The last time Soe Ko Ko Naing saw his great-uncle was in July, at his home by the banks of the Irrawaddy River.

Ko Naing, a supporter of Myanmar’s resistance against the military junta, was about to flee the country. Living in Min Kun, a small town in the military stronghold area of Sagaing, Ko Naing did not trust anyone enough to tell them of his plan – except his beloved Oo Oo (‘uncle’ in Burmese).

“I told him I was going to Thailand. He thought it was a good plan. He wished me good health and safety,” recalled Ko Naing, a 35-year-old labour rights activist.

Nearly a year on, Ko Naing is safe in Thailand. But his Oo Oo was killed by the powerful earthquake that struck Sagaing near Mandalay last Friday, claiming at least 2,000 lives.

“I have sleepless nights. I’m still suffering,” said Ko Naing.

“I have no remorse for leaving the country, because I had to. But I feel guilty because our people need us the most now. I feel helpless.”

Ko Naing is one of the millions of Myanmar’s diaspora anxiously watching from afar as their country struggles following its biggest earthquake in a century.

Like him, many are experiencing survivor’s guilt and a sense of helplessness. For some, these feelings are compounded by the fact that they cannot go back easily to help in rescue efforts or check on relatives, as they would face political persecution.

Thailand hosts the world’s biggest Myanmar diaspora community with about 4.3 million Myanmar nationals, though the figure is thought to be much higher if it includes undocumented migrants.

As a wealthier neighbour, it has long attracted people from Myanmar who make up a large section of its migrant workforce. The 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war have only swelled their ranks.

Some toil in the construction sector – many of the 400 workers at a Bangkok skyscraper that collapsed due to the quake were believed to be from Myanmar – while others work in Thailand’s agriculture and seafood industries.

On a drizzly Monday morning in Samut Sakhon, a fishing port near Bangkok that is home to many workers from Myanmar, men wearing the traditional Burmese longgyi and women with thanaka daubed on their cheeks thronged the alleys of a street market.

Banners advertising SIM cards with cheap rates for calling Myanmar were plastered across buildings, while shops displayed signs in both Thai and Burmese.

“We have seen videos online of buildings collapsing and people trapped under the rubble. We feel so sad about not being able to do anything,” said 30-year-old factory worker Yin Yin, who like many in the crowd is worried about the situation back home.

Shopowner Thant Zin, 28, who is from a town in Sagaing unaffected by the quake, mourned the collapse of centuries-old pagodas and temples in his area. “What a disaster! I feel so bad… We have never experienced this extent of damage before.”

Across town Ko Naing sat in his office, checking for updates on his family in Myanmar. At least 150 of his relatives live in or around Sagaing and Mandalay.

Friday’s earthquake was so immense that it could be felt in Thailand, India and China. That day, as Ko Naing lay in bed in Samut Sakhon hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre, he said he felt the room shake for about 30 seconds.

He immediately went on social media and discovered the quake had occurred close to Min Kun. Then he came across a picture of Sagaing’s Ava Bridge – a local landmark – lying in mangled ruins in the Irrawaddy River. “I was shocked and devastated, I have a lot of relatives in that area. I thought, ‘it must be fake news’. But it was real.”

With slow communications in Myanmar in the quake’s immediate aftermath, Ko Naing only heard from his relatives on Saturday. Almost everyone was safe and accounted for, he was told, except for a distant great-aunt who died in Mandalay – and his Oo Oo.

A week before, Min Kun and its surroundings had been shelled by the military targeting the People’s Defence Forces resistance. Almost all of Ko Naing’s family in the town fled to Sagaing city or to a military-controlled area in Mandalay.

Oo Oo had refused to decamp and took shelter in the village monastery instead, knowing that the military would not attack Buddhist sites.

But on Friday, the monastery collapsed completely when the earthquake struck. His body was found in the rubble on Monday.

Ko Naing remembers Oo Oo as an open-minded and outspoken 60-year-old. In an area dominated by the military, the two bonded over their shared support for the resistance, especially after the coup.

In the summer the two would spend afternoons by the river, having lunch and catching up on the news. His great-uncle had no phone and no social media, and Ko Naing would help him check updates on the civil war. “I was his personal news agency,” he joked.

Oo Oo had to retire from his job as a boatman when he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed. Still, every morning, he would shuffle to his family’s tea shop and fry up ee kyar kwe, which are doughsticks.

“He was my source of inspiration, especially in difficult times… he was the only one I could talk to. I got my resilience from him,” said Ko Naing.

That resilience was something Ko Naing had to tap on when he made his dangerous escape from Myanmar along with his wife and five-year-old son. He was wanted by the military, which had issued a warrant for his arrest for taking part in peaceful protests.

His family travelled to the border where they crossed into Thailand illegally. As they ran in the dark past a Thai border police station, the family tripped over a large pipe and tumbled to the ground. His son fell backwards on his head. Ko Naing feared the worst.

But to his relief, his son let out a loud cry. Ko Naing slapped his hand over the child’s mouth, picked him up, and sprinted toward a people smuggler waiting for them with a motorcycle. They first headed to the Thai town of Mae Sot before eventually travelling to Samut Sakhon, where they secured the right to stay in Thailand.

Though he is now safe and has a good job, Ko Naing said: “To be honest I’m very depressed at the moment.

“First there was the pandemic, then the coup, then the military has been killing people who oppose them. People have been displaced.

“Then the earthquake has added to the suffering. Even after the earthquake, the military keeps bombing areas.

“I keep thinking it would be good if we can be there, if we can do something… it’s depressing living here, seeing the news about my country.”

He is working with the Myanmar diaspora to collect donations and send humanitarian assistance to the quake victims back home. They are also helping the Myanmar construction workers affected by the Bangkok building collapse.

“If we always feel depressed, nobody will help our people… it’s good that we’re alive. We can still do something.

“We have to make up our mind on how to rebuild, how we can move on.”

The meeting between motivational speaker Brad Burton and Sam Wall lasted less than a minute. She posed for a picture with him after attending one of his workshops and later left a glowing video testimonial.

It was unremarkable, Mr Burton says. “Just one of the thousands of people I must have met over the years.”

Two years later, she started attacking him online.

In hundreds of posts, Wall described him as manipulative, a psychopath and a sociopathic abuser. Day after day, she accused him of making death threats, breaking her windows and killing her cat – all false allegations.

“She put it on social media across all platforms. She was painting a picture that, somewhere along the way, I had done all these things and I was trying to cover it up,” Mr Burton tells BBC Panorama.

“How do you prove a negative? That I had not poisoned the cat? Social media and the way it works, it’s guilty until proven innocent.”

Wall, 55, a social media consultant, pleaded guilty to charges of stalking and sending false messages at Manchester Magistrates’ Court last November.

Her sentencing was delayed for a second time last week, but the judge told her to expect a prison sentence.

Wall’s legal team said a psychiatric report shows she has a chronic delusional mental health illness.

Her conviction was in relation to two victims – Mr Burton and businesswoman Naomi Timperley – who were targeted with abusive messages over the past four years.

“It’s just been hideous, really hideous, and I don’t know why it happened,” Mrs Timperley tells us. “I’m still really anxious, sometimes I get really sad.”

BBC Panorama has spoken to other victims who say they were stalked by Wall over a period of more than 10 years.

Some had never met Wall, while others only knew her as a passing acquaintance.

At the time Wall targeted Mr Burton, he was running a network supporting hundreds of small businesses across the UK.

Many of her abusive posts were detailed – one was 20,000 words long. Some were shared on LinkedIn, where she had 30,000 followers – the very platform Mr Burton relied on to promote his work.

While the pandemic hit him hard, he says she helped to sink his business.

Wall also falsely claimed that Mr Burton had in fact been harassing her for 10 years – and that he had been arrested and jailed.

Mr Burton posted pictures of himself online to prove he was not in prison. Wall responded by claiming his psychopathic twin was taking the photos and appearing at events to cover up the fact he had been locked up.

His friend Alan Price knew Wall was lying about the 10-year claim, because he had introduced them at the workshop two years earlier.

“She’s telling everybody that Brad Burton is in jail, but I was actually out in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset having a curry with him,” he says.

In an attempt to stop her, Mr Burton went to a solicitor who advised him to send a cease and desist letter. Wall then responded by publishing the letter online and saying he could sue her – but she had no money.

Mrs Timperley had only met Wall in passing – she followed her on Twitter and they were connected on LinkedIn. She was also targeted with hundreds of messages – accused of criminal damage, destroying Wall’s business and of joining up with others to carry out so-called gang stalking.

Wall also falsely claimed Mrs Timperley had been arrested for harassment.

“I’ve been personally attacked on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and accused of really vile things,” she tells us.

Wall continued her online attacks even after she had been charged with stalking.

Manchester-based entrepreneur Justine Wright was targeted over a decade. She had employed Wall for a couple of months and, when Wall left, the online stalking began.

Ms Wright is a marketing consultant and Wall repeatedly targeted her clients – major companies – with false claims. Justine had never met Brad, but Wall accused her of conspiring with him to poison her cat.

People might be surprised by the number of victims and that Wall did not disguise her identity, says Rory Innes, chief executive of the Cyber Helpline, a charity that helps victims of online crime.

But he says this is common.

“It’s a horrendous case and she will be causing harm to lots of people and changing their lives. But this is happening to hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

Panorama has spoken to other victims who do not want to be identified. One says he was stalked for more than a decade, during which time Wall sent thousands of texts, plus 10,000-word emails to his friends and business contacts.

Wall would also turn up at his work pretending to be his wife, he says, and accusing him of domestic abuse.

All of the victims complained to the social media companies about Wall’s posts, but they have not been taken down.

Social media lawyer Paul Tweed tells Panorama he was not surprised the companies had failed to help.

“They decide what should be taken down, they decide when it should be taken down and how it should be taken down. And they will say, when you ask them, that they comply with the law,” he says.

LinkedIn says it can’t comment on individual users, but it does not allow bullying or harassment and it will take action against anything that violates its policies. Instagram, Facebook and X did not respond to Panorama’s request for comment.

None of the companies have taken down Wall’s abusive messages, even though Panorama told them about Wall’s conviction two months ago.

Last week, she posted another abusive message about Mr Burton.

The charity Cyber Helpline has estimated that 600,000 people report online stalking to the police every year. Another charity, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, says fewer than 2% of stalking and harassment complaints end with a conviction.

A major review by policing bodies last year found a lack of understanding of online stalking and evidence of the police failing to take it seriously.

The advice to victims of online stalking is basic – don’t engage, keep records and report it to the police. But the people Panorama spoke to did that, and the abuse continued.

Mr Burton and and Mrs Timperley were unhappy with the response they got from Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

Outcomes for victims are really poor, Roy Innes from the Cyber Helpline says.

“So few of these cases actually end up with an investigation,” he says. “And when an investigation does happen, the technology element can mean it takes years to get to the point where the evidence is being looked at.”

A spokesperson for GMP says delays in the wider criminal justice system affected Wall’s case and the force achieved positive outcomes for more than 3,000 victims of this type of crime last year.

We approached Wall for comment, but she did not respond.

Meanwhile, Mr Burton says he forgives her. “I hope she gets the help that she needs and she finds peace in her own life,” he says.

At least five people have died in an explosion at a mine in northern Spain, officials say.

The blast happened at the Cerredo mine in Degaña, Asturias, some 450km (278 miles) north-west of Madrid around 09:30 (07:30 GMT) on Monday.

Emergency services said they had been called about a “problem with a machine” at the mine. Ambulances, fire and rescue services were sent.

At least four other people were injured. Two more were initially reported missing but were accounted for by early afternoon, officials said.

The five victims were all residents of Spain’s north-western province of León and aged between 32 and 54, the Spanish government’s delegation in Asturias said.

The injured were taken to local hospitals for treatment.

The mining rescue brigade also deployed its canine unit.

Local media, citing an Asturian spokesperson, reported that workers had been at the mine under a permit to extract minerals to produce graphite.

According to ABC España, the site had been a major mine before its closure in 2018, and had since been intermittently used by private companies to extract the mineral anthracite.

It is not yet known how many people were at the mine at the time of the explosion.

President of Asturias Adrián Barbón ordered two days of mourning in the region.

The region’s civil protection plan, designed to control emergencies, was activated at its lowest level. This indicates a localised situation that may be controlled by available resources.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent his condolences to the families of the victims.

“I wish a speedy recovery to those injured,” he wrote on X.

Russia says it is still “working with the US” after President Trump said he was “angry” and “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin.

In its first response to Trump’s criticism of the Russian president, the Kremlin tried to play down the tensions between the two leaders.

“We continue working with the US side, first of all, on building our relations,” spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

He said there were no plans for a call between Putin and Trump this week, but that Putin is open to one “if necessary”.

The attempt to smooth things over came after Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he was angry with Putin for attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s credibility, and threatened to impose a 50% tariff on countries buying Russian oil if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.

It was a marked change of tone towards the Russian president.

US and Russian officials have been in talks for several weeks to try to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine – during which Trump has often criticised Zelensky but not Putin.

But Trump’s anger with Putin was sparked when the Russian president on Friday mooted the idea of an interim government in Ukraine under the support of the UN which could replace President Zelensky.

“You could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when… Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location,” Trump told NBC News.

“New leadership means you’re not gonna have a deal for a long time,” he added.

In his daily conference call on Monday with journalists, Peskov claimed some of what was said in the NBC interview was “paraphrased.”

The comments from Trump were reflected in parts of the Russian media.

The pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, published some rare criticism of the US president, saying Trump was not fulfilling his “obligations” to stop Ukraine striking Russian energy infrastructure.

“All agreements on the level of President Trump are only worth a few pennies on market day” the newspaper concluded, while “Moscow is prepared to make a deal with the US president.”

South Korean star Kim Soo-hyun has made a tearful public statement denying allegations made by the family of actress Kim Sae-ron, who died in an apparent suicide in February.

“I can’t admit to something I didn’t do,” the 37-year-old said on Monday at a press conference in Seoul.

At the centre of the controversy are two allegations: that Kim Soo-hyun dated Kim Sae-ron when she was 15 – a minor – and that his agency pressured her to repay a loan she owed him.

The scandal has shocked South Korea and its entertainment industry – and has generated a backlash against Kim Soo-Hyun, whose roles in multiple hit drama series and films has made him one of its best-known stars.

Kim wept as he said that although he dated the actress for a year when she was an adult, they never dated while she was underage.

Monday’s media conference came after weeks of accusations and counter-accusations between Kim Sae-ron’s family and Kim Soo-hyun’s camp in the wake of her death.

The scandal broke on 10 March, less than a month after Kim Sae-ron’s death. A YouTube channel, known for its controversial political content, claimed that the two had dated for six years, when she was 15. The channel has since released videos and photos it claims were taken during their relationship.

Last week, the attorney representing Kim Sae-ron’s family held a press conference, revealing more chat history allegedly between the two actors from 2016, when she was 16.

Kim Soo-hyun’s agency initially denied the allegations but later clarified that they dated, though only between 2019 and 2020, when she was an adult.

The actor himself had remained silent until Monday. At the press conference, he became emotional, reiterating to reporters that they only dated as two adults.

“Many people are suffering because of me,” he said, apologising to his fans and staff. “I also feel sorry that the late actress [Kim Sae-ron] isn’t able to rest in peace.

“I never dated her when she was a minor,” he continued. “Except for the fact that both of us were actors, our relationship was just like that of any other ordinary couple.”

He also explained why he denied the relationship when she uploaded a later-deleted photo of the two of them to her Instagram account in 2024 during the airing of Netflix hit show Queen of Tears, in which he played the lead role.

“I had so much to protect as its lead actor. What would have happened if I had admitted to a year-long relationship? What would happen to the actors, the staff who were working overnight and the production team who had everything staked on that project?” he said. “The more I thought of it, the more I thought that shouldn’t be what I do.”

Any admission of a romantic relationship or a partner is still seen as scandalous to fans in South Korea’s entertainment industry, where celebrities’ personal lives come under intense scrutiny.

Kim Sae-ron herself was a victim of online hate by fans after she was fined 20 million won (£11,000; $14,000) for a 2022 drink-driving incident.

