Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Donald Trump is “trapped” in a Russian “disinformation bubble”, escalating tensions between Kyiv and Washington after the US president suggested Ukraine was to blame for Moscow’s invasion of the country.

“Unfortunately, President Trump, with all due respect for him as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly … is trapped in this disinformation bubble,” Zelenskyy said in a combative press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.

In a series of inflammatory remarks on Tuesday evening, Trump had criticised Zelenskyy, saying he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks in Saudi Arabia between the US and Russia over ending the Ukraine war.

While Zelenskyy said he would like Trump’s team to be “more truthful”, Vladimir Putin, on the same day, stated that the US president had begun receiving “objective information” about the war in Ukraine, which led him to “change his position.”

Putin also said that he “highly rated” the results of the meeting between Russian and US officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss improving economic and political cooperation, signalling a fundamental shift in Washington’s approach to Moscow.

“Kyiv’s hysteria over not being at the negotiating table between Russia and the US is inappropriate,” Putin told a Russian reporter in Moscow.

“Russia and the US are cooperating on economic issues, energy markets, space, and other areas,” Putin said, adding that he was happy to meet with Trump, but “preparation was necessary”.

Trump on Tuesday appeared to blame Zelenskyy for Moscow’s full-scale invasion and questioned his legitimacy, claiming the president of Ukraine had a 4% approval rating, and calling for a new election. The statements aligned closely with the Kremlin’s narratives on Ukraine.

“As we are talking about 4%, we have seen this disinformation, we understand it’s coming from Russia,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Trump’s speech.

Zelenskyy said that he “never comments on popularity ratings, especially my own or other leaders,” but added that the latest poll showed a majority of Ukrainians trust him. He added that any attempt to replace him during the war would fail.

While Zelenskyy’s popularity has declined in recent months, a February poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found that 57% of Ukrainians trusted him, up from 52% a month earlier.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the head of Ukraine’s digital affairs ministry, argued on Wednesday that Zelenskyy’s ratings were “4-5%” higher than Trump’s.

Ukrainian legislation bans elections during martial law, which has been in place since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022. Few Ukrainians support the idea of a poll, at a time when Russia’s invasion has forced millions to flee abroad, and when Ukrainian soldiers are fighting and dying on the frontline.

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, said Ukraine was not “giving up” on elections. “Inventing ‘democracy’ under shelling is not democracy, but a spectacle in which the main beneficiary is in the Kremlin. Ukraine needs bullets, not ballots,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

Zelenskyy also rejected Trump’s comments that most of Ukraine’s support comes from the US. Trump claimed that the US had provided Ukraine with around $350bn (£280bn) in aid and suggested, without evidence, that some of it had been misappropriated.

“The truth is somewhere else,” Zelenskyy said, adding that he remained “grateful for the support” and wants “the Trump team to have true facts”. He then said that the US supplied $67bn in weapons and $31.5bn in budget support.

Discussing a Trump-led initiative to corner his country’s critical minerals as a downpayment for continued military and economic aid, Zelenskyy said that he could not “sell Ukraine away”. But he said he was prepared to work “on a serious document” if it contained “security guarantees”.

“OK, let’s do a deal,” he said. “Let’s share [it], depending on the investment … but we need security guarantees.”

The US had proposed taking ownership of 50% of Ukraine’s critical minerals, but the proposal appeared to lack any security guarantees, such as the deployment of US troops in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy’s team has placed high importance on the need for guarantees from the US that would deter Russia from launching a new invasion once a peace deal is reached.

“I am protecting Ukraine. I can’t sell it away. I can’t sell our state,” Zelenskyy said.

On Wednesday, Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, arrived in Kyiv ofor talks with Ukrainian leaders. He is viewed as Trump’s most pro-Ukraine adviser, albeit one with declining influence. He said he was planning for a “good, substantial talk” with Zelenskyy.

“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellogg told journalists, saying that part of his mission would be “to sit and listen”.

Zelenskyy’s remarks also included a challenge to Kellogg to “go and talk to ordinary Ukrainians about their reception of Trump’s comments”.

Moscow offered praise for Trump on Wednesday.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, who was part of the delegation in Saudi Arabia, hailed Trump for criticising “pathetic” Zelenskyy and welcomed Trump’s claim that past US support for Ukraine’s Nato ambitions was a key factor in sparking the war.

“He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into Nato,” Lavrov said.

Russian officials also seized on Trump’s latest remarks that questioned Zelenskyy’s legitimacy as Ukraine’s president. Pyotr Tolstoy, a senior member of Russia’s State Duma, called Trump’s remarks “significant” and suggested they would be “of great interest to those who call themselves politicians in Kyiv”.

Russia will be counting on Trump’s remarks to sow discord among Kyiv’s political elites and society at large, potentially weakening Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian forces.

But Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine was “much stronger than at the beginning of the invasion” and more self-sufficient, producing “30% of everything we need”.

