Keir Starmer will hold talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Downing Street on Sunday before a major London defence summit aimed at securing “lasting and enforced” peace in Ukraine.

Fresh from his trip to see Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, Starmer has headed back to London to host the defence summit, where more than a dozen world leaders will gather to discuss Ukraine.

The prime minister had invited France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Turkey, as well as Ukraine. After Starmer’s meeting with Trump, the leaders of the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania were added to the list of attenders.

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Council president, António Costa, will also attend.

Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, both undertook trips to the US this week, with the European leaders trying to persuade Trump to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any negotiated peace.

The US president is resisting calls to fully commit US military support to guarantee any Ukraine peace deal, but has suggested that closer economic ties and an agreement on mineral access between Kyiv and Washington would, in effect, act as a security “backstop”.

Zelenskyy travelled to Washington on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal, and to push the president on providing security protections for Kyiv to deter Russia from launching another attack – if a peace agreement is signed.

A Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday that “the UK has made it clear that we’ll play our full part in ensuring a just and lasting peace deal on Ukraine’s terms, backed up by strong security guarantees”.

The spokesperson added: “Just this week we demonstrated our commitment to that confirming we’ll increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2027. But that peace deal has to come first and as you know the prime minister will meet President Zelensky before convening European leaders in London on Sunday to continue those discussions.

“The deal has to come first, but our teams are going to be talking about how we make sure that deal sticks and is lasting and enforced.”

Starmer’s trip to the US was regarded as having gone well, with Trump expressing warmth towards the UK prime minister and pleased by an invitation to visit the king.

During Sunday’s event, Starmer is expected to chair a pre-summit call with the Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – before hosting the conference of European leaders.

At the summit, the leaders will consider how to strengthen Ukraine’s position with military support and increased economic pressure on Russia.

The UK wants US military assets to provide surveillance, intelligence and – potentially – warplanes providing air cover to deter Vladimir Putin from launching another attempt to conquer his neighbour.

In Washington on Thursday, Trump said: “Well, there is a backstop. First, you have European countries, because they’re right there, we’re very far away, we have an ocean between us. But we want to make sure it works.”

He continued: “We are a backstop because we’ll be over there, we’ll be working in the country. ”

Starmer moved to increase defence spending to 3% of national income earlier this week, paying for it by cutting foreign aid. Other European leaders are also coming under pressure to raise defence spending, with Trump’s administration making clear that the US cannot be relied on to contribute as much in future.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said it was a “generational moment for our continent” as she discussed security and defence with European finance leaders at the G20 this week.

Saying it was a “more dangerous world”, Reeves said the UK will “not hide from this reality” as the G20 talked about what could be done to boost defence across Europe.

“This is the moment for us all to step up and together with our European partners we will go further and faster on defence,” she added.

Keir Starmer will hold talks with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni in Downing Street on Sunday before a major London defence summit aimed at securing “lasting and enforced” peace in Ukraine.

Fresh from his trip to see Donald Trump in the White House on Thursday, Starmer has headed back to London to host the defence summit, where more than a dozen world leaders will gather to discuss Ukraine.

The prime minister had invited France, Germany, Denmark, Italy and Turkey, as well as Ukraine. After Starmer’s meeting with Trump, the leaders of the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Finland, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Romania were added to the list of attenders.

The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Council president, António Costa, will also attend.

Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, both undertook trips to the US this week, with the European leaders trying to persuade Trump to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any negotiated peace.

The US president is resisting calls to fully commit US military support to guarantee any Ukraine peace deal, but has suggested that closer economic ties and an agreement on mineral access between Kyiv and Washington would, in effect, act as a security “backstop”.

Zelenskyy travelled to Washington on Friday to sign a critical minerals deal, and to push the president on providing security protections for Kyiv to deter Russia from launching another attack – if a peace agreement is signed.

A Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday that “the UK has made it clear that we’ll play our full part in ensuring a just and lasting peace deal on Ukraine’s terms, backed up by strong security guarantees”.

The spokesperson added: “Just this week we demonstrated our commitment to that confirming we’ll increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2027. But that peace deal has to come first and as you know the prime minister will meet President Zelensky before convening European leaders in London on Sunday to continue those discussions.

“The deal has to come first, but our teams are going to be talking about how we make sure that deal sticks and is lasting and enforced.”

Starmer’s trip to the US was regarded as having gone well, with Trump expressing warmth towards the UK prime minister and pleased by an invitation to visit the king.

During Sunday’s event, Starmer is expected to chair a pre-summit call with the Baltic countries – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – before hosting the conference of European leaders.

At the summit, the leaders will consider how to strengthen Ukraine’s position with military support and increased economic pressure on Russia.

The UK wants US military assets to provide surveillance, intelligence and – potentially – warplanes providing air cover to deter Vladimir Putin from launching another attempt to conquer his neighbour.

In Washington on Thursday, Trump said: “Well, there is a backstop. First, you have European countries, because they’re right there, we’re very far away, we have an ocean between us. But we want to make sure it works.”

He continued: “We are a backstop because we’ll be over there, we’ll be working in the country. ”

Starmer moved to increase defence spending to 3% of national income earlier this week, paying for it by cutting foreign aid. Other European leaders are also coming under pressure to raise defence spending, with Trump’s administration making clear that the US cannot be relied on to contribute as much in future.

Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said it was a “generational moment for our continent” as she discussed security and defence with European finance leaders at the G20 this week.

Saying it was a “more dangerous world”, Reeves said the UK will “not hide from this reality” as the G20 talked about what could be done to boost defence across Europe.

“This is the moment for us all to step up and together with our European partners we will go further and faster on defence,” she added.

Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, suffered no external trauma, the initial results of autopsies have found, as the mystery over the couple’s deaths at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, remains unanswered.

The Oscar-winning actor, who graced the silver screen for more than 60 years, and his classical pianist wife were found dead at their home under suspicious circumstances. Maintenance workers found the couple’s bodies at their home on Wednesday, along with one of their three German shepherd dogs, who was also found dead.

The Santa Fe sheriff’s office gave the first insights into the autopsies on the deceased, the full results of which may take several weeks. In a statement, the department said that preliminary findings showed “no external trauma to either individual”, and “there were no apparent signs of foul play”.

The statement added that the cause of death had not yet been determined, and that the official results of the postmortem exam and toxicology reports remain pending.

The sheriff of Santa Fe county, Adan Mendoza, also revealed that the couple had been dead for “quite a while” before they were found. The two maintenance workers who made the grim discovery said the last time they had been in touch with Hackman and Arakawa was two weeks previously.

The possibility that several days might have passed before the couple’s bodies were discovered chimes with an affidavit in which a sheriff disclosed that Arakawa’s body “showed obvious signs of death, body decomposition, bloating in her face and mummification in both hands and feet”. Mummification occurs when dead tissue dries and hardens over time.

The sheriff’s office has reported that when the deceased were found the front door was open, although there were no signs of foul play, and no obvious evidence of a gas leak or carbon monoxide poisoning. But the scene was strange enough that the sheriff’s office sought a search warrant on Wednesday evening.

Hackman, 95, appeared to have fallen in an entryway, a deputy said, and a cane was found nearby. Arakawa, 65, was found in an upstairs bathroom with an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on a nearby countertop. The dead German shepherd was found in a bathroom closet.

“There was no indication of a struggle,” Mendoza said. “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.”

Hackman and Arakawa appeared to have suddenly fallen to the floor and neither showed signs of blunt force trauma, an affidavit said. Mendoza said two other dogs were found alive, and that those dogs were not in a crate and were able to move freely in and out of the house by a pet door.

Authorities were contacted after a worker performing pest control came across their open door but was unable to get in touch with the couple and dispatched security in the area to check on them.

“I think we just found two or one deceased person[s] inside a house for purchase here,” a caller told 911. “I’m not inside the house. It’s closed. It’s locked. I can’t go in. But I see them. She’s lying face down on the floor from the window.”

Hackman, a former marine known for his raspy voice, appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage during a lengthy career that started in the early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination for his breakout role as the brother of bank robber Clyde Barrow in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde. He was also nominated for best supporting actor in 1970 for I Never Sang for My Father.

His role as Popeye Doyle, the rumpled New York detective chasing international drug dealers in director William Friedkin’s thriller The French Connection, brought him stardom and a best actor Academy Award.

He also won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1992 for his role as a mean sheriff in the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his turn as an FBI agent in the 1988 historical drama Mississippi Burning.

Since the 1980s, Hackman had lived near Santa Fe, a charming arts town – in 2005 it was recognized as a Unesco “creative city” with a thriving tourism industry. It has become well-known in part due to the famed artists and writers that have called it home, including George RR Martin and Cormac McCarthy.

Hackman became well-established in the community, and for many decades could be seen making his way around town. Between 1997 and 2004, he served on the board of trustees for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Speaking at the grand opening of the museum, he said: “In the 10 years I’ve lived here, I’ve been taken with the excitement and indomitable spirit of this place.”

The couple lived in a gated community just outside Santa Fe.

“He was loved and admired by millions around the world for his brilliant acting career, but to us he was always just Dad and Grandpa,” his daughters and granddaughter said in a statement on Thursday.

“We will miss him sorely and are devastated by the loss.”

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

The deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, are the subject of an active investigation after their bodies were found with one of their dogs at their home in New Mexico.

Forensic details suggest that the couple may have been dead for some time before being discovered, with a search warrant seen by the Guardian stating: “[Arakawa’s] body was in a state of decomposition with bloating in her face and mummification in her hands and feet.”

The discovery of mummified remains might have macabre connotations, but for forensic scientists it is not a particularly rare occurrence. Mummified bodies are found several times a year in the south of France and it is normally seen as an indicator of social isolation.

What is mummification?

After death, the body normally undergoes a process of decomposition that ultimately results in all skin and soft tissue breaking down, decaying and a skeleton being left behind. Mummification occurs when this process is stopped in its tracks, preserving the body’s tissues for an extended period of time. Mummification can be brought about artificially through embalming, or due to a body being frozen, or parched in hot and dry conditions. As mummification occurs, the skin and eventually the soft tissue beneath become desiccated, and the body ultimately takes on a dark, leathery appearance.

How could a body be mummified in Santa Fe in the winter?

The temperature in Santa Fe drops below 0C (32F) at this time of year, but indoor conditions are likely to be warm and dry. Warm, ventilated spaces, which in winter are also more likely to deter insects, provide the optimal conditions for a body becoming mummified.