Prior to that, she had been seen as one of the most promising young actresses in South Korea.

At the time, she was managed by the same agency as Kim Soo-hyun, which was co-founded by his relative. Kim Sae-ron joined GoldMedalist in January 2020 and left in December 2022.

Kim Sae-ron’s family claimed that GoldMedalist covered the compensation for her drunk-driving incident. They allege that the agency later pursued legal action for repayment and that, while the actress asked Kim Soo-hyun for more time to settle the debt, her request went unanswered.

On Monday, Kim Soo-hyun denied claims that “she made the tragic choice because of me or my agency pressuring her over a debt”.

He released a voice recording of a phone call from a year ago, allegedly between his agency and Kim Sae-ron’s representative.

In the recording, the CEO of GoldMedalist appears to explain that the document they sent her regarding the debt was merely for “procedural reasons” and that her team could take time to respond.

He also accused Kim Sae-ron’s family of manipulating chat records as evidence and stated that he had submitted his own evidence to the relevant authorities for verification. He urged her family to do the same.

Kim Soo-hyun, 37, is an A-list actor in South Korea, known for his roles in multiple hit drama series and top-grossing movies, including My Love from the Star, Netflix’s Queen of Tears, and the film Secretly, Greatly.

He has also been a favourite among advertisers in the country, though many brands have now distanced themselves from him amid the controversy. On 17 March, fashion brand Prada announced that it had mutually decided to end its collaboration with him, according to Reuters. This followed similar moves from Dinto, a Korean cosmetic brand.

A Disney+ show that stars Kim Soo-hyun has also been put on pause due to the scandal, according to local news outlet Yonhap.

His lawyer stated on Monday that they had filed a criminal complaint against Kim Sae-ron’s family and the YouTube channel operator, along with a civil lawsuit for damages worth 12 billion won.

Her family has not commented on the lawsuits or his latest remarks.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.

Indian superstar Mohanlal has apologised and said some scenes will be removed from his new film after criticism from Hindu nationalist groups.

The Malayalam-language film, L2: Empuraan, was released on Thursday and is performing well at the box office.

However, it faced a backlash from Hindu groups, including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over some scenes including ones seen as referring to the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state.

“As an artist, it is my duty to ensure that none of my films are hostile to any political movement, ideology or religious group,” Mohanlal wrote on Facebook.

“The team of Empuraan and I sincerely regret the distress caused to my loved ones, and with the realisation that the responsibility for it lies with all of us who worked on the film, we have decided together to remove such subjects from the movie,” added Mohanlal, who is a household name in Kerala state, which is home to the Malayalam film industry.

The developments have sparked a debate around artistic freedom, with the opposition Congress and Left parties accusing the BJP of putting pressure on the filmmakers.

However, BJP leaders have said that the party did not launch a public campaign against the film and that people have the right to express their views on social media.

L2: Empuraan is a sequel to the 2019 Malayalam political thriller Lucifer, in which Mohanlal played the role of Stephen Nedumpally, a mysterious figure who is later revealed to be the head of an international crime syndicate.

The movie, directed by another Malayalam star Prithviraj, was a big hit and got mostly positive reviews.

So expectations were high for L2: Empuraan, which centres on the return of Mohanlal’s character as a saviour of Kerala’s politics, which has fallen into the hands of corrupt and evil people.

Even before its release, the film made headlines over its budget – huge for the relatively understated Malayalam film industry – and star-studded promotions.

It created a buzz across Indian cities and even internationally, with opening-day shows being sold out.

The film has made nearly 1.5bn rupees ($17.5mn; £13.5mn) overall in its opening weekend, according to film analytics tracker Sacnilk.

But the film received mixed reviews from critics.

The Hindustan Times newspaper called it a film grappling with “an identity crisis, an overlong run time and a confused mess of a script”. The Indian Express said “the emotional depth and dramatic weight that anchored Lucifer are largely absent in Empuraan” but praised “Mohanlal’s commanding performance” and some other aspects of the film.

L2: Empuraan begins with the backstory of a character Zayed Masood – played by director Prithviraj – who was orphaned during riots in a place in India, with some of the details being similar to the religious violence that occurred in 2002 when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state.

The long flashback sequence shows some graphic scenes depicting Hindus committing violent crimes against Muslims during the violence.

It also shows how one of the perpetrators of the violence becomes more powerful over the years and is seeking to secure a key position in Kerala’s political landscape.

The scenes sparked an uproar.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the state president of the BJP, who had wished the film’s team well before its release, later said that he now realised there were “topics in the movie that disturbed Mohanlal fans and other viewers”.

“A movie should be watched as a movie. It can’t be seen as history. Also, any movie that tries to build a story by distorting the truth is doomed to fail,” he said, adding that he would not watch the film.

While some state BJP leaders supported this, others criticised the makers and accused them of depicting “anti-national themes” in the film.

The Organiser Weekly – a magazine published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the ideological parent of the BJP – called the film a “disturbing, divisive tale disguised as cinema”.

“Empuraan isn’t just a bad film; it’s an attack on faith, on political plurality and on the very soul of balanced storytelling,” its review said.

Some social media users have also called for a boycott of the film, but there has not been a large-scale online campaign or big protests against the movie.

Over the weekend, Gokulam Gopalan, one of the producers of the film, said he had asked Prithviraj to make changes “if any scenes or dialogues in Empuraan have hurt anyone”.

This was followed by Mohanlal’s post on Sunday which confirmed some scenes would be removed. Prithviraj shared the post on Facebook but did not offer additional comment.

Some reports said the film would see as many as 17 cuts while others said a three-minute long scene would be removed and some dialogues muted. The makers have not confirmed what the changes are.

The film had been cleared by India’s Central Board of Film Certification – known as the censor board – which reviews movies for public exhibition. But makers have the option of resubmitting it for more cuts.

Amid the controversy, L2: Empuraan has also received support from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – which governs Kerala – and the Congress party. The two parties have a strong presence in Kerala, where the nationally powerful BJP has struggled to make inroads.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the “communal hate campaign against Empuraan and its creators is deeply disturbing”.

“Undermining creative freedom through fear and threats strikes at the very core of democracy,” he added.

“Cinema is the work of a group of artists. Changing the content of a work of art by threatening, insulting and humiliating through social media is not a victory,” wrote Congress leader VD Satheesan.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says it is “outraged” that eight Palestinian medics were killed along with six Civil Defence first responders and a UN staff member by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.

Five ambulances, a fire truck and a UN vehicle were struck in al-Hashahin on 23 March, a UN official said. Fifteen bodies were recovered from the scene on Sunday.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said a ninth medic was missing and accused Israel of targeting its staff.

Israel’s military said troops fired on vehicles “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals. It said a Hamas operative and “eight other terrorists” were among those killed.

The IFRC said in a statement on Sunday that the eight bodies of PRCS medics were retrieved “after seven days of silence and having access denied to the area of Rafah where they were last seen”.

The organisation identified those killed as ambulance officers Mostafa Khufaga, Saleh Muamer and Ezzedine Shaath, and first responder volunteers Mohammad Bahloul, Mohammed al-Heila, Ashraf Abu Labda, Raed al-Sharif and Rifatt Radwan.

It added that ambulance officer Assad al-Nassasra was “still missing”.

“I am heartbroken. These dedicated ambulance workers were responding to wounded people. They were humanitarians,” IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said.

“They wore emblems that should have protected them; their ambulances were clearly marked.

“Even in the most complex conflict zones, there are rules. These rules of International Humanitarian Law could not be clearer – civilians must be protected; humanitarians must be protected. Health services must be protected.”

The head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, Jonathan Whittall, said in a post on X that its staff had supported the PRCS and Civil Defence in recovering the bodies from “a mass grave… that was marked with the emergency light from one of their crushed ambulances”.

He added that OCHA staff were only able to reach the site after six days, when they found the partially buried vehicles and managed to recover the body of a Civil Defence worker beneath the fire truck, he added.

“Today, on the first day of Eid, we returned and recovered the buried bodies of 8 PRCS, 6 Civil Defence and 1 UN staff. They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened.”

The PRCS said it was devastated by the “massacre of our team”.

“[Israel’s] targeting of Red Crescent medics, despite the protected status of their mission and the Red Crescent emblem can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law,” a statement added.

At the funeral for the medics on Monday, the father of Ashraf Abu Labda told the BBC: “They [Israeli troops] targeted the first vehicle, then the second and then the third. They killed them in cold blood.”

“We’ve been trying to look for them for eight days. They refused all co-ordination with Red Crescent, OCHA, or the UN. No-one can hold them accountable. Only God,” Nasser Abu Labda said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that during an operation in southern Gaza on 23 March “several vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights, or emergency signals, their movement was not co-ordinated in advance. Thus, IDF troops opened fire at the suspected vehicles.”

“Following an initial assessment, it was determined that the forces had eliminated a Hamas military operative, Mohammad Amin Ibrahim Shubaki, along with eight other terrorists from Hamas and the PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad],” it added.

“Following the strike, the IDF co-ordinated with international organisations to facilitate the evacuation of the bodies.”

A previous IDF statement about the incident said an initial inquiry had determined that “some of the suspicious vehicles that were moving towards the troops were ambulances and fire trucks”. It also condemned what it called the “repeated use of civilian infrastructure by terrorist organisations”.

The IDF has not commented on the whereabouts of the missing PRCS medic.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim condemned the attack.

“The targeted killing of rescue workers – who are protected under international humanitarian law – constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” he said.

OCHA spokeswoman Olga Cherevko said there needed to be a full investigation to establish exactly what happened.

“They were aid workers in clearly marked vehicles, so this is why it’s obviously important to get to the bottom of it and get all the facts,” she told the BBC.

When asked about the IDF statements that Hamas and PIJ members had been killed, she said: “There are certain rules that all wars have, and this is why all parties to the conflict have to, obviously, abide by these rules. And this is what we’ve always said… But that doesn’t negate the fact that humanitarian aid workers and emergency responders shouldn’t be targeted.”

The incident in al-Hashashin happened on the same day that the IDF announced that its troops had encircled the nearby Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah and raided what it said was a Hamas command-and-control centre there.

On Monday, the IDF issued a sweeping new evacuation order for the entire Rafah region, telling all residents to head towards the nearby al-Mawasi humanitarian zone for their safety.

The IDF’s Arabic spokesperson warned that it was “returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organizations in these areas”.

Israel launched its first major operation in Rafah last May, leaving large parts of it in ruins. However, tens of thousands of people returned to what was left of their homes in the city during the recent two-month-long ceasefire.

Israel renewed its aerial bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza on 18 March after the first phase of the ceasefire deal came to an end and negotiations on a second phase of the deal stalled.

At least 921 people have since been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 back to Gaza as hostages.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response, during which more than 50,270 people have been killed, the Gaza health ministry says.

A missile launcher sends a cloud of brown dust into the air as it hurtles across a field towards the firing line. Moments later comes a soldier’s countdown, from five to ‘Fire!’, before a rocket roars into the sky.

The blasts and booms from such military training exercises are so constant that locals in the nearby small town of Munster barely notice anymore.

But life here is set to get even louder.

Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt.

The country’s top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won’t stop at Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that,” Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years.

“It’s not about how much time I need, it’s much more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared,” the defence chief says bluntly. “And the sooner we are prepared the better.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has changed thinking in Germany profoundly.

For decades people here have been raised on a rejection of military might, acutely aware of Germany’s past role as the aggressor in Europe.

“We started two world wars. Even though it’s 80 years since World War Two ended, the idea that Germans should stay out of conflict is still very much in many people’s DNA,” explains Markus Ziener of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

Some remain wary of anything that might be seen as militarism even now, and the armed forces have been chronically underfunded.

“There are voices cautioning: ‘Are we really on the right track? Is our threat perception right?'”

When it comes to Russia, Germany has had a specific approach.

Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined it was delivering democratisation by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

So in February 2022 a stunned Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a national pivot in priorities, a “Zeitenwende”.

That’s when he committed a giant €100 billion ($108bn; £83bn) to boost the country’s military and keep “warmongers like Putin” in check. But General Breuer says it wasn’t enough.

“We filled up a little bit the potholes,” he recounts. “But it’s really bad.”

By contrast, he points to heavy spending in Russia on weapons and equipment, for stocks as well as the frontline in Ukraine.

He also highlights Russia’s hybrid warfare: from cyber attacks to sabotage, as well as unidentified drones over German military sites.

Add to that Vladimir Putin’s aggressive rhetoric and General Breuer sees “a really dangerous mixture.”

“Unlike the western world, Russia is not thinking in boxes. It’s not about peacetime and war, it’s a continuum: let’s start with hybrid, then escalate, then back. This is what makes me think we are facing a real threat.”

He argues Germany has to act fast.

The defence chief’s stark assessment of his forces’ current state chimes with a recent report to parliament. The Bundeswehr, it concluded, had “too little of everything”.

The report’s author, armed forces commissioner Eva Högl, revealed dire shortages ranging from ammunition to soldiers, right down to dilapidated barracks. She estimated the budget for renovation work alone at around €67 billion ($72bn; £56bn).

Lifting the debt cap, allowing the military to borrow – in theory, without limit – will give it access to a “steady line” of funding to start to address that, General Breuer says.

The historic move was made by Scholz’s expected successor, Friedrich Merz, in a rush that raised some eyebrows. He submitted the proposal to parliament just before it was disbanded following the February elections.

The new parliament, with an anti-militarist left and Russia-sympathising far right, might have been less favourably disposed.

But the “turn” that Germany started in 2022 gained fresh momentum this year.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security.

Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.

The survey followed a speech in Munich in which his Vice President JD Vance laid into Europe and its values.

“That was a clear signal that something fundamentally has changed in the United States,” says Markus Ziener.

“We don’t know where the US is heading but we know the belief that we can 100% rely on American protection when it comes to our security – that trust has now gone.”

In Berlin, Germans’ traditional caution about all things military seems to be fading fast.

Eighteen-year-old Charlotte Kreft says her own pacifist views have changed.

“For a really long time, we thought the only way to make up for the atrocities we committed in World War Two was to make sure it never happened again […] and we thought we needed to demilitarise,” Charlotte explains.

“But now we are in a situation where we have to fight for our values and democracy and freedom. We need to adapt.”

“There are lots of Germans who still feel strange about big investments in our military,” Ludwig Stein agrees. “But I think considering the things that have happened in the past few years, there’s no other real option.”

Sophie, a young mum, thinks investing in defence is now “necessary in the world we live in”.

But Germany needs troops as well as tanks, and she’s far less keen on her own son being enlisted.

The Bundeswehr only has one permanent drop-in centre, a small unit sandwiched between a pharmacy and a shoe store beside Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station.

With camouflage-clad dummies in the window and slogans like “cool and spicy” it aims to attract men and women to serve, but only gets a handful of callers each day.

Germany has already missed a target of boosting its ranks by 20,000 soldiers, to 203,000, and lowering the average age from 34.

But Gen Breuer’s ambitions are far greater.

He told us Germany needs an extra 100,000 troops to defend itself and Nato’s eastern flank adequately – a total of 460,000, including reserves. So he insists a return to military service is “absolutely” necessary.

“You won’t get this 100,000 without one or other model of conscription,” the general said.

“We don’t have to determine now what model brings them. For me it’s only important that we get the soldiers in.”

That debate has only just begun.

General Breuer is clearly positioning himself at the front of an effort to push Germany’s “turn” further and faster.

With his easy, engaging manner, he likes to visit regional town halls and challenge audiences there with a question: “Are you ready for war?”

One day a woman accused him of scaring her. “I said, ‘It’s not me scaring you, it’s the other guy!'” he remembers his reply.

He was referring to Vladimir Putin.

The twin “wake-up” alarm – of the Russia threat and an isolationist, disengaged United States – is now ringing loudly for Germany, the general argues, and can’t be ignored.

“Now it’s understandable to each and every one of us that we have to change.”

Billionaire Elon Musk has given away $1m (£770,000) cheques to voters in Wisconsin after the state supreme court refused to intervene.

