As US President Donald Trump laid out tariffs on virtually every one of America’s trading partners on Wednesday, he had strong words for Beijing.

“I have great respect for President Xi [Jinping] of China, great respect for China, but they were taking tremendous advantage of us,” Trump said during his roughly hour-long address.

Holding up a chart listing countries and territories that he said had put up trade barriers to US goods, Trump said: “If you look at that… China, first row, 67%. That’s tariffs charged to the USA, including currency manipulation and trade barriers.”

“We are going to be charging [them] a discounted reciprocal tariff of 34%,” he added. “In other words, they charge us, we charge them, we charge them less. So how can anybody be upset?”

But China’s Commerce Ministry immediately called the move “a typical act of unilateral bullying” and pledged to take “resolute countermeasures to safeguard its rights and interests”.

And state news agency Xinhua accused Trump of “turning trade into an over simplistic tit-for-tat game”.

Experts believe Beijing has good reason to be upset.

For one, the latest announcement is an add on to existing tariffs of 20% on Chinese goods.

Secondly, by imposing heavy tariffs on other South East Asian countries including Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, it has ‘slammed the door shut’ on how China rejigged its supply chains to get around the tariffs imposed on Beijing during Trump’s first term.

There were five Asian nations in the 10 countries and territories hit with the highest tariffs.

Trump has imposed new tariffs on Chinese imports since returning to the White House in January, ratcheting up levies to 20%.

In less than a week, these tariffs will jump to 54%, apart from on products like cars, steel and aluminium, which will be subjected to lower tariffs.

Beijing has also been on the receiving end of other Trump trade salvos.

Earlier on Wednesday, the President signed an executive order to end a provision for low-value parcels from China.

This had allowed Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to ship packages with a retail value of under $800 (£617) to the US, without taxes and inspections.

Close to 1.4 billion shipments entered the US under the provision in the last financial year, according to customs data.

The removal of the exemption could force some Chinese firms to pass the extra cost on to customers, making their goods less competitive in the US.

When taken together, this is a worrying picture for Beijing, said Deborah Elms from the Hinrich Foundation consultancy.

“I don’t think the new tariffs are necessarily aimed at China. But when the United States stacks tariffs on top of each other, specifically towards China, the numbers become eye-watering quite quickly.”

“China and the Chinese will have to retaliate. They are not going to be able to sit back and watch this,” she said.

Trump also imposed heavy tariffs, ranging from 46% to 49%, on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

This represents “a full-frontal assault on Beijing’s extended supply chain,” said Stephen Innes from investment firm SPI Asset Management.

“Vietnam… and others in the periphery are collateral damage in what is shaping up to be the most aggressive realignment of US trade policy in a generation,” he added. “This isn’t tit-for-tat – it’s strategic containment via tariff warfare.”

Laos and Cambodia, which are among the poorest countries in the region, are heavily dependant on Chinese investment in supply chain infrastructure. The high tariff rates are expected to hit both countries hard.

China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner. It was one of the key beneficiaries of US-China tensions during Trump’s first term.

In 2018, Trump hit China with tariffs, causing some businesses to rethink where they made their products. Some chose to shift manufacturing to Vietnam.

This has led to an increase of exports from Vietnam to the US, with Chinese companies that have moved production to there contributing to that figure.

“Vietnam was clearly targeted [by Trump] due to its role as a conduit for China’s circumvention of previous tariffs”, former US trade negotiator Stephen Olson told the BBC.

While the US remains Vietnam’s biggest export market, China is its largest supplier of goods, accounting for more than a third of imports, according to the latest official data.

Chinese firms were also behind nearly one in every three new investments in Vietnam last year.

Pushan Dutt, a professor at the INSEAD business school, said the new taxes on South East Asia will be “prohibitive” for China.

“China has a problem with demand and in the last Trump administration their firms had nimbly reacted to tariffs by rejigging supply chains and moving them to [South East Asian Nations]. This door has been slammed shut,” he added.

But Trump’s taxes on the region will also impact US companies that manufacture goods in South East Asia.

For instance, American businesses including technology giants Apple and Intel, and sportswear giant Nike have large factories in Vietnam.

A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam found that most US manufacturers there expect to lay off staff if tariffs are imposed.

There is the question of what China can do to respond to the new tariffs, given it only has days before they are due to take effect.

Mr Olson said he expects Beijing to have a “forceful” response with tariffs and other measures making it more difficult for US companies to operate in China.

With the Chinese economy already facing challenges, Beijing faces “tough choices” in the days ahead, said Professor Dutt.

“Exporting to other regions threatens de-industrialisation in these destinations – and political leaders there are unlikely to accept this. That means China has to finally unleash domestic demand and the Chinese household,” he added.

