Europe’s security is “at a turning point”, the president of the European Commission has said, as leaders from major European powers prepared to meet in Paris for emergency talks on their role in an eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.

After last week’s shock move by the US to sideline Kyiv and its European backers from peace negotiations, Ursula von der Leyen said the issue was “about Ukraine – but also about us. We need an urgency mindset. We need a surge in defence. And we need both of them now.”

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, echoed her sentiments, telling reporters before heading to the French capital: “This isn’t just about the frontline in Ukraine. It’s the frontline of Europe and of the UK. It’s about our national security.”

Starmer added: “We need to step up in terms of our collective response in Europe. And by that, I mean capability, by that I mean playing our full part when it comes to the defence of the sovereignty of Ukraine if there’s a peace agreement.”

Amid growing realisation of the need for decisive action in the face of Washington’s decision to enter bilateral discussions with Moscow on ending the war, Starmer on Sunday affirmed the UK was ready to put troops on the ground.

Sweden followed suit on Monday, when the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said there was “absolutely a possibility” of it contributing to postwar peacekeeping forces in Ukraine, although negotiations would have to progress before that could be done.

Germany, however, said it was still “premature” to discuss committing troops and Poland reiterated that it was not planning to send any of its forces to Ukraine to help ensure postwar security, but instead would provide financial and military aid.

“We have repeatedly stated that, first of all, we have to wait and see whether and how peace will hopefully emerge for Ukraine,” the deputy spokesperson of the German government, Christiane Hoffmann, told reporters in Berlin. “Then we will be able to talk about the conditions and how this can be implemented.”

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said the matter was settled and his country was “not planning to send Polish troops to Ukrainian territory”.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, called the emergency mini-summit, due to start at 4pm local time, after Donald Trump stunned Ukraine and its European allies last week by announcing he had called the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to discuss bringing an end to the war.

Macron had a phone call with Trump ahead of European emergency meeting on Ukraine in Paris, but Macron’s office would not disclose details about the discussion.

The leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council and the Nato secretary general are expected to attend.

Talks between US officials including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and a Russian team including the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin adviser and former ambassador to Washington, are due to start in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

The US president’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said on Saturday that Europe would not have a seat at the table for any peace talks, but Washington has asked European capitals what they would consider contributing to security guarantees for Kyiv.

Washington has warned its Nato defence alliance partners that Europe will no longer be its top security priority and US defence chief, Pete Hegseth, has also appeared to rule out Ukraine joining Nato or retaking all of the territory it has lost since 2014.

A French presidency official said the Paris talks would look at “the security guarantees that can be given by the Europeans and the Americans, together or separately,” with peacekeepers being just one element of the security guarantees.

“Because of the acceleration of the Ukrainian issue, and as a result of what US leaders are saying, there is a need for Europeans to do more, better and in a coherent way, for our collective security,” an adviser in Macron’s office said.

The meeting follows many similar summits that have so far shown the 27-nation EU incapable of coming up with a coherent plan for the end of the war. Besides the UK, only France had previously signalled a willingness to send troops at some stage.

Underlining the difficulty Europe could have in summoning a united response, some member states, including Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Romania, said they were unhappy that the Paris meeting was not a full EU summit.

“On a symbolic level, the organisers of the Paris summit show to the world that even within the EU, not all states are treated equally,” Slovenia’s pro-European president, Nataša Pirc Musar, said in a statement.

Hungary’s Moscow-friendly government – one of Trump’s main EU supporters – said it was a meeting of “pro-war, anti-Trump, frustrated European leaders” aimed at “preventing a peace agreement in Ukraine”.

Its foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said that “unlike them”, Hungary “supports Donald Trump’s ambitions; unlike them, we support the US-Russian negotiations; unlike them, we want peace in Ukraine”.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine would not recognise any peace agreements made without its participation, as top Russian and US officials prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia for high-stakes talks on the war in Ukraine.

“Ukraine regards any negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine as ones that have no result, and we cannot recognise any agreements about us without us,” Zelenskyy said on Monday. His comments came as Russian and American officials travelled to Riyadh ahead of Tuesday’s talks aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly three-year war in Ukraine, with Kyiv and Europe excluded from the negotiations.

Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine will not take part in the talks. “Ukraine did not know anything about it,” he said.