Musk announced the prize earlier this week, ahead of Wisconsin’s tightly contested Supreme Court election to be held on Tuesday.

Wisconsin Attorney General and Democrat Josh Kaul had sued to stop the giveaway, arguing that Musk was violating a state law that bans gifts in exchange for votes.

The race, which could flip control of the state’s supreme court to the Republicans, has become a flash point and the most expensive judicial election in American history.

Speaking at a rally Sunday night, Musk said “we just want judges to be judges”, before handing out two $1m (£750,000) cheques to voters who had signed a petition to stop “activist” judges.

Kaul had tried to argue the giveaway was an illegal attempt buy votes. Musk’s lawyers, in response, argued that Kaul is “restraining Mr Musk’s political speech and curtailing his First Amendment rights”.

Musk’s lawyers added that the payments were “intended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate”.

After two lower courts sided with Musk, Kaul begged the state’s supreme court for an 11th hour reprieve. But the top court unanimously declined to hear the case.

Musk and President Donald Trump have endorsed a conservative candidate, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, in hopes of flipping the liberal-leaning court.

Judge Schimel is running against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, who has been endorsed by the state Supreme Court’s liberal justices.

Lawyers for the tech titan also argued that judges who have publicly endorsed Judge Crawford in the Supreme Court race should be barred from ruling on the matter, arguing that it is a matter of bias.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race is being seen by political watchers as a referendum on Trump’s second term, just months after his inauguration.

It also comes ahead of consequential cases that will land before the court on abortion rights, congressional redistricting and voting rules that could affect the 2026 midterm elections.

Musk himself has framed the election as a chance to stop redistricting which could give Democrats favour in Congress.

He has donated $14m to Judge Schimel’s campaign, as the race proves to be the most expensive judicial race in the country’s history, with $81m in total spending.

Despite his support, Judge Schimel appeared to distance himself from Musk in recent days, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday he had no plans to be at the rally.

“I have no idea what he’s doing. I have no idea what this rally is,” Judge Schimel told the newspaper.

This is not the first time Musk has announced a giveaway to voters. Last year, he similarly offered a cash prize of $1m a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states if they signed a petition supporting First and Second Amendment rights.

A judge in Pennsylvania later ruled that the giveaway was legal, saying prosecutors failed to prove it was an unlawful lottery.

Why won’t India buy even a single bushel of American corn?

That’s the question US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised recently while criticising India’s trade policies, taking a swipe at its market restrictions.

In another interview, Lutnick accused India of blocking US farmers and urged it to open its agricultural market – suggesting quotas or limits as a possible approach.

Agriculture is a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, with tit-for-tat or reciprocal tariffs set to kick in on 2 April.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.Trump has repeatedly branded India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties.

For years, Washington has pushed for greater access to India’s farm sector, seeing it as a major untapped market. But India has fiercely protected it, citing food security, livelihoods and interests of millions of small farmers.

To be sure, India’s transformation from a food-deficient nation to a food-surplus powerhouse is one of its biggest success stories.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the country relied on food aid to feed its population, but a series of agricultural breakthroughs changed that. India became self-sufficient in staples, and became the world’s largest milk producer. Rapid growth in horticulture, poultry and aquaculture expanded its food basket.

Today, India is not just feeding its 1.4 billion people but, as the world’s eighth-largest agri-produce exporter, also shipping grains, fruits and dairy worldwide.

Yet, despite such major gains, Indian agriculture still lags in productivity, infrastructure and market access. Global price volatility and climate change add to the challenge. Crop yields lag far behind the global best. Small landholdings worsen the problem – Indian farmers work with less than a hectare on average, while their American counterparts had over 46 hectares in 2020.

No surprise then that productivity remains low, even though farming remains India’s backbone, supporting over 700 million people, nearly half the country’s population. Agriculture employs nearly half of India’s workforce but accounts for just 15% of GDP. In comparison, less than 2% of the US population depends on farming. With limited manufacturing jobs, more people are stuck in low-paying farm work, an unusual trend for a developing country.

This structural imbalance also shapes India’s trade policies. Despite its farm surplus, India keeps tariffs high to shield its farmers from cheap imports. It maintains moderate to high tariffs – ranging from zero to 150% – on farm imports.

The weighted average tariff – the average duty rate per imported product – in India on US farm products is 37.7%, compared to 5.3% on Indian agricultural goods in the US, according to the Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

Bilateral farm trade between India and the US is modest, at just $8bn (£6.2bn).

India mainly exports rice, shrimp, honey, vegetable extracts, castor oil and black pepper, while the US sends almonds, walnuts, pistachios, apples and lentils.

But as the two countries work on a trade deal, experts say Washington now wants to push “big-ticket” farm exports – wheat, cotton, corn and maize – to narrow its $45bn trade deficit with India.

“They’re not looking to export berries and stuff this time. The game is much bigger,” says Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert from the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think tank.

Pushing India to lower farm tariffs, cut price support and open up to genetically modified (GM) crops and dairy ignores the fundamental asymmetry in global agriculture, experts argue.

The US, for instance, heavily subsidises its agriculture and protects farmers through crop insurance.

“In some cases,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI, “US subsidies exceed 100% of production costs, creating an uneven playing field that could devastate India’s smallholder farmers.”

Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, says “the key thing to remember is that agriculture in the two countries is entirely different”.

“The US has commercial agriculture, while India relies on intensive, subsistence farming. It’s a question of the livelihoods of millions of Indians versus the interests of US agribusiness.”

But India’s agricultural challenges aren’t just external. Mr Dhar says much of the sector’s struggles are “its own doing”. Smallholder farmers, owning over 85% of holdings, lack investment capacity, while the private sector shows little interest. Farming receives less than 6% of India’s total government and private infrastructure investment, leaving irrigation and storage facilities underfunded.

To protect millions of livelihoods, the government shields key crops like wheat, rice and dairy with import duties and price support. “But even that doesn’t inspire confidence,” he says.

Four years ago, tens of thousands of farmers held protests demanding better prices and legal guarantees of minimum government support-price for staples, mainly wheat and rice.

“Even relatively well-off farmers selling surpluses don’t see a turnaround anytime soon. And if they feel that way, imagine the plight of subsistence farmers,” says Mr Dhar.

Beyond domestic discontent, trade negotiations add another layer of complexity.

Mr Das says the real challenge for India will be how “to have an agreement with the US that takes into account US export interest in agriculture while balancing India’s interests in the farm sector”.

So what’s the way forward?

“India must not yield to US pressure to open its agriculture sector,” says Mr Srivastava. He warns that doing so would disrupt millions of livelihoods, threaten food security and flood local markets with cheap imports.

“India must prioritise its national interest and protect its rural economy. Trade cooperation should not come at the cost of our farmers, food sovereignty or policy autonomy.”

In the long run, experts say India must modernise its agriculture, making farming more remunerative, and become more competitive to boost exports. Unupom Kausik of agri-business Olam estimates that with top global yields, India could generate a surplus of 200 million metric tonnes of paddy – enough to supply global trade and combat hunger.

“In a way, Trump is holding up a mirror to us. We’ve done little to invest in agriculture’s productive capacity,” says Mr Dhar. “For now, buying time is the best strategy – maybe offering the US cheaper imports of industrial goods as a trade-off.”

But for the best outcome, he says, India will have to “play hardball. Basically, tell the US – we’re open to negotiations on other fronts, but don’t destabilise our agriculture”.

Clearly India’s challenge is to negotiate from a position of strength – offering just enough to keep Washington at the table while safeguarding its rural backbone. After all, in global trade as in farming, timing and patience often yield the best harvest. The jury is out on whether Trump is willing to wait.

Recruitment agents who scam foreign nationals applying to work in the UK care sector have been exposed by BBC secret filming.

One of the rogue agents is a Nigerian doctor who has worked for the NHS in the field of psychiatry.

The Home Office has acknowledged the system is open to abuse, but the BBC World Service’s investigation shows the apparent ease with which these agents can scam people, avoid detection, and continue to profit.

Our secret filming reveals agents’ tactics, including:

• Illegally selling jobs in UK care companies
• Devising fake payroll schemes to conceal that some jobs do not exist
• Shifting from care to other sectors, like construction, that also face staff shortages

Reports of immigration scams have increased since a government visa scheme – originally designed to let foreign medical professionals work in the UK – was broadened in 2022 to include care workers.

To apply for the visa, candidates must first obtain a “Certificate of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who is licensed by the Home Office. It is the need for CoS documents that is being exploited by rogue relocation agents.

“The scale of exploitation under the Health and Care Work visa is significant,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and disadvantaged people in the UK access employment justice.

“I think it has turned into a national crisis.”

She says there is “systemic risk inherent” in the sponsorship system, because it “puts the employer in a position of incredible power” and has “enabled this predatory market of middlemen to mushroom”.

The BBC sent two undercover journalists to approach relocation agents working in the UK.

One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian doctor and founder of the agency, CareerEdu, based in Harlow, Essex.

His website states his business is a “launchpad for global opportunities catering to young Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “happy clients”.

Believing the BBC undercover journalist was well connected in the UK care sector, Dr Alaneme tried to recruit her to become an agent for his business, saying it would be very lucrative.

“Just get me care homes. I can make you a millionaire,” he said.

As a potential business partner, our journalist was then given unprecedented insight into how immigration scams by agents like Dr Alaneme actually work. Dr Alaneme said he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for each care home vacancy she was able to procure, and offered £500 ($650) commission on top.

He then said he would sell the vacancies to candidates back in Nigeria.

Charging candidates for a job is illegal in the UK.

“They [the candidates] are not supposed to be paying because it’s free. It should be free,” he said, lowering his voice.

“They are paying because they know it’s most likely the only way.”

The BBC began investigating him following a series of online complaints about his relocation services.

Praise – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – was one of those who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme more than £10,000 ($13,000) for a job in the UK. He says he was told he was going to be working with a care company called Efficiency for Care, based in Clacton-on-Sea. It was only when he arrived that he realised the job didn’t exist.

“If I had known there was no job, I would have not come here,” he says. “At least back home in Nigeria, if you go broke, I can find my sister or my parents and go and eat free food. It’s not the same here. You will go hungry.”

Praise says he messaged Efficiency for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he could start working. Despite promises of assistance from Dr Alaneme, the job never materialised. Almost a year later, he found a position with another care provider willing to sponsor him to remain in the UK.

Our investigation found that Efficiency for Care employed – on average – 16 people in 2022, and 152 in 2023. Yet a letter sent from the Home Office to the company dated May 2023 – and seen by the BBC – showed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to foreign workers between March 2022 and May 2023.

Efficiency for Care’s sponsorship licence was revoked in July 2023. The care company can no longer recruit from abroad, but continues to operate.

It told the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It said it believed it lawfully recruited staff from Nigeria and other countries. It has challenged the Home Office’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it said, and the matter is now in court.

• Outside of the UK – watch on YouTube

In another secretly filmed meeting, Dr Alaneme shared an even more sophisticated scam involving sponsorship documents for jobs that did not exist.

He said the “advantage” of having a CoS that is unconnected to a job “is that you can choose any city you want”.

“You can go to Glasgow. You can stay in London. You can live anywhere,” he told us.

This is not true. If a migrant arrives in the UK on a Health and Care Work visa and does not work in the role they have been assigned, their visa could be cancelled and they risk being deported.

In the secret filming, Dr Alaneme also described how to set up a fake payroll system to mask the fact the jobs are not real.

“That [a money trail] is what the government needs to see,” he said.

Dr Alaneme told the BBC he strenuously denied services offered by CareerEdu were a scam or that it acted as a recruitment agency or provided jobs for cash. He said his company only offered legitimate services, adding that the money Praise gave him was passed on to a recruitment agent for Praise’s transport, accommodation and training. He said he offered to help Praise find another employer free of charge.

The BBC also carried out undercover filming with another UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after several people told the BBC they had collectively paid tens of thousands of pounds for care worker positions for their friends and family that, it transpired, did not exist.

They said some of the Certificates of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had turned out to be fakes – replicas of real CoS issued by care companies.

We discovered Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun offering CoS for UK jobs in construction – another industry that allows employers to recruit foreign workers. He was able to set up his own construction company and obtain a sponsorship licence from the Home Office.

Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman wanting to bring Ugandan construction workers over to join him, asked Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this was possible.

He replied it was – for the price of £42,000 ($54,000) for three people.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told us he had moved into construction because rules are being “tightened” in the care sector – and claimed agents were eyeing other industries.

“People are now diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told the undercover journalist.

More than 470 licences in the UK care sector were revoked by the government between July 2022 and December 2024. Those licensed sponsors were responsible for the recruitment of more than 39,000 medical professionals and care workers from October 2020.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later asked for a downpayment for the Certificates of Sponsorship, which the BBC did not make.

The Home Office has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by the BBC, was that he had himself been duped by other agents and did not realise he was selling fake CoS documents.

In a statement to the BBC, the Home Office said it has “robust new action against shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and will “ban businesses who flout UK employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers”.

BBC investigations have previously uncovered similar visa scams targeting people in Kerala, India, and international students living in the UK who want to work in the care sector.

In November 2024, the government announced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring workers from overseas. Additionally, from 9 April, care providers in England will be required to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in the UK before recruiting from overseas.

Why won’t India buy even a single bushel of American corn?

That’s the question US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised recently while criticising India’s trade policies, taking a swipe at its market restrictions.

In another interview, Lutnick accused India of blocking US farmers and urged it to open its agricultural market – suggesting quotas or limits as a possible approach.

Agriculture is a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, with tit-for-tat or reciprocal tariffs set to kick in on 2 April.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.Trump has repeatedly branded India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties.

For years, Washington has pushed for greater access to India’s farm sector, seeing it as a major untapped market. But India has fiercely protected it, citing food security, livelihoods and interests of millions of small farmers.

To be sure, India’s transformation from a food-deficient nation to a food-surplus powerhouse is one of its biggest success stories.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the country relied on food aid to feed its population, but a series of agricultural breakthroughs changed that. India became self-sufficient in staples, and became the world’s largest milk producer. Rapid growth in horticulture, poultry and aquaculture expanded its food basket.

Today, India is not just feeding its 1.4 billion people but, as the world’s eighth-largest agri-produce exporter, also shipping grains, fruits and dairy worldwide.

Yet, despite such major gains, Indian agriculture still lags in productivity, infrastructure and market access. Global price volatility and climate change add to the challenge. Crop yields lag far behind the global best. Small landholdings worsen the problem – Indian farmers work with less than a hectare on average, while their American counterparts had over 46 hectares in 2020.

No surprise then that productivity remains low, even though farming remains India’s backbone, supporting over 700 million people, nearly half the country’s population. Agriculture employs nearly half of India’s workforce but accounts for just 15% of GDP. In comparison, less than 2% of the US population depends on farming. With limited manufacturing jobs, more people are stuck in low-paying farm work, an unusual trend for a developing country.

This structural imbalance also shapes India’s trade policies. Despite its farm surplus, India keeps tariffs high to shield its farmers from cheap imports. It maintains moderate to high tariffs – ranging from zero to 150% – on farm imports.

The weighted average tariff – the average duty rate per imported product – in India on US farm products is 37.7%, compared to 5.3% on Indian agricultural goods in the US, according to the Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

Bilateral farm trade between India and the US is modest, at just $8bn (£6.2bn).

India mainly exports rice, shrimp, honey, vegetable extracts, castor oil and black pepper, while the US sends almonds, walnuts, pistachios, apples and lentils.

But as the two countries work on a trade deal, experts say Washington now wants to push “big-ticket” farm exports – wheat, cotton, corn and maize – to narrow its $45bn trade deficit with India.

“They’re not looking to export berries and stuff this time. The game is much bigger,” says Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert from the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think tank.

Pushing India to lower farm tariffs, cut price support and open up to genetically modified (GM) crops and dairy ignores the fundamental asymmetry in global agriculture, experts argue.

The US, for instance, heavily subsidises its agriculture and protects farmers through crop insurance.

“In some cases,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI, “US subsidies exceed 100% of production costs, creating an uneven playing field that could devastate India’s smallholder farmers.”

Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, says “the key thing to remember is that agriculture in the two countries is entirely different”.

“The US has commercial agriculture, while India relies on intensive, subsistence farming. It’s a question of the livelihoods of millions of Indians versus the interests of US agribusiness.”

But India’s agricultural challenges aren’t just external. Mr Dhar says much of the sector’s struggles are “its own doing”. Smallholder farmers, owning over 85% of holdings, lack investment capacity, while the private sector shows little interest. Farming receives less than 6% of India’s total government and private infrastructure investment, leaving irrigation and storage facilities underfunded.

To protect millions of livelihoods, the government shields key crops like wheat, rice and dairy with import duties and price support. “But even that doesn’t inspire confidence,” he says.

Four years ago, tens of thousands of farmers held protests demanding better prices and legal guarantees of minimum government support-price for staples, mainly wheat and rice.

“Even relatively well-off farmers selling surpluses don’t see a turnaround anytime soon. And if they feel that way, imagine the plight of subsistence farmers,” says Mr Dhar.

Beyond domestic discontent, trade negotiations add another layer of complexity.

Mr Das says the real challenge for India will be how “to have an agreement with the US that takes into account US export interest in agriculture while balancing India’s interests in the farm sector”.

So what’s the way forward?

“India must not yield to US pressure to open its agriculture sector,” says Mr Srivastava. He warns that doing so would disrupt millions of livelihoods, threaten food security and flood local markets with cheap imports.

“India must prioritise its national interest and protect its rural economy. Trade cooperation should not come at the cost of our farmers, food sovereignty or policy autonomy.”

In the long run, experts say India must modernise its agriculture, making farming more remunerative, and become more competitive to boost exports. Unupom Kausik of agri-business Olam estimates that with top global yields, India could generate a surplus of 200 million metric tonnes of paddy – enough to supply global trade and combat hunger.

“In a way, Trump is holding up a mirror to us. We’ve done little to invest in agriculture’s productive capacity,” says Mr Dhar. “For now, buying time is the best strategy – maybe offering the US cheaper imports of industrial goods as a trade-off.”

But for the best outcome, he says, India will have to “play hardball. Basically, tell the US – we’re open to negotiations on other fronts, but don’t destabilise our agriculture”.

Clearly India’s challenge is to negotiate from a position of strength – offering just enough to keep Washington at the table while safeguarding its rural backbone. After all, in global trade as in farming, timing and patience often yield the best harvest. The jury is out on whether Trump is willing to wait.

Richard Chamberlain, who has died today at the age of 90, shot to fame as TV heartthrob Dr Kildare in the 1960s.

His dashing good looks won him legions of female fans, and guaranteed him work in a plethora of rather forgettable television movies.

But, in middle age, his career spiked again.

Chamberlain became king of the 1980’s TV mini-series: playing a western prisoner in Shogun and a catholic priest tempted by love in The Thorn Birds.

He denied being gay when confronted by a French magazine in 1989, and did not speak publicly about his homosexuality until he turned 70.

In interviews promoting his 2003 memoir, he advised other handsome leading actors to keep their sexuality to themselves.

“There’s still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture,” he said. “Please, don’t pretend that we’re suddenly all wonderfully, blissfully accepted.”

• Richard Chamberlain dies aged 90

George Richard Chamberlain was born on 31 March 1934, in Beverly Hills, California. He died one day before his 91st birthday.

His salesman father had a problem with drink, which affected young Richard’s childhood. He described himself as a “shy, serious, lugubrious kid, painfully thin, with a long, sad face”.

He admitted to being the most “uncooperative kid in school” but discovered a taste and a talent for athletics.

At Pomona College, he was bitten by the acting bug – and a role in Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man convinced him he had found his calling.

Paramount Studios was interested in him, but thoughts of an acting career were put on hold after he was called up, serving 16 months with the US Army, rising to the rank of sergeant while stationed in Korea.

On his discharge, he made a number of cameos in TV shows, including an episode of the popular Western, Gunsmoke.

Not everyone had Chamberlain picked as a future star.

He was handsome enough: with profiles at the time gushing over his “fine-lined aristocratic face, suggesting a young Florentine noble – straight out of the Renaissance”.

But, he was naturally diffident – which worked in his favour when he auditioned to play Dr James Kildare, a medical intern struggling to learn his profession, in NBC’s new primetime medical drama.

“Perhaps it was inevitable,” said one friend-and-rival. “Who else could look so anti-sceptic as Dick?”

The series ran for nearly 200 programmes across five seasons.

It broke new ground, by raising matters such as drug addiction – which had not previously been shown on US TV.

There was a huge reaction from female fans.

Chamberlain got 12,000 letters a week. In Pittsburgh, 450,000 people turned out to see him at a parade, and in New York, he nearly caused a riot when a child spotted him and called his name.

The studio made the most of this attention, releasing novels, comics and games featuring Chamberlain’s image.

Fans would even write in asking “Dr Kildare” to solve their various medical problems.

And Chamberlain had an unlikely hit single: Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, where romantic words were added to the show’s distinctive opening theme tune.

He won a Golden Globe Award for best TV actor in 1963. But, three years later audiences began to wane, and NBC pulled the plug.

Now an international star, Chamberlain struggled to leave Kildare behind.

In 1966, he hoped to break into films, but reviews slated his performance in the light romantic comedy, Joy in the Morning.

Audiences, they said, laughed in “all the wrong places”. So, he resolved to ignore Hollywood and make a living on the stage.

He got off to a rocky start when a musical version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – in which he starred opposite Mary Tyler Moore – closed after just four shows.

The production is still seen as one of Broadway’s biggest ever turkeys. But a move to England gave him a chance of reinventing himself as a ‘serious actor.’

In 1967, there were starring roles in Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady and opposite Katherine Hepburn in a satirical comedy called The Madwoman of Chaillot.

And, two years later, he became the first American to play Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre since the great John Barrymore in 1925.

This time, the reviews were excellent and he revisited the role of Denmark’s most tortured prince for a television version for Hallmark.

But Chamberlain was cast as Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell’s overblown biopic, The Music Lovers, in which he starred opposite Glenda Jackson.

The critics rubbished the film, in which great play was made of the relationship between a composer with repressed homosexual tendencies and his nymphomaniac wife, although it later became something of a cult success.

Chamberlain went on to play Lord Byron opposite Sarah Miles in Lady Caroline Lamb and the swashbuckling French swordsman Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers.

He also appeared – along with half of Hollywood – in the Towering Inferno, as a crooked electrical engineer whose corner-cutting leads to the spectacular destruction of a 138 floor building.

In 1977, the TV series Roots – set in the era of American slavery – drew huge audiences and was nominated for nearly 40 Emmy awards.

It sparked a revival of the mini-series which drew Chamberlain back to television.

He beat Roger Moore and Albert Finney to be cast as John Blackthorn – a captive English navigator in 17th Century Japan – in Shogun.

The series was shown on NBC over five nights in 1980, with audiences reaching nearly 30 million.

Having won a Golden Globe, Chamberlain then picked up another as Father Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorn Birds, a priest torn between God and his sexual longing for the actress, Rachel Ward.

It was even more successful than Shogun, winning an audience of 60% of television viewers and 16 Emmy nominations.

In the 1990s, Chamberlain’s career began to wane.

There were a succession of solid, rather than outstanding, performances in made-for-TV films and endless guest appearances in other people’s shows.

These included a sequel to The Thorn Birds called The Missing Years, with Amanda Donohoe replacing Rachel Ward.

In 2003, long after he had stopped playing romantic leading men, Chamberlain published his biography Shattered Love, in which, for the first time, he confirmed he was gay.

Despite a relationship of more than 30 years with the actor and director Martin Rabbett, with whom he’d once starred in the film Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, they had kept their private life private.

“I thought there was something very, very deeply wrong with me,” he said, “and I wanted to cover it up. I remember making a pact with myself that I would never, ever reveal this secret, ever.”

Chamberlain and Rabbett went their separate ways in 2010.

In later years, Chamberlain was happy to play a gay man, notably in Desperate Housewives and Will & Grace.

He continued to perform in musical theatre, including touring productions of Spamalot, My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.

But he never regretted hiding his sexuality to protect his career.

“I would have been a happier person being out of the closet and being free,” he told El Pais in 2024. “But I had other motives that made me happy. I was a working actor and for me, that was most important.”

He will be remembered as the king of the TV mini-series: the dashing leading man in everything from Dr Kildare to The Thorn Birds.

Despite attempts to reinvent himself as a serious stage actor, he was at his best on the small screen, entertaining millions watching at home on the sofa.

For, although there were always better actors than Richard Chamberlain, few rivalled his ability to hold a television audience.

Inside a soundstage once used by silent film stars Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, Hollywood executives, actors and filmmakers sipped cocktails as they marvelled at what some say is the biggest breakthrough since the talkies: AI-generated video.

But whether AI will be the future, or the end, of cinema is still up for debate.

It was only two years ago that actors and writers shut down Hollywood with strikes demanding protections from AI. Now the technology is controversially creeping into TV, movies and video games. Two films honoured at the Oscars even used the technology.

As a DJ played ’90s hip hop, computer developers rubbed shoulders actors and executives, in a sign of the changing power players in the industry.

AI in Hollywood is “inevitable”, says Bryn Mooser, the party’s host and the co-founder of Moonvalley, which created the AI generator tool “Marey” by paying for footage from filmmakers with their consent. Mr Mooser says that while AI may still be a dirty word, their product is “clean” because it pays for its content.

AI may be a dirty word in Hollywood, but Mr Mooser says their version of the technology is “clean.”

“Artists should be at the table,” he says, adding that it’s better to build the tool for filmmakers rather than get “rolled over by big tech companies”.

Artificial Intelligence has long been depicted as a villain in Hollywood. In “The Terminator,” AI used by the US military decides it must destroy everyone on Earth.

But it’s AI’s creators, and not the technology itself, that has received the brunt of real-life criticism. Companies use publicly available data to build their AI models – which includes copyrighted material shared online – and creators say they’re being ripped off.

OpenAI, Google and other tech companies are facing multiple lawsuits from writers, actors and news organizations, alleging their work was stolen to train AI without their consent. Studios like Paramount, Disney and Universal who own the copyright on movies and TV shows have been urged by writers to do the same, though none have taken legal action.

“We’ve all fought very hard for copyright laws, and nobody wants to see their work stolen to have somebody else profit from it,” Mr Mooser says.

Hollywood has begun toying with the new technology. The Oscar-nominated films Emilia Perez and The Brutalist used AI to alter voices. Adrian Brody won the Academy Award for best actor, even with the help of AI to fine tune his accent when he spoke Hungarian in his starring role in The Brutalist. AI has even been used to de-age actors like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford.

The technology is seemingly everywhere. OpenAI hosted an AI film festival in Los Angeles earlier this month. Marvel directors Joe and Anthony Russo told the Wall Street Journal they plan to invest $400 million to craft AI tools for filmmakers.

But the impacts on how it will alter the future of the entertainment industry remain unclear. Generative AI, for instance, allows computers to learn and solve problems in ways that can seem human – albeit much faster. And many worry about the technology replacing their jobs as AI is used to generate scripts, animation, locations, voices and human actors.

If you ask OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT, which Hollywood jobs are most easily replaced by AI, background actors are top of the list as “most vulnerable” with “A-List actors & directors” considered safest because “star power and brand recognition keep top talent irreplaceable”.

At the Moonvalley party, everyone was talking about new AI technology though few wanted to speak with a reporter on record about it. But dozens of powerful people made the trek east to the hip Silver Lake neighbourhood from West Los Angeles even though it was raining. In LA, that’s remarkable.

“We’re here to learn,” said one executive who spent an hour in traffic getting to the party. “We’re not signing anything or buying anything, but we’re interested.”

Mooser and his co-founder Naeem Talukdar speak passionately about how AI will transform Hollywood and allow filmmakers to create blockbuster style epics on much lower budgets. It could lead to many bad films – but it could also help discover the next Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese, even if they don’t have the backing of a big studio.

“This technology is utterly meaningless without the artist at the centre of it; the technology needs to ultimately be subservient to the artist,” says Mr Talukdar.

Hollywood’s foray into using AI comes as the Trump administration prepares a new AI plan for the United States.

Tech companies say they can’t compete with China under existing US copyright laws and that they need unfettered access to art – from Mickey Mouse to Moana to The Matrix – to train their AI models as a matter of national security.

Google and OpenAI want the US government to designate copyrighted art, movies and TV shows as “fair use” for them to train AI, arguing that without the exceptions, they will lose the race for dominance to China.

Hollywood filmmakers say tech companies are attempting to undermine the entertainment industry, which they point out supports more than 2.3 million US jobs.

“We firmly believe that America’s global AI leadership must not come at the expense of our essential creative industries,” a group of more than 400 Hollywood A-listers – led by actress/writer Natasha Lyonne who helped develop Moonvalley – wrote in an open letter to the Trump administration, which has been soliciting public comment for its AI Action Plan.

The letter’s signatories included A-List stars like Ben Stiller, Paul McCartney, Cate Blanchett and Lilly Wachowski, who co-created “The Matrix,” which depicts a dystopian simulated reality where humans are enslaved by intelligent machines.

Many in Hollywood remain terrified of what AI means for their futures.

Outside a Disney Character Voices office earlier this month, dozens of actors picketed against video game companies for refusing to come to an agreement on using AI in video games.

“Using actual actors is the key to a lot of the drama and enjoyment that people get from video games,” actor DW McCann said. “People have lived experiences that AI just can’t understand.”

The actors want a contract that guarantees their voices and likeness will not be used without their consent to train AI models that replace them in the future.

Mr Mooser says AI will allow filmmakers to create amazing art – if it’s done right. With humans calling the shots, he says, AI could help them create sets and worlds they couldn’t easily access or invent – and to do so much faster than what they could traditionally do with computer graphics and visual effects.

“We’re trying to say look, technology is going to be in everything. Let’s make sure that we try to fight as hard as we can to make sure that it’s done in the right way, and that artists aren’t run over by big companies.”

Myanmar is reeling following the huge earthquake which hit the country on Friday, 28 March.

The 7.7 magnitude tremor was felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

More than 2,000 people have died and more than 3,900 have been injured, say the leaders of Myanmar’s military government. Those figures are expected to rise. In Thailand, at least 19 people lost their lives.

Here is what we know so far.

The earthquake’s epicentre was located 16km (10 miles) north-west of the town of Sagaing, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

This is also near Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, with a population of about 1.5 million people – and about 200km (125 miles) north of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw.

The first earthquake struck at about 12:50 (06:20 GMT), according to the USGS. A second earthquake struck 12 minutes later, with a 6.4 magnitude. Its epicentre was 18km south of Sagaing.

Aftershocks have continued since – the latest on Sunday was a magnitude-5.1 tremor north-west of Mandalay, with a resident telling BBC Burmese it was the strongest they had felt since 28 March.

• Live: Follow the latest on the Myanmar earthquake
• Watch: Moment Bangkok high-rise under construction collapses
• Eyewitnesses describe horror in quake’s aftermath
• In pictures: Damaged buildings and buckled roads

The strong quake buckled roads, damaged bridges and flattened many buildings in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) – a country of some 55 million people.

It is considered one of the world’s most geologically “active” areas.

A state of emergency has been declared in the six most impacted regions – Sagaing, Mandalay, Magway, Bago, Shan and Nay Pyi Taw.

The ruling junta said on Saturday that 1,591 houses had been damaged in the Mandalay region, and that scores of people remained trapped with rescuers searching “with bare hands”.

Strong tremors were also felt elsewhere, including in Thailand and south-west China.

• What caused the Myanmar earthquake – and why did it make a tower in Bangkok collapse?

The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday’s earthquake – and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.

Videos also showed rooftop pools in Bangkok spilling over the sides of swaying buildings.

The official death toll in Myanmar now stands at more than 2,000 but this is expected to keep rising as rescuers gain access to more collapsed buildings. Many of the fatalities so far were in Mandalay.

More than 3,900 people were injured and at least 270 are missing, the military government said. Rescue operations are ongoing.

