US President Donald Trump has said he has a “lot of respect” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the eve of their talks at the White House.

Asked by the BBC if he would apologise for recently calling him a “dictator”, he said he could not believe he had said this. He also called Zelensky “very brave”.

Trump was speaking after talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.

He predicted a “very good meeting” with Zelensky on Friday, saying efforts to achieve peace were “moving along pretty rapidly”.

This week’s meetings come after the Trump administration shocked its Western partners by holding the first high-level US talks with Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.

America’s new president had appeared to blame Zelensky for the war and chided him for not starting peace talks earlier.

“You’ve been there for three years,” he had said last Tuesday. “You should have ended it… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

But this Thursday, speaking after meeting Sir Keir, Trump told reporters asking about his forthcoming talks with Zelensky: “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow morning. We’re going to get along really well.”

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason if he still thought Zelensky was a “dictator”, he replied: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.”

Zelensky will be hoping to win some kind of security guarantees for his country that would underpin any peace deal that may be negotiated.

Asked about these on Thursday, Trump only said he was “open to many things” but he wanted to get Russia and Ukraine to agree a deal before deciding what measures might be put in place to enforce it.

On his visit on Friday, Zelensky is expected to sign a deal that will give the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources.

Trump suggested that the presence of US mining concerns in Ukraine would act as a deterrent against future Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“It’s a backstop, you could say,” he said on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody’s going to play around if we’re there with a lot of workers and having to do with rare earths and other things which we need for our country.”

The British prime minister had said earlier that the UK was prepared to send troops to Ukraine after the war as part of a peacekeeping force but only if the US, Nato’s leading member, provided a “backstop”.

Asked if the US would aid British peacekeepers if they were attacked by Russia, Trump said: “The British have incredible soldiers, incredible military and they can take care of themselves. But if they need help, I’ll always be with the British, okay?”

Nato’s Article 5 holds that Nato members will come to the defence of an ally which comes under attack.

Praising Trump’s “personal commitment to bring peace” in Ukraine, Sir Keir said the UK was “ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a deal”.

“We’re focused now on bringing an enduring end to the barbaric war in Ukraine,” he said.

But, he added, it must not be a peace deal “that rewards the aggressor or that gives encouragement to regimes like Iran”.

Asked whether Vladimir Putin was trustworthy, the UK prime minister said his views on the Russian president were well-known.

Asked in turn why he seemed to trust Putin and Sir Keir did not, Trump said: “I know a lot of people that you would say no chance that they would ever deceive you, and they are the worst people in the world.

“I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you, and you know what, they’re 100% honourable, so you never know what you’re getting.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who had been due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington before he cancelled the talks “due to scheduling issues”, told BBC News that Putin and Russia did “not want to have peace”.

“For any peace agreement to function, it needs the Europeans as well as Ukrainians on board,” she added.

Stopping off in the Irish Republic on Thursday en route to the US, Zelensky met the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin at Shannon Airport.

“We discussed the steps to end the war with guaranteed peace for Ukraine and the whole of Europe,” he said later.

Following the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president in 2014, Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The conflict burst into all-out war when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured, and millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled as refugees.

As well as Crimea, Russia now occupies parts of four other regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The Kremlin warned on Thursday that Russia would make no territorial concessions to Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

“All territories that have become subjects of the Russian Federation… are an integral part of our country, Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This is an absolutely indisputable fact and a non-negotiable fact.”

Separately, Russian and US officials met in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on rebuilding diplomatic ties.

The two nuclear superpowers expelled one another’s embassy staff when Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was in the White House.

US investigators are trying to establish how Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, died after the discovery of their bodies at their home in the US state of New Mexico.

Here is what we know so far about the death of a Hollywood legend known for such films as The French Connection and The Conversation.

Warning: this article contains details some readers may find upsetting.

The bodies of the couple and one of their dogs were found by police on Wednesday at their home in Santa Fe in the US state of New Mexico after a maintenance worker called emergency services.

A recording of the 911 call obtained by the BBC shows the emotional caller telling a dispatcher how he found the two bodies.

Hackman, 95, was discovered in a side room near the kitchen while Arakawa, 65, was found in a bathroom, at the property on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park.

The couple appeared to have been “dead for quite a while”, said Sheriff Adan Mendoza.

Arakawa’s body showed signs of “decomposition”, and “mummification” in the hands and feet, a sheriff’s detective said.

Hackman’s remains “showed obvious signs of death, similar and consistent” with those on his spouse.

A German Shepherd dog owned by the couple was found dead in a bathroom closet near to Arakawa.

No cause was given in police statements immediately after the announcement of the deaths.

The authorities reported no signs of injury but deemed the deaths “suspicious enough” to investigate and did not rule out foul play.

Near Arakawa’s head was a portable heater, which the detective determined could have been brought down in the event that she had abruptly fallen to the ground.

Carbon monoxide and toxicology tests have been requested for both Hackman and Arakawa.

The local utility company found no sign of a gas leak in the area and the fire department detected no indication of a carbon monoxide leak or poisoning, according to the search warrant.

The warrant suggests police may have a working theory that “some kind of gas poisoning” happened but that they do not know yet and are not ruling anything out, Loyola Marymount University law professor Laurie Levenson was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

A prescription bottle and scattered pills lay on the bathroom countertop close to Arakawa’s body.

Hackman was discovered wearing grey tracksuit bottoms, a blue long-sleeve T-shirt and brown slippers. Sunglasses and a walking cane lay next to his body.

The detective suspected that the actor had suffered a sudden fall.

The circumstances of their death were deemed “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation”, the search warrant says, because the worker who called emergency services had found the front door of the property open.

However, the detective observed no sign of forced entry into the home. Nothing appeared out of place inside.

“There was no indication of a struggle,” said Sheriff Mendoza. “There was no indication of anything that was missing from the home or disturbed, you know, that would be indication that there was a crime that had occurred.”

Two other, healthy dogs were discovered roaming the property – one inside and one out.

All we know is that two maintenance workers, one of whom called the emergency services, say they last had contact with the couple two weeks earlier.

The two workers said they had sometimes conducted routine work at the property, but rarely ever saw Hackman and Arakawa.

They had communicated with them by phone and text, primarily with Arakawa.

Hackman’s daughter Leslie Anne Hackman told the Mail Online that her father had been in “very good physical condition” despite his age, and had not undergone “any major surgeries” in recent months.

“He liked to do Pilates and yoga, and he was continuing to do that several times a week,” she said. “So he was in good health.”

The couple, married in 1991, had had a “wonderful marriage”, she added.

“I give credit to his wife, Betsy, for keeping him alive,’ she said. ‘[Betsy] took very, very good care of him and was always looking out for his health.”

A Japanese woman who unexpectedly kissed K-pop boy band BTS’s Jin at a fan event last year has found herself under investigation by South Korean police.

Police have called for the woman – who is currently in Japan – to come forward for questioning on charges of sexual harrassment in a public space.

The incident happened during the K-pop idol’s first public event in Seoul last June, which saw him hug 1,000 fans. Instead of just hugging the star, the woman appeared to have kissed his face, with Jin responding by turning his face away.

The kiss angered other BTS fans, one of whom filed a criminal complaint against her, leading police to launch an investigation.

On 13 June, 2024, the day after he was discharged from the army, Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, held a fan event where he hugged 1,000 fans and performed songs in front of 3,000 others.

During the three-hour long “hugathon”, fans who won the chance to embrace him queued up and went on stage one by one to meet the 33-year-old star.

But one of them caused an uproar when she appeared to kiss Jin’s face.

Clips of the moment went viral on the internet. Videos show that Jin, taken aback by the move, tried to turn his head while hugging the woman before quickly moving on to the next fan. Fans could also be seen reacting angrily to her actions.

She later wrote on her blog later that she kissed him “on his neck” and “the skin was very soft”.

The woman’s identity has not been revealed but police added that they had identified her with the assistance from their Japanese counterparts.

The BBC has reached out to BTS’ agency HYBE for comment.

Jin is the first BTS member to have been discharged from military duty. He was followed by J-Hope who was discharged in October. The other four – V, RM, Jimin, Jungkook and Suga – are still serving and the band is expected to reunite only in June 2025.

K-pop idols are known for having a close relationship with their fanbases through various communication channels and events. It’s common for artists to communicate with fans through social media livestream chats and in-person events to cultivate loyal fans.

But fans and agencies have increasingly been aware of some toxic fan cultures as well. For example, many artists have been vocal about the stress caused by “sasaeng fans”, who are overly obsessed with their idols that would stalk and harass the artists.

At least 25 road workers remain trapped after a massive avalanche struck a remote border area in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, officials say.

Senior district official Sandeep Tiwari told BBC Hindi that 32 workers had been rescued and moved to an army camp nearby.

The avalanche hit a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in the village of Mana, which shares a border with Tibet, officials say.

Officials said rescue operations were continuing in extreme weather amid heavy snowfall.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on X that rescue work was being carried out by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the BRO and other teams.

Ambulances and emergency teams have been dispatched, but treacherous conditions continue to pose challenges for rescuers.

Footage posted on X by ITBP showed rescuers carrying people on stretchers and walking through several feet of snow – even as more snow continued to fall.

Colonel Ankur Mahajan, a commander with the BRO, told the Hindustan Times newspaper that those who had been rescued were receiving treatment “but the extent of their injuries is unclear”.

Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told BBC News that details of the incident were sketchy.

“No-one lives there permanently. It’s a migratory area and only labourers working on border roads stay there in the winter. There’s also some army presence there. We’ve heard that it has been raining in the area for two days. The road workers were in a camp when the avalanche hit.”

Earlier on Friday, the India Meteorological Department warned of heavy rainfall and snow in the northern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Jammu and Kashmir.

Orange alerts have also been issued for snowfall in several districts of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

When Japanese journalist Shiori Ito decided to speak up about her rape allegations, she knew she would do so in the face of a society that prefers silence.

“I’m scared…but all I want to do is to talk about the truth,” she says, in the opening scene of her Oscar-nominated documentary Black Box Diaries.

Shiori became the face of Japan’s MeToo movement after she accused a prominent journalist, Noriyuki Yamaguchi, of rape. He denies the charges.

Her acclaimed directorial debut, based on her memoir of the same name, is a retelling of her quest for justice, after authorities found insufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges.

But there is one country where the documentary has still not been aired: Japan – where it has run into huge controversy.

Shiori’s former lawyers have accused her of including audio and video footage that she did not have permission to use, which, they maintain, has violated trust and put her sources at risk.

She defends what she did as necessary for “public good”.

It’s a startling turn in a story that gripped Japan when it first broke. Then 28 years old, Shiori had chosen to ignore her family’s request to remain silent about the alleged rape. And after her public accusation did not result in a criminal case, she filed a civil lawsuit against Mr Yamaguchi – and won $30,000 (£22,917) in damages.

Shiori told the BBC making the film involved “re-living her trauma”.

“It took me four years [to make the film] because, emotionally, I was struggling.”

She was an intern at Reuters news agency in 2015, when she claims Mr Yamaguchi invited her to discuss a job opportunity. At the time, he was the Washington bureau chief for a major Japanese media firm, Tokyo Broadcasting System.

Shiori claims she was raped following a dinner in Tokyo with Mr Yamaguchi, who has always denied the allegations.

CCTV footage of an intoxicated Shiori being dragged from a taxi and into a hotel forms part of the more than 400 hours of footage which she has edited for the documentary.

Shiori, who directed and wrote Black Box Diaries, describes the editing process as “really challenging”.

“It was like hardcore exposure therapy,” she says.

But when the film was released, the CCTV footage included in the documentary became a source of friction between the director and the team of lawyers who had helped her win her civil case.

The lawyers stated her use of CCTV footage was unauthorised – and that Shiori had violated a pledge not to use it outside of court proceedings. .

Last week, her former lawyers – led by Yoko Nishihiro – held a press conference, in which she said Shiori’s use of the footage posed challenges for other sexual assault cases.

“If the fact that the evidence from the trial has been made public is known, we will be unable to obtain cooperation in future cases,” Ms Nishihiro said.

Ms Nishihiro claimed Shiori also used unauthorised recordings in the film, which the lawyer only discovered following the screening of the film last July.

The documentary included audio of a police detective who eventually acted as a whistleblower in relation to the investigation process, as well as video of a taxi driver who had provided testimony about the night of the alleged rape.

Both the detective and the taxi driver, the lawyers have argued, were identifiable in the film – and neither had given their consent to be featured.

“I’ve been trying so hard to protect her for eight-and-half years, and I feel like I’ve been completely torn apart,” Ms Nishihiro said.

“I want her to explain and be held accountable.”

Shiori has previously acknowledged that she did not have the hotel’s permission to use the CCTV footage, but has argued that it provided “the only visual evidence” of the night she claims she was sexually assaulted.

She said including audio of the police detective was necessary because of “the cover-up of the investigation”, and has insisted she was releasing the video “for the public good”.

“We are standing in different points of view,” she said, referring to her fall-out with her former lawyers.

“For me, [it’s for the] public good. For them, it’s ‘do not break any rules’.”

There has been no official explanation as to why the film has not yet been distributed. According to Shiori, “Japan is still not ready to talk about [it]”.

However, it remains unclear how far the lack of distribution might also be due to legal hurdles.

In her most recent statement last week, Shiori apologised and said she would re-edit parts of the documentary to make sure individuals could not be identified. She said a redacted version would be screened at a later stage.

“There are moments I wish I didn’t have to put in [the documentary]. There are moments I’m not proud of – but I wanted to put all of it, and to show we are also human,” she told the BBC.

“No-one is perfect.”