The swift push to organise the US-Russia talks came after last week’s call between Trump and Vladimir Putin, where the two leaders discussed launching negotiations on the war. The meeting in Riyadh will mark the first in-person discussions between top officials from both countries in years, after a sharp downturn in relations after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Both sides are dispatching high-level delegations, underscoring the importance they place on the talks, which could lay the groundwork for a Trump-Putin summit as early as this month.

The US delegation will feature some of Trump’s most senior aides, including secretary of state Marco Rubio, who arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, as well as Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and White House national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Meanwhile, Moscow announced that Putin had tasked his most senior foreign policy envoy, Yuri Ushakov, along with longtime foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, to travel to Saudi Arabia.

The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the meeting “will be devoted to the preparation of possible negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement and the organisation of a meeting between the two presidents.”

In comments cited by TASS on Monday morning, Lavrov said that Russia had no intention of making territorial concessions to Ukraine during the peace talks.

In September 2022, Russia declared the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, including areas that remain outside its control.

Lavrov added that Moscow would hear out “its US colleagues,” but that Europe “has no place at the negotiating table.”

Zelenskyy said in a video briefing from the United Arab Emirates on Monday, where he was on a state visit, that he would travel to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, though he stressed his visit was not linked to the Russian-US peace talks.

“So, once again, my visits have nothing in common with those talks. Although when I arrive in Saudi Arabia I will ask his majesty what he knows about the topics of the talks,” Zelenskyy added.

He also announced on Monday that Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, will visit Kyiv on Thursday. Zelenskyy said he wanted to take Kellogg on a joint trip to the frontline, where they would meet Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, and the heads of several brigades.

“We are waiting for Kellogg. We had an agreement that he would come to us on the 20th. He will be there for two days and maybe more. I want to go to the front with him and he will go to the front with me. I think he will not refuse,” Zelenskyy said.

He stressed that Europe had to be at the table for negotiations, and should be represented by a person respected in Europe. He did not rule out China’s participation but said that only those who give security guarantees stopping Russian aggression should be involved.

On Sunday, Trump stated that Zelenskyy would take part in the discussions but did not specify at what stage or whether Ukrainian officials would be present in Riyadh.

Also present in Riyadh for Russia will be Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a US-sanctioned financier – reportedly a close friend of Putin’s daughter – who is expected to serve as an “unofficial back-channel” liaison with Trump’s team.

“A heavyweight Russia delegation is departing for Riyadh. All are loyal and trusted insiders,” the liberal commentator Alexei Venediktov wrote on his telegram channel.

Riyadh has played a central role in early contacts between the Trump administration and Moscow, helping to secure a prisoner swap last week.

Peskov said that the location was chosen because it suited both countries.

The blistering speed of talks has added to further anxieties in Europe, which has been left out of the talks.

During the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Kellogg told European officials that while Europe would be consulted it would ultimately be excluded from the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the US.

Responding to the fast-moving negotiations taking place without them, French president Emmanuel Macron convened an emergency meeting in Paris with European leaders.

“We feel like we’re constantly left in the dark,” a senior European official told the Guardian, commenting on this week’s talks.

“At the moment, we’re running behind the news. Our goal now is to show what we can bring to the table,” the official added.

Despite the flurry of diplomacy, little is known about Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine or Russia’s willingness to engage.

The US has repeatedly said that it wants European peacekeeping troops to enter Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire or peace deal – an idea under discussion among European leaders.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, on Sunday said he is prepared to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if there is a deal to end the war with Russia.

While Russia has repeatedly rejected the possibility of European forces in Ukraine, Moscow appeared to tone down its rhetoric on Monday, with the Kremlin spokesperson Peskov calling it a “complex issue.”

Keir Starmer has not ruled out holding a parliamentary vote on committing UK troops to a peacekeeping role in Ukraine after a ceasefire, after calls from some within Labour and the Lib Dems.

On Monday, Downing Street hinted that a US-backed guarantee would be needed in order for the UK to send ground troops, saying it was an “essential” part of any ceasefire deal with Russia.

Starmer confirmed for the first time on Sunday night he was prepared to put British troops “in harm’s way” in order to protect a peace deal in Ukraine that ended the war launched by Russia.

The prime minister is joining emergency talks with European leaders in Paris on Monday, where leaders aim to devise a strategy in response to Donald Trump’s push for a deal with the Russian president and his warnings that the US will reduce its defence commitments in Europe.

On Monday the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said his party backed the UK sending troops to protect a ceasefire deal – but said the party’s position was that parliament must be consulted.