Dr Nicholas Marquez-Grant, a forensic anthropologist at Cranfield University, said: “We tend to think about bodies being mummified in ancient Egypt, or those found in the Andes and high mountains, in frozen areas such as the iceman, or bog bodies. The mummification depends on the dehydration of the tissues, so in forensic cases you’d have this in a house with the heating on high.”

Does it normally occur in the extremities?

Mummification is a gradual process and can involve the complete body or be localised. Prominent body parts or those with a greater skin surface-to-tissue ratio, such as the fingers and outer ears, are more prone to desiccation, according to research.

Clothing, which might cause the body to retain more moisture, may also have an effect on which parts of the body mummify. Marquez-Grant said: “What we’ve found is that you may have someone who is wearing a T-shirt and that part of the torso has been skeletonised, while the legs and the feet have been mummified. In some cases we’ve had the reverse, where the bits that are covered tend to preserve better.

“You can get remains that are in different states of decomposition. The skull has a very thin skin layer so it becomes skeletonised more quickly. The hands decompose more quickly. The hips and buttocks have more fat so will take a bit longer.”

How long does it take for a body to be mummified?

Mummification is a gradual process, which tends to start with the skin becoming discoloured and papery and can eventually result in the entire corpse becoming dark brown, with a parched, leathery texture. A Swedish study of 102 forensic autopsy cases found that parchment-like skin was seen as early as three days postmortem and leathery desiccated skin could appear within six days of death. The entire body could show evidence of mummification within 18 days of death.

Marquez-Grant said: “It can be quite fast in some circumstances. A few days in desert conditions. There have been some experiments with animal cadavers showing that they become dehydrated within days or a week.”

Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, has quit her post over Keir Starmer’s decision to slash the international aid budget by almost half to pay for a generational increase in defence spending.

The senior Labour MP, who attended cabinet, predicted that the UK pulling back from development would bolster Russia, which has already been aggressively increasing its presence worldwide, as well as encourage China’s attempts to rewrite global rules.

She said the prime minister would find it “impossible” to honour his commitment to maintain development spending in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine with the diminished budget, which will fall by about £6bn by 2027.

Dodds said she firmly believed the prime minister was right to increase defence spending, as the postwar consensus had “come crashing down” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

She recognised there were “not easy paths” to doing so, and had been prepared for some cuts to the aid budget to help pay for the plan to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – and an ambition to hit 3% in the next parliament.

But the former shadow chancellor said she believed Starmer’s 3% ambition “may only be the start” given the tumultuous global picture, and urged the government to look at other ways of raising the money other than through cutting departmental budgets, including looking again at borrowing rules and taxation.

Starmer replied with his own letter several hours after Dodds announced her resignation, in which he praised Dodds but defended his decision to cut the aid budget.

Cabinet ministers are among those who voiced concern over plans to cut aid spending by 46%, from 0.56% of gross national income [GNI] to 0.3%, after Donald Trump’s own drastic cuts to the US aid budget. In a cabinet meeting several spoke of the risk of unintended consequences.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said earlier this month that the US’s plan to cut aid funding could be a “big strategic mistake” that would allow China to step into the gap and extend its global influence. Starmer has been accused of pandering to the US president.

Dodds, the MP for Oxford East, said she was told about the decision by Starmer only on Monday, but delayed resigning so as not to overshadow the prime minister’s trip to Washington to make the case to Trump for security guarantees for Ukraine.

Starmer made his surprise announcement in the Commons, telling MPs that Britain would “fight for peace in Europe” with a generational increase in defence spending.

The announcement, two days before the prime minister was due to meet Trump, raised immediate concerns that he was following the US’s lead and prompted fury from aid groups, who said it could cost lives in countries that relied on UK support.

Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, told the Guardian the decision to cut foreign aid was a “strategic mistake” that would ultimately add to the burden on Britain’s armed forces, and risked making the UK “weaker not stronger”.

Dodds, in her letter to the prime minister, wrote: “Undoubtedly the postwar global order has come crashing down. I believe that we must increase spending on defence as a result; and know that there are no easy paths to doing so.

“I stood ready to work with you to deliver that increased spending, knowing some might well have had to come from overseas development assistance [ODA]. I also expected we would collectively discuss our fiscal rules and approach to taxation, as other nations are doing.

“Even 3% may only be the start, and it will be impossible to raise the substantial resources needed just through tactical cuts to public spending. These are unprecedented times, when strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be ducked.”

Dodds, who was also a minister for women, was sceptical about Starmer’s promise to maintain aid funding for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine, as well as for vaccination, climate and rules-based systems.

Officials have said that the portion of the development budget going on asylum seeker accommodation – which stands at almost a third – would eventually be freed up for aid.

Dodds wrote: “It will be impossible to maintain these priorities given the depth of the cut; the effect will be far greater than presented, even if assumptions made about reducing asylum costs hold true.”

And she cautioned about the effect on Britain’s national security and global influence as hostile nations moved into the breach.

“The cut will also likely lead to a UK pullout from numerous African, Caribbean and western Balkan nations at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence,” she said. “All this while China is seeking to rewrite global rules, and when the climate crisis is the biggest security threat of them all.”