In the nine years since the assault, Shiori’s fight against Japan’s justice system has been well-chronicled in the media – and is something she says she wanted to detail in her documentary.

She was met with a wave of backlash when she went public in 2017, receiving hate mail and online abuse.

“People were telling me you’re not crying enough… you’re not wearing proper clothes… you’re too strong.”

Some criticised the way she was dressed at the press conference where she first accused Yamaguchi – they said her shirt had been buttoned too low down. Shiori said she left Japan for a few months, fearing for her safety.

Shiori’s case was followed by other high-profile cases. In 2023, former soldier Rina Gonoi also went public with her story, accusing three ex-soldiers of sexually assaulting her. This was the year Japan passed landmark laws to redefine rape from “forcible sexual intercourse” to “non-consensual sexual intercourse” and raised the age of consent from 13 to 16.

Gonoi eventually won her case but Shiori says it is proof that speaking up against sexual violence comes at a price, adding: “Is it worth going through this as a survivor seeking justice? It shouldn’t be this way. You have to sacrifice a lot.”

For now it’s unclear if her film will ever be screened in Japan, but she says that its homecoming would be her ultimate prize.

“This is my love letter to Japan. I really wish one day I can screen my film, and my family can also watch it,” she added.

“That’s what I really hope for… more than winning an Oscar.”

The Cook Islands may be small but the ambitions of its leader are mighty.

A range of deals Prime Minister Mark Brown signed with China without consulting the public or New Zealand – an ally to which the Cooks is closely tied – has caused increasing irritation and concern.

The agreements are the first of their kind with a country that is not a traditional ally. They cover infrastructure, ship-building, tourism, agriculture, technology, education and, perhaps crucially, deep-sea mineral exploration.

Brown says his decisions will be based on the “long-term interests” of the Cook Islands, which are remote, resource-rich and vulnerable to climate change.

Not everyone agrees with him. The new, wide-ranging deals with Beijing have led to protests on Rarotonga – the largest Cook Island – and a vote of no confidence against Brown in parliament, which he survived earlier this week. They have also worried Australia, another powerful ally.

New Zealand said it was “blindsided” by the China deals, but Brown believes his country is independent and does not need to consult Wellington on issues he says are of no concern to them.

He has, nevertheless, tried to reassure Australia and New Zealand that the deals with China don’t replace their relationships. But the apparent snub comes at a time when the West’s grip on the Pacific seems to be loosening.

The rise of China in the Pacific isn’t new. Whether it’s bagging a security deal in the Solomon Islands or providing medical services in Tonga, China’s presence in the region has been growing. And the US and its allies have made a consistent effort to counter that.

But now there is a new dynamic at play as the Trump administration upends relationships with allies such as Ukraine and appears increasingly unpredictable.

The Cook Islands has had what’s known as a “free association” relationship with New Zealand, a former coloniser, since the 1960s – meaning Wellington helps on issues like defence and foreign affairs, and that Cook Islanders hold New Zealand citizenship.

The two countries are very close. There are around 15,000 Cook Islanders living in the Pacific island nation, but as many as 100,000 live in New Zealand and Australia. Culturally, Cook Island Māori – who make up the majority of the population – are also closely related to, but distinct from, New Zealand Māori.

The deals with China aren’t the only sign that Brown wants to pull away from New Zealand which have caused concern. He recently abandoned a proposal to introduce a Cook Islands passport following a public outcry.

“[The relationship with NZ] connects us politically and connects us to our brothers and sisters of Aotearoa [the Māori word for New Zealand] – they left our shores to sail to Aotearoa. We need to remember that,” said Cook Islander Jackie Tuara at a recent demonstration against Brown’s deals with China.

In a nation that is not used to huge displays of protest, several hundred people gathered outside parliament in Rarotonga, holding up placards that read: “Stay connected with NZ”. Others waved their New Zealand passports.

“Let us stand in partnership with countries that have the same democratic principles as we are a democratic nation, are we not?” Ms Tuara said. “We don’t want to see our land and our oceans sold to the highest bidder. Those resources are for us – for our children, for their future.”

But for all those who are opposed to Brown’s recent moves away from New Zealand, there are plenty of Cook Islanders who back him.

China specialist Philipp Ivanov, in apparent agreement with the prime minister, says that “the Pacific island nations have their own agency, their own motivations and their own capabilities”.

He believes that the recent developments in the Cook Islands are “all part of that little great game that’s going on between Australia and China and New Zealand in the Pacific. It’s a whack-a-mole kind of game.”

While the US has long been a dominant force in security and military in the region, China has tried to strengthen its ties with the small but strategic Pacific Island nations through aid, infrastructure and security deals.

In response, the likes of the US and the UK have beefed up their diplomatic presence across the region. Australia too has made it clear it will redouble its support. But it’s unclear to what extent US President Donald Trump will continue his predecessor’s commitments in the region to counter China – and Beijing is taking advantage of that.

Last week, planes flying between New Zealand and Australia were diverted after China conducted military exercises involving live fire. Both Australia and New Zealand had been trailing the three Chinese warships that were making their way down the eastern coast of Australia in what experts say is an escalation and unexpected show of power.

“It’s a pretty efficient way of testing the diplomatic response in both the Australia-China and New Zealand-China bilateral relationship, and what the US is prepared to say in defence [of its allies],” says defence analyst Euan Graham, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“It’s also making the point that in the numbers game, China will always be ahead of smaller countries with smaller navies and Australia’s navy is at a historic low.”

China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, told national broadcaster ABC that Beijing’s actions had been appropriate and he won’t apologise for it.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been keen to emphasise that no international laws were broken and that the drills were carried out in international waters. Indeed, many have pointed out that Australia and its allies often sail warships through the South China Sea.

“I’d see it as China wanting to capitalise on the chaotic effect that Trump is having right now,” says Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands programme at Australia’s Lowy Institute. “China is taking advantage of that moment to [say], look Australia, you are actually alone. Where is the United States in all of this?”

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong freely admits “we are in a permanent state of contest in our region, that is the reality”.

In speaking out about the warships last week, Australia’s government was trying to reassure the public about China’s intentions, while also wanting to tell Australians that it’s all in hand. That is not a coincidence as Australia heads towards a federal election in the coming months.

“[Opposition leader Peter] Dutton comes from this national security and home affairs background, so the government doesn’t want to give him any air to criticise Labor,” Philipp Ivanov says. “Being weak on China would be disastrous for them, given what’s going on in the US and given our own elections.”

But it also brings into focus the dilemma this part of the world faces.

“Canberra will be contesting every single move that Beijing tries to make … and it reflects the fact that Canberra and Beijing have diverging strategic interests,” says James Laurenceson, the director of Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

But, he adds, they also have “enormous commonalities” – China is Australia’s largest trading partner – and New Zealand’s – for instance.

“So you’ve got to be able to ride both these horses at the same time.”

It’s not an easy relationship – it never has been. The bigger surprise is that of the US, a traditional ally.

Although many in the Trump administration still describe China as a grave threat, US allies are unsure what to expect from the Washington-Beijing relationship.

And now, as Trump threatens steel and aluminium tariffs and a withdrawal of foreign assistance, Australia feels more isolated than ever. The recent activity of China’s warships in the Tasman Sea serves to highlight that isolation.

“I wouldn’t think of them as military acts, so much as political acts using military hardware,” says Mr Sora of the Lowy Institute.

“I think the political act is to say, look, we can do this anytime we want. You can’t do anything about it, and the United States is not doing anything about it, because they’re busy tearing down the global system.”

The owners of a New Zealand volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, have had their conviction over the disaster thrown out by the country’s High Court.

Whakaari Management Limited (WML) was found guilty in 2023 of failing to keep visitors safe and fined just over NZ$1m ($560,000; £445,000). They were also ordered to pay NZ$4.8m in reparation to the victims.

However, following an appeal, the High Court ruled on Friday that the company only owned the land and were not responsible for people’s safety.

White Island, which is also known by its Māori name, Whakaari, is New Zealand’s most active volcano and has been erupting in some form since 2011.

It had been showing signs of heightened unrest for weeks before the fatal December 2019 eruption, which killed almost half of the people who were on it at the time. Most were tourists, including 17 from Australia and three from the US.

Another 25 people were injured, with many suffering extensive burns.

High Court Justice Simon Moore said on Friday that while WML licensed tours of the volcano, there was nothing in these agreements that gave the company control of what was happening on the island day to day.

He agreed that it was reasonable for the company to rely on tour operators, as well as emergency management and science organisations, to assess risks to safety.

Justice Moore added that, in coming to his decision, he had not ignored the pain and grief of the families that had been affected.

“It is impossible not to be deeply moved and affected by the sheer scale and nature of the human loss in this case,” he said.

Thirteen parties in total, including tour operators, were charged over the disaster. WML was the last to receive a verdict after six had pleaded guilty, while six more had their charges dismissed.

The case against WML was the largest action of its kind brought by New Zealand’s regulator, Worksafe NZ, who said it acknowledged the High Court ruling and was considering whether to appeal.

James Cairney, a lawyer for James, Andrew and Peter Buttle – three brothers who own the company – said the family welcomed the decision, Radio New Zealand reported. He added that the Buttles hoped it would “bring certainty for all landowners who grant others recreational access to their land”.

The Buttle family has owned Whakaari/White Island since the 1930s, when their grandfather bought it and placed it in a family trust. It is one of only a few privately owned islands in New Zealand.

The brothers had previously been on trial in relation to the 2019 disaster as individuals over alleged breaches of New Zealand’s workplace health and safety legislation. Those charges were dismissed in 2023.

Donald Trump said he planned to hit goods from China with a new 10% tariff, the latest salvo in the US president’s steadily escalating trade fights.

Imports from China already face taxes at the border of at least 10%, after a Trump tariff order that went into effect earlier this month.

China’s ministry of foreign affairs said it “strongly” expressed its “dissatisfaction and resolute opposition” to the plans.

Trump also said on Thursday he intended to move forward with threatened 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which are set to come into effect on 4 March.

Trump’s comments came as officials from Mexico and Canada were in Washington for discussions aimed at heading off that plan.

Trump had announced the plans for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada for 4 February unless the two nations increased border security.

He paused the measures for a month at the last minute after the two countries agreed to increase border funding and talk more about how to combat drug trafficking.

On social media on Thursday, Trump wrote that he did not think enough action had been taken to address the flow of fentanyl to the US.

“Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels,” he wrote, adding that “a large percentage” of the drugs were made in China.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, at a press conference from the country’s National Palace, said in response: “As we know, [Trump] has his way of communicating.”

She added: “I hope we can reach an agreement and on 4 March we can announce something else.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said his country was working hard to reach a deal, warning tariffs from the US would prompt an “immediate and extremely strong response”.

Trump’s threats against Mexico and Canada have raised widespread alarm, as the North American economy is closely connected after decades of operating under a free trade agreement.

Leaders of the two countries have previously said they would impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States if the White House went ahead with its plans.

Tariffs are a tax collected by the government and paid for by the business bringing the goods into the country.

China, Mexico and Canada are America’s top three trade partners, together accounting for more than 40% of imports into the US last year.

Economists have warned tariffs on goods from the three countries could lead to higher prices in the US on everything from iPhones to avocados.

Trump’s call for an additional 10% levy on goods from China – which he said would also go into effect on Tuesday – had not been previously announced, though during his presidential campaign he backed border taxes on Chinese products of as much as 60%.

A spokesperson for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, Lin Jian, said that Trump was using the issue of the drug fentanyl entering the US from China as an “excuse” to threaten tariffs, adding it had one of the “strictest” drug control policies in the world.

“Pressure, coercion, and threats are not the correct way to deal with China,” he said.

Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, had earlier said that his country was already working with the US to address the concerns about fentanyl, and had made “visual progress” in areas such as information exchange, case cooperation and online advertisement cleanup.

“Reducing domestic drug demand and strengthening law enforcement cooperation are the fundamental solutions,” he said in a statement, which warned that Trump’s tariff moves were “bound to affect and undermine future counternarcotics cooperation between the two sides”.

“The unilateral tariffs imposed by the US will not solve its own problems, nor will it benefit the two sides or the world.”

Trump’s comments, which called for drug flow to stop or be “severely limited”, seemed to set the stage for Mexico and Canada to negotiate, said trade expert Christine McDaniel, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Washington University.

On Thursday, as tariff talks intensified, two imprisoned alleged leaders of the violent Zetas cartel long sought by the US – Miguel Angel Trevino Morales and his brother Oscar – were extradited.

Mexican media said they were part of a larger group of drug lords sent from Mexico to the US – a major step in terms of US-Mexico security relations.

Ms McDaniel said Trump’s demands of China were less clear, raising the likelihood that those measures will come into effect.

Trump’s initial round of tariffs on China was eclipsed by his threats against Canada and Mexico. But the potential for further duties raises questions about how businesses will respond.

Ms McDaniel said she expected the hit to be felt more in China.

“It’s not costless for the US, but so far it seems more costly for China,” she said.

The impact of tariffs, if they go into effect, is expected to be felt more in the Canadian and Mexican economies, which count on the US as a key export market.

But analysts have warned that the threat of the levies, even if they are never imposed, is still likely to have a chilling effect on investment, including in the US.

China has already responded to the first round of tariffs from the US with its own tariffs on US products, including coal and agricultural machinery.

Trump has dismissed fears about damage to the American economy.

At least 25 arrests have been made during a worldwide operation against child abuse images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), the European Union’s law enforcement organisation Europol has said.

The suspects were part of a criminal group whose members engaged in distributing fully AI-generated images of minors, according to the agency.