He said: “This guarantees our ability to speak with dignity, as equals, with partners, with allies or not.”

Zelenskyy said he was in talks with European allies about funding the Ukrainian army, suggesting that Ukraine was prepared to continue fighting even without US aid.

European leaders are expected to meet on Wednesday for a second emergency summit hosted by French president Emmanuel Macron to forge a cohesive response to Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine.

President Donald Trump has criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks between the US and Russia over ending the Ukraine war.

Trump also seemed to blame Kyiv for Moscow’s invasion – even as he said he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks – claiming Ukraine could have “made a deal” to avert war.

“I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat [at the talks],” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian reaction. The US president said a “half baked” negotiator could have secured a settlement years ago “without the loss of much land”.

“Today I heard, ‘oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he said.

Speaking in Florida on Tuesday night, Trump increased pressure on Zelenskyy to hold elections – echoing one of Moscow’s key demands.

The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance towards Russia in a shift that has alarmed European leaders.

Zelenskyy had earlier on Tuesday criticised the US-Russia talks for excluding Kyiv, saying efforts to end the war must be “fair” and involve European countries, while postponing his own trip to Saudi Arabia, where the US-Russia talks took place.

Talks “are taking place between representatives of Russia and representatives of the United States of America. About Ukraine – about Ukraine again – and without Ukraine,” he said.

The Ukrainian president’s comments appeared to anger Trump, who proceeded to launch a series of attacks on Zelenskyy, who has led Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Asked whether the US would support Russia’s demands to force Zelenskyy to hold new elections as part of any deal, Trump said: “They want a seat at the table, but you could say … wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since we’ve had an election.

“That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me, from other countries.

“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine – I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating – and where a country has been blown to smithereens. Most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site.”

In an interview with German public broadcaster ARD aired on Tuesday, Zelenskyy defended his popularity, saying: “I’m president of Ukraine because 73% of people voted for me. And today I’m president because the majority in my country support me. I’m a patriot, just like the people defending our country.

“Of course Russia wants to get rid of me. Maybe not physically any longer, like they did at the beginning of the war but politically. And that’s absolutely understandable as I’m a very uncomfortable person, uncomfortable for Putin.”

Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained in office as Ukraine is still under martial law.

Sean Savett, who was spokesperson for the White House National Security Council under then president Joe Biden, said in a social media post: “Sounds like Trump bought Putin’s propaganda hook, line, and sinker.

“A reminder no one should need: Putin started the war by invading Ukraine unprovoked and his forces have committed war crimes against the Ukrainian people. Russia is the party responsible for this war continuing.”

European leaders are increasingly fearful that Trump is giving too many concessions to Russia in his pursuit of the Ukraine deal that he promised to seal even before taking office. But Trump insisted that his only goal was “peace” to end the largest land war in Europe since the second world war.

Trump said he was “much more confident” of a deal after the talks, adding: “They were very good. Russia wants to do something. They want to stop the savage barbarianism.

“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well,” Trump said.

The US leader added that he was “all for” European peacekeepers in Ukraine if he can strike a deal to end the war. “If they want to do that, that’s great, I’m all for it,” he said.

“I know France was willing to do that, and I thought that was a beautiful gesture,” added Trump, saying that Britain had made a similar offer. The US would not have to contribute “because, you know, we’re very far away”, he said.

His comments came after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said his country would not accept Nato peacekeeping forces in Ukraine under any peace deal.

Trump stunned the world when he announced last week that he had spoken to Putin, and that the two leaders had agreed to start peace talks and to travel to meet each other in Moscow and Washington.

The US president then said they would hold a first meeting, most likely also in Saudi Arabia. Although no date has been announced, when asked if he would met Putin before the end of the month, Trump said “probably”.

Meanwhile, European officials urged the US not to side with Moscow. Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, tweeted: “Together with European Foreign Ministers, I spoke to [US secretary of state Marco Rubio] after his talks in Riyadh. Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps. By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace – on Ukraine’s terms.”

With Agence France-Presse

Republicans who served under President Ronald Reagan during the cold war have condemned Donald Trump’s move to soften relations with Russia and undermine the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance.

European leaders were left reeling last week when the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that the greatest danger facing Europe was “the threat from within” and the “retreat from fundamental values”.

Fears are also growing that a meeting of the US and Russia’s top diplomats in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, with no seat at the table for Ukrainian or European officials, paves the way for a capitulation to Moscow.

“It makes me sick what’s going on right now,” said Ken Adelman, a former US ambassador to the United Nations. “The Trump administration has no regard for the 80 years of Atlantic cooperation and the sovereignty of Ukraine.”

Adelman served as arms control director for Reagan, accompanying him on three superpower summits with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He reflected: “We’re in the opposite position right now because Ronald Reagan said, ‘Tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachev,’ and Trump is saying you can do whatever the hell you want to, Mr Putin.