Explaining why she had delayed her resignation while Starmer was in Washington, she said: “It was imperative that you had a united cabinet behind you as you set off for Washington. Your determination to pursue peace through strength for Ukraine is one I share.

“It is for that reason that I am only writing to you now that your meeting with President Trump is over, and four days after you informed me of your decision to cut overseas development assistance to 0.3% of GNI.”

She concluded: “Ultimately, these cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation. I know you have been clear that you are not ideologically opposed to international development. But the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump’s slipstream of cuts to USAid.”

In reply, Starmer wrote: “Overseas development is vitally important, and I am proud of what we have done. The UK will still be providing significant humanitarian and development support, and we will continue to protect vital programmes – including in the world’s worst conflict zones of Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan.

“The decision I have taken on ODA was a difficult and painful decision and not one I take lightly. We will do everything we can to return to a world where that is not the case and to rebuild a capability on development.

“However, protecting our national security must always be the first duty of any government and I will always act in the best interests of the British people.”

He also seemed to hold out the prospect of a return to the frontbench should Dodds choose to do so. “I know you will have more to contribute in the future and continue to represent your constituents in Oxford East with dedication.”

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons international development committee, tweeted: “What else could she do? She knows these cuts are unworkable. Honourable as always, she’s done right by her department & right by the PM by not resigning before DC visit. Deep shame for development where she was respected.”

The Conservative former aid secretary Andrew Mitchell said Dodds had “done the right thing” by resigning, adding: “Labour’s disgraceful and cynical actions demean the Labour party’s reputation as they balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. Shame on them and kudos to a politician of decency and principle.”

Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of Bond, the umbrella organisation for aid charities, said: “This will be a huge loss. It is clear from the devastating UK aid cuts announced this week, which must be reversed, that the government is trying to step back from its development ambitions.”

Sir Keir Starmer is to take UK overseas aid to its lowest level as a percentage of national income since records began, even if he manages to halve the current £4.5bn cost of housing asylum seekers.

The extraordinary finding, a complete reversal of Labour manifesto pledges and its historical commitment to helping the world’s poorest, is made by Ian Mitchell, the co-director of the respected London-based thinktank the Centre for Global Development.

It comes as 138 charities wrote to Starmer saying they are appalled that he is implementing the single largest cut to the UK aid programme in history.

On Tuesday Starmer announced the aid budget will be cut from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% in 2027. But in 2023, nearly £4.3bn, or 28% of the aid budget, was spent by the Home Office in funding the cost of housing asylum seekers in the UK.

Even if these costs were halved in 2027 through a mix of fewer asylum seekers, and lowering the cost of housing each asylum seeker, Mitchell calculates, the UK would still only be spending 0.23% of UK national income in 2027 on overseas aid, the lowest ever share of national income since records began in 1960.

The UK’s previous lowest ever share of national income spent on overseas aid was 0.24 % in 1999.

If the per-head refugee costs remain at their current level, official development assistance costs for refugees would be closer to £3bn in 2027, and aid not spent on refugees in the UK would fall to 0.20% of GNP.

In their letter, the NGOs accused Starmer of following in the US’s footsteps by accepting “the false choice of cutting the already diminished UK aid to fund defence”. Donald Trump’s administration has frozen funding for USAid, the US Agency for International Development, with a view in effect to dismantle it.

“We implore you to reverse this decision before significant damage is done to both the UK’s development and humanitarian work and its global reputation,” said the letter organised by Bond, an umbrella organisation for UK overseas aid groups.

It demands a Commons statement setting out what alternatives had been considered before the government decided on Tuesday to take a step that will “destroy Labour’s legacy on international development” and leave the “government’s ambition to be a reliable development partner on the global stage in tatters”.

Areas likely to be affected by UK aid cuts include climate change finance, humanitarian aid programmes, including in Yemen, and funding for Gavi, the Bill Gates-backed global vaccination programme. Experts said the bilateral programmes most likely to be damaged are those aimed at Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

Aid groups say that unilateral UK aid projects are likely to be particularly affected because they are easier to exit than ones involving multiple countries. “With the amount committed to refugees in the UK, and now this cut, there will be almost nothing left. It’s an absolute mess,” one official from the sector said.

Whitehall sources said there was still “shock and distress” from those working on aid and development in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), who had already seen their independent department abolished under Boris Johnson.

There is already an open voluntary redundancy scheme within the FCDO aimed at reducing headcount and those who work in the department said they thought demand would shoot up because morale is so low. “No one wants to work on closing down programmes they have spent their working life setting up,” said one civil servant.

Union sources said it was too early to say what cuts would look like, but some reduction in the workforce was inevitable, especially given some staff are paid out of the aid budget.

Anneliese Dodds, the development minister, was expected to give a “fireside chat” to those working on development in the department on Thursday to provide reassurances that its work was still valued.

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, is being urged by European diplomats to take a lead in calling for the $200bn (£158.5bn) in frozen Russian assets to be released to help Ukraine, a move that might ease the pressure on the UK aid budget.

So far the UK, faced by legal hurdles, had only been willing to use the interest on the frozen funds to guarantee loans to Ukraine, but Lammy, speaking before the aid cuts were announced on Tuesday, said: “Europe has to act quickly, and I believe we should move from freezing assets to seizing assets.”