“The PM is absolutely right when it comes to the deployment of British troops in Ukraine to uphold any peace deal and deter Putin,” Davey said.

“We’ve been very clear that the UK now needs to lead in Europe. That means ensuring that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy isn’t bullied into accepting a deal which effectively hands victory to Russia.”

A Lib Dem spokesperson said that the party would back the deployment, but parliament “should have the opportunity to have its say.”

The Labour MP Diane Abbott said she was concerned about the proposal to use British troops to keep the peace. She posted on X: “If it is a durable, lasting peace then there will be no need for British troops on ground. If not, and it could put this country at risk and troops in harm’s way – then parliament should vote on it first.”

The Conservatives have no plans to push for any Commons vote on troop deployment. The party’s leader, Kemi Badenoch, who was speaking at a conference on Monday morning about threats to western civilisation, did not mention Ukraine in her address.

No 10 did not explicitly commit to allowing parliament to vote on any potential deployment, saying it was too early in the process. During Starmer’s time in opposition he called for a law that military action needed consent from the Commons.

Starmer’s spokesperson said there was no change to that position but said committing to a vote would be “getting ahead of ourselves”. He said: “There has more broadly been cross-party support for the UK’s backing of Ukraine since the conflict first began and we’ve always been very clear that we are going to play our role in future security guarantees but we’re not going to get ahead of decisions on that and obviously parliament will continue to be updated and consulted as appropriate.”

Number 10 also confirmed on Monday that Starmer would meet Trump in Washington next week, saying he would seek to “deepen the special relationship across trade and investment, security”.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is leading a delegation to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian officials on the outline of a ceasefire agreement. Ukraine has not been invited to the talks and Zelenskyy said Kyiv would not accept the outcome if it was not involved.

Speaking before the Paris summit, Starmer said the UK was facing “a generational challenge when it comes to national security”.

He said it was important to have “realistic and credible answers” for how to make any peace agreement last. “I think that we need to do more. We need to step up in terms of our collective response in Europe, and by that I mean capability. By that, I mean playing our full part when it comes to the defence of the sovereignty of Ukraine if there’s a peace agreement, and, of course, when it comes to funding and training.

“So, on all those fronts, I want the UK and all European allies to step up, and for the UK to play a leading part in that.”

Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that he is “committed” to Donald Trump’s plan to take over and develop the Gaza Strip, amid uncertainty over whether Israel will send a delegation to Qatar to discuss the second stage of the fragile ceasefire in the war with Hamas.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said: “Just as I have committed to, on the day after the war in Gaza, there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. I am committed to US president Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”

The remarks come after a report by Sky News Arabia on Sunday night that Hamas was prepared to hand over control of Gaza to its West Bank-based rival, the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA), following pressure from mediator Egypt.

The broadcaster said, citing Egyptian sources, that the Palestinian militant group had agreed to the establishment of a temporary committee to oversee the reconstruction of the territory, which has been levelled by Israeli airstrikes over 16 months of war.

Netanyahu’s comments will weigh heavily over the future of the month-old truce after it almost collapsed last week following Trump’s surprise announcement that the US would “take over” Gaza and “relocate” its 2.3m population to countries such as Egypt and Jordan. International humanitarian law experts say the proposal amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s security cabinet is supposed to decide on Monday evening whether to send a delegation to the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss the difficult second stage of the ceasefire agreement. The second phase is scheduled to begin in early March, and would involve the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, effectively ending the war. The third phase is supposed to address the exchange of bodies, a reconstruction plan for Gaza, and future governance.

According to Israeli media, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party, which was opposed to the ceasefire, is still threatening to collapse Netanyahu’s coalition if Israel does not return to fighting when the first stage of the ceasefire expires.

While Israeli public opinion is unlikely to sway government decision making on the war, protests were held across the country on Monday to mark 500 days since Israeli hostages were kidnapped and taken to Gaza in the Hamas attack of October 2023 that triggered the conflict. In Jerusalem, dozens of demonstrators marched to Netanyahu’s residence, chanting slogans and carrying banners that read “Home Now”, before meeting lawmakers at the Knesset.

Captives have been released in batches of three or four in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees on a weekly basis since 19 January, but about 45 more Israelis and foreign nationals are not eligible for release until the second stage of the agreement.