“[Reagan] believed that you should support friends and stand up to enemies. It seems like the Trump administration is for opposing friends and supporting enemies.”

For years hardline anti-communism was the Republican brand, culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the cold war. The US continues to have tens of thousands of troops stationed across mostly western Europe, long seen as a guarantee of democratic stability.

But ever since he ran for president in 2015, Trump has embraced nationalist-populism and been strikingly reluctant to condemn the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Much of the rest of the party has fallen in line while Reaganite hawks such as Mike Pence, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have been purged.

Adelman commented: “I’m amazed that the Republican party has abandoned the principles of the party for all those years and just gone over to an America First position that was discredited by 1942.

“It’s not over on Ukraine yet. There’s still some hope that reason will prevail. There’s still some hope that Republicans will stand up and say, ‘what do we stand for?’”

As in the domestic sphere, Trump has begun his second term with fewer guardrails and has taken a scorched earth approach to foreign policy. Whereas eight years ago in Munich, he was represented by vice-president Mike Pence and Jim Mattis, his defense secretary – who both sought to nurture the transatlantic relationship – Vance and the current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, were bulls in a diplomatic china shop.

Vance accused European leaders of failing to stop illegal migration, suppressing free speech and fearing their own voters. He criticised German mainstream parties’ commitment not to collaborate with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in remarks that were strongly rebuffed by Berlin. Longtime national security officials in America were also dismayed.

Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary and CIA director, said: “For God’s sakes, the United States and Europe fought a world war to make sure Nazism would not be able to dominate that part of the world.

“To imply that somehow Germany, which understands this problem probably better than anybody, should not try to deal with that issue is not smart. It’s not trying to build a stronger relationship. It’s being disruptive and frankly there’s enough disruption right now to go around.”

Panetta is a Democrat who served under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But the silence from Republicans was again deafening.

Panetta added: “The Republicans have basically taken a walk. This is not the party that used to be strong on national defence and national security. They’ve basically made the decision to keep their mouth shut and to go along and that’s unfortunate because, frankly, that’s not what they were elected to do.”

Vance also gave mixed signals on support for Ukraine and suggested Europe would not be involved in the negotiations. By stressing America’s differences with Europe, rather than their shared values, he left diplomats stunned and speaking of a likely divorce.

John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said: “I’m sure they sat around his office and said, what can we say that will shock the Europeans? It’s part of a trope in the Trump administration to slap your friends around in public. They don’t slap the Russians and the Chinese around in public.

“Maybe that’s the way Trump did his real estate business but it has long-term consequences for the United States when you treat your friends and allies badly. There’s a way to engage on these questions and a way not to engage – and Vance chose the publicity-getting route and he got his share of publicity, that’s for sure.”

On a separate visit to Nato last week, Hegseth said the US would not support Ukraine’s membership and it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to demand a return to its borders before Russia invaded in 2014. Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, called it a “rookie mistake”, telling the Politico website: “I don’t know who wrote the speech – it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.”

It was a rare Republican rebuke that implied there were others in the party who dissent from Trump’s position but are wary of speaking out, mindful that he commands overwhelming support from Republican voters and could pursue a vendetta against anyone who opposes him.

Bolton added: “The good news is that I don’t think a majority of Republicans in the House and the Senate want to see Russia come out of this with advantages. The bad news is they’re afraid to say it publicly.”

France called an emergency European summit in Paris after the Munich conference. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has insisted that Kyiv will never accept a deal done behind its back. But in a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, Trump seemed to blame Ukraine for not ending the war sooner – another breach in the western alliance.

Bill Kristol, director of the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together and a former official in the Reagan and George HW Bush administrations, commented via email: “Reagan would have said, Nato and the US commitment to Europe has kept the European peace for 80 years. It’s foolish and reckless to put that at risk. And for what? To get along with Putin?”

About 7,000 people have been rescued from illegal call centre operations in Myanmar and were waiting to be transferred to Thailand, prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Wednesday, as the country launched a large-scale crackdown on scam centres operating on the border.

The prime minister’s announcement came after Thai police said they were preparing to receive up to 10,000 foreigners rescued from a network of notorious scam centres.

Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, which share borders with Thailand, have in recent years become havens for transnational crime syndicates operating online scam operations, including romance scams, bogus investments and illegal gambling.

“It’s massive and there are thousands of people in there that have been brought in, typically through Thailand, so it’s a huge move if they clean the compounds and scams out,” said Jeremy Douglas, from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ahead of the PM’s confirmation.

Myanmar’s border area of Myawaddy, where foreign nationals are expected to be released, has among the largest single cluster of scam compounds in the region, and possibly the world, said Douglas.

The operations have become increasingly globalised, with victims from across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East tricked into enslaved work. Scams targeting east and south-east Asians resulted in financial losses between $18bn and $37bn in 2023, the UN estimates.