The operation is one of the first involving such child sexual abuse material (CSAM), Europol said. The lack of national legislation against these crimes made it “exceptionally challenging for investigators”, it added.

Arrests were made simultaneously on Wednesday 26 February during Operation Cumberland, led by Danish law enforcement, a statement said.

Authorities from at least 18 other countries have been involved and the operation is still continuing, with more arrests expected in the next few weeks, Europol said.

In addition to the arrests, so far 272 suspects have been identified, 33 house searches have been conducted and 173 electronic devices have been seized, according to the agency.

It also said the main suspect was a Danish national who was arrested in November 2024.

The statement said he “ran an online platform where he distributed the AI-generated material he produced”.

After making a “symbolic online payment”, users from around the world were able to get a password that allowed them to “access the platform and watch children being abused”.

The agency said online child sexual exploitation was one of the top priorities for the European Union’s law enforcement organisations, which were dealing with “an ever-growing volume of illegal content”.

Europol added that even in cases when the content was fully artificial and there was no real victim depicted, such as with Operation Cumberland, “AI-generated CSAM still contributes to the objectification and sexualisation of children”.

Europol’s executive director Catherine De Bolle said: “These artificially generated images are so easily created that they can be produced by individuals with criminal intent, even without substantial technical knowledge.”

She warned law enforcement would need to develop “new investigative methods and tools” to address the emerging challenges.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) warns that more sexual abuse AI images of children are being produced and becoming more prevalent on the open web.

In research last year the charity found that over a one-month period, 3,512 AI child sexual abuse and exploitation images were discovered on one dark website. Compared with a month in the previous year, the number of the most severe category images (Category A) had risen by 10%.

Experts say AI child sexual abuse material can often look incredibly realistic, making it difficult to tell the real from the fake.

Five years after deadly religious riots engulfed India’s capital Delhi, there is no legal closure in sight for the people involved.

A BBC Hindi analysis has found that more than 80% of the cases related to the violence where courts gave decisions have resulted in acquittals or discharges.

More than 50 people, mostly Muslims, were killed after clashes broke out between Hindus and Muslims over a controversial citizenship law in February 2020. The violence – the deadliest the city had seen in decades – stretched on for days, with hundreds of homes and shops set on fire by violent mobs.

The BBC had earlier reported on incidents of police brutality and complicity during the riots. The police have denied any wrongdoing and in their investigation, alleged that the violence was “pre-planned” as a part of a larger conspiracy to “threaten India’s unity” by the people who were protesting against the law.

They registered 758 cases in connection with the investigation and arrested more than 2,000 people. This included 18 student leaders and activists who were arrested in a case that came to be known as the “main conspiracy case”. They were charged under a draconian anti-terror law that makes it nearly impossible to get bail. Only six of them have been released in five years, and some like activist Umar Khalid are still in jail, waiting for a trial to begin.

BBC Hindi examined the status of all the 758 cases filed in relation to the riots and analysed the 126 cases in which the Karkardooma court in Delhi had given decisions.

More than 80% of these 126 cases resulted in acquittals or discharges as witnesses turned hostile, or did not support the prosecution’s case. Only 20 of these cases saw convictions.

Under Indian law, an accused is discharged when a court closes a case without a trial because there isn’t sufficient evidence to go ahead. An acquittal is when the court finds the accused not guilty after a full trial.

In 62 of the 758 cases that were filed on charges related to murder, there was only one conviction and four acquittals, data accessed by the BBC through India’s Right to Information law shows.

A detailed analysis of the 126 orders also showed that in dozens of cases, the court came down heavily on the Delhi police for lapses in investigations. In some cases, it criticised the police for filing “predetermined chargesheets” that “falsely implicated” the accused.

In most of the 126 cases, police officials were presented as witnesses to the events. But for various reasons, the court did not find their testimonies credible.

Judges have pointed out inconsistencies in the police statements, delays in identification of the accused by the police and, in some instances, cast doubts over whether policemen were even present when the violence broke out.

• Watch: Five years on, cases collapse in courts

In two orders, the judge said that he could not “restrain” himself from saying that when history looked back at the riots, the “failure of the investigating agency to conduct a proper investigation” would “torment the sentinels of democracy”. The court was hearing cases filed against three men on charges of arson and looting – but concluded they had been arrested without any “real or effective investigation”.

The Delhi police did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment. In a report filed last April, the police had told the court that all investigations were carried out in a “credible, fair and impartial” way.

Testimonies from some of the accused and even the court’s own observations, however, raise questions about the investigation.

Shadab Alam, who spent 80 days in jail, says he can never forget the terror of the riots.

He had taken shelter on the rooftop terrace of a medicine store where he worked with a few others.

Just hours earlier, the police had arrived at the shop and asked them to shut it because of ongoing arson.

“Suddenly, they [the police] came again and took a few of us into their van,” he told the BBC.

When he asked the police why he was being taken, he said, they accused him of participating in rioting.

“They asked us our names and beat us up. Almost all of us arrested were Muslims,” Mr Alam said. He added that he submitted his medical report before the court that confirmed three injuries.

In its official report, the police charged Mr Alam and 10 other Muslims of burning down a shop. But the court discharged all of them even before the trial could begin.

In its observations, the court criticised the police investigation saying that the witness’s statements could have been “artificially prepared”, and that “in all probabilities” the shop was burnt by a “mob of persons from the Hindu community”.

It said the police did not pursue the case in that direction, despite being present when the incident happened.

Mr Alam had to wait four years for the case to be officially closed.

“All this happened during Covid-19 pandemic. There was a lockdown. We were in a state of frenzy,” said Dilshad Ali, Alam’s father.

“In the end, nothing was proved. But we had to spend so much time and money to prove our innocence.”

He said the family wanted monetary compensation for their losses. “If the police made a false case against my son, then action should be taken against them,” he added.

In another case, the court acquitted Sandip Bhati, who was accused of dragging and beating a Muslim man during the riots.

The police had submitted two videos to show Mr Bhati was the culprit. But in court, his lawyer said that the police had submitted an incomplete clip to frame his client.

In the full video, which the BBC has verified, Mr Bhati is seen saving the Muslim man instead of beating him up.

In its order in January, the court ruled that the police “manipulated” the video to “frame” Mr Bhati instead of tracing the “actual culprits”.

It also asked the commissioner of Delhi police to take appropriate action against the investigating officer in the case. The police did not respond to BBC Hindi’s question on whether this had been done.

Mr Bhati, who spent four months in prison, refused to comment, saying he did not wish to discuss his “ordeal”.

With so many acquittals, former Supreme Court judge Madan Lokur said, the prosecution and police “should sit down to introspect what they have achieved in five years”.

He also said that “accountability needs to be fixed on the prosecution as well if the arrest is found to be illegal or unnecessary”.

“If the prosecution puts someone in jail because they have the power to do so or because they want to do so, they should not be allowed to get away with it if the incarceration is found to be illegal or unnecessary,” he added.

Even as some cases fall apart in courts, many of those arrested are still languishing in jail awaiting a trial.

Gulfisha Fatima, a 33-year-old PhD aspirant, is among 12 activists who are still in jail on charges of being “conspirators” of the riots.

Her family said three other police cases were lodged against her and she got bail in all of them. But she continues to face incarceration in a fourth case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) – the stringent anti-terror law that sets exceptionally challenging conditions for bail.

“Since she’s gone to jail, with every hearing we hope she will finally come out,” her father Syed Tasneef Hussain told the BBC.

In Ms Fatima’s case, after months of hearing the bail plea, the judge from the Delhi High Court got transferred in 2023, and now the entire case is being heard again.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be able to see her or if I’ll die before that,” Mr Hussain said.

Qatar Airways says an internal review has found that its crew “acted quickly, appropriately and professionally” when they placed the body of a woman who died mid-flight next to an Australian couple.

The airline issued the statement to the BBC on Friday, after the couple told Australia’s Channel Nine that they were traumatised by the experience on the Melbourne to Doha flight.

Qatar Airways had apologised in a previous statement for “any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused”.

The incident sparked debate over procedures on dealing with deaths aboard planes.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, who were travelling to Venice for a holiday, said the cabin crew had placed the dead woman, covered in blankets, next to Mr Ring for the last four hours of a 14-hour flight.

The cabin crew had trouble moving her body through the aisle to the business class section because “she was quite a large lady”, Mr Ring said.

They then asked Mr Ring to move over and placed the lady in the seat he was in.

While Ms Colin was invited by another passenger to sit beside her across the aisle, Mr Ring said the plane’s staff did not offer to move him elsewhere even though there were vacant seats around.

Qatar Airways said on Friday that the crew’s handling of the woman’s death was “in line with training and industry standard practice”.

“Passengers were accommodated to other seats, and a crew member was sitting at all times with the deceased passenger for the duration of the flight until landing in Doha,” its statement said.

“It is an unfortunate reality that unexpected deaths do sometimes occur on board aircraft across the aviation industry and our crew are highly trained to deal with these situations with as much respect and dignity as possible.”

The airline also said that they have offered support and compensation to the family of the deceased and other passengers who were “directly affected” by the incident.

“We totally understand that we can’t hold the airline responsible for the poor lady’s death, but surely after that there has to be a protocol to look after the customers on board,” Ms Colin said in the televised interview with Channel 9.

When the plane landed, Mr Ring said passengers were asked to stay put while medical staff and police came on board. Ambulance officers then started pulling blankets off the woman and he saw her face, he said.

“I can’t believe they told us to stay,” he said, adding that he thought they would have let the passengers leave before medical staff arrived.

Barry Eustance, a former Virgin Atlantic captain, earlier told the BBC that in his experience “the crew would normally try to isolate the body, so there is no passenger exposure to the body and vice versa, for respect and privacy but also for medical reasons”.

According to the guidelines by the International Air Transport Association on dealing with deaths on board a flight, the deceased person should be moved to a seat, preferably one with few other passengers nearby, and covered with a blanket or body bag up to the neck. The body could also be moved to another area that does not obstruct an aisle or exit.

Upon landing, the association recommends that other passengers disembark before the body is attended to by local authorities.

The US-UK trade deal warmly suggested by President Donald Trump should help insulate the UK from the direct impact of global trade tensions.

It signals that the White House has accepted the statistical logic that the US and UK have a balanced trade position.

Essentially each country roughly exports the same amount of goods to one another. Indeed, rather helpfully, according to the US numbers it exports more.

There is no general case that the UK is, in the words and logic of the president, “ripping off” or “screwing” the US, as he has suggested of many other countries and the EU.

So a deal to avoid the further trade barriers is very much on the cards.

But this is not the wideranging US-UK free trade agreement to lower almost all existing tariffs, that was the subject of so much debate in the Brexit era.

It is important to remember that the wider deal was never properly prioritised by Trump’s own team, because, as they told me, they never truly believed that the UK would find it in its interest to make the necessary hard break from the EU.

It is difficult to see that the UK government would want to further aggravate farmers, or its own base, by putting US farm imports or NHS pricing on the table.

In addition, on goods trade, the government is already prioritising its “Brexit reset” – a food standards deal, and some customs arrangements to bring down newish trade barriers with the European Union. Tellingly, the top official on that negotiation was in the Oval Office.

The narrower “economic deal”, as it was termed by Sir Keir Starmer, centres around technology and what the UK has referred to as the “further integration of our two countries’ tech sectors”.

Perhaps the best analogy is that the tech expertise held within the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle could become for a booming AI-driven Silicon Valley what London’s financial City became to New York’s Wall Street. The fact that Vice President and big tech ally JD Vance will be leading some of the US negotiation is key here.

This strategy will have consequences. Trump’s team are already railing against digital services taxes.

The UK’s digital services tax was introduced in 2020 and imposes a 2% charge on revenues made by big tech firms running social media, internet search engines or online marketplaces.

While the £700m-£1bn a year it raises in the UK is smallish beer, since the UK and France introduced a hit to big tech’s revenues, many other countries have followed suit.

The White House wants to “stop the contagion”, and that could mean persuading the UK to lower or abolish it. Chancellor Rachel Reeves advocated raising it from 2% to 12% just four years ago.

Likewise the vice president in the Oval Office mentioned US tech firms being unfairly affected by what he called “freedom of speech” issues.

This appears to be a reference to the Online Safety Act. This aims to make social media firms and search engines protect children and adults in the UK from illegal, harmful material, although some have argued it risks stifling free expression online. My understanding is that, right now, movement may be less likely here.

The prize will be integration into the massive investments from the best capitalised tech companies in the world.

Could the UK start to attract back some of the investments lost to Dublin, for example? Would the EU stand back and allow the UK to develop as an offshore hub for US tech companies to service the whole of Europe?

There are two other significant issues. It is not unknown for warm words in the Oval Office to be somewhat contradicted by actions soon after. While sat next to the PM, President Trump described the EU’s levying of VAT as a trade restriction, seemingly unaware that the UK does exactly the same thing.

And even if it avoids direct new tariffs from President Trump, the open UK economy would be affected by any wide-ranging trade war involving most of the G7 and other countries.

That is still on the cards. Not only would that collapse world growth and potentially spike up inflation again, but could upend entirely the workings of the World Trade Organization.

The PM says the UK doesn’t have to choose between the US and other allies, but it may appear like that to them.

The strategy appears to be to become the Switzerland of global economics. Neutrality in a world of trade turmoil, not so much sat on a fence, but tiptoeing along a rather wobbly one.

“I swear to God I need help,” said the man quietly on the other end of the line.

The Ethiopian, who calls himself Mike, said he is being held with 450 others in a building inside Myanmar, along the country’s border with Thailand.