It is widely believed at home and abroad that Netanyahu, afraid that losing office will leave him more vulnerable to corruption charges, has prioritised the survival of his government over a hostage deal.

Netanyahu has publicly embraced Trump’s plan for the US to take ownership of Gaza and redevelop the coastal strip as a resort, telling reporters on Sunday during a visit to Israel by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that the government was “working closely” alongside Washington to implement the Trump proposal.

The US president’s vision for Gaza has been flatly rejected by the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, which is now scrambling to come up with alternatives.

Saudi Arabia is hosting a summit for delegations from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, and the Arab League will convene to discuss the reconstruction of Gaza and governance options on 27 February.

Reuters reported on Monday that the EU is planning to tell Israel next week that Palestinians uprooted from their Gaza homes should be ensured a dignified return and that Europe will contribute to rebuilding the shattered territory.

Pope Francis will remain in hospital for as long as required after tests undertaken in recent days showed a “complex clinical picture”, the Vatican has said.

The pontiff, 88, was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on Friday with worsening bronchitis and was diagnosed and treated for a respiratory tract infection.

“The results of the tests carried out in recent days and today have demonstrated a polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract, which has led to a further modification of the therapy,” the Vatican said in a statement.

A polymicrobial infection is one caused by two or more micro-organisms, and can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi.

“All tests conducted up to today are indicative of a complex clinical picture that will require an appropriate hospital stay,” the statement said.

The pope’s general audience on Wednesday has been cancelled. A further update is expected later on Monday.

Francis maintained his nightly routine since 9 October 2023 of telephone calls to the Holy Family church in Gaza on his first two days in hospital.

“He called us on Friday and Saturday, he was in a good mood,” a manager for the church told the TgCom24 news channel. “His voice was a little tired, but he wanted to know how we were. On Sunday, however, he was resting and we knew that he wouldn’t call.”

The pope held several meetings on Friday morning before being taken to hospital, including with Mark Thompson, the chief executive of CNN News, which later reported that Francis was “mentally alert but struggling to speak for extended periods due to breathing difficulties”.

The pope, who has suffered ill-health in recent years, was also admitted to hospital in March 2023 with acute bronchitis. After being discharged, he said: “I am still alive.” He was readmitted to the Gemelli for health checks in June that year and again in February 2024 after suffering from what he said was “a bit of a cold”.

Francis had part of his lung removed in his early 20s while training to be a priest in his native Argentina. He also underwent a colon operation in June 2021.

He has often been seen in a wheelchair or with a walking stick as a result of a sciatic nerve pain and a knee problem. He hit his chin on his nightstand, reportedly after a fall, in early December and he injured his right forearm after falling at his Casa Santa Marta residence in January. He also stumbled after his walking stick snapped while entering the Vatican’s auditorium on 1 February.

A woman treated with a pioneering type of immunotherapy for a solid tumour has been in remission for more than 18 years with no further treatments, experts have revealed.

The therapy involves taking T-cells, a type of white blood cell, from a patient and genetically engineering them to target and kill cancer cells. These modified T-cells are grown in a laboratory and then infused back into the patient.

Known as CAR (chimeric antigen receptor) T-cell therapy, the approach has proved particularly successful in treating certain types of blood cancers. Next-generation forms of the therapy have been approved for such cancers in countries including the US and UK.

However, response rates have been less encouraging in solid tumours, with long-term outcomes unclear.

Now researchers have reported the longest known survival after CAR T-cell therapy for an active cancer, revealing a woman who was treated as a child 18 years ago has remained cancer free. Crucially, the therapy was given for a type of solid tumour called neuroblastoma, a rare cancer of the nerve tissue that develops in children.

Prof Helen Heslop, co-author of the research from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, says the trial was one of the earliest to use CAR T-cell therapy for cancer.

“It’s nice to have such long-term follow-up and to see that even if it was a very early CAR T-cell – and there’s been a lot of work to make them better – we were still able to see a clinical remission that’s been sustained for this long, so that she’s grown up and is leading a normal life,” Heslop says.

Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, Heslop and colleagues report how they recruited 19 children to take part in a phase 1 clinical trial of CAR T-cell therapy for neuroblastoma between 2004 and 2009.

Over seven years that followed the therapy, 12 patients died due to relapsed neuroblastoma. Among the seven that survived beyond this point, five were cancer-free when given the CAR T-cell therapy but had previously been treated for neuroblastoma using other approaches and were at high risk of relapse. All five were disease-free at their last follow-up, between 10 and 15 years after the CAR T-cell therapy, although the team note they may already have been cured when the therapy was administered.