At least 120,000 people across Myanmar and another 100,000 in Cambodia may be held in situations where they are forced to execute lucrative online scams, the UN has reported. Many are lured by false promises of well-paying jobs.

Thailand has renewed efforts this year to crack down on the operations after a high profile kidnapping of a Chinese actor into Myanmar in January. The 22-year-old man, Wang Xing, was abducted after arriving in Thailand for what he believed was a casting call with film producers.

Thai authorities this month cut internet, electricity and fuel supplies to five areas in Myanmar where crime groups are known to operate.

Douglas noted the Myanmar military’s border guard force (BGF), which controls Myawaddy, has been under immense pressure to crack down on the compounds.

“It has reached a breakpoint recently where they [the BGF] felt they had no choice but to step in and shut down compounds,” he said.

About 200 Chinese nationals are scheduled to be flown back to China on a China Southern Airlines flight on Thursday, said secretary to the defence minister General Traisak Intarassamee, as reported by the Bangkok Post.

About 260 people from scam operations were deported from Myanmar last week, the Thai Army said in a statement. The group represented 20 nationalities, including 138 Ethiopians.

Rescued Malaysians said they had been electrocuted, caned and confined in a dark room when they did not meet the targets set by the scam company.

“There were extreme beatings, lots of bruising. There were broken bones,” said Judah Tana, international director of the anti-human trafficking NGO Global Advance Projects, “It’s horrific to see them. It’s as if they have walked out of a minefield or a war zone.”

A British journalist has been missing in Brazil for 11 days, a foreign correspondents’ association in the country said on Tuesday, urging authorities to step up their search efforts.

Charlotte Alice Peet, 32, last communicated with a friend on 8 February, according to a statement from the Rio de Janeiro-based Association of Foreign Press Correspondents (ACIE).

The journalist reportedly said she was in São Paulo, planning a trip to Rio de Janeiro and looking for a place to stay in the coastal city, but her friend “replied that unfortunately, she could not host her”, wrote ACIE. Days later, Charlotte’s family in the UK contacted the friend, saying they had lost contact with her.

Last Monday, the friend, who had also not heard from Peet, reported her disappearance at a police station in Rio. However, as her last known contact was reportedly in São Paulo, the case was transferred to authorities there.

São Paulo’s public security department said the case was being investigated by missing person investigators, and that the Department of Homicide and Protection of the Person would be assisting.

In an interview with Sky News, Charlotte’s father, Derek Peet, said his daughter flew from Gatwick in London to São Paulo without informing her family, although it remains unclear when exactly she travelled.

“It’s very worrying, but I don’t have any more to say. I’m very concerned, but I just don’t know what’s going on. We’re just trying to pick up the pieces, really,” he said.

Peet is fluent in Portuguese and had lived in Brazil recently, working as a freelance journalist for outlets such as the Independent, Times, Telegraph and Al Jazeera.

In its statement, ACIE made “an appeal to the relevant authorities to intensify efforts to find the British journalist as soon as possible”.

The British embassy in Brazil said it was supporting the family of the British citizen and was in contact with local authorities.

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with allegedly masterminding and leading a far-right conspiracy to cling to power through a military coup.

The South American country’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, levelled the charges against the radical rightwing populist and several key allies on Tuesday night. He accused Bolsonaro and six key associates of leading a criminal organization with an “authoritarian power project”. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.

Bolsonaro, who experts say could face between 38 and 43 years in jail if convicted, stands accused of crimes including being involved in an attempted coup d’état and an armed criminal association and the violent abolition of the rule of law. He has repeatedly denied breaking any laws and on Tuesday told reporters he was “not at all worried about these accusations”.

The charges come three months after a bombshell 884-page federal police report accused Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 until 2022, of playing a lead role in planning and organising a conspiracy designed to stop the leftwing victor of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power.

Bolsonaro lost that vote to Lula but refused to accept defeat and on 8 January 2023 his hardcore supporters ran riot in the capital Brasília, trashing the presidential palace, congress and the supreme court in a bid to overturn the internationally accepted result.

​The attorney general’s office accused another 33 people of being part of the alleged plot including Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, the far-right congressman Alexandre Ramagem; his former defense ministers Gen Walter Braga Netto and Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; his former minister of justice and public security, Anderson Torres; his former minister of institutional security Gen Augusto Heleno, and the former navy commander Adm Almir Garnier Santos. Netto has denied involvement in a coup plot. The other men are yet to publicly comment on the allegations.

Perhaps most shockingly, the attorney general’s 272-page report claimed Bolsonaro had been aware of an alleged plot – which it said had “received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger’” – to sow political chaos by assassinating top authorities including Lula and the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

“The plan was thought up and brought to the attention of the president of the republic [Bolsonaro], who agreed to it,” the document claimed. “[The plot] cogitated using weapons against the minister Alexandre de Moraes and killing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with poison.”