The US Geological Survey’s modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000, with losses surpassing annual economic output.

Meanwhile, in Bangkok, 19 people have been confirmed dead – 12 of them at the high-rise building that collapsed, where a further 78 people remain missing.

Getting information out of Myanmar is difficult, which is part of the reason why the exact earthquake death toll is currently unknown.

Since a coup in 2021 it has been ruled by a military junta, which has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters.

The state controls almost all local radio, television, print and online media. Internet use is also restricted.

Mobile lines in the affected areas have been patchy, but tens of thousands of people also live without electricity, making it difficult for the BBC to reach residents.

Foreign journalists are rarely allowed into the country officially.

The junta has said it will not grant visas for foreign reporters requested to cover the aftermath the earthquake, citing an inability to guarantee their safety.

The 2021 coup triggered huge protests, which evolved into a widespread insurgency involving pro-democracy and ethnic rebel groups – eventually sparking an all-out civil war.

Large parts of the Sagaing region, the epicentre of the earthquake, are now under the control of pro-democracy resistance groups. The junta, however, has greater control over urban areas – including the cities of Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw and Yangon.

The National Unity Government (NUG), which represents the ousted civilian administration, announced that its armed wing – the People’s Defence Force (PDF) – was pausing “offensive military operations” for two weeks from 30 March in earthquake-affected areas, except for “defensive actions.”

Anti-coup PDF battalions have been fighting the military junta since the latter seized power in 2021.

The impact of any pause is uncertain as many ethnic armed groups act independently of the NUG.

Meanwhile, the junta has continued airstrikes in some areas, with the UN condemning them as “completely outrageous and unacceptable”.

Some international aid – mainly from China and India – has begun to arrive after the military authorities issued a rare appeal.

Aid has also been sent from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia.

Rescuers from several countries have joined local efforts to locate and pull out any survivors.

The Red Cross has issued an urgent appeal for $100m (£77m), while the UN is seeking $8m for its earthquake response.

“People urgently require medical care, clean drinking water, tents, food, and other basic necessities,” the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Monday.

The need is especially great in and around Mandalay, according to the IRC, where there is no electricity, water is running out and hospitals are overwhelmed.

Michael Dunford, country director for the UN World Food Programme, told the BBC that bringing aid from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw and Mandalay was taking twice as long as it normally would, due to damage to roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

The Earth’s crust is made up of separate bits, called plates, that nestle alongside each other.

These plates often try to move but are prevented by the friction of rubbing up against an adjoining one.

But sometimes, the pressure builds until one plate suddenly jerks across, causing the surface to move.

They are measured on a scale called the Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw). This has replaced the Richter scale, which is now considered outdated and less accurate.

The number attributed to an earthquake represents a combination of the distance the fault line has moved and the force that moved it.

A tremor of 2.5 or less usually cannot be felt but can be detected by instruments. Quakes of up to five are felt and cause minor damage. The Myanmar earthquake at 7.7 is classified as major and usually causes serious damage, as it has in this instance.

Anything above 8.0 causes catastrophic damage and can totally destroy communities at its centre.

This earthquake and its aftershocks were relatively shallow – about 10km in depth.

That means the impact on the surface is likely to have been more devastating than a deeper earthquake, with buildings shaken much harder and more likely to collapse.

On 26 December 2004, one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of Indonesia, triggering a tsunami that swept away entire communities around the Indian Ocean. That 9.1 magnitude quake killed about 228,000 people.

The largest ever earthquake registered 9.5 and was recorded in Chile in 1960.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has warned about the possibility of several strong aftershocks in places affected by the earthquake.

It has advised people in the area, or tourists planning to travel to Myanmar, Thailand or Laos, to monitor local media and follow the advice of local authorities and tour operators.

The FCDO has also previously issued advice against travel to parts of Myanmar and all but essential travel to parts of Thailand and Laos.

Myanmar’s security situation “may deteriorate at short notice and the military regime can introduce travel restrictions at any time” amid an “increasingly volatile” conflict, it said.

The FCDO’s warning for parts of Thailand is “due to regular attacks in the provinces by the border with Malaysia” and its advice for Laos relates to “intermittent attacks on infrastructure and armed clashes with anti-government groups” in Xaisomboun province.

Indian superstar Mohanlal has apologised and said some scenes will be removed from his new film after criticism from Hindu nationalist groups.

The Malayalam-language film, L2: Empuraan, was released on Thursday and is performing well at the box office.

However, it faced a backlash from Hindu groups, including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over some scenes including ones seen as referring to the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state.

“As an artist, it is my duty to ensure that none of my films are hostile to any political movement, ideology or religious group,” Mohanlal wrote on Facebook.

“The team of Empuraan and I sincerely regret the distress caused to my loved ones, and with the realisation that the responsibility for it lies with all of us who worked on the film, we have decided together to remove such subjects from the movie,” added Mohanlal, who is a household name in Kerala state, which is home to the Malayalam film industry.

The developments have sparked a debate around artistic freedom, with the opposition Congress and Left parties accusing the BJP of putting pressure on the filmmakers.

However, BJP leaders have said that the party did not launch a public campaign against the film and that people have the right to express their views on social media.

L2: Empuraan is a sequel to the 2019 Malayalam political thriller Lucifer, in which Mohanlal played the role of Stephen Nedumpally, a mysterious figure who is later revealed to be the head of an international crime syndicate.

The movie, directed by another Malayalam star Prithviraj, was a big hit and got mostly positive reviews.

So expectations were high for L2: Empuraan, which centres on the return of Mohanlal’s character as a saviour of Kerala’s politics, which has fallen into the hands of corrupt and evil people.

Even before its release, the film made headlines over its budget – huge for the relatively understated Malayalam film industry – and star-studded promotions.

It created a buzz across Indian cities and even internationally, with opening-day shows being sold out.

The film has made nearly 1.5bn rupees ($17.5mn; £13.5mn) overall in its opening weekend, according to film analytics tracker Sacnilk.

But the film received mixed reviews from critics.

The Hindustan Times newspaper called it a film grappling with “an identity crisis, an overlong run time and a confused mess of a script”. The Indian Express said “the emotional depth and dramatic weight that anchored Lucifer are largely absent in Empuraan” but praised “Mohanlal’s commanding performance” and some other aspects of the film.

L2: Empuraan begins with the backstory of a character Zayed Masood – played by director Prithviraj – who was orphaned during riots in a place in India, with some of the details being similar to the religious violence that occurred in 2002 when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state.

The long flashback sequence shows some graphic scenes depicting Hindus committing violent crimes against Muslims during the violence.

It also shows how one of the perpetrators of the violence becomes more powerful over the years and is seeking to secure a key position in Kerala’s political landscape.

The scenes sparked an uproar.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the state president of the BJP, who had wished the film’s team well before its release, later said that he now realised there were “topics in the movie that disturbed Mohanlal fans and other viewers”.

“A movie should be watched as a movie. It can’t be seen as history. Also, any movie that tries to build a story by distorting the truth is doomed to fail,” he said, adding that he would not watch the film.

While some state BJP leaders supported this, others criticised the makers and accused them of depicting “anti-national themes” in the film.

The Organiser Weekly – a magazine published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the ideological parent of the BJP – called the film a “disturbing, divisive tale disguised as cinema”.

“Empuraan isn’t just a bad film; it’s an attack on faith, on political plurality and on the very soul of balanced storytelling,” its review said.

Some social media users have also called for a boycott of the film, but there has not been a large-scale online campaign or big protests against the movie.

Over the weekend, Gokulam Gopalan, one of the producers of the film, said he had asked Prithviraj to make changes “if any scenes or dialogues in Empuraan have hurt anyone”.

This was followed by Mohanlal’s post on Sunday which confirmed some scenes would be removed. Prithviraj shared the post on Facebook but did not offer additional comment.

Some reports said the film would see as many as 17 cuts while others said a three-minute long scene would be removed and some dialogues muted. The makers have not confirmed what the changes are.

The film had been cleared by India’s Central Board of Film Certification – known as the censor board – which reviews movies for public exhibition. But makers have the option of resubmitting it for more cuts.

Amid the controversy, L2: Empuraan has also received support from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – which governs Kerala – and the Congress party. The two parties have a strong presence in Kerala, where the nationally powerful BJP has struggled to make inroads.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the “communal hate campaign against Empuraan and its creators is deeply disturbing”.

“Undermining creative freedom through fear and threats strikes at the very core of democracy,” he added.

“Cinema is the work of a group of artists. Changing the content of a work of art by threatening, insulting and humiliating through social media is not a victory,” wrote Congress leader VD Satheesan.

People smugglers have exploited “fragmented” policing, border force and intelligence agencies to smuggle thousands of illegal migrants into the UK, the prime minister has said.

Sir Keir Starmer said poor organisation had meant the UK was “a soft touch” on illegal migration, which smugglers took as an “open invitation”.

The prime minister made the case for tackling illegal migration like terrorism as he spoke at the first ever Organised Immigration Crime Summit in London – attended by more than 40 countries alongside tech giants like Meta, X and TikTok.

The Conservatives said the conference “will make no difference” and only Rwanda-style deportations would stop illegal migration.

Sir Keir is keen for the UK to be seen as leading the global response to illegal migration – a key issue for the government politically, with both the Conservatives and Reform UK accusing Labour of failing to get a grip on the issue.

Since winning the election in 2024, Sir Keir has pushed for treating illegal migration like terrorism, with increased cooperation across countries and enhanced police powers.

The government has announced a series of agreements with other countries in an effort to tackle the number of illegal migrants entering the UK.

But more than 6,000 people have crossed the Channel so far in 2025, making it a record start to a year for small boat arrivals.

Sir Keir said joint cross-border criminal investigations involving UK authorities were “beginning to bear fruit”.

Since July, the government said more than 24,000 individuals with no right to be in the UK had been deported.

Launching a two-day summit at Lancaster House, the prime minister said he was “angry” about the scale of illegal migration.

“It makes me angry, frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price – from the cost of hotels, to our public services struggling under the strain,” he said.

Illegal migration was also “a massive driver of global insecurity” which “undermines our ability to control who comes here”, Sir Keir said.

“And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.”

Officials from Vietnam, Albania and Iraq – countries from which many migrants have travelled to the UK – attended the summit at London’s Lancaster House, alongside French, Chinese and US representatives.

Representatives from social media companies Meta, X and TikTok also joined, alongside Kurdish leaders and Interpol to take part in discussions on how to disrupt a criminal trade worth an estimated $10bn (£7.7bn) a year.

Sir Keir told attendees: “There has never been a bigger gathering of people on this issue, building a truly international effort to defeat organised immigration crime.”

Labour campaigned on a promise to scrap the previous government’s plan to send some migrants to Rwanda.

On Monday, Sir Keir blamed the Conservatives for pursuing the scheme, while smugglers slipped through the cracks in services.

“We inherited this total fragmentation between our policing, our Border Force and our intelligence agencies,” Sir Keir said.

“A fragmentation that made it crystal clear, when I looked at it, that there were gaps in our defence, an open invitation at our borders for the people smugglers to crack on.

“To be honest, it should have been fixed years ago.”

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Sir Keir’s immigration plans “already lie in tatters”.

He said: “We are about to see 30,000 illegal channel crossings since the election reached this week, a 31% increase.

“This year so far has been the worst on record.”

The spike in channel crossings was “a direct consequence of the government cancelling the Rwanda deterrent before it even started,” Philp said.

“Today’s conference will make no difference,” he added.

“Law enforcement alone cannot stop illegal immigration – you need a removals deterrent.”

Ahead of the summit, the Home Office announced that £33m would be spent to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions.

Among developments aimed at tackling illegal migration ahead of the gathering:

• £30m of funding for the Border Security Command will be used to tackle supply chains, finance and trafficking routes across Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa. A further £3m will help the Crown Prosecution Service increase its ability to deal with cases, the government said
• The government is expanding right-to-work checks to cover gig economy workers by making amendments to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill
• Home Secretary Yvette Cooper signalled she wanted to crack down on the number of people who had arrived in the UK on a student or work visa and had gone on to claim asylum
• The government is reviewing how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the right to family life, applies to migration cases, Cooper said
• Some £1m in UK funding will go towards strengthened efforts to root out people-smuggling kingpins in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, the Home Office announced
• The UK has launched an advertising campaign on Vietnamese social media and messenger app Zalo, warning people about trusting people-smuggling gangs.

On Sunday, Tory shadow minister Alex Burghart told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that Labour should never have scrapped the Rwanda deportation plan.

Earlier, Cooper told the show that plans for new checks on unauthorised working would help cut levels of illegal migration.

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Muslims around the world are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, one of the biggest celebrations in the Islamic calendar.

Eid al-Fitr – which means “festival of the breaking of the fast” – is celebrated at the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting for many adults, as well as spiritual reflection and prayer.

A woman says police overreacted by trying to ban her from a park over allegations she was illegally foraging for mushrooms.

Louise Gather said a police officer came to her home and attempted to issue her with a community resolution report after she visited Bradgate Park, in Leicestershire, in search of magpie inkcaps – a rare kind of fungus.

It follows a complaint by the Bradgate Park Trust, which runs the park, that Mrs Gather picked mushrooms illegally because it is a designated site of special scientific interest (SSSI).

The 38-year-old insisted she had not picked any mushrooms during her visit in November, and that Leicestershire Police’s actions had been “a bit excessive”.

Mrs Gather, from Derby, revealed details of the community resolution order on TikTok this week.

Under the terms of the community resolution report, an informal agreement between a complainant and an alleged offender, Mrs Gather was told she would not face prosecution or get a criminal record if she stuck to its terms.

These also included her agreeing not to take items from the park in the future, and that she would look into what an SSSI is.

However, police have subsequently admitted that the order was not valid because the officer dealing with the case mistakenly got her husband to sign the agreement, rather than her.

Mrs Gather said the first time she became aware of any problem was on 25 November, when an officer from Leicestershire Police came to her home and said a complaint had been made.

She said: “It seems someone had followed me, taken pictures of my car registration and passed them on to police.

“I was out when [the officer] came but my husband was home – and he thought I’d been in a car accident or something.

“The police officer was pretty good about it – I think he just wanted to get it sorted as quickly as possible – but he got my husband to sign something, which was an informal agreement that I don’t go back to the park – so he’d go.

“It turns out that was a mistake and the officer’s boss phoned me on Thursday to say it had been rescinded. He was very, very apologetic.

“The whole thing feels a bit silly. I don’t think much common sense has been used.

“It was a bit excessive to send a policeman to my house – especially as I didn’t pick anything from the park.

“I understand Bradgate Park is an SSSI. Why would I want to do anything to harm that environment?”

“I do sometimes forage, usually for wild garlic and wild leeks,” said Mrs Gather.

“And on that day I was looking for magpie inkcaps, which are quite rare, and I had been tipped off they were growing there.

“My interest in fungi started a few years ago. I started to notice them while I was walking the dog then I’d go home and look them up. It moved on from there.

“Magpie inkcaps were on my mushroom bucket list. Occasionally I do forage mushrooms, but on that day I didn’t pick anything.

“I spoke to a couple of volunteers and had a lovely conversation with them.

“They told me where they thought I might find what I was looking for – and I did find them.

“I had my foraging basket but I didn’t put anything in it. I was happy – I was there about an hour and even had lunch in the cafe.

“There were rangers buzzing about on their buggies. Nobody seemed to think anything was wrong at the time. Nobody asked to look in my basket.”

According to Leicestershire Police, the complainant said it was reported Mrs Gather had a small knife, which meant they did not feel able to approach her.

She said: “I had my tiny mushroom foraging knife. That’s all. It has a folding blade but I don’t think I even got it out.”

A spokesperson for Leicestershire Police said a report of a woman picking mushrooms had been received, and added: “Inquiries were carried out into the report and an officer visited the woman’s home address, where a community resolution was issued in relation to the offence.

“Bradgate Park is a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), which is covered by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and Nature Conservation Act 2004.

“The park is of high conservation value and should be protected as part of his heritage.

“The removal of any item from the park is an offence and officers will carry out inquiries into any reports of this nature which are made to us.”