They are among the thousands of people who have been freed from the notorious scam compounds that have thrived on the border for years, in what appears to be the toughest action so far against the industry along the Thai-Myanmar border.

But many of them are now stranded in Myanmar in makeshift camps because the process of assessing them and arranging flights back to their own countries is so slow.

The armed militia groups who are holding them have a very limited capacity to support so many people – more than 7,000. One of them has said they have stopped freeing people from the compounds because they are not being moved to Thailand fast enough.

The BBC understands that conditions in the camps are unsanitary, food barely sufficient, and many of the freed workers, like Mike, are in poor health. He is suffering from panic attacks, after working for a year in a scam centre where he was routinely beaten.

He told us they got two very basic meals a day, there were only two toilets for 450 people, who he said were now relieving themselves wherever they could.

Mike described being invited a year ago to take up what he was promised would be a good job, in Thailand, requiring only good English language and typing skills.

Instead he found himself subjected to a brutal regime, forced to work long hours every day to meet the target for defrauding people online set by his Chinese bosses.

“It was the worst experience of my life. Of course I was beaten. But believe me I have seen a lot worse done to other people.”

Mike is one of an estimated 100,000 people who are believed to have been lured to work in the scam operations along the Thai-Myanmar border, most of them run by Chinese fraud and gambling operatives who have taken advantage of the lawlessness in this part of Myanmar.

Despite horrifying accounts of abuse from those who escaped in the past, thousands still come from parts of the world where good jobs are scarce, enticed by promises of good money.

China, where many of the scam victims come from, has acted to shut down scam operations along its own border with Myanmar, but until this year neither China nor Thailand had done much about the Thai-Myanmar border.

Ariyan, a young man from Bangladesh, has come back to Thailand to try to help 17 friends who are still there. He said he made a promise to himself to do this after his own gruelling escape from one of the most notorious scam centres last October.

He showed us a brief, shaky video of the compound, still under construction in a remote, forested valley, where he was held, and remembers the terrible treatment he and his friends suffered at the hands of their Chinese boss.

“They gave us a target every week, $5,000. If not, they gave us two electric shocks. Or they put us in a dark room, with no windows. But if we earned a lot of money, they were very happy with us.”

Ariyan had to approach men in the Middle East and lure them into transferring funds to fictitious investments. Using AI, the scammers made him appear on the screen to be an attractive young woman, altering his voice as well.

He says he hated doing it. He remembers one man who was willing to sell his wife’s jewellery to fund the fraudulent investment, and wishing he could warn him. But he said the bosses monitored all their calls.

The release of the scam workers started more than two weeks ago after Thailand, under pressure from China and some of its own politicians, cut power and telecommunications links to the compounds on the border.

It limited banking access to the scam bosses and issued arrest warrants for some of the militia leaders who had been protecting the business.

That hit the business, but it also hit the ordinary Karen people who live nearby even harder, putting pressure on the militia commanders to show willingness in ending the abuses in the scam centres. They began helping those trying to escape, and completely evacuating some compounds.

The camp Mike is housed in is now being guarded by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, DKBA, a breakaway insurgent faction of the ethnic Karen community.

Until recently, it was protecting the many scam compounds which have sprung up in its territory. You can see them easily as you drive along the Moei River which divides the two countries – unlikely expanses of new buildings over in war-torn Karen State contrasting with the rural landscape on the Thai side of the border.

Thailand insists it is moving as fast as it can to process the former scam workers and get them home.

A group of 260 freed workers were brought over the Moei River on a raft earlier this month. And around 621 Chinese nationals were flown straight back to China with a police escort on chartered planes. Otherwise, the movement of freed workers to Thailand seems to have stalled.

The problem is that they are from many different countries, some of which are doing little to help get their people home. Around 130 of the first 260 who came over are from Ethiopia, which does not have an embassy in Bangkok.

The BBC has been told that some other African countries will only fly their people home if someone else pays. Most of the freed workers have nothing; even their passports were withheld by the compound bosses.

Thailand fears bringing over thousands of people it will then have to look after indefinitely. It also wants to screen them to find out which are genuine victims of human trafficking and which may have committed criminal acts, but does not have the capacity to do this with such a large group of people.

Different ministries and agencies, including the army, are involved in managing this problem, and have to agree who does what. It does not help that several senior police and immigration officers have been transferred over their alleged involvement in the scam business.

“If this issue is not resolved, then we will not stop working on it – we must work seriously,” said Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday in Bangkok. But she was referring to the wider problem of the scam business, not the growing humanitarian crisis among the freed workers.

“Unfortunately, it seems we’re in a bit of a standstill,” says Judah Tana, an Australian who runs an NGO which has for years been helping the victims of trafficking in the scam centres.

“We are hearing distressing information about the lack of sanitation and toilets. Many of the 260 who already came were screened for TB and tested positive. We are hearing from those who are still inside that people are coughing up blood. They are very happy that they have been liberated from the scam compounds, but our worry is that we’re not engaging fast enough.”

Thailand now seems ready to bring over one group of 94 Indonesians, as their embassy has been pushing for their release for several days and has booked flights to Indonesia for them.

But that still leaves more than 7,000 still inside Myanmar, unsure what will now happen to them.

Mike told me he and many others with him feared that if they are not allowed to cross into Thailand soon, the DKBA may hand them back to the scam bosses, where they could face punishment for trying to leave.

On Wednesday night his panic attacks and breathing were so bad, he said, they took him to hospital.

“I just want to go home,” he said over the phone. “I just want to go back to my country. That is all I am asking.”

The Cook Islands may be small but the ambitions of its leader are mighty.

A range of deals Prime Minister Mark Brown signed with China without consulting the public or New Zealand – an ally to which the Cooks is closely tied – has caused increasing irritation and concern.

The agreements are the first of their kind with a country that is not a traditional ally. They cover infrastructure, ship-building, tourism, agriculture, technology, education and, perhaps crucially, deep-sea mineral exploration.

Brown says his decisions will be based on the “long-term interests” of the Cook Islands, which are remote, resource-rich and vulnerable to climate change.

Not everyone agrees with him. The new, wide-ranging deals with Beijing have led to protests on Rarotonga – the largest Cook Island – and a vote of no confidence against Brown in parliament, which he survived earlier this week. They have also worried Australia, another powerful ally.

New Zealand said it was “blindsided” by the China deals, but Brown believes his country is independent and does not need to consult Wellington on issues he says are of no concern to them.

He has, nevertheless, tried to reassure Australia and New Zealand that the deals with China don’t replace their relationships. But the apparent snub comes at a time when the West’s grip on the Pacific seems to be loosening.

The rise of China in the Pacific isn’t new. Whether it’s bagging a security deal in the Solomon Islands or providing medical services in Tonga, China’s presence in the region has been growing. And the US and its allies have made a consistent effort to counter that.

But now there is a new dynamic at play as the Trump administration upends relationships with allies such as Ukraine and appears increasingly unpredictable.

The Cook Islands has had what’s known as a “free association” relationship with New Zealand, a former coloniser, since the 1960s – meaning Wellington helps on issues like defence and foreign affairs, and that Cook Islanders hold New Zealand citizenship.

The two countries are very close. There are around 15,000 Cook Islanders living in the Pacific island nation, but as many as 100,000 live in New Zealand and Australia. Culturally, Cook Island Māori – who make up the majority of the population – are also closely related to, but distinct from, New Zealand Māori.

The deals with China aren’t the only sign that Brown wants to pull away from New Zealand which have caused concern. He recently abandoned a proposal to introduce a Cook Islands passport following a public outcry.

“[The relationship with NZ] connects us politically and connects us to our brothers and sisters of Aotearoa [the Māori word for New Zealand] – they left our shores to sail to Aotearoa. We need to remember that,” said Cook Islander Jackie Tuara at a recent demonstration against Brown’s deals with China.

In a nation that is not used to huge displays of protest, several hundred people gathered outside parliament in Rarotonga, holding up placards that read: “Stay connected with NZ”. Others waved their New Zealand passports.

“Let us stand in partnership with countries that have the same democratic principles as we are a democratic nation, are we not?” Ms Tuara said. “We don’t want to see our land and our oceans sold to the highest bidder. Those resources are for us – for our children, for their future.”

But for all those who are opposed to Brown’s recent moves away from New Zealand, there are plenty of Cook Islanders who back him.

China specialist Philipp Ivanov, in apparent agreement with the prime minister, says that “the Pacific island nations have their own agency, their own motivations and their own capabilities”.

He believes that the recent developments in the Cook Islands are “all part of that little great game that’s going on between Australia and China and New Zealand in the Pacific. It’s a whack-a-mole kind of game.”

While the US has long been a dominant force in security and military in the region, China has tried to strengthen its ties with the small but strategic Pacific Island nations through aid, infrastructure and security deals.

In response, the likes of the US and the UK have beefed up their diplomatic presence across the region. Australia too has made it clear it will redouble its support. But it’s unclear to what extent US President Donald Trump will continue his predecessor’s commitments in the region to counter China – and Beijing is taking advantage of that.

Last week, planes flying between New Zealand and Australia were diverted after China conducted military exercises involving live fire. Both Australia and New Zealand had been trailing the three Chinese warships that were making their way down the eastern coast of Australia in what experts say is an escalation and unexpected show of power.

“It’s a pretty efficient way of testing the diplomatic response in both the Australia-China and New Zealand-China bilateral relationship, and what the US is prepared to say in defence [of its allies],” says defence analyst Euan Graham, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“It’s also making the point that in the numbers game, China will always be ahead of smaller countries with smaller navies and Australia’s navy is at a historic low.”

China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, told national broadcaster ABC that Beijing’s actions had been appropriate and he won’t apologise for it.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been keen to emphasise that no international laws were broken and that the drills were carried out in international waters. Indeed, many have pointed out that Australia and its allies often sail warships through the South China Sea.

“I’d see it as China wanting to capitalise on the chaotic effect that Trump is having right now,” says Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands programme at Australia’s Lowy Institute. “China is taking advantage of that moment to [say], look Australia, you are actually alone. Where is the United States in all of this?”

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong freely admits “we are in a permanent state of contest in our region, that is the reality”.

In speaking out about the warships last week, Australia’s government was trying to reassure the public about China’s intentions, while also wanting to tell Australians that it’s all in hand. That is not a coincidence as Australia heads towards a federal election in the coming months.

“[Opposition leader Peter] Dutton comes from this national security and home affairs background, so the government doesn’t want to give him any air to criticise Labor,” Philipp Ivanov says. “Being weak on China would be disastrous for them, given what’s going on in the US and given our own elections.”

But it also brings into focus the dilemma this part of the world faces.

“Canberra will be contesting every single move that Beijing tries to make … and it reflects the fact that Canberra and Beijing have diverging strategic interests,” says James Laurenceson, the director of Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney.

But, he adds, they also have “enormous commonalities” – China is Australia’s largest trading partner – and New Zealand’s – for instance.

“So you’ve got to be able to ride both these horses at the same time.”

It’s not an easy relationship – it never has been. The bigger surprise is that of the US, a traditional ally.

Although many in the Trump administration still describe China as a grave threat, US allies are unsure what to expect from the Washington-Beijing relationship.

And now, as Trump threatens steel and aluminium tariffs and a withdrawal of foreign assistance, Australia feels more isolated than ever. The recent activity of China’s warships in the Tasman Sea serves to highlight that isolation.

“I wouldn’t think of them as military acts, so much as political acts using military hardware,” says Mr Sora of the Lowy Institute.

“I think the political act is to say, look, we can do this anytime we want. You can’t do anything about it, and the United States is not doing anything about it, because they’re busy tearing down the global system.”

Pamela Anderson has had her fair share of ups and downs over her career.

So that might explain why she’s so stoic about missing out on an Oscar nomination for her role in The Last Showgirl.

“The win is the work,” the Canadian actress told BBC News.

“You couldn’t have told me I’d be here a decade ago, so this is very exciting for me, to even be in the conversation.”

Anderson, 57, did manage to score nominations at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards for her part in Gia Coppola’s film about a fading Las Vegas dancer.

But she is not in the running for the Academy Awards, which take place this Sunday in Los Angeles.

“I just wish everybody well,” she said.

“I think anybody, any actor, realises that all of this is about having another chance to be able to perform and share your talent with the world.”

Anderson rose to prominence on the 1990s TV series Baywatch.

The lifeguard drama became the most-watched television show in the world at the time, and it’s still the role she’s best known for.

But in the three decades since she first ran along the California beaches, fans and critics have become acquainted with different parts of Anderson’s life story including Playboy covers, a leaked sex tape and many marriages.

In 2022, Hulu series Pam & Tommy told the story of how Anderson and now ex-husband Tommy Lee’s sex tape was stolen and illegally distributed in the mid-90s.

Anderson later criticised the series in an interview with Variety, describing it as “shocking” and calling for the people behind it to apologise to her.

• Pam & Tommy: Lily James ‘a triumph’ as Pamela Anderson

Now, she’s starring in a new film which is also about second chances.

In The Last Showgirl, the lead character Shelly, played by Anderson, must plan for her future after her show abruptly closes.

Plenty of critics have drawn parallels with Anderson’s own life in the spotlight, and she doesn’t dispute this.

“I think that’s what drew me to the project, that it was so relatable on so many levels,” Anderson said of the film.

She added that its central theme, of struggling to make your career work as a woman in later middle age, was something “many generations of women” had faced.

In the film, Shelly is portrayed as having a strained relationship with her daughter Hannah.

Shelly’s career as a showgirl means she often works late, causing her to miss important moments like bedtime with Hannah.

That, too, is something that Anderson says she can relate to.

