Louis.

The royals drew the portraits as “a moment of connection” to “spend time looking at and focusing on one another” while being creative, a social media post from Kensington Palace added.

The pictures are a follow-up to Catherine’s recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery, as part of her early years education project, Shaping Us.

The princess had joined a class of five-year-olds going around an exhibition encouraging children to portray themselves and to understand their own emotions.

The four pictures have been issued without revealing the artist and subject – but the more grown up work would appear to be Catherine’s picture of a sleeping Prince Louis.

Catherine studied A-level art at school and then history of art at St Andrews university.

Prince Louis has already shown his own creativity, with the recent release of his photograph of his mother wrapped up warm on a cold winter’s day.

These latest pictures, like Louis’s photograph, were issued on Prince William and Catherine’s social media account.

A picture of Catherine sitting in an armchair seems likely to have been drawn by 11-year-old Prince George, while another portrait of Catherine with multi-coloured hair seems to be the work of nine-year-old Princess Charlotte.

The bright red portrait by Prince Louis could be either Catherine or Charlotte.

The pictures are highlighting the exhibition launched by the princess at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which encourages children to think about their relationships and feelings.

The princess travelled to the gallery in a school minibus and helped the young visitors as they took part in art activities, intended to help them develop emotional skills.

“These skills are key throughout our lives, shaping who we are, how we manage our thoughts and emotions, how we communicate with and relate to others, and how we explore the world around us,” said the message on social media, alongside the pictures.

“Drawing portraits with children can provide a moment of connection as you spend time looking at and focusing on one another, as well as being creative,” the post continued.

There is a long tradition of painting among the royals, with King Charles an enthusiastic painter. He has also been the subject of numerous works, including Jonathan Yeo’s portrait last year, with its striking shades of red.

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A United Nations judge deceived a young woman into coming to the UK to work as her slave while she studied at the University of Oxford, a court has heard.

Lydia Mugambe is accused of taking “advantage of her status” over her alleged victim in the “most egregious way”.

It is alleged she prevented the young Ugandan woman from holding down steady employment and forced her to work as her maid and to provide childcare for free.

Ms Mugambe denies the four charges against her.

Prosecutors allege that from the outset, Ms Mugambe, who is also a High Court judge in Uganda, had the intention of “obtaining someone to make her life easier and at the least possible cost to herself”.

She is accused of engaging in “illegal folly” with Ugandan deputy high commissioner John Leonard Mugerwa in which they conspired to arrange for the young woman to come to the UK.

The pair are alleged to have participated in a “very dishonest” trade-off, in which Mr Mugerwa allegedly arranged for the Ugandan High Commission to sponsor the woman’s entrance into the UK in exchange for Ms Mugambe attempting to speak to a judge who was in charge of legal action Mr Mugerwa was named in.

Ms Mugambe is also accused of arranging the alleged victim’s travel “with a view to her being exploited”, and of attempting to “intimidate” her alleged victim into dropping the case.

Oxford Crown Court heard the defendant had previously told police she had “diplomatic immunity” and could not be arrested due to her work as a judge in Uganda and at the UN.

Jurors were told the Metropolitan Police’s diplomatic team was contacted and confirmed Mugambe had no registered diplomatic immunity in the UK.

According to her UN profile page, Ms Mugambe was appointed to the body’s judicial roster in May 2023 – three months after police were called to her address in Oxfordshire.

Opening the case on Monday, Caroline Haughey KC said Ms Mugambe “took advantage of her status over [her alleged victim] in a most egregious way”.

“Ms Mugambe used her knowledge, and her power, to deceive [her alleged victim] into coming to the UK, taking advantage of her naivety to induce and deceive her into working for her for nothing.

She added that the judge, who had been studying for a PhD in law, had “created a situation where [her alleged victim] was deprived of the opportunity to support herself”.

The trial, expected to last three weeks, continues.

UK Special Forces command rejected resettlement applications from more than 2,000 Afghan commandos who had shown credible evidence of service in units that fought alongside the SAS and SBS, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed for the first time.

UK Special Forces officers appear to have rejected every application from a former Afghan commando referred to them for sponsorship, despite the Afghan units having fought with the British on life-threatening missions against the Taliban.

The MoD had previously denied there was a blanket policy to reject members of the units – known as the Triples – but the BBC has not been able to find any evidence that UK Special Forces (UKSF) supported any resettlement applications.

Asked if UKSF had supported any applications, the MoD declined to answer the question.

The Triples – so-called because their designations were CF 333 and ATF 444 – were set up, trained, and paid by UK Special Forces and supported the SAS and SBS on operations in Afghanistan. When the country fell to the Taliban in 2021, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the UK.

The rejection of their applications was controversial because it came at a time when a public inquiry in the UK was investigating allegations that British Special Forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan where the Triples were present.

The inquiry has the power to compel witnesses who are in the UK, but not non-UK nationals who are overseas. If resettled, former members of the Triples could be compelled by the inquiry to provide potentially significant evidence.