The other two surviving patients had cancer that was actively growing or spreading when they received CAR T-cell therapy, but subsequently went into complete remission. One of these patients stopped participating in follow-up sessions eight years after treatment, but the other continued and has remained cancer-free more than 18 years.

“She has never required any other therapy and is likely the longest-surviving patient with cancer who received CAR-T therapy,” the team write. “Encouragingly, she has subsequently had two full-term pregnancies with normal infants.”

The team add the modified T-cells were still detectable in some patients after more than five years. Heslop says that, while it is not known for sure, it could be that CAR T-cells that persist are able to tackle the cancer should it return.

Heslop adds that newer forms of CAR T-cell therapy have shown a greater response in recent trials for neuroblastoma, and may also help tackle some types of brain tumour in children.

Karin Straathof, the associate professor in tumour immunology at UCL’s Cancer Institute, who was not involved in the new study, says the results are beyond encouraging.

“This is really a solid demonstration that in solid cancers you can achieve complete responses, but also what we want really – and particularly for children’s cancers – long-lasting complete responses,” she says.

But Straathof says further work is needed, adding: “What we now are trying to focus on is understanding why does it work in some patients and why [it] doesn’t work in others, and what we can learn from that to make better designs of these chimeric antigen receptors.”

Five suspected Islamist terrorists accused of kidnapping and torturing four French journalists covering the war in Syria have gone on trial in Paris.

The men include the French jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, who is serving life imprisonment for an attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 in which four people died.

The five are charged with being part of an Islamic State group that held the journalists, as well as dozens of others including humanitarian workers, between 2013 and 2014.

On Monday, as he appeared in court to give his name, Nemmouche denied having been the journalists’ captor. “I was never the jailer of the western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” he told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.

All four journalists have told investigators they are sure Nemmouche was their jailer.

During what is seen as a historic trial in Europe, the court will hear details of the psychological and physical torture allegedly inflicted on the journalists, as well as the wider general treatment of hostages by the IS group in Syria, where 27 western reporters and humanitarian workers were kidnapped between 2012 and 2014.

Eight were killed – three Americans, two Britons, two Japanese and a Russian – while three others, including two women, remain missing, presumed dead.

The foreign correspondent Didier François and the photographer Édouard Elias were working for the French radio station Europe 1 when they were kidnapped near Aleppo on 6 June 2013, shortly after crossing into Syria from Turkey.

Two weeks later Nicolas Hénin, a reporter with Le Point magazine, and the photographer Pierre Torres were taken hostage by armed and masked men in the city of Raqqa. All four were released in April 2014 after 10 months in captivity.

The trial that opened in Paris on Monday comes after French investigators carried out a 10-year inquiry stretching across more than a dozen countries.

In the dock alongside Nemmouche are Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, a French national accused of being another IS jailer, and a Syrian man, Kais Al Abdallah, 41, who is accused of having helped the terror group to kidnap the journalists. Both have denied the charges. Another two are being tried in absentia.

The prosecutor’s office accuses the five of running a “hostage factory” and “torture training centres” in which those being held were subject to psychological and physical punishment.

On his release François recounted how Nemmouche had crushed his fingers and pulled out his nails. Hénin said the jihadi had made him kneel in front of a wall and prepare to be decapitated.

Hénin said the IS cell treated Syrian captives even worse than the westerners. “The Syrian prisoners were terrified of being tortured by the jihadists who would scream at them in French,” he said, adding that local prisoners were often suspended on hooks and had their throats cut.

“We asked ourselves if we would be next, they said we would end up having our heads cut off,” Hénin added.

The former hostages told investigators they had recognised Nemmouche as one of their jailers, who had called himself Abu Omar, when he was arrested after the bombing in Belgium and his photograph circulated in the press.

They told police Nemmouche was “talkative”, “perverse” and “committed to religious ethnic cleansing”.

A number of other convicted jihadis, including one in jail in the US, are expected to give evidence in the trial, which will continue for five weeks.

Five suspected Islamist terrorists accused of kidnapping and torturing four French journalists covering the war in Syria have gone on trial in Paris.

The men include the French jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, who is serving life imprisonment for an attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 in which four people died.

The five are charged with being part of an Islamic State group that held the journalists, as well as dozens of others including humanitarian workers, between 2013 and 2014.