• Pamela Anderson memoir bares soul on fame and heartbreak

She shares two sons, Brandon Thomas, 28, and Dylan Jagger, 27, with her ex-husband, Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee.

She said that for all working mums, there’s “no proper way” to be a parent while also following your dreams and pursuing your career.

“So this movie is, I think, in a very vulnerable space.

“And it was an interesting role to play with all her imperfections and selfishness and selflessness. And it was a lot of layers and nuances to the character that I could really relate to.”

The Last Showgirl has received a mixed reception from critics, though most have praised Anderson’s performance.

The New York Times called it “sensitive and beguiling” and described Anderson as “dazzling”. But the Guardian awarded it just one star, calling it “a big disappointment” (although a later review bumped that up to three stars).

Many have also described the role as Anderson’s “comeback”. She doesn’t reject the term, but says she prefers to see it as “a new chapter”.

“I’ve always been fascinated with the craft of acting,” she said. “[But] my personal life kind of took me off course, and I raised two beautiful boys.”

She’s not the only actress to be back in the spotlight this season.

Demi Moore is nominated for best actress at the Oscars for her role in The Substance, a body horror which has revitalised her career.

“I’m really happy for Demi,” Anderson said. “I think she’s earned her place. And you have to earn it. You have to fight for it.”

With so many strong female protagonists in this year’s films, I’m curious what Anderson now thinks of Baywatch.

The show has long been criticised for its portrayal of its female characters, who, many argued, were sexualised and denied meaningful plot lines.

“I didn’t see it like that at all. I thought it was quite innocent and wholesome and, and fun to watch,” she said.

“I always felt like I was surrounded by such incredible people, lifeguards that were also firemen or firewomen. It was really, really, empowering.”

Anderson has always been seen to embody a look that rose to prominence in the 90s – skinny, blonde, and enhanced by plastic surgery.

But in recent years, she has been sporting a “no-makeup” look, choosing instead to embrace her natural appearance.

“My beauty routine is rest. And so that’s more important to me these days,” she told me.

She said it’s not that she’s against makeup, but more that she thinks “there’s a time and a place” for it.

“This chapter, for me, has been about self-acceptance and finding out who I am. What are my original thoughts? What do I have to give?” she said.

“I know I have a lot more to give in this world, in this industry too, and I feel like even I have to remember who I am to start with and then hopefully, play characters in films and not in my personal life.”

In a crowded control centre, surrounded by dozens of TV screens, the Taliban’s police force proudly shows off its newly-acquired network of 90,000 CCTV cameras – used to watch over the day-to-day lives of millions of people.

“We monitor the entire city of Kabul from here,” says Khalid Zadran, a spokesperson for the Taliban police chief, pointing to one of the screens.

The authorities say such surveillance will help fight crime, but critics fear it will be used to clamp down on dissent and to monitor the strict morality code enforced by the Islamist Taliban government under their interpretation of Sharia law.

The BBC are the first international journalists allowed to see the system in action.

Inside the control room, police officers sit in rows watching the live streams from thousands of cameras, keeping tabs on the lives of the six million people who live in Kabul.

From car licence plates to facial expressions, everything is monitored.

“In certain neighbourhoods, when we notice groups of people and suspect they might be involved in drug use, criminal activities, or something suspicious, we quickly reach out to the local police,” says Zadran.

“They arrive swiftly to investigate the nature of the gathering.”

Under the previous government, Kabul was threatened daily with attacks from the Taliban and so-called Islamic State militants, as well as high profile kidnappings and car-jackings. When the Taliban retook power in 2021, they promised to crack down on crime.

The dramatic increase in the number of surveillance cameras in the capital is a sign of growing sophistication in the way the Taliban enforce law and order. Before their return, just 850 cameras were in place in the capital, according to a spokesman for the security forces that were driven from power.

However, in the past three years, the Taliban authorities have also introduced a range of draconian measures limiting people’s rights and freedoms, especially those of women. The Taliban government has not been formally recognised by any other country.

The surveillance system the BBC is shown in Kabul features the option to track people by facial recognition. On the corner of one screen images pop up with each face categorised by age range, gender, and whether or not they have a beard or a face mask.

“On clear days, we can zoom in on individuals [who are] kilometres away,” says Zadran, highlighting a camera positioned up high that focuses on a busy traffic junction.

The Taliban even monitor their own personnel. At a checkpoint, as soldiers popped open the trunk of a car for inspection, the operators focused their lenses, zooming in to scrutinise the contents within.

The interior ministry says the cameras have “significantly contributed to enhancing safety, curbing crime rates, and swiftly apprehending offenders”. It adds the introduction of CCTV and motorcycle controls have led to a 30% decrease in crime rates between 2023 and 2024 but it is not possible to independently verify these figures.

However, rights groups are concerned about who is being monitored and for how long.

Amnesty International say installing cameras “under the guise of ‘national security’ sets a template for the Taliban to continue their draconian policies that violate fundamental rights of people in Afghanistan – especially women in public spaces”.

By law women are not allowed to be heard outside their houses, although in practice this is not being strictly enforced. Teenage girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education. Women are barred from many forms of employment. In December, women training as midwives and nurses told the BBC they had been ordered not to return to classes.

While women continue to be visible on the streets of cities like Kabul, they are required to wear a face covering.

Fariba*, a young graduate who lives with her parents in Kabul, has been unable to find work since the Taliban came to power. She tells the BBC there is “significant concern that surveillance cameras may be used to monitor women’s hijabs [veils]”.

The Taliban say only the city police have access to the CCTV system and the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry – the Taliban’s morality police – does not use it.

But Fariba is concerned the cameras will further endanger those opposed to Taliban rule.

“Many individuals, especially ex-military members, human rights advocates and protesting women, struggle to move freely and often live in secrecy,” she says.

“There is significant concern that surveillance cameras will be used to monitor women’s hijabs too,” she says.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, says Afghanistan does not have the data protection laws in place to regulate how the collected CCTV footage is held and used.

The police say the data is kept only for three months, while, according to the interior ministry, the cameras do not pose a threat to privacy as they “are operated from a special and completely confidential room by a specific and professional person in charge”.

The cameras appear to be Chinese-made. The control room monitors and branding on the feeds the BBC saw carried the name Dahua, a Chinese government-linked company. Earlier reports that the Taliban were in talks with China’s Huawei Technologies to buy cameras were denied by the company. Taliban officials refused to answer BBC questions about where they sourced the equipment.

Some of the cost of installing the new network is falling on ordinary Afghans who are being monitored by the system.

In a house in central Kabul the BBC spoke to Shella*, who was asked to pay for some of the cameras installed on the streets near her home.

“They demanded thousands of afghanis from every household,” she says. It’s a large amount in a country where those women who have jobs may earn only around 5,000 afghanis ($68; £54) a month.

The humanitarian situation in Kabul, and in Afghanistan in general, remains precarious after years of war. The country’s economy is in crisis, but international aid funding has been largely stopped since the Taliban came back to power.

According to the United Nations, 30 million people are in need of aid.

“If families refused to pay [for the cameras], they were threatened with water and power cuts within three days,” Shella adds. “We had to take loans to cover the costs.

“People are starving – what good are these cameras to them?”

The Taliban say that if people do not want to contribute, they can put in an official complaint.

“Participation was voluntary, and donations were in the hundreds, not thousands,” Khalid Zadran, the Taliban police spokesperson, insists.

Despite the assurances, rights campaigners both inside and outside Afghanistan continue to have concerns over how such a powerful surveillance system will be used.

Jaber, a vegetable seller in Kabul, says the cameras represent another way in which Afghans are made to feel powerless.

“We are treated like trash, denied the opportunity to earn a living, and the authorities regard us as worthless,” he told the BBC.

“We can do nothing.”

*

A pungent smell of detergent and rotten food hits me as we walk through this enormous high-security prison. Inmates press themselves up against the bars to look at us. There are no smiles, only expressionless stares.

A man with a tattoo that swirls across his face shouts, “Where you from, ma’am?”

“England.”

“Hope you enjoy Estelle,” he says.

“Do you?” I ask.

“A lot better than where I was before.”

Welcome to the Estelle Supermax Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.

Concrete watchtowers punctuate the perimeter of this vast space – equivalent in size to almost 3,000 football pitches – and a sign with an image of a red-maned lion and the words greets staff and visitors as they enter.

The UK government is looking to Estelle prison for ideas – for ways to reduce reoffending and to bring down prisoner numbers in our already overcrowded jails. There’s a scheme here they’d like to emulate, which gives inmates the chance to shorten their sentences by having a job while they’re inside.

Looking to this prison for inspiration might seem a curious choice to many, given Texas executes more people than any other US state. But ministers say by implementing schemes similar to ones used here, UK prisoners will be incentivised to gain qualifications – giving them more chance of employment once released.

Just one in five offenders in England and Wales has a job six weeks after being released from custody, the latest stats show. According to the Ministry of Justice, people who are still unemployed six weeks after being released are twice as likely to reoffend as those in employment.

No prison in the UK has as many inmates as they do at Estelle. More than 3,000 men in white jail-suits are currently locked up here – from murderers and rapists, to those doing time for lesser crimes like shoplifting and fraud. Two inmates are on death row.

Jimmy Delgado is 52 and serving three life sentences for first-degree murder. He’s already been inside for 25 years – 13 spent in solitary confinement. He’s a large man with muscular shoulders and smiles broadly when we meet in the prison chapel, softly shaking my hand. He tells me he first ended up in prison aged just 16, after carrying out a robbery.

He’s remorseful for his crimes and says this prison – together with his faith in Jesus – has helped turn his life around by giving him purpose. He now works as a counsellor, supporting offenders who are struggling to cope with life in prison.

“I’m here for taking a life – and I’m here to save multiple lives,” he says. “If I can change the dynamic of family life for all these guys that are here then I’ve done my job – even if I never get out of prison.”

Delgado may never be released, but inmates having jobs in prison is one of the reasons why Estelle Supermax Penitentiary is appealing to the UK government.

The “good time credit” scheme used here gives inmates the opportunity to reduce their time behind bars by participating in courses and studying for qualifications, taking up jobs, and behaving well.

Credits earned are then added to the number of days the prisoner has already spent in jail, allowing them to reach their parole eligibility date sooner – when a panel decides if they’re suitable for early release. This process depends on the classification of their crime and an assessment by the parole board on their overall rehabilitation.

Off the long corridor that runs through the main prison building, inmates are quietly working in a small barbers. Kevin Smith is inside for minor offences. He is meticulously cutting a member of staff’s hair with a pair of clippers, and says the good time credit scheme has made him feel positive about his time in prison.

“They helped me see that if I do the right thing and make the right decisions, I can do better in life,” he says. “I receive good time by working here, and I can get out earlier with the good time that I received – it works.”

The rates of those returning to prison within three years of release have fallen to 20.3% in Texas – a fraction of those in the rest of the United States (68%).

The BBC came to Estelle to see their credit scheme in action with UK justice secretary Shabana Mahmood.

“The Texans had a system similar to ours – on the point of collapse, running out of prison places in 2007,” Ms Mahmood says. “They’ve now got a sustainable prison population – but most importantly, they’ve been able to massively cut the rates of reoffending here. They’ve got a rate of crime now that they haven’t seen since the 1960s.”

She believes the Texan credit system is effective – helping prisoners get out of prison early – and stay out. “It does help prisoners turn their backs on a life of crime.”

The Texas prison population is the highest of any state in the US, with 134,668 people in custody in the autumn of 2024 – although over the last couple of decades, since reforms were implemented, that number has reduced by nearly 20%. However, some experts say the good time credit programme is not a magic bullet.

“The incentivisation scheme has little to do with the reforms that helped bring Texas’s prison population down in 2007,” says Michele Deitch, a criminal justice policy lecturer at the University of Texas. “And by itself it will do little to address the UK’s very serious overcrowding problem.”

What would make a real difference, she says, would be diverting more people from incarceration in the first place: “To shorten sentences, to reduce the use of recalls to prison, and to invest more heavily in rehabilitative programs in prison and in programs and services in the community.”

As well as incentivisation, the UK government is also considering the use of “diversion programmes” – where offenders are sent on rehabilitation courses rather than to jail. This can apply to people with addiction issues or mental health problems. It’s what they do here in Texas to reduce the burden on the courts and attempt to sort the root cause of the offence.

More people have been put to death in Texas than anywhere else in the US. Since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, 593 prisoners have been executed. There are 176 people currently on death row – so it might seem strange the UK government could take a leaf out of their book.

Even so, the justice secretary believes there is still much the UK can learn from what happens at Estelle.

“I don’t think that the fact that they have the death penalty here means that we shouldn’t be learning lessons from strategies that they’ve introduced that really work,” Ms Mahmood says.

It’s a plan with “huge potential in the UK” according to Nick Hardwick, a former chief inspector of prisons, who believes it will make prisons safer and more productive.

“It will help ensure prisoners are doing what is necessary to reduce the risk they will reoffend and create more victims,” he says.

But not everyone agrees with incentivising convicted criminals to work towards an early release from prison.

Samantha Nicholls’ son was murdered in 2018. Twenty-two year old Joe Pooley was thrown into a river in Ipswich and held under the water. Three people were jailed for his murder in 2021. Joe’s mother believes inmates should never be released before their sentence is complete.

“Prison is a punishment – you should do your time,” she says. “It needs to be a deterrent – you’re there because you did something wrong.”

It’s clear the UK needs to find solutions to cut prison overcrowding – and find them fast. Even the recent prisoner early release scheme will barely keep pace with more offenders being jailed. New prison buildings will take years to come on stream. But does this Texan prison have the answers?