The European diplomats argue US cuts mean €210bn (£173bn) of Russia’s frozen money held in the bloc, mainly in Euroclear, a Brussels-based securities depository, has to be seized. They are seeking to overcome resistance from Germany, France and the European Central Bank.

Another stopgap is to deploy the £2.5bn of frozen assets of the Russian oligarch and former Chelsea football club owner Roman Abrahamovic.

Lammy was only told about the halving of the aid budget 72 hours in advance. Just a fortnight ago he had advised the US it would be a strategic mistake to cut the budget of USAid, the now hastily dismantled US aid programme. Dodds had also repeatedly told the international development select committee she wanted predictability in the aid budget.

Peaceful protests in central Athens have been eclipsed by the eruption of full-scale clashes between rock-throwing youths and riot police, as demonstrations and strikes were held across Greece to mark the second anniversary of a fatal train crash.

Thousands of people who had crammed into Syntagma Square for a demonstration later fled, some even seeking refuge in the parliament, as riot police fired rounds of teargas at hundreds of black-clad hooded youths lobbying rocks at them.

Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people joined protests and strikes, with the fallout putting the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, under pressure. Opinion polls indicate that most Greeks believe officials covered up vital evidence following the crash, slowing down an investigation that is still incomplete.

As experts attributed the train disaster to oversights and major systemic failures, striking workers grounded flights and halted sea and train transport, and rallies were held nationwide under the watch of police in riot gear. Banners in Syntagma Square in the heart of the capital were emblazoned with the words: “Government of murderers.”

Organisers had vowed that Friday’s protests would be on a scale not seen in years.

Fifty-seven people, almost all students, were killed, and dozens more injured when an intercity passenger train collided head-on with a cargo locomotive in the valley of Tempe on 28 February 2023. It was the worst rail accident in Greece’s history.

Petros Constantinou, a prominent leftwing activist, said: “What we are seeing is a river of outrage swelling by the minute. Citizens feel duped. They want answers, they want justice and they want to support the families of the victims. Everyone believes this will be the biggest show of people power in this country in decades.”

On the eve of the protests, Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the Pasok party, Greece’s main opposition, accused the government of “deceiving” the Greek people and “doing everything they could to conceal their political responsibilities”. He said he would file a motion of no confidence in the government next week, adding to pressure on Mitsotakis.

Protests are being held in 200 towns and cities nationwide. Diaspora communities, from Canada to Australia, have announced similar demonstrations in a sign of the fury the disaster has spurred.

All international and domestic flights were grounded on Friday as air traffic controllers joined seafarers, train drivers, doctors, lawyers and teachers in a 24-hour general strike to pay tribute to the victims of the crash. Across the country, businesses were shut and theatres cancelled performances.

In Athens suburbs, groups of all ages made their way downtown with placards reading: “I have no oxygen,” a slogan of the protests echoing a woman’s last words in a call to emergency services. Many pupils went to class dressed in black, a symbol of mourning.

Not since he first took office in July 2019 has Mitsotakis, a former banker, confronted such unrest. Public anger over the response to the crash – not least a decision to rapidly clean up the site and remove debris that included vital evidence and human remains – has been exacerbated by the perceived and growing sense of a government cover-up.

Within days of the crash, in a move that has yet to be fully explained, the Greek authorities rushed to gravel over and cement the area.

Accusations of political interference in the investigation have been aggravated by the glacial pace with which justice has been meted out: a trial has yet to be held and no government official has faced censure or been made accountable for the tragedy.

A 178-page report released by an independent investigative committee on Thursday found that while most of the victims had died as a result of the high-impact crash – blamed initially on a station master erroneously placing the two trains on the same track – as many as seven people were incinerated in the huge explosion that ensued. The report cited “the possible presence” of an “unknown fuel” at the scene, findings that will boost claims, already voiced by investigators hired by the victims’ families, that the freight train was carrying a highly flammable illegal substance.

In the report, commissioned by relatives, experts referred to an unreported load of explosive chemicals on the cargo train, claims echoed by some EU diplomats. The train’s operator, Hellenic Train, has denied knowledge of any illegal cargo.

Mitsotakis has, until recently, proved adroit at handling crises, a talent that has helped reinforce a sense of political stability.

But analysts told the Guardian that in a political climate that had become increasingly unpredictable and toxic, passions were running so high that placating public sentiment was proving hard. One poll, released by MRB, revealed that 81.1 % of respondents did not believe the government had done enough to shed light on the tragedy, reflecting the growing distrust in public institutions and the judiciary.

“This is the first time in six years that Mitsotakis is facing such huge social opposition,” said the political commentator Maria Karaklioumi. “For the first time we are seeing people mobilising in a way they haven’t done in years and what happens next is unpredictable.”

She said the anger about the crash had played into wider concerns about the cost of living and the poor standard of public services. “It has gone beyond Tempe and swelled into a much bigger crisis,” she said.

China’s defence ministry spokesperson has warned Taiwan “we will come and get you, sooner or later”, after Taipei announced an expansion of military exercises.

The threat was delivered in a press conference on Thursday, but grabbed attention inside China for its apparent mirroring of a line from the record-breaking children’s movie Ne Zha 2.

Wu Qian was asked by journalists in Beijing about reports that Taiwan’s annual live-fire drills, the Han Kuang exercise, would expand in scope this year. The drills are a big part of Taiwan’s defensive preparations to deter or one day resist an attack by China, which has vowed to annex the territory.