News that Bolsonaro had been officially charged was welcomed by opposition politicians and progressive Brazilians who despise the former president for his anti-scientific handling of the Covid pandemic, his hostility to minorities, Indigenous communities and the environment, and his relentless attacks on Brazil’s democratic system.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the president of Lula’s Worker’s party, called the formal accusations, “a crucial step in the defense of democracy and the rule of law”.

Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro, rejected the charges on X, claiming there was “absolutely NO PROOF against Bolsonaro”.

The case will now be considered by the supreme court whose judges will decide the fate of Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices. That is expected to happen in the first half of this year.

Historian Carlos Fico, one of the leading experts on the dictatorship that seized power after Brazil’s 1964 military coup, said it was particularly noteworthy that those charged included three high-ranking military figures: Gen Braga Netto, Gen Heleno and Adm Garnier Santos.

“The most significant aspect is not Bolsonaro’s indictment – he is, after all, an avowed admirer of the military dictatorship and of torture – but rather the indictment of the generals,” said Fico, a history professor at Rio’s federal university. “The indictment of generals through a judicial process led by the federal police, with the endorsement of the country’s attorney general and [that is] set to be judged by the supreme court, is unprecedented in Brazilian history.”

“Over the years, numerous military coup plotters were never properly punished and ended up being granted amnesty,” added Fico, referring to those who were never prosecuted for crimes committed during the dictatorship, which ended in 1985. “I hope that this time, there will be no amnesty.”

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been charged with allegedly masterminding and leading a far-right conspiracy to cling to power through a military coup.

The South American country’s attorney general, Paulo Gonet, levelled the charges against the radical rightwing populist and several key allies on Tuesday night. He accused Bolsonaro and six key associates of leading a criminal organization with an “authoritarian power project”. The alleged plot, he wrote, included a plan to poison Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and shoot dead Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a foe of the former president.

Bolsonaro, who experts say could face between 38 and 43 years in jail if convicted, stands accused of crimes including being involved in an attempted coup d’état and an armed criminal association and the violent abolition of the rule of law. He has repeatedly denied breaking any laws and on Tuesday told reporters he was “not at all worried about these accusations”.

The charges come three months after a bombshell 884-page federal police report accused Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 until 2022, of playing a lead role in planning and organising a conspiracy designed to stop the leftwing victor of Brazil’s 2022 presidential election, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power.

Bolsonaro lost that vote to Lula but refused to accept defeat and on 8 January 2023 his hardcore supporters ran riot in the capital Brasília, trashing the presidential palace, congress and the supreme court in a bid to overturn the internationally accepted result.

​The attorney general’s office accused another 33 people of being part of the alleged plot including Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, the far-right congressman Alexandre Ramagem; his former defense ministers Gen Walter Braga Netto and Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; his former minister of justice and public security, Anderson Torres; his former minister of institutional security Gen Augusto Heleno, and the former navy commander Adm Almir Garnier Santos. Netto has denied involvement in a coup plot. The other men are yet to publicly comment on the allegations.

Perhaps most shockingly, the attorney general’s 272-page report claimed Bolsonaro had been aware of an alleged plot – which it said had “received the sinister name of ‘Green and Yellow Dagger’” – to sow political chaos by assassinating top authorities including Lula and the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes.

“The plan was thought up and brought to the attention of the president of the republic [Bolsonaro], who agreed to it,” the document claimed. “[The plot] cogitated using weapons against the minister Alexandre de Moraes and killing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with poison.”

News that Bolsonaro had been officially charged was welcomed by opposition politicians and progressive Brazilians who despise the former president for his anti-scientific handling of the Covid pandemic, his hostility to minorities, Indigenous communities and the environment, and his relentless attacks on Brazil’s democratic system.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the president of Lula’s Worker’s party, called the formal accusations, “a crucial step in the defense of democracy and the rule of law”.

Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro, rejected the charges on X, claiming there was “absolutely NO PROOF against Bolsonaro”.

The case will now be considered by the supreme court whose judges will decide the fate of Bolsonaro and his alleged accomplices. That is expected to happen in the first half of this year.

Historian Carlos Fico, one of the leading experts on the dictatorship that seized power after Brazil’s 1964 military coup, said it was particularly noteworthy that those charged included three high-ranking military figures: Gen Braga Netto, Gen Heleno and Adm Garnier Santos.

“The most significant aspect is not Bolsonaro’s indictment – he is, after all, an avowed admirer of the military dictatorship and of torture – but rather the indictment of the generals,” said Fico, a history professor at Rio’s federal university. “The indictment of generals through a judicial process led by the federal police, with the endorsement of the country’s attorney general and [that is] set to be judged by the supreme court, is unprecedented in Brazilian history.”

“Over the years, numerous military coup plotters were never properly punished and ended up being granted amnesty,” added Fico, referring to those who were never prosecuted for crimes committed during the dictatorship, which ended in 1985. “I hope that this time, there will be no amnesty.”