The challenge for ministers and the criminal justice system is how to stop the revolving doors on the UK’s prisons – the reoffending and lack of prospects facing those who are released which draws them back into crime.

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This week saw Germany electing a new chancellor, planets lining up in the sky and Hollywood’s Gene Hackman dying at 95.

But how much attention did you pay to what else has been going on in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz compiled by George Sandeman and Grace Dean.

Fancy some more? Try last week’s quiz or have a go at something from the archives.

Skype has announced it is closing from May.

The internet chat and phone service, which is owned by Microsoft, made the announcement on X.

It said: “Starting in May 2025, Skype will no longer be available.

“Over the coming days you can sign in to Microsoft Teams Free with your Skype account to stay connected with all your chats and contacts.

“Thank you for being part of Skype.”

Microsoft made no immediate comment when contacted by BBC News.

Skype was released in 2003 and was then bought by Microsoft in 2011 for $8.5bn (£6.1bn).

The video calling service was once one of the most popular websites in the world, as businesses and individuals embraced video calls – with hundreds of millions of users globally.

Skype started out as an internet chat service, allowing people to make voice calls via their computers to friends and family all over the world for free.

It was not the first or only company offering this service but by allowing the public to make computer-to-computer calls free, it helped popularise the concept.

As Microsoft once outlined, Skype became integrated with the company’s other products such as Xbox and Windows devices.

In December 2010, tech industry commentator Om Malik called it one of the “key applications of the modern web”, when the website suffered a two-day global outage.

So what happened?

When Microsoft bought Skype, it was the tech giant’s biggest-ever acquisition. Microsoft was buying into an app that had been downloaded one billion times and had hundreds of millions of users.

“Together we will create the future of real-time communications,” Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer said at the time.

But as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger grew in popularity, Skype was waning.

In 2017, Microsoft redesigned Skype, with some features looking very much like rival Snapchat. Users were not happy.

At the time, Rachel Kaser, a reporter at The Next Web, said: “People are annoyed by this update to the Skype app because it’s fixing something that was never broken to begin with.”

In June 2021, speculation persisted that it was the beginning of the end for Skype.

When Microsoft announced Windows 11, its new operating system, it stated that Microsoft Teams would be integrated by default, while Skype, for the first time in years, was not.

Teams had seen a boost in popularity during the Covid pandemic as people moved their work and personal meetings online.

US investigators are trying to establish how Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, died after the discovery of their bodies at their home in the US state of New Mexico.

Here is what we know so far about the death of a Hollywood legend known for such films as The French Connection and The Conversation.

Warning: this article contains details some readers may find upsetting.

The bodies of the couple and one of their dogs were found by police on Wednesday at their home in Santa Fe in the US state of New Mexico after a maintenance worker called emergency services.

A recording of the 911 call obtained by the BBC shows the emotional caller telling a dispatcher how he found the two bodies.

Hackman, 95, was discovered in a side room near the kitchen while Arakawa, 65, was found in a bathroom, at the property on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park.

The couple appeared to have been “dead for quite a while”, said Sheriff Adan Mendoza.

Arakawa’s body showed signs of “decomposition”, and “mummification” in the hands and feet, a sheriff’s detective said.

Hackman’s remains “showed obvious signs of death, similar and consistent” with those on his spouse.

A German Shepherd dog owned by the couple was found dead in a bathroom closet near to Arakawa.

No cause was given in police statements immediately after the announcement of the deaths.

The authorities reported no signs of injury but deemed the deaths “suspicious enough” to investigate and did not rule out foul play.

Near Arakawa’s head was a portable heater, which the detective determined could have been brought down in the event that she had abruptly fallen to the ground.

Carbon monoxide and toxicology tests have been requested for both Hackman and Arakawa.

The local utility company found no sign of a gas leak in the area and the fire department detected no indication of a carbon monoxide leak or poisoning, according to the search warrant.

The warrant suggests police may have a working theory that “some kind of gas poisoning” happened but that they do not know yet and are not ruling anything out, Loyola Marymount University law professor Laurie Levenson was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

A prescription bottle and scattered pills lay on the bathroom countertop close to Arakawa’s body.

Hackman was discovered wearing grey tracksuit bottoms, a blue long-sleeve T-shirt and brown slippers. Sunglasses and a walking cane lay next to his body.

The detective suspected that the actor had suffered a sudden fall.

The circumstances of their death were deemed “suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation”, the search warrant says, because the worker who called emergency services had found the front door of the property open.

However, the detective observed no sign of forced entry into the home. Nothing appeared out of place inside.

“There was no indication of a struggle,” said Sheriff Mendoza. “There was no indication of anything that was missing from the home or disturbed, you know, that would be indication that there was a crime that had occurred.”

Two other, healthy dogs were discovered roaming the property – one inside and one out.

All we know is that two maintenance workers, one of whom called the emergency services, say they last had contact with the couple two weeks earlier.

The two workers said they had sometimes conducted routine work at the property, but rarely ever saw Hackman and Arakawa.

They had communicated with them by phone and text, primarily with Arakawa.

Hackman’s daughter Leslie Anne Hackman told the Mail Online that her father had been in “very good physical condition” despite his age, and had not undergone “any major surgeries” in recent months.

“He liked to do Pilates and yoga, and he was continuing to do that several times a week,” she said. “So he was in good health.”

The couple, married in 1991, had had a “wonderful marriage”, she added.

“I give credit to his wife, Betsy, for keeping him alive,’ she said. ‘[Betsy] took very, very good care of him and was always looking out for his health.”

The leader of Ontario, Doug Ford, has vowed to push back at US President Donald Trump after securing a third term in office as premier of Canada’s most populous province.

“Donald Trump thinks he can break us,” he told the cheering crowds in Toronto, but the US president was mistaken, he added. “Canada is not for sale.”

Ford, who has led Ontario since 2018, called the snap election to get a clear mandate to fight US President Donald Trump over tariffs he threatens to impose on Canadian goods.

The indications on Friday morning were that his Progressive Conservatives had won more than 80 seats out of 124 in the legislature.

The left-wing New Democratic Party came second, forming the official opposition, while the Liberals were in third place.

Ford pushed back in his election campaign against Trump’s persistent references to Canada as the 51st US state, sporting a cap saying “Canada is not for sale.”

In his victory speech at a convention centre in Toronto, he said: “Donald Trump thinks he can break us. He thinks he can divide and conquer, pit region against region.

“Donald Trump doesn’t know what we know. He is underestimating us. He is underestimating the resilience of the Canadian people, the Canadian spirit.”

The election was called by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) 10 minutes after polls closed on Thursday evening.

Voter turnout appears to be near historic lows. As of 23:00 local time (04:00 GMT) with 97% of polls reporting, just over 44% of Ontarians had cast ballots in the election.

That is essentially tied with the lowest ever turnout of 44% in 2022.

Ford ran his campaign under the slogan “Protect Canada”, reflecting his view that Canada needs to stand firm against US tariff threats.

• Trump says US will impose additional 10% tariff on China

Ford has appeared regularly on US television news networks in recent months as a de-facto spokesman for Canada’s position in its fight against the tariffs.

President Trump said on Thursday that the tariffs he planned to impose on Canada and Mexico would go ahead next week, after he delayed them a month in exchange for security assurances at the shared borders.

Around 75% of Canadian exports go to the US, and economists have warned that the tariffs would be devastating for Canada’s economy while raising costs for Americans.

Ontario is home to a large automotive sector that is deeply intertwined with the US – car parts often make several trips back and forth across the US-Canada border before a vehicle is fully assembled and sold.

Ford has suggested that 500,000 of Ontario’s 16 million people could lose their jobs if the US follows through on the blanket 25% tariffs.

He has called for strong retaliation, suggesting Canada cut its energy supply to the US and calling for provincial liquor stores to pull American booze from their shelves.

He has also proposed the idea of “Fortress Am-Can” – a slogan to sell Trump on a stronger energy alliance between the two countries in a bid to avoid tariffs altogether.

Opposition parties have criticised Ford for calling the snap election, accusing him of taking advantage of the rift in US-Canada relations to boost his own popularity. They also questioned the decision to push for a costly election amid economic uncertainty.

Ford has also been the subject of numerous controversies, including an ongoing criminal investigation into a deal to sell a piece of environmentally protected land for real estate development.

At a speech to supporters on Thursday, Bonnie Crombie, leader of the Ontario Liberals, said that while the party fell short of forming a government it should be “very proud” of the seats it gained.

“People counted us out. Tonight, you proved them wrong,” said Crombie, who failed to win her own seat. She vowed to continue on as leader.

The last time a government in Ontario formed three consecutive majorities was under Leslie Frost, a Progressive Conservative leader who won his third and final term in 1959.

US President Donald Trump has said he has a “lot of respect” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the eve of their talks at the White House.

Asked by the BBC if he would apologise for recently calling him a “dictator”, he said he could not believe he had said this. He also called Zelensky “very brave”.

Trump was speaking after talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.

He predicted a “very good meeting” with Zelensky on Friday, saying efforts to achieve peace were “moving along pretty rapidly”.

This week’s meetings come after the Trump administration shocked its Western partners by holding the first high-level US talks with Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.

America’s new president had appeared to blame Zelensky for the war and chided him for not starting peace talks earlier.

“You’ve been there for three years,” he had said last Tuesday. “You should have ended it… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

But this Thursday, speaking after meeting Sir Keir, Trump told reporters asking about his forthcoming talks with Zelensky: “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow morning. We’re going to get along really well.”

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason if he still thought Zelensky was a “dictator”, he replied: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.”

Zelensky will be hoping to win some kind of security guarantees for his country that would underpin any peace deal that may be negotiated.

Asked about these on Thursday, Trump only said he was “open to many things” but he wanted to get Russia and Ukraine to agree a deal before deciding what measures might be put in place to enforce it.

On his visit on Friday, Zelensky is expected to sign a deal that will give the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources.

Trump suggested that the presence of US mining concerns in Ukraine would act as a deterrent against future Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“It’s a backstop, you could say,” he said on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody’s going to play around if we’re there with a lot of workers and having to do with rare earths and other things which we need for our country.”

The British prime minister had said earlier that the UK was prepared to send troops to Ukraine after the war as part of a peacekeeping force but only if the US, Nato’s leading member, provided a “backstop”.

Asked if the US would aid British peacekeepers if they were attacked by Russia, Trump said: “The British have incredible soldiers, incredible military and they can take care of themselves. But if they need help, I’ll always be with the British, okay?”

Nato’s Article 5 holds that Nato members will come to the defence of an ally which comes under attack.

Praising Trump’s “personal commitment to bring peace” in Ukraine, Sir Keir said the UK was “ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a deal”.

“We’re focused now on bringing an enduring end to the barbaric war in Ukraine,” he said.

But, he added, it must not be a peace deal “that rewards the aggressor or that gives encouragement to regimes like Iran”.

Asked whether Vladimir Putin was trustworthy, the UK prime minister said his views on the Russian president were well-known.

Asked in turn why he seemed to trust Putin and Sir Keir did not, Trump said: “I know a lot of people that you would say no chance that they would ever deceive you, and they are the worst people in the world.

“I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you, and you know what, they’re 100% honourable, so you never know what you’re getting.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who had been due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington before he cancelled the talks “due to scheduling issues”, told BBC News that Putin and Russia did “not want to have peace”.

“For any peace agreement to function, it needs the Europeans as well as Ukrainians on board,” she added.

Stopping off in the Irish Republic on Thursday en route to the US, Zelensky met the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin at Shannon Airport.

“We discussed the steps to end the war with guaranteed peace for Ukraine and the whole of Europe,” he said later.

Following the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president in 2014, Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The conflict burst into all-out war when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured, and millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled as refugees.

As well as Crimea, Russia now occupies parts of four other regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The Kremlin warned on Thursday that Russia would make no territorial concessions to Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

“All territories that have become subjects of the Russian Federation… are an integral part of our country, Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This is an absolutely indisputable fact and a non-negotiable fact.”

Separately, Russian and US officials met in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on rebuilding diplomatic ties.

The two nuclear superpowers expelled one another’s embassy staff when Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was in the White House.

The owners of a New Zealand volcano that erupted in 2019, killing 22 people, have had their conviction over the disaster thrown out by the country’s High Court.

Whakaari Management Limited (WML) was found guilty in 2023 of failing to keep visitors safe and fined just over NZ$1m ($560,000; £445,000). They were also ordered to pay NZ$4.8m in reparation to the victims.

However, following an appeal, the High Court ruled on Friday that the company only owned the land and were not responsible for people’s safety.

White Island, which is also known by its Māori name, Whakaari, is New Zealand’s most active volcano and has been erupting in some form since 2011.

It had been showing signs of heightened unrest for weeks before the fatal December 2019 eruption, which killed almost half of the people who were on it at the time. Most were tourists, including 17 from Australia and three from the US.

Another 25 people were injured, with many suffering extensive burns.

High Court Justice Simon Moore said on Friday that while WML licensed tours of the volcano, there was nothing in these agreements that gave the company control of what was happening on the island day to day.

He agreed that it was reasonable for the company to rely on tour operators, as well as emergency management and science organisations, to assess risks to safety.

Justice Moore added that, in coming to his decision, he had not ignored the pain and grief of the families that had been affected.

“It is impossible not to be deeply moved and affected by the sheer scale and nature of the human loss in this case,” he said.

Thirteen parties in total, including tour operators, were charged over the disaster. WML was the last to receive a verdict after six had pleaded guilty, while six more had their charges dismissed.

The case against WML was the largest action of its kind brought by New Zealand’s regulator, Worksafe NZ, who said it acknowledged the High Court ruling and was considering whether to appeal.