The Bradgate Park Trust declined to comment.

The Woodland Trust’s guidelines on foraging say:

• Minimise damage and take only what you plan to consume
• Seek permission especially at sites of conservation importance
• Know what you are picking. Some species are rare, inedible or poisonous
• Know the law. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, it is illegal to dig up or remove wild plants (including algae, lichens and fungi) from the land on which it is growing without permission from the landowner or occupier. If a site is an SSSI foraging is not permitted

A missile launcher sends a cloud of brown dust into the air as it hurtles across a field towards the firing line. Moments later comes a soldier’s countdown, from five to ‘Fire!’, before a rocket roars into the sky.

The blasts and booms from such military training exercises are so constant that locals in the nearby small town of Munster barely notice anymore.

But life here is set to get even louder.

Germany’s military, the Bundeswehr, recently got the all-clear for a massive increase in investment after parliament voted to exempt defence spending from strict rules on debt.

The country’s top general has told the BBC the cash boost is urgently needed because he believes Russian aggression won’t stop at Ukraine.

“We are threatened by Russia. We are threatened by Putin. We have to do whatever is needed to deter that,” Gen Carsten Breuer says. He warns that Nato should be braced for a possible attack in as little as four years.

“It’s not about how much time I need, it’s much more about how much time Putin gives us to be prepared,” the defence chief says bluntly. “And the sooner we are prepared the better.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has changed thinking in Germany profoundly.

For decades people here have been raised on a rejection of military might, acutely aware of Germany’s past role as the aggressor in Europe.

“We started two world wars. Even though it’s 80 years since World War Two ended, the idea that Germans should stay out of conflict is still very much in many people’s DNA,” explains Markus Ziener of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

Some remain wary of anything that might be seen as militarism even now, and the armed forces have been chronically underfunded.

“There are voices cautioning: ‘Are we really on the right track? Is our threat perception right?'”

When it comes to Russia, Germany has had a specific approach.

Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany imagined it was delivering democratisation by osmosis. But Russia took the cash and invaded Ukraine anyway.

So in February 2022 a stunned Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared a national pivot in priorities, a “Zeitenwende”.

That’s when he committed a giant €100 billion ($108bn; £83bn) to boost the country’s military and keep “warmongers like Putin” in check. But General Breuer says it wasn’t enough.

“We filled up a little bit the potholes,” he recounts. “But it’s really bad.”

By contrast, he points to heavy spending in Russia on weapons and equipment, for stocks as well as the frontline in Ukraine.

He also highlights Russia’s hybrid warfare: from cyber attacks to sabotage, as well as unidentified drones over German military sites.

Add to that Vladimir Putin’s aggressive rhetoric and General Breuer sees “a really dangerous mixture.”

“Unlike the western world, Russia is not thinking in boxes. It’s not about peacetime and war, it’s a continuum: let’s start with hybrid, then escalate, then back. This is what makes me think we are facing a real threat.”

He argues Germany has to act fast.

The defence chief’s stark assessment of his forces’ current state chimes with a recent report to parliament. The Bundeswehr, it concluded, had “too little of everything”.

The report’s author, armed forces commissioner Eva Högl, revealed dire shortages ranging from ammunition to soldiers, right down to dilapidated barracks. She estimated the budget for renovation work alone at around €67 billion ($72bn; £56bn).

Lifting the debt cap, allowing the military to borrow – in theory, without limit – will give it access to a “steady line” of funding to start to address that, General Breuer says.

The historic move was made by Scholz’s expected successor, Friedrich Merz, in a rush that raised some eyebrows. He submitted the proposal to parliament just before it was disbanded following the February elections.

The new parliament, with an anti-militarist left and Russia-sympathising far right, might have been less favourably disposed.

But the “turn” that Germany started in 2022 gained fresh momentum this year.

A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as “very” or “quite” dangerous to European peace and security.

Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.

The survey followed a speech in Munich in which his Vice President JD Vance laid into Europe and its values.

“That was a clear signal that something fundamentally has changed in the United States,” says Markus Ziener.

“We don’t know where the US is heading but we know the belief that we can 100% rely on American protection when it comes to our security – that trust has now gone.”

In Berlin, Germans’ traditional caution about all things military seems to be fading fast.

Eighteen-year-old Charlotte Kreft says her own pacifist views have changed.

“For a really long time, we thought the only way to make up for the atrocities we committed in World War Two was to make sure it never happened again […] and we thought we needed to demilitarise,” Charlotte explains.

“But now we are in a situation where we have to fight for our values and democracy and freedom. We need to adapt.”

“There are lots of Germans who still feel strange about big investments in our military,” Ludwig Stein agrees. “But I think considering the things that have happened in the past few years, there’s no other real option.”

Sophie, a young mum, thinks investing in defence is now “necessary in the world we live in”.

But Germany needs troops as well as tanks, and she’s far less keen on her own son being enlisted.

The Bundeswehr only has one permanent drop-in centre, a small unit sandwiched between a pharmacy and a shoe store beside Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station.

With camouflage-clad dummies in the window and slogans like “cool and spicy” it aims to attract men and women to serve, but only gets a handful of callers each day.

Germany has already missed a target of boosting its ranks by 20,000 soldiers, to 203,000, and lowering the average age from 34.

But Gen Breuer’s ambitions are far greater.

He told us Germany needs an extra 100,000 troops to defend itself and Nato’s eastern flank adequately – a total of 460,000, including reserves. So he insists a return to military service is “absolutely” necessary.

“You won’t get this 100,000 without one or other model of conscription,” the general said.

“We don’t have to determine now what model brings them. For me it’s only important that we get the soldiers in.”

That debate has only just begun.

General Breuer is clearly positioning himself at the front of an effort to push Germany’s “turn” further and faster.

With his easy, engaging manner, he likes to visit regional town halls and challenge audiences there with a question: “Are you ready for war?”

One day a woman accused him of scaring her. “I said, ‘It’s not me scaring you, it’s the other guy!'” he remembers his reply.

He was referring to Vladimir Putin.

The twin “wake-up” alarm – of the Russia threat and an isolationist, disengaged United States – is now ringing loudly for Germany, the general argues, and can’t be ignored.

“Now it’s understandable to each and every one of us that we have to change.”

Donald Trump has said he is “not joking” about wanting to serve a third term as US president.

The US Constitution says that “no person… shall be elected more than twice”, but some Trump supporters have suggested there could be ways around that.

Trump was asked in an interview with NBC about the possibility of seeking a third term and said “there are methods which you could do it”.

“I’m not joking… a lot of people want me to do it,” he added. “But, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

Trump, who would be 82 at the end of his second term, was asked whether he would want to keep serving in “the toughest job in the country”.

“Well, I like working,” he replied.

These were not his first comments on the topic. In January, he told supporters that it would be “the greatest honour of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times”. However, he then said this was a joke for the “fake news media”.

On the face of it, the US Constitution seems to rule out anyone having a third term. The 22nd Amendment states:

“No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, and no person who has held the office of president, or acted as president, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president shall be elected to the office of the president more than once.”

Changing the constitution would require a two-thirds approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as approval from three-quarters of the country’s state-level governments.

Trump’s Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress but does not have the majorities needed. Additionally, the Democratic Party controls 18 of the 50 state legislatures.

Trump supporters say there is a loophole in the constitution, untested in court.

They argue that the 22nd Amendment only explicitly bans someone being “elected” to more than two presidential terms – and says nothing of “succession”.

Under this theory, Trump could be the vice-presidential running-mate to another candidate – perhaps his own vice-president, JD Vance – in the 2028 election.

If they win, the candidate could be sworn into the White House and then immediately resign – letting Trump take over by succession.

Steve Bannon, the podcaster and prominent former Trump adviser, said he believed Trump would “run and win again”, adding there were “a couple of alternatives” in determining how.

Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican in the House of Representatives, introduced a resolution in January calling for a constitutional amendment to allow a president to serve up to three terms – as long as they were not consecutive.

This would mean that only Trump of all former surviving presidents would be eligible – Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W Bush all served consecutive terms, whereas Trump won in 2016, lost in 2020, and won again in 2024.

However, the high bar for constitutional amendments makes Ogles’ proposal a pipe dream – although it got people talking.

Democrats have deep objections.

“This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy,” said Daniel Goldman, a New York Representative who served as lead counsel for Trump’s first impeachment.

“If Congressional Republicans believe in the Constitution, they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term.”

Some within Trump’s party also think it’s a bad idea.

The Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin, of Oklahoma, said in February he would not back an attempt to put Trump back in the White House.

“I’m not changing the constitution, first of all, unless the American people chose to do that,” Mullin told NBC.

Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the Constitution’s 12th Amendment says “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States”.

That means serving two terms in office disqualifies anyone from running as a vice-presidential candidate, in his view.

“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” he said.

Jeremy Paul, a constitutional law professor at Boston’s Northeastern University, told CBS New there were “no credible legal arguments” for a third term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected four times. He died three months into his fourth term, in April 1945.

The Great Depression and the Second World War coloured Roosevelt’s time in office – and are often cited for his extended presidency.

At that time, the two-term limit on US presidents had not been written into law – it was instead a custom followed since George Washington refused a third term in 1796.

Roosevelt’s extended stewardship led to the tradition being codified into law in the 22nd Amendment in 1951.

South Korean star Kim Soo-hyun has made a tearful public statement denying allegations made by the family of actress Kim Sae-ron, who died in an apparent suicide in February.

“I can’t admit to something I didn’t do,” the 37-year-old said on Monday at a press conference in Seoul.

At the centre of the controversy are two allegations: that Kim Soo-hyun dated Kim Sae-ron when she was 15 – a minor – and that his agency pressured her to repay a loan she owed him.

The scandal has shocked South Korea and its entertainment industry – and has generated a backlash against Kim Soo-Hyun, whose roles in multiple hit drama series and films has made him one of its best-known stars.

Kim wept as he said that although he dated the actress for a year when she was an adult, they never dated while she was underage.

Monday’s media conference came after weeks of accusations and counter-accusations between Kim Sae-ron’s family and Kim Soo-hyun’s camp in the wake of her death.

The scandal broke on 10 March, less than a month after Kim Sae-ron’s death. A YouTube channel, known for its controversial political content, claimed that the two had dated for six years, when she was 15. The channel has since released videos and photos it claims were taken during their relationship.

Last week, the attorney representing Kim Sae-ron’s family held a press conference, revealing more chat history allegedly between the two actors from 2016, when she was 16.

Kim Soo-hyun’s agency initially denied the allegations but later clarified that they dated, though only between 2019 and 2020, when she was an adult.

The actor himself had remained silent until Monday. At the press conference, he became emotional, reiterating to reporters that they only dated as two adults.

“Many people are suffering because of me,” he said, apologising to his fans and staff. “I also feel sorry that the late actress [Kim Sae-ron] isn’t able to rest in peace.

“I never dated her when she was a minor,” he continued. “Except for the fact that both of us were actors, our relationship was just like that of any other ordinary couple.”

He also explained why he denied the relationship when she uploaded a later-deleted photo of the two of them to her Instagram account in 2024 during the airing of Netflix hit show Queen of Tears, in which he played the lead role.

“I had so much to protect as its lead actor. What would have happened if I had admitted to a year-long relationship? What would happen to the actors, the staff who were working overnight and the production team who had everything staked on that project?” he said. “The more I thought of it, the more I thought that shouldn’t be what I do.”

Any admission of a romantic relationship or a partner is still seen as scandalous to fans in South Korea’s entertainment industry, where celebrities’ personal lives come under intense scrutiny.

Kim Sae-ron herself was a victim of online hate by fans after she was fined 20 million won (£11,000; $14,000) for a 2022 drink-driving incident.

Prior to that, she had been seen as one of the most promising young actresses in South Korea.

At the time, she was managed by the same agency as Kim Soo-hyun, which was co-founded by his relative. Kim Sae-ron joined GoldMedalist in January 2020 and left in December 2022.

Kim Sae-ron’s family claimed that GoldMedalist covered the compensation for her drunk-driving incident. They allege that the agency later pursued legal action for repayment and that, while the actress asked Kim Soo-hyun for more time to settle the debt, her request went unanswered.

On Monday, Kim Soo-hyun denied claims that “she made the tragic choice because of me or my agency pressuring her over a debt”.

He released a voice recording of a phone call from a year ago, allegedly between his agency and Kim Sae-ron’s representative.

In the recording, the CEO of GoldMedalist appears to explain that the document they sent her regarding the debt was merely for “procedural reasons” and that her team could take time to respond.

He also accused Kim Sae-ron’s family of manipulating chat records as evidence and stated that he had submitted his own evidence to the relevant authorities for verification. He urged her family to do the same.

Kim Soo-hyun, 37, is an A-list actor in South Korea, known for his roles in multiple hit drama series and top-grossing movies, including My Love from the Star, Netflix’s Queen of Tears, and the film Secretly, Greatly.

He has also been a favourite among advertisers in the country, though many brands have now distanced themselves from him amid the controversy. On 17 March, fashion brand Prada announced that it had mutually decided to end its collaboration with him, according to Reuters. This followed similar moves from Dinto, a Korean cosmetic brand.

A Disney+ show that stars Kim Soo-hyun has also been put on pause due to the scandal, according to local news outlet Yonhap.

His lawyer stated on Monday that they had filed a criminal complaint against Kim Sae-ron’s family and the YouTube channel operator, along with a civil lawsuit for damages worth 12 billion won.

Her family has not commented on the lawsuits or his latest remarks.

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this story you can find information and support on the BBC Actionline website here.

The meeting between motivational speaker Brad Burton and Sam Wall lasted less than a minute. She posed for a picture with him after attending one of his workshops and later left a glowing video testimonial.

It was unremarkable, Mr Burton says. “Just one of the thousands of people I must have met over the years.”

Two years later, she started attacking him online.

In hundreds of posts, Wall described him as manipulative, a psychopath and a sociopathic abuser. Day after day, she accused him of making death threats, breaking her windows and killing her cat – all false allegations.

“She put it on social media across all platforms. She was painting a picture that, somewhere along the way, I had done all these things and I was trying to cover it up,” Mr Burton tells BBC Panorama.

“How do you prove a negative? That I had not poisoned the cat? Social media and the way it works, it’s guilty until proven innocent.”

Wall, 55, a social media consultant, pleaded guilty to charges of stalking and sending false messages at Manchester Magistrates’ Court last November.

Her sentencing was delayed for a second time last week, but the judge told her to expect a prison sentence.

Wall’s legal team said a psychiatric report shows she has a chronic delusional mental health illness.

Her conviction was in relation to two victims – Mr Burton and businesswoman Naomi Timperley – who were targeted with abusive messages over the past four years.

“It’s just been hideous, really hideous, and I don’t know why it happened,” Mrs Timperley tells us. “I’m still really anxious, sometimes I get really sad.”

BBC Panorama has spoken to other victims who say they were stalked by Wall over a period of more than 10 years.

Some had never met Wall, while others only knew her as a passing acquaintance.

At the time Wall targeted Mr Burton, he was running a network supporting hundreds of small businesses across the UK.

Many of her abusive posts were detailed – one was 20,000 words long. Some were shared on LinkedIn, where she had 30,000 followers – the very platform Mr Burton relied on to promote his work.

While the pandemic hit him hard, he says she helped to sink his business.

Wall also falsely claimed that Mr Burton had in fact been harassing her for 10 years – and that he had been arrested and jailed.

Mr Burton posted pictures of himself online to prove he was not in prison. Wall responded by claiming his psychopathic twin was taking the photos and appearing at events to cover up the fact he had been locked up.

His friend Alan Price knew Wall was lying about the 10-year claim, because he had introduced them at the workshop two years earlier.

“She’s telling everybody that Brad Burton is in jail, but I was actually out in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset having a curry with him,” he says.

In an attempt to stop her, Mr Burton went to a solicitor who advised him to send a cease and desist letter. Wall then responded by publishing the letter online and saying he could sue her – but she had no money.

Mrs Timperley had only met Wall in passing – she followed her on Twitter and they were connected on LinkedIn. She was also targeted with hundreds of messages – accused of criminal damage, destroying Wall’s business and of joining up with others to carry out so-called gang stalking.