“It is a serious miscalculation of the situation, the public opinion and the comparison of strength,” said Wu. “Overreaching itself in such a way is extremely dangerous. We warn the DPP [Democratic Progressive party] authorities that holding back the tide with a broom will only end up in self-destruction. We will come and get you, sooner or later.”

On Chinese social media, the remarks quickly drew parallels with the blockbuster children’s movie. Ne Zha 2, an animation about a young boy battling demons based on Chinese mythology, includes a scene where he admonishes a groundhog, saying: “I will come back and get you.”

Ne Zha 2 has been hugely popular in China, generating massive coverage in state media after it became the highest-grossing film in China, and then the world, overtaking the revenue of Inside Out 2. Its success has driven a surge of patriotism in China, with people reportedly viewing it numerous times, and cheering it on against Captain America: Brave New World, released in China around the same time but with lacklustre attendance.

Ne Zha 2 has not been released in Taiwan.

In response to Wu’s comments and in further criticism of recent Chinese military drills held off Taiwan’s south-west coast, the Taiwan defence ministry accused China of becoming the biggest “troublemaker” in the international community.

“This year marks the 80th anniversary of (the end of) world war two, and history has proven that any form of aggression and expansion will end in failure,” it said in a statement. “The actions of the communist military in recent years are repeating the mistakes of the invaders and pushing China towards defeat.”

China’s military is pushing on with modernisation efforts, designed to reach capability of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. Last week, it amended regulations to emphasise that the military’s top responsibility should be “winning battles”, and ordered the military to “focus on preparation and readiness for combat”.

Bill Bishop, a China expert behind the Sinocism newsletter, said on Friday that Beijing’s language towards Taiwan “appears to be getting harsher”. The readout of this year’s Taiwan affairs work conference, held earlier this week, did not include a goal to “promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations”, which had been part of the 2023 and 2024 readouts.

Taiwan is boosting its defences but remains vastly outgunned by China. Its greatest backer has historically been the US, but that has come into question under the second presidency of Donald Trump.

This week, Trump refused to say if the US would come to Taiwan’s defence militarily in the event of a Chinese attack. The stance is in line with the US’s longstanding doctrine of strategic ambiguity, but is a departure from his predecessor, Joe Biden, who repeatedly suggested the US would defend Taiwan under his leadership.

Trump’s stance, taken with previous comments questioning the worth of supporting Taiwan and accusing it of “stealing” US semiconductor business, has raised alarm in Taipei.

China’s defence ministry spokesperson has warned Taiwan “we will come and get you, sooner or later”, after Taipei announced an expansion of military exercises.

The threat was delivered in a press conference on Thursday, but grabbed attention inside China for its apparent mirroring of a line from the record-breaking children’s movie Ne Zha 2.

Wu Qian was asked by journalists in Beijing about reports that Taiwan’s annual live-fire drills, the Han Kuang exercise, would expand in scope this year. The drills are a big part of Taiwan’s defensive preparations to deter or one day resist an attack by China, which has vowed to annex the territory.

“It is a serious miscalculation of the situation, the public opinion and the comparison of strength,” said Wu. “Overreaching itself in such a way is extremely dangerous. We warn the DPP [Democratic Progressive party] authorities that holding back the tide with a broom will only end up in self-destruction. We will come and get you, sooner or later.”

On Chinese social media, the remarks quickly drew parallels with the blockbuster children’s movie. Ne Zha 2, an animation about a young boy battling demons based on Chinese mythology, includes a scene where he admonishes a groundhog, saying: “I will come back and get you.”

Ne Zha 2 has been hugely popular in China, generating massive coverage in state media after it became the highest-grossing film in China, and then the world, overtaking the revenue of Inside Out 2. Its success has driven a surge of patriotism in China, with people reportedly viewing it numerous times, and cheering it on against Captain America: Brave New World, released in China around the same time but with lacklustre attendance.

Ne Zha 2 has not been released in Taiwan.

In response to Wu’s comments and in further criticism of recent Chinese military drills held off Taiwan’s south-west coast, the Taiwan defence ministry accused China of becoming the biggest “troublemaker” in the international community.

“This year marks the 80th anniversary of (the end of) world war two, and history has proven that any form of aggression and expansion will end in failure,” it said in a statement. “The actions of the communist military in recent years are repeating the mistakes of the invaders and pushing China towards defeat.”

China’s military is pushing on with modernisation efforts, designed to reach capability of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. Last week, it amended regulations to emphasise that the military’s top responsibility should be “winning battles”, and ordered the military to “focus on preparation and readiness for combat”.

Bill Bishop, a China expert behind the Sinocism newsletter, said on Friday that Beijing’s language towards Taiwan “appears to be getting harsher”. The readout of this year’s Taiwan affairs work conference, held earlier this week, did not include a goal to “promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations”, which had been part of the 2023 and 2024 readouts.

Taiwan is boosting its defences but remains vastly outgunned by China. Its greatest backer has historically been the US, but that has come into question under the second presidency of Donald Trump.

This week, Trump refused to say if the US would come to Taiwan’s defence militarily in the event of a Chinese attack. The stance is in line with the US’s longstanding doctrine of strategic ambiguity, but is a departure from his predecessor, Joe Biden, who repeatedly suggested the US would defend Taiwan under his leadership.