Quantum computers could be built within years rather than decades, according to Microsoft, which has unveiled a breakthrough that it said could pave the way for faster development.

The tech firm has developed a chip which, it says, echoes the invention of the semiconductors that made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible by miniaturisation and increased processing power.

The chip is powered by the world’s first topoconductor, which can create a new state of matter that is not a solid, liquid, or gas – making it possible to design quantum systems that fit in a single chip smaller than the palm of a hand, and to create more reliable hardware, a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature reports.

Paul Stevenson, a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, said Microsoft could be “very serious competitors” in the race to build the first reliable quantum computers if the company successfully built on this research.

“The new papers are a significant step, but as with much promising work in quantum computing, the next steps are difficult and until the next steps have been achieved, it is too soon to be anything more than cautiously optimistic,” he said.

George Booth, a professor of theoretical physics at King’s College London, said the research represented an “impressive technical achievement”, albeit one whose value would probably become clear only with hindsight. “Whether a claim of ‘years’ [rather than decades before meaningful development] is accurate will remain to be seen,” he said.

Microsoft claims that the topoconductor offers a path to developing quantum systems that can scale to a million qubits – the delicate building blocks of quantum computers that are analogous to the ones and zeros computers currently use.

This could eventually produce the most powerful computers yet, based on quantum mechanics rather than classical physics, which would be capable of solving highly complex industrial and societal problems.

This could include breaking down microplastics into harmless byproducts; inventing self-healing materials for construction, manufacturing or healthcare; solving complex logistics supply chain problems; or cracking encryption codes.

Earlier this month, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) selected Microsoft’s topoconductor as one of two pathways to quantum computing it is exploring as part of a programme intended to determine whether it is possible to build an industrially useful quantum computer by 2033, much faster than most predictions.

The other approach is created by PsiQuantum, which is using silicon-based photonics, meaning light wave-based technology, to create a quantum computer based on a lattice-like fabric of photonic qubits.

Microsoft previously claimed to have developed topological qubits in a paper that had to be retracted after scientific flaws were pointed out.

Booth said that although Microsoft’s progress had been slow relative to some other companies, it had instead “focused on the long game by working on a system which is inherently more resilient to noise and interference” than the fragile basic quantum computers that competitors have been building for a few years.

“These topological qubits protect the information they carry by using the properties of a new type of emergent particle, a Majorana fermion, which means that it is harder for this information to be lost as it is processed. However, [there is an] added layer of complexity when constructing these qubits when compared to competing architectures,” he said.

These Majorana particles had never previously been seen or made. Microsoft said they had to be “coaxed into existence with magnetic fields and superconductors”, which is why most quantum computing research has focused on other approaches.

Booth said the research represented a step in the direction of a very different platform that could “compete with the more mature technologies pioneered by the likes of Google”, though he added that there was still a long way to go in demonstrating that the technology could be scaled up.

Pope Francis has been diagnosed with double pneumonia after further tests showed a continuing “complex” medical situation, the Vatican said in a statement on Tuesday.

The pontiff, 88, underwent a chest X-ray, which “demonstrated the onset of bilateral pneumonia that required further pharmacological therapy”.

Antibiotic cortisone therapy to treat an earlier-diagnosed polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract “makes the therapeutic treatment more complex”.

The pope was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on Friday after suffering from the respiratory tract infection, which he referred to as bronchitis on several occasions, for more than a week.

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

The statement added that the pontiff was in good spirits and had received the Eucharist earlier in the day.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Vatican said it had cancelled the pope’s commitments at the weekend because of his continued ill health.

“Due to the health conditions of the Holy Father, the Jubilee audience of Saturday February 22 is cancelled,” the Vatican said, adding that the pontiff had delegated a senior church figure to celebrate mass on Sunday morning. His general audience on Wednesday has also been cancelled.

Francis had part of his lung removed in his early 20s while training to be a priest in his native Argentina.

Despite his hospitalisation, the pope has maintained his nightly routine since 9 October 2023 of telephone calls to the Holy Family church in Gaza.

“He was tired but had a clear voice,” Father Gabriel Romanelli told the Italian press after Monday night’s call. “He asked how we were and thanked us with prayers. At the end of the call he gave us his blessing.”

The pope, who has suffered ill health in recent years, was also admitted to hospital in March 2023 for what was initially said to be bronchitis but later diagnosed as pneumonia. 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”.

He also underwent a colon operation in June 2021.

The pope has often been seen in a wheelchair or with a walking stick as a result of a sciatic nerve pain and a knee problem.

Three people have died in north-east Japan in an accident that authorities suspect is linked to the inhalation of deadly gas found in the country’s famed hot spring resorts.

Japanese media said the three men, who all worked at a nearby hotel, were found in a mountainous area near the city of Fukushima on Tuesday. They were discovered in an area of Takayu Onsen (hot spring) where high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide, a toxic byproduct of volcanic hot springs, have been recorded.