BBC Panorama revealed last year that UK Special Forces command had been given veto power over their resettlement applications and denied them asylum in Britain. The revelation caused a wave of anger among some former members of the SAS and others who served with the Afghan units.

The MoD initially denied the existence of the veto, suggesting that the BBC’s reporting had been inaccurate, but then-Defence Minister Andrew Murrison was later forced to tell the House of Commons the government had misled parliament in its denials.

The confirmation of the more than 2,000 rejections emerged in court hearings earlier this month during a legal challenge brought by a former member of the Triples. Lawyers for the MoD applied for a restriction order which temporarily prevented the BBC from reporting on the relevant parts of the proceedings, before withdrawing their application last week under challenge.

Documents disclosed in court also showed that at the same time the MoD was denying the existence of the veto, it already knew that every rejection decision made by UK Special Forces was potentially unsound and would have to be independently reviewed.

• Special forces blocked resettlement for elite Afghan troops
• Minister says Afghan commandos described ‘horrific’ SAS crimes
• SAS unit repeatedly killed Afghan detainees, BBC finds

Mike Martin MP, a member of the defence select committee and former British Army officer who served in Afghanistan, told the BBC the rejections were “extremely concerning”.

“There is the appearance that UK Special Forces blocked the Afghan special forces applications because they were witnesses to the alleged UK war crimes currently being investigated in the Afghan inquiry,” Martin said.

“If the MoD is unable to offer any explanation, then the matter should be included in the inquiry,” he added.

Johnny Mercer, the former Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View, who served alongside the SBS in Afghanistan, testified to the Afghan inquiry that he had spoken to former members of the Triples and heard “horrific” allegations of murder by UK Special Forces.

Mercer said it was “very clear to me that there is a pool of evidence that exists within the Afghan [special forces] community that are now in the United Kingdom that should contribute to this Inquiry”.

The MoD began a review last year of all 2,022 resettlement applications referred to and rejected by UK Special Forces. All contained what MoD caseworkers on the resettlement scheme regarded as “credible” evidence of service with the Triples units.

The government said at the time that the review would take 12 weeks, but more than a year later it has yet to be completed. Some rejections have already been overturned, allowing former Triples to come to the UK. But the MoD has refused to inform the Afghan commandos whether they are in scope of the review or if their rejections were upheld, unless they write to the MoD.

Many are in hiding in Afghanistan, making it difficult to obtain legal representation or pro-actively contact the MoD. Dozens have reportedly been beaten, tortured, or killed by the Taliban since the group regained control of the country.

“Although decisions have been overturned, it’s too late for some people,” said a former Triples officer. “The delays have caused a lot of problems. People have been captured by the Taliban or lost their lives,” he said.

The officer said that the Afghan commandos worked alongside British Special Forces “like brothers” and felt “betrayed” by the widespread rejections.

“If Special Forces made these rejections they should say why. They should have to answer,” he said.

The MoD is now facing a legal challenge to aspects of the review, including the decision not to inform applicants whether their case is being reviewed or disclose the criteria used to select those in scope.

The legal challenge is being brought by a former senior member of the Triples who is now in the UK, on behalf of commandos still in Afghanistan.

“Our client’s focus is on his soldiers left behind in Afghanistan, some of whom have been killed while they wait for these heavily delayed protection decisions,” said Dan Carey, a partner at the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn.

“As things stand they have a right to request a reassessment of a decision they haven’t even been told about. And there are others who think they are part of the Triples Review when the secret criteria would tell them that their cases aren’t even being looked at.”

Lawyers acting for the former member of the Triples also heavily criticised the level of disclosure in the case by the MoD, which has not handed over any documentation from within UK Special Forces or government records about the decision-making process that led to the rejections.

In court filings, they criticised the “total inadequacy” of the MoD’s disclosure, calling it an “an obvious failure to comply with the duty of candour and to provide necessary explanation” of the process.

New evidence that emerged last week in court also showed that the MoD appeared to have rejected out of hand some applicants who served with UK Special Forces in Afghanistan after 2014 – when Britain’s conventional armed forces left Helmand province – without even referring them to UK Special Forces headquarters for sponsorship.

The MoD has not explained the reasoning behind the policy, which was kept secret from applicants. A spokesperson for the MoD said that after 2014 the UK’s role “evolved from combat operations to primarily training, advising and assisting CF 333, who were under the command of the Afghan Ministry of Interior”.

But officers who served with UK Special Forces told the BBC that the Triples continued to support British-led operations after 2014.

“Saying the Triples didn’t support UK Special Forces operations after 2014 isn’t true at all,” said former officer who served with UKSF.

“We had a squadron of CF 333 with us. We worked closely together. These were NATO targets, UK planned operations,” he said.

The Ministry of Defence has previously told the BBC: “There has been no evidence to suggest that any part of the MoD has sought to prevent former members of the Afghan specialist units from giving evidence to the inquiry.”

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• How to use SecureDrop

Signal: 0044 7714 956 936

Please note that the SecureDrop link will only work in a Tor browser. For information on keeping secure and anonymous, here’s some advice on how to use SecureDrop.