Trump’s stance, taken with previous comments questioning the worth of supporting Taiwan and accusing it of “stealing” US semiconductor business, has raised alarm in Taipei.

Russia has announced it will appoint a new ambassador to Washington, signalling a further diplomatic thaw in relations just a day after Russian and American officials met in Istanbul to discuss strengthening ties.

Moscow said Alexander Darchiyev, a career diplomat who is currently the head of the foreign ministry’s North America department, will soon leave for the role in Washington.

Moscow has not had an envoy in the US since the last ambassador left his post in October last year.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the US had formally approved Moscow’s appointment of Darchiyev after Thursday’s talks in Istanbul, where diplomats met to discuss improving bilateral relations.

Darchiyev, 64, previously served as Russia’s ambassador to Canada from October 2014 to January 2021. He has worked for the foreign ministry since 1992 and held a senior post at the embassy in Washington earlier in his career.

In a statement published on Russia’s foreign ministry website, Moscow said it had proposed restoring direct flights between the two countries during the talks in Istanbul.

Following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine’s allies – including the US, the UK and the EU – banned Russian planes from their airspace.

On Friday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said officials in Istanbul “agreed on joint steps to ensure the uninterrupted financing of diplomatic missions in both countries and to create appropriate conditions for diplomats to carry out their duties effectively”.

Over the past decade, Russia and the US have repeatedly expelled each other’s diplomats, significantly reducing their embassy staffing levels.

The talks in Istanbul marked the second consecutive week of meetings between Washington and Moscow, after last week’s discussions in Saudi Arabia where the two country’s vowed to improve economic relations that had been cut by the imposition of western sanctions.

The series of meetings, first set in motion by a call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin earlier this month, signal a dramatic shift in relations.

The Russian president on Thursday applauded the new US administration for “pragmatism, a realistic worldview” and described initial contacts with the Trump administration as “inspiring a certain degree of hope”.

“There is a reciprocal mood to work to restore intergovernmental ties and to gradually resolve the huge number of systemic and strategic problems that have built up in the world’s security architecture,” said Putin at a meeting with the leadership of the FSB intelligence service.

Putin also seemed to suggest that Europe and the UK were attempting to undermine negotiations between Russia and the US.

“We understand that not everyone is happy with the resumption of Russian-American contacts. Some western elites are still determined to maintain instability in the world, and these forces will try to disrupt or compromise the dialogue that has begun,” he said.

Trump’s pivot toward closer ties with Putin has sent shock waves through Europe. The leaders of the UK and France, who met the US president separately this week, have been pushing him to maintain support for Ukraine.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has apologised after Instagram users were subjected to a flood of violence, gore, animal abuse and dead bodies on their Reels feeds.

Users reported the footage after an apparent malfunction in Instagram’s algorithm, which curates what people see on the app.

Reels is a feature on the social media platform that allows users to share short videos, similar to TikTok.

An Instagram forum on Reddit, the online discussion platform, contained posts from users referencing the graphic material that had appeared in their feeds in midweek.

One user on the subreddit wrote: “I just saw at least 10 people die on my reels.”

There were also references by users to a video of a man being crushed by an elephant. Others flagged footage of a man being dismembered by a helicopter and a video where “a guy put his face into boiling oil”. Several users posted videos of their Reels feeds dominated by “sensitive content” screens that are designed to shield users from graphic material.

A list of violent content on one user’s feed, published by the tech news site 404, included: a man being set on fire; a man shooting a cashier at point-blank range; videos from an account called “PeopleDeadDaily”; and a pig being beaten with a wrench. The user in question had a biking-related Instagram account, 404 Media reported.

Another Reddit user wrote: “For the past 24 hours, it feels like Instagram’s algorithm has gone rogue. My feed is absolutely packed with violent Reels – like, one after the other.

“It’s like Instagram is now trying to make me question if I accidentally followed a ‘bloodshed and chaos’ account. I get that the platform’s all about ‘engagement’ and ‘trending,’ but did they really think this was the way to get people to scroll more?”

A spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said: “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content on their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologise for the mistake.”

The error follows recent changes to Meta’s approach to content moderation. However, the company told 404 Media that the deluge of graphic videos was not related to the overhaul of Meta’s content rules, which included removing factcheckers and “dramatically” reducing the amount of censorship on its platforms.

Meta’s content guidelines state the company will remove content that is “particularly violent or graphic” and that some imagery will be shielded by sensitive content screens. In the UK, the Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to take measures to prevent under-18s from seeing material that is harmful to them such as violent, hateful or abusive material, which will include configuring their algorithms to filter out such content.

One internet safety campaign group demanded a “full explanation” of what had happened to Instagram’s algorithm.

The Molly Rose Foundation, set up by the family of the UK teenager Molly Russell, who killed herself in 2017 after viewing distressing content on Instagram, said questions needed to answered about why such graphic content was on the platform in the first place.

“As Instagram rolls back content moderation this is likely to be a sign of things to come,” said Andy Burrows, the foundation’s chief executive. “Meta’s changes will mean this type of content is more freely available and will more often be recommended to appear in user’s feeds.”

Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a huge rise in deaths as a result.