The gas gives Japan’s onsen resorts their unmistakable sulphurous smell but can be dangerous if inhaled in high enough concentrations. Authorities said there is a possibility the three inhaled the gas, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

At safe levels, the gas is said to be good for high blood pressure, joint pain and other ailments – health benefits that have long attracted visitors to the green-white waters of the 400-year-old resort. But it can also be hazardous in poorly ventilated spaces and in high concentrations outdoors.

The victims – the manager of Kagetsu Highland Hotel, a member of staff and the managing director of the company that runs the hotel – had been conducting routine maintenance checks at the hot spring’s source when they are believed to have got into difficulty, Japanese media reported.

Authorities were alerted on Monday evening when the men, who were in their 50s and 60s, failed to return to the hotel.

A doctor at the scene confirmed they had died, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said, but authorities have yet to determine the official cause of death.

The snow was 110cm deep on Monday, when the men left to conduct their fortnightly maintenance check, and had increased to 146cm the following day, when their bodies were discovered lying in the snow near a mountain trail. The temperature had plummeted to as low as -7.7C, the Kyodo news agency said.

Junichi Endo, chairman of the Takayu Onsen Tourism Association, said the presence of heavy snow in the area “may have caused hydrogen sulphide to accumulate”, according to NHK.

The public broadcaster quoted Prof Takeshi Oba, an expert on volcanic gases at Tokai University, as saying that it was possible that “extremely high” concentrations of hydrogen sulphide were present in and around the hot spring, which is located near an active volcano.

When snow accumulates, geothermal heat can cause it to start melting and create depressions where hydrogen sulphide, which is heavier than air, can accumulate, Oba told NHK.

Around 20 firefighters and police officers had to use breathing apparatus during their search for the men due to high levels of hydrogen sulphide.

In 2015, three men were found dead at a hot spring resort in the northern prefecture of Akita. Media reports said the victims, like those discovered this week, had been performing maintenance work in a snow-covered area.

An architect of EU copyright law has said legislation is needed to protect writers, musicians and creatives left exposed by an “irresponsible” legal gap in the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act.

The intervention came as 15 cultural organisations wrote to the European Commission this week warning that draft rules to implement the AI Act were “taking several steps backwards” on copyright, while one writer spoke of a “devastating” loophole.

Axel Voss, a German centre-right member of the European parliament, who played a key role in writing the EU’s 2019 copyright directive, said that law was not conceived to deal with generative AI models: systems that can generate text, images or music with a simple text prompt.

Voss said “a legal gap” had opened up after the conclusion of the EU’s AI Act, which meant copyright was not enforceable in this area. “What I do not understand is that we are supporting big tech instead of protecting European creative ideas and content.”

The EU’s AI Act, which came into force last year, was already in the works when ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that can generate essays, jokes and job applications, burst into public consciousness in late 2022, becoming the fastest-growing consumer application in history.

ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI, which is also behind the AI image generator Dall-E. The rapid rise of generative AI systems, which are based on vast troves of books, newspaper articles, images and songs, has caused alarm among authors, newspapers and musicians, triggering a slew of lawsuits about alleged breaches of copyright.

Voss said he had been unable to get majorities of EU lawmakers to ensure strong copyright protection when the issue emerged in the late stages of negotiating the AI Act. The absence of strong provisions on copyright was “irresponsible” and it was “unbelievable” that the legal gap remained, he said.

He would like legislation to fill that gap, but said it would take years, after the European Commission’s decision last week to withdraw the proposed AI Liability Act. “It might be getting very difficult. And so the infringement of copyright is continuing, but nobody can prove it.”

The AI Act states that tech firms must comply with 2019 copyright law, which includes an exemption for text and data mining.

Voss said this exemption from copyright law was intended to have a limited private use, rather than allow the world’s largest companies to harvest vast amounts of intellectual property. The introduction of the TDM exemption in the AI Act was “a misunderstanding”, he said.

This view was reinforced by a significant academic study last year by the legal scholar Tim Dornis and the computer scientist Sebastian Stober, which concluded that the training of generative AI models on published materials could not be considered “a case of text and data mining” but “copyright infringement”.

Meanwhile, the TDM exemption has sent shock waves across creative professions. Nina George, a German bestselling author whose works has been translated into 37 languages, described the TDM exception as “devastating”. Exclusions from copyright, she said, were originally intended to balance the interest of authors against those of the public, such as allowing schools to photocopy texts. “These AI exceptions for commercial use mean that business interest will be served for the first time,” she said. “This is a shift of paradigms [and] a perverted way to bend copyrights and authors’ rights to serve the interest of a few businesses.”

George, who is president of honour at the European Writers Council, said she had no way of finding out if any of her works had been used to feed generative AI systems. “The lack of instruments to enforce any rights, this is the scandal in the construction of the AI Act [in] relation to copyright directive.”