James Cairney, a lawyer for James, Andrew and Peter Buttle – three brothers who own the company – said the family welcomed the decision, Radio New Zealand reported. He added that the Buttles hoped it would “bring certainty for all landowners who grant others recreational access to their land”.

The Buttle family has owned Whakaari/White Island since the 1930s, when their grandfather bought it and placed it in a family trust. It is one of only a few privately owned islands in New Zealand.

The brothers had previously been on trial in relation to the 2019 disaster as individuals over alleged breaches of New Zealand’s workplace health and safety legislation. Those charges were dismissed in 2023.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has met US President Donald Trump during his first visit to the White House.

Here are some of the key moments as the pair took questions from reporters before and after the talks.

Sir Keir did not turn up to the meeting empty-handed.

Part-way through their opening remarks, the prime minister reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out an official letter from King Charles III – an invitation for a second state visit.

Trump appeared to be genuinely taken back for a few seconds, asking: “Am I supposed to read it right now?”

After taking a minute to read the letter, Trump said he accepted the invitation and that it would be an “honour” to visit the “fantastic” country.

He added that King Charles was a “beautiful man, a wonderful man”.

LIVE: Latest updates following Starmer-Trump meeting

Trump’s letter from the King: What does it say and what does it mean?

During Trump’s first term as president, he met King Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, during a three-day state visit in 2019.

Sir Keir said Thursday’s invitation to host Trump once more for a second full state visit was “unprecedented”.

While cordial, the initial meeting in the Oval Office between Sir Keir and Trump left no doubt that the US president hoped to be firmly in charge.

The meeting was a pattern we’ve now seen six times with foreign leaders at the Trump White House, including with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week: Trump taking control of the room and using the opportunity to get his own messages, both domestic and international, across to the reporters there.

• Analysis: Starmer charms Trump, but any deals will have to wait

During their half-hour session, Trump leaned forward and slightly towards Sir Keir – wearing a nearly identical, but slightly different coloured tie to Trump’s – dominating the conversation and taking charge of calling on reporters.

A joint afternoon news conference later began with a slightly more diplomatic and matter-of-fact tone, with both Trump and Sir Keir standing at their respective lecterns and going to considerable lengths to lavish praise on the other.

Trump joked he would have been president 20 years ago with Sir Keir’s “beautiful” accent.

At one point, Sir Keir was asked about Trump’s controversial call to make Canada – a member of the Commonwealth – the 51st state of the US.

“I think you’re trying to find a divide that doesn’t exist,” Sir Keir replied.

Trump interjected quickly with the words “that’s enough” before moving on – again taking control of the room as he stood next to a visibly surprised Sir Keir.

To put it gently, Sir Keir and Trump are from different schools of politics – both in their style and substance.

But asked to name their similarities Trump said: “He loves his country, and so do I.”

What else do they share? Trump said: “We like each other, frankly, and we like each other’s country.”

But the “common thread” between the two men was that “we love our country”, Trump said.

Sir Keir had a number of tricky topics to raise with Trump – from trade to US security guarantees for Ukraine – and at the beginning of their news conference the president called his counterpart “a very tough negotiator”.

Asked if the prime minister had convinced him not to impose trade tariffs on the UK, Trump said “he tried”, adding: “He was working hard, I’ll tell you that. He earned whatever the hell they pay him over there.”

But he has said there was “a very good chance” of a trade deal “where tariffs wouldn’t be necessary”.

Such a deal, Trump said, could be made “pretty quickly”.

Sir Keir spoke of a “new economic deal with advanced technology at its core”.

Trump said he was “inclined to go along with” the UK’s Chagos Islands deal.

The UK is in talks with Mauritius about handing over the territory but continuing to lease one of the islands, Diego Garcia, which contains a UK-US military airbase.

The agreement has been mired in uncertainty after Trump’s re-election as US president, given several US Republicans have argued it could deliver a potential security boost to China.

But during the meeting, Trump said he had a “feeling” the deal was going to “work out very well”.

Last week, Trump made headlines by calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” in a social media post, echoing Russian claims about Kyiv’s cancelled elections.

An election was scheduled for May 2024, but it was suspended because Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia began its full-scale invasion.

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason about his use of the word “dictator”, Trump replied: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I would say that.”

In the news conference later, Trump also appeared to have softened his attitude to Zelensky, praising him as “very brave” and saying the pair got on “really well”.

Talking about the potential for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, Trump said “progress towards peace” would continue when Zelensky visits the White House on Friday. The two are expected to sign a major minerals deal.

At the Munich Security Conference last week, US Vice President JD Vance attacked the UK and other European democracies, warning that “free speech is in retreat.”

Asked about the comments, Trump called on his deputy to defend himself. Vance argued “there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British” but also “American technology companies and by extension, American citizens”.

That led to Sir Keir cutting in, saying “we’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom – and it will last for a very, very long time”.

He rejected Vance’s claim, saying “in relation to free speech in the UK, I’m very proud of our history there”.

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A former police officer has been handed a suspended sentence after sharing information with her family about the Nicola Bulley investigation.

Lancashire Police said they received a report in March 2023 “regarding the potential unauthorised disclosure of sensitive police information”.

The force said the mother of PC Molly Bury, 28, was overheard at an event in Burnley telling someone “Molly checked the police system” before it emerged the officer had illegally accessed police computer systems over several years.

Ms Bulley, 45, disappeared in St Michael’s on Wyre in January 2023 with her body later found a mile from where she was last seen after she had fallen in the River Wyre and accidentally drowned.

A warrant was served at a property in Oswaldtwistle in December 2023 and electronic devices were seized, which revealed Bury had accessed police computer systems between 31 October 2019 and 8 May 2023 while on rest days or off sick.

The force said PC Bury had also told her mother about other investigations including a rape and a murder.

Bury, who worked as a response officer, was arrested and interviewed in March before being summonsed to appear at court.

She later admitted 32 counts under the Computer Misuse Act and received a six-month suspended sentence at Chester Magistrates’ Court.

Bury resigned as a police officer while under investigation.

A case of gross misconduct was proved at an accelerated misconduct hearing held last year where it was deemed had she not already resigned she would have been dismissed.

She has also been added to the police barred list.

Det Ch Insp Pete Reil said: “The public trust the police with their data, particularly when they or their loved ones have been victims of crime.

“They expect officers and police staff to act responsibly and sensitively with it.

“Molly Bury’s behaviour fell way below what the constabulary expects and what the public would expect of a serving police officer.”

BBC Sounds

At least 25 road workers remain trapped after a massive avalanche struck a remote border area in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, officials say.

Senior district official Sandeep Tiwari told BBC Hindi that 32 workers had been rescued and moved to an army camp nearby.

The avalanche hit a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in the village of Mana, which shares a border with Tibet, officials say.

Officials said rescue operations were continuing in extreme weather amid heavy snowfall.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on X that rescue work was being carried out by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the BRO and other teams.

Ambulances and emergency teams have been dispatched, but treacherous conditions continue to pose challenges for rescuers.

Footage posted on X by ITBP showed rescuers carrying people on stretchers and walking through several feet of snow – even as more snow continued to fall.

Colonel Ankur Mahajan, a commander with the BRO, told the Hindustan Times newspaper that those who had been rescued were receiving treatment “but the extent of their injuries is unclear”.

Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told BBC News that details of the incident were sketchy.

“No-one lives there permanently. It’s a migratory area and only labourers working on border roads stay there in the winter. There’s also some army presence there. We’ve heard that it has been raining in the area for two days. The road workers were in a camp when the avalanche hit.”

Earlier on Friday, the India Meteorological Department warned of heavy rainfall and snow in the northern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Jammu and Kashmir.

Orange alerts have also been issued for snowfall in several districts of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

A Japanese woman who unexpectedly kissed K-pop boy band BTS’s Jin at a fan event last year has found herself under investigation by South Korean police.

Police have called for the woman – who is currently in Japan – to come forward for questioning on charges of sexual harrassment in a public space.

The incident happened during the K-pop idol’s first public event in Seoul last June, which saw him hug 1,000 fans. Instead of just hugging the star, the woman appeared to have kissed his face, with Jin responding by turning his face away.

The kiss angered other BTS fans, one of whom filed a criminal complaint against her, leading police to launch an investigation.

On 13 June, 2024, the day after he was discharged from the army, Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, held a fan event where he hugged 1,000 fans and performed songs in front of 3,000 others.

During the three-hour long “hugathon”, fans who won the chance to embrace him queued up and went on stage one by one to meet the 33-year-old star.

But one of them caused an uproar when she appeared to kiss Jin’s face.

Clips of the moment went viral on the internet. Videos show that Jin, taken aback by the move, tried to turn his head while hugging the woman before quickly moving on to the next fan. Fans could also be seen reacting angrily to her actions.

She later wrote on her blog later that she kissed him “on his neck” and “the skin was very soft”.

The woman’s identity has not been revealed but police added that they had identified her with the assistance from their Japanese counterparts.

The BBC has reached out to BTS’ agency HYBE for comment.

Jin is the first BTS member to have been discharged from military duty. He was followed by J-Hope who was discharged in October. The other four – V, RM, Jimin, Jungkook and Suga – are still serving and the band is expected to reunite only in June 2025.

K-pop idols are known for having a close relationship with their fanbases through various communication channels and events. It’s common for artists to communicate with fans through social media livestream chats and in-person events to cultivate loyal fans.

But fans and agencies have increasingly been aware of some toxic fan cultures as well. For example, many artists have been vocal about the stress caused by “sasaeng fans”, who are overly obsessed with their idols that would stalk and harass the artists.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said EU and India were pushing to get a free trade agreement during this year.

“I am well aware it will not be easy. But I also know that timing and determination counts,” von der Leyen said in Delhi, adding that such an agreement would be the largest deal of this kind anywhere in the world.

The EU Commission chief is in India accompanied by the entire College of Commissioners – the first such visit after the European parliamentary elections in June 2024.

She met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

Speaking in the Indian capital, she said the two sides wanted to deepen trade and investment collaboration in wide ranging areas like semiconductors, AI and cleantech.

India and EU relaunched talks on a long pending free trade agreement in 2021 and are set to hold another round in March.

An India-EU summit is also being held later in the year.

Von der Leyen also said that India and EU were pushing for renewed cooperation in security and stability and were exploring a future ‘Security and Defence Partnership’ with India similar to the partnerships with Japan and South Korea.

Brussels is keen to expand its relationships in the Indo-Pacific as cracks deepen between the US and Europe over trade tariffs and Ukraine following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Trump has said he is planning to hit goods made in the European Union with tariffs of 25%, claiming the bloc was created to “screw the US”.

The European Union said it would react “firmly and immediately against unjustified tariffs”.

Given the backdrop, analysts say strong trade and security relations with India have become more important than ever for the EU.

A trade deal has proven difficult so far due to differences in areas like agriculture and manufacturing.

Despite renewed negotiations “the two sides have little to show for the talks thus far”, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a think tank, said in a note.

However, some 6,000 EU companies operate in India and the bloc is India’s largest trading partner in goods, with bilateral trade reaching $135bn (£107bn) in 2022-23, nearly doubling in the last decade.

After years of scepticism about free trade deals, India is now actively signing agreements and negotiating with multiple countries and blocs.

India and the UK restarted free trade talks this week, nearly a year after negotiations were paused ahead of general elections in both countries.

Last year, India signed a $100bn free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – a group of four European countries that are not members of the European Union – after almost 16 years of negotiations.

The world’s nations have agreed a funding plan at UN talks in Rome for reversing the decline of nature.

Countries were eventually able to overcome deep divisions which had led to the breakdown of negotiations last year in Colombia.

It is hoped that the deal will help countries to reach their goal of raising $200bn (£159bn) by 2030 for biodiversity action.

The current rate of species decline is so great globally that many scientists warn humans could be causing the “sixth mass extinction” on Earth.

The extinction rate of species globally has been rapidly accelerating over the last 50 years as animals and plants struggle to survive in the face of increased threats from human activities and climate change.

In 2022, recognising that dramatic action was needed, countries agreed a landmark deal to halt this decline of nature and agreed to protect 30% of the world’s land and seas.

In order to achieve this goal countries agreed that $200bn (£159bn) a year would be mobilised by 2030, but according to the latest data from the OECD only $15bn (£12bn) has been raised.

It was hoped that at last year’s UN biodiversity summit in Colombia, known as COP16, countries would come up with a new plan to close this significant funding gap.

But the negotiations broke down in dramatic fashion after the talks ran so far into overtime delegates had to leave to catch scheduled flights home.

Countries reconvened this week in Rome and after three days of, at times tense, discussion they managed to agree on a new strategy in the late hours of Thursday evening.

The deal agreed includes:

• calling on countries to have national funding strategies
• a commitment to having a permanent fund for nature
• dedication of funding for indigenous groups

Many negotiators said they saw the agreement as a success for international cooperation in the face of increased global trade disputes.

Not all countries were present at the talks and the US was notably missing.

Initial reaction from environmental charities suggested they were happy that an agreement had been reached but reiterated the need to see actual money delivered.

Jill Hepp, biodiversity policy lead at Conservation International, said: “While this is a moment to celebrate, we also need to see action and innovation immediately following these decisions.”

“No matter where you live or work, our food, water, livelihoods and economies all depend on a thriving natural world,” she said.

It is estimated that over half of global GDP is dependent on nature, and up to 4 billion people rely on the world’s ocean resources and forests.

Despite getting an agreement many nations have still failed to submit their strategies for tackling biodiversity loss in their own countries – the deadline for which was last year. The UK submitted its plan on Thursday.