Wall also falsely claimed Mrs Timperley had been arrested for harassment.

“I’ve been personally attacked on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and accused of really vile things,” she tells us.

Wall continued her online attacks even after she had been charged with stalking.

Manchester-based entrepreneur Justine Wright was targeted over a decade. She had employed Wall for a couple of months and, when Wall left, the online stalking began.

Ms Wright is a marketing consultant and Wall repeatedly targeted her clients – major companies – with false claims. Justine had never met Brad, but Wall accused her of conspiring with him to poison her cat.

People might be surprised by the number of victims and that Wall did not disguise her identity, says Rory Innes, chief executive of the Cyber Helpline, a charity that helps victims of online crime.

But he says this is common.

“It’s a horrendous case and she will be causing harm to lots of people and changing their lives. But this is happening to hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

Panorama has spoken to other victims who do not want to be identified. One says he was stalked for more than a decade, during which time Wall sent thousands of texts, plus 10,000-word emails to his friends and business contacts.

Wall would also turn up at his work pretending to be his wife, he says, and accusing him of domestic abuse.

All of the victims complained to the social media companies about Wall’s posts, but they have not been taken down.

Social media lawyer Paul Tweed tells Panorama he was not surprised the companies had failed to help.

“They decide what should be taken down, they decide when it should be taken down and how it should be taken down. And they will say, when you ask them, that they comply with the law,” he says.

LinkedIn says it can’t comment on individual users, but it does not allow bullying or harassment and it will take action against anything that violates its policies. Instagram, Facebook and X did not respond to Panorama’s request for comment.

None of the companies have taken down Wall’s abusive messages, even though Panorama told them about Wall’s conviction two months ago.

Last week, she posted another abusive message about Mr Burton.

The charity Cyber Helpline has estimated that 600,000 people report online stalking to the police every year. Another charity, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, says fewer than 2% of stalking and harassment complaints end with a conviction.

A major review by policing bodies last year found a lack of understanding of online stalking and evidence of the police failing to take it seriously.

The advice to victims of online stalking is basic – don’t engage, keep records and report it to the police. But the people Panorama spoke to did that, and the abuse continued.

Mr Burton and and Mrs Timperley were unhappy with the response they got from Greater Manchester Police (GMP).

Outcomes for victims are really poor, Roy Innes from the Cyber Helpline says.

“So few of these cases actually end up with an investigation,” he says. “And when an investigation does happen, the technology element can mean it takes years to get to the point where the evidence is being looked at.”

A spokesperson for GMP says delays in the wider criminal justice system affected Wall’s case and the force achieved positive outcomes for more than 3,000 victims of this type of crime last year.

We approached Wall for comment, but she did not respond.

Meanwhile, Mr Burton says he forgives her. “I hope she gets the help that she needs and she finds peace in her own life,” he says.

Indian superstar Mohanlal has apologised and said some scenes will be removed from his new film after criticism from Hindu nationalist groups.

The Malayalam-language film, L2: Empuraan, was released on Thursday and is performing well at the box office.

However, it faced a backlash from Hindu groups, including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), over some scenes including ones seen as referring to the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state.

“As an artist, it is my duty to ensure that none of my films are hostile to any political movement, ideology or religious group,” Mohanlal wrote on Facebook.

“The team of Empuraan and I sincerely regret the distress caused to my loved ones, and with the realisation that the responsibility for it lies with all of us who worked on the film, we have decided together to remove such subjects from the movie,” added Mohanlal, who is a household name in Kerala state, which is home to the Malayalam film industry.

The developments have sparked a debate around artistic freedom, with the opposition Congress and Left parties accusing the BJP of putting pressure on the filmmakers.

However, BJP leaders have said that the party did not launch a public campaign against the film and that people have the right to express their views on social media.

L2: Empuraan is a sequel to the 2019 Malayalam political thriller Lucifer, in which Mohanlal played the role of Stephen Nedumpally, a mysterious figure who is later revealed to be the head of an international crime syndicate.

The movie, directed by another Malayalam star Prithviraj, was a big hit and got mostly positive reviews.

So expectations were high for L2: Empuraan, which centres on the return of Mohanlal’s character as a saviour of Kerala’s politics, which has fallen into the hands of corrupt and evil people.

Even before its release, the film made headlines over its budget – huge for the relatively understated Malayalam film industry – and star-studded promotions.

It created a buzz across Indian cities and even internationally, with opening-day shows being sold out.

The film has made nearly 1.5bn rupees ($17.5mn; £13.5mn) overall in its opening weekend, according to film analytics tracker Sacnilk.

But the film received mixed reviews from critics.

The Hindustan Times newspaper called it a film grappling with “an identity crisis, an overlong run time and a confused mess of a script”. The Indian Express said “the emotional depth and dramatic weight that anchored Lucifer are largely absent in Empuraan” but praised “Mohanlal’s commanding performance” and some other aspects of the film.

L2: Empuraan begins with the backstory of a character Zayed Masood – played by director Prithviraj – who was orphaned during riots in a place in India, with some of the details being similar to the religious violence that occurred in 2002 when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat state.

The long flashback sequence shows some graphic scenes depicting Hindus committing violent crimes against Muslims during the violence.

It also shows how one of the perpetrators of the violence becomes more powerful over the years and is seeking to secure a key position in Kerala’s political landscape.

The scenes sparked an uproar.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the state president of the BJP, who had wished the film’s team well before its release, later said that he now realised there were “topics in the movie that disturbed Mohanlal fans and other viewers”.

“A movie should be watched as a movie. It can’t be seen as history. Also, any movie that tries to build a story by distorting the truth is doomed to fail,” he said, adding that he would not watch the film.

While some state BJP leaders supported this, others criticised the makers and accused them of depicting “anti-national themes” in the film.

The Organiser Weekly – a magazine published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is the ideological parent of the BJP – called the film a “disturbing, divisive tale disguised as cinema”.

“Empuraan isn’t just a bad film; it’s an attack on faith, on political plurality and on the very soul of balanced storytelling,” its review said.

Some social media users have also called for a boycott of the film, but there has not been a large-scale online campaign or big protests against the movie.

Over the weekend, Gokulam Gopalan, one of the producers of the film, said he had asked Prithviraj to make changes “if any scenes or dialogues in Empuraan have hurt anyone”.

This was followed by Mohanlal’s post on Sunday which confirmed some scenes would be removed. Prithviraj shared the post on Facebook but did not offer additional comment.

Some reports said the film would see as many as 17 cuts while others said a three-minute long scene would be removed and some dialogues muted. The makers have not confirmed what the changes are.

The film had been cleared by India’s Central Board of Film Certification – known as the censor board – which reviews movies for public exhibition. But makers have the option of resubmitting it for more cuts.

Amid the controversy, L2: Empuraan has also received support from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – which governs Kerala – and the Congress party. The two parties have a strong presence in Kerala, where the nationally powerful BJP has struggled to make inroads.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the “communal hate campaign against Empuraan and its creators is deeply disturbing”.

“Undermining creative freedom through fear and threats strikes at the very core of democracy,” he added.

“Cinema is the work of a group of artists. Changing the content of a work of art by threatening, insulting and humiliating through social media is not a victory,” wrote Congress leader VD Satheesan.

Russia says it is still “working with the US” after President Trump said he was “angry” and “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin.

In its first response to Trump’s criticism of the Russian president, the Kremlin tried to play down the tensions between the two leaders.

“We continue working with the US side, first of all, on building our relations,” spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

He said there were no plans for a call between Putin and Trump this week, but that Putin is open to one “if necessary”.

The attempt to smooth things over came after Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he was angry with Putin for attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s credibility, and threatened to impose a 50% tariff on countries buying Russian oil if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.

It was a marked change of tone towards the Russian president.

US and Russian officials have been in talks for several weeks to try to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine – during which Trump has often criticised Zelensky but not Putin.

But Trump’s anger with Putin was sparked when the Russian president on Friday mooted the idea of an interim government in Ukraine under the support of the UN which could replace President Zelensky.

“You could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when… Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location,” Trump told NBC News.

“New leadership means you’re not gonna have a deal for a long time,” he added.

In his daily conference call on Monday with journalists, Peskov claimed some of what was said in the NBC interview was “paraphrased.”

The comments from Trump were reflected in parts of the Russian media.

The pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, published some rare criticism of the US president, saying Trump was not fulfilling his “obligations” to stop Ukraine striking Russian energy infrastructure.

“All agreements on the level of President Trump are only worth a few pennies on market day” the newspaper concluded, while “Moscow is prepared to make a deal with the US president.”

A major earthquake in Myanmar on Friday has caused more than 2,000 deaths and led to the collapse of numerous structures.

Even though the south-east Asian nation is a high risk region for earthquakes, neighbouring Thailand and China – which were also affected by the quake – are not.

The Thai capital, Bangkok, sits more than 1,000km (621 miles) from the epicentre of Friday’s earthquake – and yet an unfinished high-rise building in the city was felled by it.

Here we will explain what caused this earthquake, and how it was able to have such a powerful effect so far away.

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The earth’s upper layer is split into different sections, called tectonic plates, which are all moving constantly. Some move alongside each other, whilst others are above and below each other.

It is this movement that causes earthquakes and volcanoes.

Myanmar is considered to be one of the most geologically “active” areas in the world because it sits on top of the convergence of four of these tectonic plates – the Eurasian plate, the Indian plate, the Sunda plate and the Burma microplate.

The Himalayas were formed by the Indian plate colliding with the Eurasian plate, and the 2004 Tsunami as a result of the Indian plate moving beneath the Burma microplate.

Dr Rebecca Bell, a reader in tectonics at Imperial College London, said that to accommodate all of this motion, faults – cracks in the rock – form which allow tectonic plates to “slither” sideways.

There is a major fault called the Sagaing fault, which cuts right through Myanmar north to south and is more than 1,200km (746 miles) long.

Early data suggests that the movement that caused Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake was a “strike-slip” – where two blocks move horizontally along each other.

This aligns with the movement typical of the Sagaing fault.

As the plates move past each other, they can become stuck, building friction until it is suddenly released and the earth shifts, causing an earthquake.

Earthquakes can happen at up to 700km (435 miles) below the surface. This one was just 10km from the surface, making it very shallow. This increases the amount of shaking at the surface.

The earthquake was also very large – measuring 7.7 on the moment scale. It produced more energy than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to the US Geological Survey.

The size of the quake was because of the type of fault, said Dr Bell.

“The straight nature [of the fault] means earthquakes can rupture over large areas – and the larger the area of the fault that slips, the larger the earthquake,” she explained.

“There have been six magnitude 7 or greater earthquakes in this region in the last century.”

This straight fault also means a lot of the energy can be carried down its length – which extends for 1,200km south towards Thailand.

When it comes to why the earth shook so much, scientists believe it is because the quake was a rare “super shear” – meaning energy from the rupture in the earth’s crust built up because it was moving faster than seismic waves can travel through the earth.

Seismologist Prof Frederik Tilmann, from the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Germany, explained in analysis shared online that the rupture travelled at a speed of about 5km per second – making it “the earthquake equivalent of a supersonic jet”.

Because the fracture “unzipped” towards the south, it also directed this piled up energy towards the Thai capital, Bangkok, and this is why the earthquake had such an impact so far away.

How earthquakes are felt at the surface is also determined by the type of soil.

In soft soil – which is what Bangkok is built on – seismic waves (the vibrations of the earth) slow down and build up, getting bigger in size.

So, Bangkok’s geology would have made the ground shaking more intense.

While dramatic footage has emerged of high-rise buildings in Bangkok swaying during the quake – knocking water from rooftop pools – the unfinished headquarters for the auditor-general’s office Bangkok’s Chatuchak district appears to be the only skyscraper to collapse.

Prior to 2009, Bangkok did not have a comprehensive safety standard for constructing buildings to withstand earthquakes, according to Dr Christian Málaga-Chuquitaype, a senior lecturer in earthquake engineering at Imperial College London.

This means that older buildings would have been particularly vulnerable.

This is not unusual, as earthquake-resistant buildings can be more expensive to construct and Thailand, unlike Myanmar, does not frequently experience earthquakes.

Dr Emily So, a professor of architectural engineering at the University of Cambridge, noted that older buildings can and have been strengthened, such as in California, western Canada and New Zealand.

Prof Amorn Pimarnmas, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Thailand, said that while there were regulations in 43 provinces on earthquake-proofing buildings, less than 10% of buildings are estimated to be quake-resistant.

Yet the building that collapsed was new – in fact, it was still under construction when the earthquake hit – and the updated building standards would have applied.

Dr Pimarnmas said Bangkok’s soft soil may have also played a part in its collapse, as it can amplify ground motions three or four times over.

He added: “However, there are other assumptions such as material (concrete and reinforcements) quality and some irregularity in [the] structural system. These remain to be investigated in detail.”

Having studied the video, Dr Málaga-Chuquitaype said it appears a “flat slab” construction process was being favoured – which is no longer recommended in earthquake-prone areas.

“A ‘flat slab’ system is a way of constructing buildings where floors are made to rest directly on columns, without using beams,” he explained.

“Imagine a table supported only by legs, with no extra horizontal supports underneath.

“While this design has cost and architectural advantages, is performs poorly during earthquakes, often failing in a brittle and sudden (almost explosive) manner.”

Mandalay in Myanmar was much closer to where the ground slipped and would have experienced significantly more severe shaking than Bangkok.

Although Myanmar regularly experiences earthquakes, Dr Ian Watkinson, a lecturer in earth sciences at Royal Holloway University, thought it was unlikely that many buildings were constructed to be earthquake-proof.

“General poverty, major political upheaval, alongside other disasters – e.g. the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 – has distracted the country from concentrating on the unpredictable risks from earthquakes,” he said.

“This means that, in many cases, building design codes are not enforced, and construction happens in areas that could be prone to enhanced seismic risk, for example flood plains and steep slopes.”

Parts of Mandalay and its buildings also lie along the floodplain of the Ayerwaddy River. This makes them very vulnerable to a process called liquefaction.

This happens when the soil has a high water content, and the shaking causes the sediment to lose its strength and behave like a liquid. This increases the risk of landslides and building collapses, as the ground can no longer hold them up.

Dr So warned that there was “always a chance” of further damage to buildings near a fault line due to aftershocks – tremors that follow an earthquake, which can be caused by the sudden transfer of energy into nearby rock.

“Most of the time aftershocks are smaller than the main shock, and tend to decrease in size and frequency over time,” she said.

The last time Soe Ko Ko Naing saw his great-uncle was in July, at his home by the banks of the Irrawaddy River.

Ko Naing, a supporter of Myanmar’s resistance against the military junta, was about to flee the country. Living in Min Kun, a small town in the military stronghold area of Sagaing, Ko Naing did not trust anyone enough to tell them of his plan – except his beloved Oo Oo (‘uncle’ in Burmese).

“I told him I was going to Thailand. He thought it was a good plan. He wished me good health and safety,” recalled Ko Naing, a 35-year-old labour rights activist.

Nearly a year on, Ko Naing is safe in Thailand. But his Oo Oo was killed by the powerful earthquake that struck Sagaing near Mandalay last Friday, claiming at least 2,000 lives.

“I have sleepless nights. I’m still suffering,” said Ko Naing.

“I have no remorse for leaving the country, because I had to. But I feel guilty because our people need us the most now. I feel helpless.”

Ko Naing is one of the millions of Myanmar’s diaspora anxiously watching from afar as their country struggles following its biggest earthquake in a century.

Like him, many are experiencing survivor’s guilt and a sense of helplessness. For some, these feelings are compounded by the fact that they cannot go back easily to help in rescue efforts or check on relatives, as they would face political persecution.

Thailand hosts the world’s biggest Myanmar diaspora community with about 4.3 million Myanmar nationals, though the figure is thought to be much higher if it includes undocumented migrants.

As a wealthier neighbour, it has long attracted people from Myanmar who make up a large section of its migrant workforce. The 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war have only swelled their ranks.