On Monday, as he appeared in court to give his name, Nemmouche denied having been the journalists’ captor. “I was never the jailer of the western hostages or any other hostage, and I never met these people in Syria,” he told the Paris court, breaking his silence after not speaking throughout the Brussels trial or during the investigation.

All four journalists have told investigators they are sure Nemmouche was their jailer.

During what is seen as a historic trial in Europe, the court will hear details of the psychological and physical torture allegedly inflicted on the journalists, as well as the wider general treatment of hostages by the IS group in Syria, where 27 western reporters and humanitarian workers were kidnapped between 2012 and 2014.

Eight were killed – three Americans, two Britons, two Japanese and a Russian – while three others, including two women, remain missing, presumed dead.

The foreign correspondent Didier François and the photographer Édouard Elias were working for the French radio station Europe 1 when they were kidnapped near Aleppo on 6 June 2013, shortly after crossing into Syria from Turkey.

Two weeks later Nicolas Hénin, a reporter with Le Point magazine, and the photographer Pierre Torres were taken hostage by armed and masked men in the city of Raqqa. All four were released in April 2014 after 10 months in captivity.

The trial that opened in Paris on Monday comes after French investigators carried out a 10-year inquiry stretching across more than a dozen countries.

In the dock alongside Nemmouche are Abdelmalek Tanem, 35, a French national accused of being another IS jailer, and a Syrian man, Kais Al Abdallah, 41, who is accused of having helped the terror group to kidnap the journalists. Both have denied the charges. Another two are being tried in absentia.

The prosecutor’s office accuses the five of running a “hostage factory” and “torture training centres” in which those being held were subject to psychological and physical punishment.

On his release François recounted how Nemmouche had crushed his fingers and pulled out his nails. Hénin said the jihadi had made him kneel in front of a wall and prepare to be decapitated.

Hénin said the IS cell treated Syrian captives even worse than the westerners. “The Syrian prisoners were terrified of being tortured by the jihadists who would scream at them in French,” he said, adding that local prisoners were often suspended on hooks and had their throats cut.

“We asked ourselves if we would be next, they said we would end up having our heads cut off,” Hénin added.

The former hostages told investigators they had recognised Nemmouche as one of their jailers, who had called himself Abu Omar, when he was arrested after the bombing in Belgium and his photograph circulated in the press.

They told police Nemmouche was “talkative”, “perverse” and “committed to religious ethnic cleansing”.

A number of other convicted jihadis, including one in jail in the US, are expected to give evidence in the trial, which will continue for five weeks.

Julianne Moore has said it is a “great shock” to learn that one of her books had been “banned by the Trump Administration” from schools serving the children of US military personnel and civilian defence employees.

The Boogie Nights and Mary & George star wrote that she was “truly saddened” by the news in an Instagram post on Sunday.

Last Monday, the Department of Defense circulated a memo stating that it is examining library books “potentially related to gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology topics”. After access to all library books was suspended for a week for a review, a “small number of items” were identified and have been kept for “further review”, it said.

Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry, a story about a girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to live with them, is among the books caught up in the blanket review, according to a list obtained by the Guardian. However, it is not known whether the title was selected for further review or for withdrawal.

“It is a book I wrote for my children and for other kids to remind them that we all struggle, but are united by our humanity and our community,” said Moore.

The review of library books is part of an examination of all “instructional resources”, according to the Defense Department, to check that its schools are aligned with Trump’s recent executive orders Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling and Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism.

Moore, who won an Oscar in 2015 for Still Alice, said that she is “particularly stunned” by the news because she is a “proud graduate” of the now-closed Frankfurt American high school, operated by the Defense Department, adding that her father is a Vietnam veteran and spent his career in the US army.

“I could not be prouder of him and his service to our country. It is galling for me to realise that kids like me, growing up with a parent in the service and attending a [Defense Department] school, will not have access to a book written by someone whose life experience is so similar to their own. And I can’t help but wonder what is so controversial about this picture book that has caused it to be banned by the US government.”

Other books that are part of the “compliance review” include No Truth Without Ruth by Kathleen Krull, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to sit on the US supreme court. Books removed from library shelves have been relocated to “the professional collection for evaluation with access limited to professional staff”.

“I am truly saddened and never thought I would see this in a country where freedom of speech and expression is a constitutional right,” added Moore.