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), the UK government’s advisory body on nature conservation, estimated in 2023 that only 6.5% of the country’s land is adequately protected.

At least 40 Uyghurs have been deported to China,Thai authorities have confirmed, despite warnings from rights groups they could face possible torture and even death.

The group is thought to have been flown back to China’s Xinjiang region on Thursday, after being held for 10 years in a Bangkok detention centre.

China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the north-western region of Xinjiang. Beijing denies all of the allegations.

It is the first time Thailand has deported Uyghurs since 2015.

The deportation has been shrouded in secrecy after serious concerns were raised by the United States and United Nations.

Thai media reported that several trucks, some with windows blocked with sheets of black plastic, left Bangkok’s main immigration detention centre in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Hours later, tracker Flightrader24 showed an unscheduled China Southern Airlines flight leaving Bangkok, eventually arriving in Xinjiang. It was not immediately clear how many people had been deported.

The Thai government later said it had decided to send the 40 Uyghurs back to China because it was not right that they had been held for more than a decade, but that no other third country had stepped forward offering to take them. That includes Turkey, which has given Uyghurs asylum in the past.

Eight Uyghurs remain in Thailand, including five who are serving jail terms for crimes they committed while in detention.

The government also said that Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was given assurances that the Uyghurs would be looked after if returned to China during her recent visit to the country.

She did not initially confirm any deportations had taken place when asked by reporters on Thursday.

“In any country in the world actions must adhere to the principles of law, international processes, and human rights,” Shinawatra said.

Beijing said that 40 Chinese illegal immigrants were repatriated from Thailand, but refused to confirm that the group were Uyghurs.

“The repatriation was carried out in accordance with the laws of China and Thailand, international law and international practice,” the foreign ministry said.

Chinese state media said the group had been “bewitched” by criminal organisations and were stranded in Thailand after illegally leaving the country.

• China deportation looms for Uyghurs held in Thailand
• Who are the Uyghurs?

The returned group is made up of more than 300 Uyghurs who were detained at the Thai border in 2014 after fleeing repression in Xinjiang.

Many were sent to Turkey, while others were deported back to China in 2015 – prompting a storm of protest from governments and human rights groups.

“What is the Thai government doing?” asked opposition lawmaker Kannavee Suebsang on social media on Thursday.

“There must not be Uyghur deportation to face persecution. They were jailed for 11 years. We violated their human rights for too long.”

The detention centre where the Uyghurs – who had been charged with no crime, apart from entering Thailand without a visa – were kept was known to be unsanitary and overcrowded. Five Uyghurs died in custody.

In a statement on Thursday, Human Rights Watch said the group now face a high risk of torture, enforced disappearance and long-term imprisonment.

“Thailand’s transfer of Uyghur detainees to China constitutes a blatant violation of Thailand’s obligations under domestic and international laws,” said the organisation’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson.

“Until yesterday [Wednesday], senior Thai officials had made multiple public assurances that these men would not be transferred, including to allies and UN officials.”

Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates (AHRLA) group, said that the deportations “totally destroyed” the “charade” that the current Thai government was different to the previous one “when it comes to transnational repression and cooperating with authoritarian neighbours”.

Amnesty International described the deportations as “unimaginably cruel”.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned Thailand for the deportation and urged “all governments in countries where Uyghurs seek protection not to forcibly return ethnic Uyghurs to China.”

He accused China of having “committed genocide and crimes against humanity targeting predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang” in a statement published online.

The UN said it “deeply regrets” the deportations, a phrase echoed by the EU.

Meanwhile, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK disagrees “in the strongest terms” with Thailand’s decision.

There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. They make up less than half of the Xinjiang population.

Recent decades have seen a mass migration of Han Chinese (China’s ethnic majority) into Xinjiang, allegedly orchestrated by the state to dilute the minority population there.

China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs.

The taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) has been invited to the White House by US President Donald Trump to celebrate St Patrick’s Day next month.

The meeting is scheduled to take place on 12 March, five days before the Irish public holiday.

A spokesperson for the Taoiseach Micheál Martin told BBC News NI that he was “delighted to accept and looks forward to meeting the president”.

“The embassy in Washington will continue to engage with the White House team on the details of our visit,” she added.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ reported that Martin received the invitation in a letter from the US president.

It said Trump’s letter congratulated the taoiseach on his recent appointment and highlighted the special bond between the Irish and American people.

It is customary for Irish leaders to travel to the US every March for an audience with the president at the White House.

They present their host with a bowl of shamrock – a tradition that dates back to President Harry Truman in 1952.

Martin is serving his second term as taoiseach, having previously led his country from June 2020 to December 2022.

However, he was not able to visit the White House on St Patrick’s Day in 2021 because of Covid travel restrictions.

He did make the trip to Washington DC in March 2022 but he could not visit the White House in person because he contracted Covid while in the US.

As a result, Martin’s previous St Patrick’s Day duties as taoiseach consisted of video calls with Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.

The annual Washington visit is viewed as an important political opportunity to strengthen US and Irish diplomatic relations and boost cross-Atlantic trade.

The Republic of Ireland is particularly vulnerable to threats of US tariffs on European imports and Trump’s “America First” policy.

In 2023, the US was the number-one country for Irish goods exports, buying products worth €54bn.

That meant just over a quarter of Irish goods exports were sold into this one market.

Earlier this week, Trump said he was planning to impose tariffs of about 25% on goods made in the European Union, of which Ireland is member.

On Thursday, the Tánaiste (deputy PM) Simon Harris told the Dáil (Irish Parliament) it has never been a more important time for ministers to travel abroad for talks.

Almost 40 Irish ministers and other state officials will make St Patrick’s Day trips to destinations including the US, Australia, Japan, India, Mexico and Thailand.

Visiting Trump in the White House can also have political perils at home however because of his controversial foreign policy announcements.

In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) said they would boycott the White House this St Patrick’s Day because of Trump’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The Alliance Party has also confirmed they will not attend the events, but Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly is going to Washington DC.

Asked about her plans, Little-Pengelly said it was important to “maintain long and rewarding” relationships with the US.

“It’s important we engage regardless of what our personal views may or may not be. That’s what I’ll be doing on St Patrick’s Day,” she added.

Pope Francis, who has been battling pneumonia for two weeks, is showing signs of improvement, the Vatican has said in a medical update.

He will remain in hospital due to a complex clinical picture, the Vatican said on Friday morning.

It added the 88-year-old had another “peaceful night” and is “now resting” in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.

Italian news agency Ansa reported that the pontiff was now out of the “critical phase”, citing Vatican sources.

The Pope was admitted to hospital on 14 February after experiencing breathing difficulties for several days.

He was first treated for bronchitis before being diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.

Then, on 22 February, the Vatican said that the Pope had experienced a respiratory crisis and was in a “critical” condition, but later on Sunday released an update saying that he had “not presented any further respiratory crises”.

The following day, the Pope issued a statement asking Catholics to pray for him after he was unable to deliver the traditional Angelus prayer in person for the second week running.

But, while the Vatican said the Pope’s health is improving, it added that “further days of clinical stability are necessary to resolve the prognosis”.

The pontiff is particularly susceptible to pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, after he contracted pleurisy – an inflammation of the lungs – as a young man and had a partial lung removal.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church has been admitted to hospital multiple times during his 12-year tenure, including being treated for bronchitis at the same hospital in March 2023.

From Argentina, Pope Francis is the first Latin American, and first Jesuit, to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

Qatar Airways says an internal review has found that its crew “acted quickly, appropriately and professionally” when they placed the body of a woman who died mid-flight next to an Australian couple.

The airline issued the statement to the BBC on Friday, after the couple told Australia’s Channel Nine that they were traumatised by the experience on the Melbourne to Doha flight.

Qatar Airways had apologised in a previous statement for “any inconvenience or distress this incident may have caused”.

The incident sparked debate over procedures on dealing with deaths aboard planes.

Mitchell Ring and Jennifer Colin, who were travelling to Venice for a holiday, said the cabin crew had placed the dead woman, covered in blankets, next to Mr Ring for the last four hours of a 14-hour flight.

The cabin crew had trouble moving her body through the aisle to the business class section because “she was quite a large lady”, Mr Ring said.

They then asked Mr Ring to move over and placed the lady in the seat he was in.

While Ms Colin was invited by another passenger to sit beside her across the aisle, Mr Ring said the plane’s staff did not offer to move him elsewhere even though there were vacant seats around.

Qatar Airways said on Friday that the crew’s handling of the woman’s death was “in line with training and industry standard practice”.

“Passengers were accommodated to other seats, and a crew member was sitting at all times with the deceased passenger for the duration of the flight until landing in Doha,” its statement said.

“It is an unfortunate reality that unexpected deaths do sometimes occur on board aircraft across the aviation industry and our crew are highly trained to deal with these situations with as much respect and dignity as possible.”

The airline also said that they have offered support and compensation to the family of the deceased and other passengers who were “directly affected” by the incident.

“We totally understand that we can’t hold the airline responsible for the poor lady’s death, but surely after that there has to be a protocol to look after the customers on board,” Ms Colin said in the televised interview with Channel 9.

When the plane landed, Mr Ring said passengers were asked to stay put while medical staff and police came on board. Ambulance officers then started pulling blankets off the woman and he saw her face, he said.

“I can’t believe they told us to stay,” he said, adding that he thought they would have let the passengers leave before medical staff arrived.

Barry Eustance, a former Virgin Atlantic captain, earlier told the BBC that in his experience “the crew would normally try to isolate the body, so there is no passenger exposure to the body and vice versa, for respect and privacy but also for medical reasons”.

According to the guidelines by the International Air Transport Association on dealing with deaths on board a flight, the deceased person should be moved to a seat, preferably one with few other passengers nearby, and covered with a blanket or body bag up to the neck. The body could also be moved to another area that does not obstruct an aisle or exit.

Upon landing, the association recommends that other passengers disembark before the body is attended to by local authorities.

At least 25 road workers remain trapped after a massive avalanche struck a remote border area in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, officials say.

Senior district official Sandeep Tiwari told BBC Hindi that 32 workers had been rescued and moved to an army camp nearby.

The avalanche hit a Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in the village of Mana, which shares a border with Tibet, officials say.

Officials said rescue operations were continuing in extreme weather amid heavy snowfall.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on X that rescue work was being carried out by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the BRO and other teams.

Ambulances and emergency teams have been dispatched, but treacherous conditions continue to pose challenges for rescuers.

Footage posted on X by ITBP showed rescuers carrying people on stretchers and walking through several feet of snow – even as more snow continued to fall.

Colonel Ankur Mahajan, a commander with the BRO, told the Hindustan Times newspaper that those who had been rescued were receiving treatment “but the extent of their injuries is unclear”.

Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told BBC News that details of the incident were sketchy.

“No-one lives there permanently. It’s a migratory area and only labourers working on border roads stay there in the winter. There’s also some army presence there. We’ve heard that it has been raining in the area for two days. The road workers were in a camp when the avalanche hit.”

Earlier on Friday, the India Meteorological Department warned of heavy rainfall and snow in the northern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Jammu and Kashmir.

Orange alerts have also been issued for snowfall in several districts of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Mexico has extradited 29 alleged drug cartel members to the United States – including high-profile gang leaders.

Those extradited include notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero who has been wanted by the US for the murder of an American agent 40 years ago.

The move – considered to be of the biggest extraditions in Mexico’s history – is seen as a major step in bilateral security relations between the two countries.

It comes after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Mexico earlier this year, accusing it of failing to tackle drug trafficking and mass migration.

“As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Thursday night.

“We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honour of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers – and in some cases, given their lives – to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels,” she added.

Caro Quintero is one of the founding members of the Guadalajara Cartel and a linchpin in the creation of modern Mexican drug-trafficking.

He was wanted in the US in connection with the torture and murder of a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena, in 1985.

Caro Quintero was arrested at the time and spent 28 years in prison in Mexico before being released in 2013 – much to the anger of the Americans.

But in 2022, aged in his 70s, he was recaptured by the Mexican Navy after a dog found him hiding in bushes.

• What did the US, Mexico and Canada get out of Trump’s trade war delay?
• Hidden tunnel on US-Mexico border to be sealed

Reacting to Caro Quintero’s extradition DEA Acting Administrator Derek Maltz hailed the move as a “victory for the Camarena family”.

He added: “Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable.

“No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you.”

Quintero is expected to appear in court in New York on Friday.

Other fugitives extradited include the founders of the brutal Zetas Cartel – Miguel Angel Treviño and his brother Omar Treviño.

Known as Z-40 and Z-42 respectively, the two men ran the feared organisation for years before its eventual demise in the mid 2010s.

Miguel Treviño, who was arrested by Mexican marines in July 2013, was wanted on both sides of the border for ordering massacres and running drugs on a global scale.

Omar Treviño – who was wanted in the US and Mexico on charges of drug trafficking, kidnap and murder – was captured by security forces in Monterrey in March 2015.

Their criminal empire spanned a wide range of illicit activities including cocaine-smuggling, people trafficking, extortion, gun-running and kidnappings.

Police in Webb County, Texas, confirmed the brother’s extradition and warned Americans from crossing into Mexico for fear of reprisals.

Among the other prominent figures included in the extradition are former Juarez Cartel boss Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and Andrew Clark, a Canadian citizen accused by US authorities of being part of a massive US and Canada drug smuggling ring that was allegedly run by former Olympic snowboarder Ryan James Wedding.

According to the justice department, six of the 29 detainees could be subject to the federal death penalty, which the Trump administration restored on the first day of his administration.

The agreement marks a significant departure for the Mexican government, which has historically resisted extraditing its citizens if they might face capital punishment.