After the US announced a permanent end to funding for HIV projects, services across the board have been affected, say doctors and programme managers, from projects helping orphans and pregnant women to those reaching transgender individuals and sex workers.

The cuts could result in 500,000 deaths over the next 10 years in South Africa, modelling suggests, while thousands of people are already set to lose their jobs in the coming days.

The US government has announced it will be cutting more than 90% of the contracts of its key development agency, USAid, and slashing $60bn (£48bn) of overseas aid spending.

The Guardian has heard that notices of termination have been sent to organisations in other countries in the region, including Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, as well as with the joint United Nations programme UNAids.

The Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation said it had received termination notices for three of its projects, which provide HIV treatment for more than 350,000 people in Lesotho, Eswatini and Tanzania. The figure includes more than 10,000 HIV-positive pregnant women, who must continue taking antiretroviral drugs to avoid passing the disease on to their babies.

Dr Lynne Mofenson, a senior adviser at the foundation, said the decision was “a death sentence for mothers and children”.

Many projects had been forced to stop work in late January after the Trump administration announced a 90-day review of foreign aid. A few were then granted temporary waivers to continue on the grounds that they provided life-saving services, before receiving notices on Thursday instructing them to close their doors permanently.

Projects funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), founded by George W Bush in 2003, appear to be particularly affected. In South Africa it funds 17% of the HIV response; in other countries the figure is much higher.

Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the University of Cape Town, said: “It is not hyperbole to say that I predict a huge disaster.”

Bekker has worked on modelling suggesting a complete loss of Pepfar funding in South Africa would lead to more than 500,000 extra HIV deaths over a decade.

It comes at a time when scientific breakthroughs, such as the introduction of long-acting injectable prevention drugs, meant many working in the HIV field had hoped an end to the disease might be in sight.

Now, said Bekker, it was likely things would go backwards. South Africa has about 8 million people living with HIV, the highest number globally.

She said she had initially expected the US to target programmes working with key groups of people such as the LGBT+ community, because of the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity initiatives, “but in fact, this has been across the board.

“This is children, this is orphans, vulnerable children, young women and girl programmes. It is generic and across the board.”

It also halts ongoing research, including trials into potential HIV vaccines and new prevention drugs, Bekker said.

US funding had allowed projects to fill gaps in government provision, such as clinics where transgender people or sex workers can seek care without stigma or legal concerns, Bekker said.

Kholi Buthelezi, national coordinator at Sisonke, a sex workers’ organisation, said: “I’ve been having sleepless nights. This blow, it reminded us of back when there was no cure for HIV.”

At a press briefing on the cuts, she and others working on HIV in South Africa called on their government to “step up” and fill the gaps left by the US’s withdrawal.

Pepfar funding has been distributed via USAid and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Programmes with funding from the CDC have not yet been forced to shut, said Dr Kate Rees, a public health medicine specialist at the Anova Health Institute, but said it was too early to conclude that those programmes were safe.

There had already been plans to shift programmes reliant on donors to government funding over the next five years, Rees said, but “now, instead of a careful handover, we’re being pushed over a cliff edge”.

US funding had been embedded in the health system, she said, and so the withdrawal would “be felt by everyone who uses or works in health services”.

Anova has received a termination notice. “Tomorrow we are letting go more than 2,800 people,” Rees said. “That’s counsellors, data capturers, healthcare workers – and these people are not going to find other jobs very easily.”

The US bank Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send $280 – before the “fat finger” error was caught.

The mistake was spotted only after two employees had missed it, and a third employee rectified it 90 minutes after it was posted, the Financial Times reported. No funds left the bank.

The bank disclosed the “near miss” to the US Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

A transaction of $81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems. It would have certainly gone down as one of the biggest ever fat finger errors, in which the wrong number is entered in a computer system.

The sum would be more than enough to buy the entire US stock market, including all of the big tech companies, at a healthy premium. The US stock market was valued at $62tn at the end of 2024, according to the Current Market Valuation website.

The amount would be also be enough to buy all of the assets of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, more than 200 times over. His fortune is valued at $343bn, according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index.

The total stock of global wealth was estimated at about $450tn by UBS last year. The total wealth of the UK was estimated at $16tn in 2022.

A Citi spokesperson said: “Despite the fact that a payment of this size could not actually have been executed, our detective controls promptly identified the inputting error between two Citi ledger accounts and we reversed the entry. Our preventative controls would have also stopped any funds leaving the bank.

“While there was no impact to the bank or our client, the episode underscores our continued efforts to continue eliminating manual processes and automating controls through our transformation.”

It was not the first fat finger error for Citi, which has previously faced criticisms of its internal systems. In 2020 it accidentally sent $900m to creditors of the cosmetics company Revlon. It took two years of legal battles for the bank to recover much of the money from several hedge funds, and the saga contributed to the departure of the Citigroup chief executive, Michael Corbat.

The bank was fined £61.6m in the UK last year after a banker tried to sell stocks worth $58m in May 2022. However, the fat-fingered trader accidentally sold shares worth $1.4bn, causing a “flash crash” in European stock markets. The unidentified trader scrolled past error messages without reading them.

The Financial Times reported that Citi experienced 10 near misses of more than $1bn last year, citing an internal report.

In 2014, a trader cancelled orders for shares in 42 Japanese companies worth 67.78tn yen (£380bn) before they could be made.