More of the Murdoch family’s betrayals, leaks, “mind games”, manipulations, machinations and humiliations have been laid bare, in the wake of a messy court trial that offered tantalising glimpses inside the dynasty.

The American journalist McKay Coppins this weekend published a rare and wide-ranging interview with James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s second-oldest son, who is often portrayed as a bitter rival to his older brother, Lachlan.

What Coppins did not know when he and James began speaking in early 2024, he writes, was that “the Murdochs were in the midst of a private meltdown” – the nasty court battle over the future of media behemoth News Corp, kicked off by the somewhat misleadingly titled “Project Family Harmony”.

The plan saw Rupert inform James, and his sisters, Prudence and Elisabeth, that he was anointing Lachlan as heir. On Rupert’s death, instead of the evenly split family trust previously planned, power would go solely to his older son.

He lost his effort to hand the reins to Lachlan in December last year.

Detailing the many power struggles within the family, Coppins writes that one former News Corp employee claimed Lachlan had referred to the media side of the business as “ShitCo” (a claim a spokesperson for Lachlan denied to Coppins) – a possible echo of RoyCo, the fictional company created by patriarch Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession, commonly regarded as having been inspired by the Murdochs.

When discussing why the battle for succession saw Rupert pit James and Lachlan against each other, leaving Prudence and Elisabeth on the sidelines, the Atlantic piece quotes James calling his father a “misogynist”.

For years, as power and control waxed and waned between the male Murdochs over various parts of the organisation, there had been reports of James’ unease with News Corp’s reporting of the climate crisis and Fox News’s apparent embrace of rightwing conspiracy theories. Coppins’ interview details all of it, including James’ discomfort with the company’s support of Brexit and of Donald Trump, and prevarications on Charlottesville.

It was Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires that prompted a rare public sign of the split. In a statement, James and his wife, Kathryn Hufschmid, shared their frustration with News Corp and Fox’s coverage.

“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary,” their spokesperson said in a statement at the time.

Later in 2020, James resigned from the News Corp board.

Coppins’ interview traces the relationship between James and his father as it disintegrated.

By the time of the court battle, “James and Rupert had barely spoken in years,” the piece says, then detailing a handwritten note from Rupert delivered along with legal documents:

Dear James, still time to talk? Love, Dad. P.S.: Love to see my grandchildren one day.

“James, who could not remember the last time Rupert had taken an interest in his grandchildren, didn’t bother to reply,” Coppins notes.

Coppins also describes a series of “withering questions” put to James by Rupert’s lawyer in court.

“Have you ever done anything successful on your own?” the lawyer asked James, according to the Atlantic, also referring to him and his sisters as “white, privileged, multibillionaire trust-fund babies”.

James, Coppins writes, realised Rupert, who was seated silently, was texting the questions to the lawyer.

“How fucking twisted is that?” he asks Coppins.

At Thanksgiving 2024, after the trial had finished, James and his sisters wrote a letter to their father saying they missed and loved him.

“Put an end to this destructive judicial path so that we can have a chance to heal as a collaborative and loving family,” they pleaded, according to the Atlantic.

Rupert, the piece goes on, said they should contact his lawyers if they wanted to talk to him.

A spokesperson for Rupert and Lachlan described James’ claims in the interview as a “litany of falsehoods … from someone who no longer works for the companies but still benefits from them financially”.

Last week, New York Times Magazine reporters scoured through 3,000 pages of evidence from the trial, and reported that the trust will expire in 2030. At that point, or when Rupert dies, the siblings have to work out what to do next.

Coppins writes that James is now struggling with the question: “How did we let it come to this?”

“His 93-year-old father will, despite his most fervent wishes, die one day,” he writes.

“And when he does, he will leave behind a family at war with itself.”

M23 rebels have captured and occupied Bukavu, the second-largest city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese government has confirmed, days after the Rwanda-backed militia launched an attack.

In a statement posted on X, the DRC communications ministry said it was monitoring the situation “marked by the entry of the Rwandan army and its auxiliaries” and it was “doing everything possible to restore order, security and territorial integrity”.

On Friday, M23 fighters entered Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, after advancing south following the group’s capture of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, last month. The militia faced little resistance in its latest march.

One Bukavu resident, Blaise Byamungu, said the had been “abandoned by all the authorities and [taken] without any loyalist force”.

“Is the government waiting for them to take over other towns to take action? It’s cowardice,” he said.