Aafke Romeijn, a Dutch-language electropop artist, said there was no practical way for creatives to opt out of having their work used in AI applications.

Companies are not obliged to report on the content used to feed generative AI models. From 2 August, tech firms will have to provide a summary of data used in AI models, but details are still being decided. Voss said the latest draft rules on the summary from the EU’s AI office were “not sufficiently detailed” to protect artists.

In a letter to the Commission this week, 15 cultural organisations said the draft summary proposals failed to ensure transparency. More generally, the organisations wrote: “The impact of AI on the authors and performers we represent constitutes a systemic risk.”

Romeijn, who is on the board of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, which co-signed the letter, said she had been told by senior EU officials to take tech companies to court to preserve her copyright. “Who is actually going to take a big tech company to court?” she asked, citing cost, time, loss of earnings and potential damage to reputation. “It is just a very impractical way of implementing legislation.”

The European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations, which represents 10,000 translators in 28 countries, said it was very concerned about copyright and AI. “Books are written by human authors and must be translated by human translators to preserve the artistic virtues of the literary work,” it said in response to questions. “We firmly believe that authors, performers and creative workers must have the right to decide whether their works can be used by generative AI and, if they consent, to be fairly remunerated.”

In December, mostly the same cultural organisations wrote to the European Commission vice-president Henna Virkkunen to raise concerns that EU law “fails to adequately protect the rights of our creative communities and the value of their cultural works”. On Monday, nearly 11 weeks later, the commission had not replied, according to three signatories.

“So far it does not seem that she [Virkkunen] has an ear or an understanding – I am sorry to say that – of the whole value chain and how it works in the cultural and creative industries,” said George.

Brando Benifei, an Italian Social Democrat who jointly represented the European parliament in negotiations on the AI Act, contested the view that creatives were unprotected. He described the AI Act as “a very strong text” that had the potential to create “a very large rebalancing of power between the developers and the rights holders”.

From “day one” after the law was voted in, there had been an effort “to dilute and to interpret in a minimalistic way the provisions”, he added. “[This] has been the obsession of the big tech companies because it is probably the part of the AI Act that can be most impactful in terms of costs for the big generative AI companies.”

A European Commission spokesperson said it was “closely monitoring the global challenges that AI technology development poses to the creative industry” and was “committed to maintaining a balanced approach that fosters innovation while protecting human creativity”.

“We are assessing the need for additional measures, outside the AI framework,” the spokesperson added, declining to say whether this meant new legislation.

KFC, the fast food chain previously known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, has come in for some heat after announcing plans to move its corporate headquarters from the state after which it is named to Texas.

The chain’s parent company, Yum! Brands, told investors it would move about 100 employees from its office in Louisville, Kentucky, more than 800 miles south-west to the city of Plano in Texas, where the group’s Pizza Hut chain is headquartered.

The employees are expected to move in the next six months and will receive relocation support. An extra 90 remote workers will be expected to move to Texas or other Yum! Brands’ corporate offices during the coming 18 months.

The governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, said in statement: “I am disappointed by this decision and believe the company’s founder would be, too. “This company’s name starts with Kentucky, and it has marketed our state’s heritage and culture in the sale of its product.”

The mayor of Louisville, Craig Greenberg, also expressed his disappointment, US media reported, saying the brand “was born here and is synonymous with Kentucky”.

Yum! Brands said its “strategic decision”would allow it to “foster greater collaboration among brands and employees”.

Once the move from Kentucky is complete, Yum! Brands will have two corporate headquarters, in Texas and in California, where its brands Taco Bell and Habit Burger & Grill are based.

David Gibbs, Yum! Brands’ chief executive officer, said: “These changes position us for sustainable growth and will help us better serve our customers, employees, franchisees and shareholders. Ultimately, bringing more of our people together on a consistent basis will maximise our unrivalled culture and talent as a competitive advantage.”

Yum! Brands said it and the KFC Foundation would retain corporate offices in Louisville.

Several companies have moved to Texas from other states in recent years, attracted by its low corporate taxes.

Elon Musk moved Tesla’s corporate headquarters from Palo Alto in California to the Texas city of Austin in 2021, after criticising California’s regulations and taxes. The billionaire also moved the state of incorporation of the rocket company SpaceX to Texas from Delaware in 2024, after a Delaware judge ruled against his pay package.

The corporate move takes KFC away from its home state, where its founder, “Colonel” Harland Sanders – whose face is still immortalised on the brand’s logo – began selling fried chicken from a roadside restaurant outside the city of Corbin in 1932.

Sanders believed in restaurant franchises, and took his “finger lickin” secret blend of 11 herbs and spices to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he opened the first franchise location in 1952.

KFC is now sold at more than 30,000 restaurants in at least 145 countries and territories.

KFC fans shared their views of the planned move on social media, with some joking that the company could be rebranded as Texas Fried Chicken.