Some toil in the construction sector – many of the 400 workers at a Bangkok skyscraper that collapsed due to the quake were believed to be from Myanmar – while others work in Thailand’s agriculture and seafood industries.

On a drizzly Monday morning in Samut Sakhon, a fishing port near Bangkok that is home to many workers from Myanmar, men wearing the traditional Burmese longgyi and women with thanaka daubed on their cheeks thronged the alleys of a street market.

Banners advertising SIM cards with cheap rates for calling Myanmar were plastered across buildings, while shops displayed signs in both Thai and Burmese.

“We have seen videos online of buildings collapsing and people trapped under the rubble. We feel so sad about not being able to do anything,” said 30-year-old factory worker Yin Yin, who like many in the crowd is worried about the situation back home.

Shopowner Thant Zin, 28, who is from a town in Sagaing unaffected by the quake, mourned the collapse of centuries-old pagodas and temples in his area. “What a disaster! I feel so bad… We have never experienced this extent of damage before.”

Across town Ko Naing sat in his office, checking for updates on his family in Myanmar. At least 150 of his relatives live in or around Sagaing and Mandalay.

Friday’s earthquake was so immense that it could be felt in Thailand, India and China. That day, as Ko Naing lay in bed in Samut Sakhon hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre, he said he felt the room shake for about 30 seconds.

He immediately went on social media and discovered the quake had occurred close to Min Kun. Then he came across a picture of Sagaing’s Ava Bridge – a local landmark – lying in mangled ruins in the Irrawaddy River. “I was shocked and devastated, I have a lot of relatives in that area. I thought, ‘it must be fake news’. But it was real.”

With slow communications in Myanmar in the quake’s immediate aftermath, Ko Naing only heard from his relatives on Saturday. Almost everyone was safe and accounted for, he was told, except for a distant great-aunt who died in Mandalay – and his Oo Oo.

A week before, Min Kun and its surroundings had been shelled by the military targeting the People’s Defence Forces resistance. Almost all of Ko Naing’s family in the town fled to Sagaing city or to a military-controlled area in Mandalay.

Oo Oo had refused to decamp and took shelter in the village monastery instead, knowing that the military would not attack Buddhist sites.

But on Friday, the monastery collapsed completely when the earthquake struck. His body was found in the rubble on Monday.

Ko Naing remembers Oo Oo as an open-minded and outspoken 60-year-old. In an area dominated by the military, the two bonded over their shared support for the resistance, especially after the coup.

In the summer the two would spend afternoons by the river, having lunch and catching up on the news. His great-uncle had no phone and no social media, and Ko Naing would help him check updates on the civil war. “I was his personal news agency,” he joked.

Oo Oo had to retire from his job as a boatman when he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralysed. Still, every morning, he would shuffle to his family’s tea shop and fry up ee kyar kwe, which are doughsticks.

“He was my source of inspiration, especially in difficult times… he was the only one I could talk to. I got my resilience from him,” said Ko Naing.

That resilience was something Ko Naing had to tap on when he made his dangerous escape from Myanmar along with his wife and five-year-old son. He was wanted by the military, which had issued a warrant for his arrest for taking part in peaceful protests.

His family travelled to the border where they crossed into Thailand illegally. As they ran in the dark past a Thai border police station, the family tripped over a large pipe and tumbled to the ground. His son fell backwards on his head. Ko Naing feared the worst.

But to his relief, his son let out a loud cry. Ko Naing slapped his hand over the child’s mouth, picked him up, and sprinted toward a people smuggler waiting for them with a motorcycle. They first headed to the Thai town of Mae Sot before eventually travelling to Samut Sakhon, where they secured the right to stay in Thailand.

Though he is now safe and has a good job, Ko Naing said: “To be honest I’m very depressed at the moment.

“First there was the pandemic, then the coup, then the military has been killing people who oppose them. People have been displaced.

“Then the earthquake has added to the suffering. Even after the earthquake, the military keeps bombing areas.

“I keep thinking it would be good if we can be there, if we can do something… it’s depressing living here, seeing the news about my country.”

He is working with the Myanmar diaspora to collect donations and send humanitarian assistance to the quake victims back home. They are also helping the Myanmar construction workers affected by the Bangkok building collapse.

“If we always feel depressed, nobody will help our people… it’s good that we’re alive. We can still do something.

“We have to make up our mind on how to rebuild, how we can move on.”

Recruitment agents who scam foreign nationals applying to work in the UK care sector have been exposed by BBC secret filming.

One of the rogue agents is a Nigerian doctor who has worked for the NHS in the field of psychiatry.

The Home Office has acknowledged the system is open to abuse, but the BBC World Service’s investigation shows the apparent ease with which these agents can scam people, avoid detection, and continue to profit.

Our secret filming reveals agents’ tactics, including:

• Illegally selling jobs in UK care companies
• Devising fake payroll schemes to conceal that some jobs do not exist
• Shifting from care to other sectors, like construction, that also face staff shortages

Reports of immigration scams have increased since a government visa scheme – originally designed to let foreign medical professionals work in the UK – was broadened in 2022 to include care workers.

To apply for the visa, candidates must first obtain a “Certificate of Sponsorship” (CoS) from a UK employer who is licensed by the Home Office. It is the need for CoS documents that is being exploited by rogue relocation agents.

“The scale of exploitation under the Health and Care Work visa is significant,” says Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and disadvantaged people in the UK access employment justice.

“I think it has turned into a national crisis.”

She says there is “systemic risk inherent” in the sponsorship system, because it “puts the employer in a position of incredible power” and has “enabled this predatory market of middlemen to mushroom”.

The BBC sent two undercover journalists to approach relocation agents working in the UK.

One met Dr Kelvin Alaneme, a Nigerian doctor and founder of the agency, CareerEdu, based in Harlow, Essex.

His website states his business is a “launchpad for global opportunities catering to young Africans”, claiming to have 9,800 “happy clients”.

Believing the BBC undercover journalist was well connected in the UK care sector, Dr Alaneme tried to recruit her to become an agent for his business, saying it would be very lucrative.

“Just get me care homes. I can make you a millionaire,” he said.

As a potential business partner, our journalist was then given unprecedented insight into how immigration scams by agents like Dr Alaneme actually work. Dr Alaneme said he would pay £2,000 ($2,600) for each care home vacancy she was able to procure, and offered £500 ($650) commission on top.

He then said he would sell the vacancies to candidates back in Nigeria.

Charging candidates for a job is illegal in the UK.

“They [the candidates] are not supposed to be paying because it’s free. It should be free,” he said, lowering his voice.

“They are paying because they know it’s most likely the only way.”

The BBC began investigating him following a series of online complaints about his relocation services.

Praise – from south-east Nigeria and in his mid 30s – was one of those who complained, claiming he paid Dr Alaneme more than £10,000 ($13,000) for a job in the UK. He says he was told he was going to be working with a care company called Efficiency for Care, based in Clacton-on-Sea. It was only when he arrived that he realised the job didn’t exist.

“If I had known there was no job, I would have not come here,” he says. “At least back home in Nigeria, if you go broke, I can find my sister or my parents and go and eat free food. It’s not the same here. You will go hungry.”

Praise says he messaged Efficiency for Care and Dr Alaneme for months, asking when he could start working. Despite promises of assistance from Dr Alaneme, the job never materialised. Almost a year later, he found a position with another care provider willing to sponsor him to remain in the UK.

Our investigation found that Efficiency for Care employed – on average – 16 people in 2022, and 152 in 2023. Yet a letter sent from the Home Office to the company dated May 2023 – and seen by the BBC – showed it had issued 1,234 Certificates of Sponsorship to foreign workers between March 2022 and May 2023.

Efficiency for Care’s sponsorship licence was revoked in July 2023. The care company can no longer recruit from abroad, but continues to operate.

It told the BBC it strongly refutes the allegation it colluded with Dr Alaneme. It said it believed it lawfully recruited staff from Nigeria and other countries. It has challenged the Home Office’s revocation of its sponsorship licence, it said, and the matter is now in court.

• Outside of the UK – watch on YouTube

In another secretly filmed meeting, Dr Alaneme shared an even more sophisticated scam involving sponsorship documents for jobs that did not exist.

He said the “advantage” of having a CoS that is unconnected to a job “is that you can choose any city you want”.

“You can go to Glasgow. You can stay in London. You can live anywhere,” he told us.

This is not true. If a migrant arrives in the UK on a Health and Care Work visa and does not work in the role they have been assigned, their visa could be cancelled and they risk being deported.

In the secret filming, Dr Alaneme also described how to set up a fake payroll system to mask the fact the jobs are not real.

“That [a money trail] is what the government needs to see,” he said.

Dr Alaneme told the BBC he strenuously denied services offered by CareerEdu were a scam or that it acted as a recruitment agency or provided jobs for cash. He said his company only offered legitimate services, adding that the money Praise gave him was passed on to a recruitment agent for Praise’s transport, accommodation and training. He said he offered to help Praise find another employer free of charge.

The BBC also carried out undercover filming with another UK-based recruitment agent, Nana Akwasi Agyemang-Prempeh, after several people told the BBC they had collectively paid tens of thousands of pounds for care worker positions for their friends and family that, it transpired, did not exist.

They said some of the Certificates of Sponsorship Mr Agyemang-Prempeh gave them had turned out to be fakes – replicas of real CoS issued by care companies.

We discovered Mr Agyemang-Prempeh had then begun offering CoS for UK jobs in construction – another industry that allows employers to recruit foreign workers. He was able to set up his own construction company and obtain a sponsorship licence from the Home Office.

Our journalist, posing as a UK-based Ugandan businessman wanting to bring Ugandan construction workers over to join him, asked Mr Agyemang-Prempeh if this was possible.

He replied it was – for the price of £42,000 ($54,000) for three people.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told us he had moved into construction because rules are being “tightened” in the care sector – and claimed agents were eyeing other industries.

“People are now diverting to IT,” Mr Agyemang-Prempeh told the undercover journalist.

More than 470 licences in the UK care sector were revoked by the government between July 2022 and December 2024. Those licensed sponsors were responsible for the recruitment of more than 39,000 medical professionals and care workers from October 2020.

Mr Agyemang-Prempeh later asked for a downpayment for the Certificates of Sponsorship, which the BBC did not make.

The Home Office has now revoked his sponsorship licence. Mr Agyemang-Prempeh’s defence, when challenged by the BBC, was that he had himself been duped by other agents and did not realise he was selling fake CoS documents.

In a statement to the BBC, the Home Office said it has “robust new action against shameless employers who abuse the visa system” and will “ban businesses who flout UK employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers”.

BBC investigations have previously uncovered similar visa scams targeting people in Kerala, India, and international students living in the UK who want to work in the care sector.

In November 2024, the government announced a clampdown on “rogue” employers hiring workers from overseas. Additionally, from 9 April, care providers in England will be required to prioritise recruiting international care workers already in the UK before recruiting from overseas.

Why won’t India buy even a single bushel of American corn?

That’s the question US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick raised recently while criticising India’s trade policies, taking a swipe at its market restrictions.

In another interview, Lutnick accused India of blocking US farmers and urged it to open its agricultural market – suggesting quotas or limits as a possible approach.

Agriculture is a key battleground in US President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, with tit-for-tat or reciprocal tariffs set to kick in on 2 April.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.Trump has repeatedly branded India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties.

For years, Washington has pushed for greater access to India’s farm sector, seeing it as a major untapped market. But India has fiercely protected it, citing food security, livelihoods and interests of millions of small farmers.

To be sure, India’s transformation from a food-deficient nation to a food-surplus powerhouse is one of its biggest success stories.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the country relied on food aid to feed its population, but a series of agricultural breakthroughs changed that. India became self-sufficient in staples, and became the world’s largest milk producer. Rapid growth in horticulture, poultry and aquaculture expanded its food basket.

Today, India is not just feeding its 1.4 billion people but, as the world’s eighth-largest agri-produce exporter, also shipping grains, fruits and dairy worldwide.

Yet, despite such major gains, Indian agriculture still lags in productivity, infrastructure and market access. Global price volatility and climate change add to the challenge. Crop yields lag far behind the global best. Small landholdings worsen the problem – Indian farmers work with less than a hectare on average, while their American counterparts had over 46 hectares in 2020.

No surprise then that productivity remains low, even though farming remains India’s backbone, supporting over 700 million people, nearly half the country’s population. Agriculture employs nearly half of India’s workforce but accounts for just 15% of GDP. In comparison, less than 2% of the US population depends on farming. With limited manufacturing jobs, more people are stuck in low-paying farm work, an unusual trend for a developing country.

This structural imbalance also shapes India’s trade policies. Despite its farm surplus, India keeps tariffs high to shield its farmers from cheap imports. It maintains moderate to high tariffs – ranging from zero to 150% – on farm imports.

The weighted average tariff – the average duty rate per imported product – in India on US farm products is 37.7%, compared to 5.3% on Indian agricultural goods in the US, according to the Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

Bilateral farm trade between India and the US is modest, at just $8bn (£6.2bn).

India mainly exports rice, shrimp, honey, vegetable extracts, castor oil and black pepper, while the US sends almonds, walnuts, pistachios, apples and lentils.

But as the two countries work on a trade deal, experts say Washington now wants to push “big-ticket” farm exports – wheat, cotton, corn and maize – to narrow its $45bn trade deficit with India.

“They’re not looking to export berries and stuff this time. The game is much bigger,” says Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert from the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think tank.

Pushing India to lower farm tariffs, cut price support and open up to genetically modified (GM) crops and dairy ignores the fundamental asymmetry in global agriculture, experts argue.

The US, for instance, heavily subsidises its agriculture and protects farmers through crop insurance.

“In some cases,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI, “US subsidies exceed 100% of production costs, creating an uneven playing field that could devastate India’s smallholder farmers.”

Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, says “the key thing to remember is that agriculture in the two countries is entirely different”.

“The US has commercial agriculture, while India relies on intensive, subsistence farming. It’s a question of the livelihoods of millions of Indians versus the interests of US agribusiness.”

But India’s agricultural challenges aren’t just external. Mr Dhar says much of the sector’s struggles are “its own doing”. Smallholder farmers, owning over 85% of holdings, lack investment capacity, while the private sector shows little interest. Farming receives less than 6% of India’s total government and private infrastructure investment, leaving irrigation and storage facilities underfunded.

To protect millions of livelihoods, the government shields key crops like wheat, rice and dairy with import duties and price support. “But even that doesn’t inspire confidence,” he says.

Four years ago, tens of thousands of farmers held protests demanding better prices and legal guarantees of minimum government support-price for staples, mainly wheat and rice.

“Even relatively well-off farmers selling surpluses don’t see a turnaround anytime soon. And if they feel that way, imagine the plight of subsistence farmers,” says Mr Dhar.

Beyond domestic discontent, trade negotiations add another layer of complexity.

Mr Das says the real challenge for India will be how “to have an agreement with the US that takes into account US export interest in agriculture while balancing India’s interests in the farm sector”.

So what’s the way forward?

“India must not yield to US pressure to open its agriculture sector,” says Mr Srivastava. He warns that doing so would disrupt millions of livelihoods, threaten food security and flood local markets with cheap imports.

“India must prioritise its national interest and protect its rural economy. Trade cooperation should not come at the cost of our farmers, food sovereignty or policy autonomy.”

In the long run, experts say India must modernise its agriculture, making farming more remunerative, and become more competitive to boost exports. Unupom Kausik of agri-business Olam estimates that with top global yields, India could generate a surplus of 200 million metric tonnes of paddy – enough to supply global trade and combat hunger.

“In a way, Trump is holding up a mirror to us. We’ve done little to invest in agriculture’s productive capacity,” says Mr Dhar. “For now, buying time is the best strategy – maybe offering the US cheaper imports of industrial goods as a trade-off.”

But for the best outcome, he says, India will have to “play hardball. Basically, tell the US – we’re open to negotiations on other fronts, but don’t destabilise our agriculture”.

Clearly India’s challenge is to negotiate from a position of strength – offering just enough to keep Washington at the table while safeguarding its rural backbone. After all, in global trade as in farming, timing and patience often yield the best harvest. The jury is out on whether Trump is willing to wait.