The rebels marched to the governor’s office over the weekend. Bernard Byamungu, a leader of the group, stood in front of the office and promised to change the status quo. “We are going to clean up the disorder left over from the old regime,” Byamungu said to a small cheering crowd, telling them they had been living in a “jungle”.

M23 is one of more than 100 armed groups fighting Congolese forces in the mineral-rich eastern DRC. It says its objective is to safeguard the interests of the Congolese Tutsi and other minorities, including protecting them against Hutu rebel groups who escaped to the DRC after taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that targeted Tutsis.

The DRC, the US and other countries have all accused Rwanda of backing M23, which the Rwandan government denies. UN experts say Rwanda’s army is in “de facto control” of the group.

The Burundian army had been supporting the Congolese army to protect Bukavu. M23’s capture of the city marks an unprecedented expansion of territory by the militia since it resurfaced in 2022. It also further risks escalating the conflict into a regional war.

Almost 3,000 people were killed and a similar number injured in the fight for Goma.

Fighting this year has worsened the humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC. It has destroyed 70,000 emergency shelters around Goma and Minova, leaving about 350,000 internally displaced people without protection, according to the UN.

On Saturday, the Congo River Alliance, a coalition of militias including M23, said it was committed to “defending” the people of Bukavu. “We call on the population to remain in control of their city and not give in to panic,” the rebels’ spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said.

The DRC government urged calm.

“It calls on the population of Bukavu to stay at home and not expose themselves to avoid being targeted by the occupying forces,” the communications ministry said on X.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A New Zealand tourism campaign targeting Australian visitors has been ridiculed for sounding like a clearance sale slogan and for being tone-deaf amid widespread public service job cuts and record numbers of New Zealanders moving overseas.

The government launched its “Everyone must go!” campaign on Sunday, in a bid to encourage Australian holiday-makers to visit New Zealand. The NZD$500,000 campaign will run on radios and social media in Australia between February and March.

“What this Tourism New Zealand campaign says to our Aussie mates is that we’re open for business, there are some great deals on, and we’d love to see you soon,” said Louise Upston, the tourism minister.

But the tagline – set against photographs of people sightseeing – quickly became the subject of derision inside New Zealand, with opposition politicians and social media users likening it to a clearance sale advertisement, a marketing campaign for the apocalypse, or a desperate plea for access to the lavatory.

The Green Party’s tourism spokesperson, Celia Wade-Brown, told national broadcaster RNZ the tagline “might refer to the need for toilets in some of our high-tourist spots. I mean, the queues are ridiculous”.

Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for the minister told the Guardian that Upston was “very pleased” with the campaign and said it had attracted positive feedback from tourism operators and a marketing expert.

The tourism campaign is the latest in the government’s attempt to attract tourists, digital nomads and overseas investors to New Zealand to boost the economy. Prior to the pandemic, tourism was New Zealand’s largest export industry and delivered $40.9bn to the country. The most recent figures show those numbers are creeping back up, with tourism bringing in $37.7bn in 2023.

Australia is New Zealand’s largest tourism market, making up roughly 44% of international visitors a year. Visitor numbers are sitting at roughly 88% of pre-pandemic rates.

“The number of Australian arrivals in New Zealand increased by more than 90,000, up from 1.27 million to 1.36 million over the past year, but we know there’s more room to grow,” Upston said in a release.

New Zealand’s overseas tourism campaigns have a long history of attracting both praise and criticism. The award-winning 100% Pure New Zealand promotion – now one of the world’s longest-running tourism campaigns – is lauded for its catchiness but often scrutinised against New Zealand’s inconsistent environmental credentials.

Labour’s tourism spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel told RNZ while she broadly supported growing tourism, the latest tourism tagline was tone-deaf at a time when the coalition government is disestablishing thousands of roles across the public sector in a major cost-cutting drive.

“The irony of that messaging is: that’s how Aotearoa New Zealanders are feeling right now – there have been so many cuts,” Tangaere-Manuel said.

Some critics said the tagline was tactless for sounding like a directive to New Zealanders to leave the country amid record high departure rates.

“If I was in a [government] seeing record emigration I simply would not pick “everyone must go” as a slogan,” said one social media user.

Others took the opportunity to turn the campaign back on the government.

“The upside of the gormless “everyone must go” slogan is that by rights it should be easy to invert for election posters and protest signs …. Done. Dusted. And their own fault,” wrote a BlueSky user.