The tariffs could also push China to try and build alliances with other Asian nations who have been on the receiving end of the tariffs.

Wang Huiyao, a former China Communist Party member who works with the Center for China and Globalisation think tank, called on Asian countries to “work together to go through this difficult time and fight protectionism”.

“In the end, the US could be losing all the influence and isolate itself,” he added.

Some discussions are already underway. China, South Korea and Japan recently held its first economic talks in five years.

They agreed to speed up talks for free trade agreement – which was first proposed over a decade ago.

The new tariffs could give them added incentive to do so.

However, Beijing could face some short-term pain while talks with Washington take its course.

“Ultimately, the US and China are headed for a negotiating table where they’ll try to reach some type of a grand bargain on a wide range of issues,” Mr Olson said.

“That won’t necessarily happen soon and I expect things to get worse before they get better,” he added.

Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs have shaken global trade, but disruption often creates opportunity.

Starting 9 April, Indian goods will face tariffs of up to 27% (Trump’s tariff chart lists India’s rate as 26%, but the official order says 27% – a discrepancy seen for other nations too). Before the tariff hike, US rates across trading partners averaged 3.3%, among the lowest globally, compared to India’s 17%, according to the White House.

However, with the US imposing even higher tariffs on China (54%), Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%) and Bangladesh (37%), India “presents an opportunity” in textiles, electronics and machinery, according to the Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

High tariffs on Chinese and Bangladeshi exports open space for Indian textile manufacturers to expand in the US market. While Taiwan leads in semiconductors, India can tap into packaging, testing and lower-end chip manufacturing – if it strengthens infrastructure and policy support. Even a partial supply chain shift from Taiwan, driven by 32% tariffs, could work in India’s favour.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement
• At a glance: The countries hit hardest by these plans
• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?
• Analysis: Trump’s tariffs are his biggest gamble yet

Machinery, automobiles and toys – sectors led by China and Thailand – are ripe for tariff-driven relocation. India can capitalise by attracting investment, scaling production and boosting exports to the US, according to a note by GTRI.

But will India be able to seize the moment?

High tariffs have increased costs for companies dependent on global value chains, hobbling India’s ability to compete in international markets. Despite growing exports – primarily driven by services – India runs a significant trade deficit. India’s share of global exports is a mere 1.5%. Trump has repeatedly branded India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties. With his new tariffs, the fear is that Indian exports will be less competitive.

“Overall, the US’s protectionist tariff regime could act as a catalyst for India to gain from global supply chain realignments,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI.

“However, to fully leverage these opportunities, India must enhance its ease of doing business, invest in logistics and infrastructure and maintain policy stability. If these conditions are met, India is well-positioned to become a key global manufacturing and export hub in the coming years.”

That’s easier said than done. Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert from the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think tank, points out that countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are possibly better positioned than India.

“We may regain some lost ground in garments now that Bangladesh faces higher tariffs, but the reality is we’ve treated garments as a sunset sector and failed to invest. Without building capacity, how can we truly benefit from these tariff shifts?” says Mr Dhar.

Since February, India has ramped up efforts to win Trump’s favour – pledging $25bn in US energy imports, courting Washington as a top defence supplier and exploring F-35 fighter deals. To ease trade tensions, it scrapped the 6% digital ad tax, cut bourbon whiskey tariffs to 100% from 150% and slashed duties on luxury cars and solar cells. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Starlink nears final approval. The two countries have launched extensive trade talks to narrow the US’s $45bn trade deficit with India.

Yet, India did not escape the tariff war.

“India should be concerned – there was hope that ongoing trade negotiations would shield it from reciprocal tariffs. Facing these tariffs now is a serious setback,” says Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

One upside: pharmaceuticals are exempt from reciprocal tariffs, a relief for India’s generic drug makers. India supplies nearly half of all generic medicines in the US, where these lower-cost alternatives account for 90% of prescriptions.

However, exports in key sectors like electronics, engineering goods – automobile parts, industrial machines – and marine products could take a hit. It would be especially troubling for electronics, given the heavy investments through India’s flagship “production-linked incentives” (PLI) schemes to boost local manufacturing.

“I’m apprehensive about our exporters’ capacity – many are small manufacturers who will struggle to absorb a 27% tariff hike, making them uncompetitive. High logistical costs, rising business expenses and deteriorating trade infrastructure only add to the challenge. We’re starting at a major disadvantage,” says Mr Dhar.

Many see these tariffs as Trump’s bargaining chip in trade negotiations with India. The latest US Trade Representative report underscores Washington’s frustration with India’s trade policies.

Released on Monday, the report flags India’s strict import rules on dairy, pork and fish, requiring non-GMO certification without scientific backing. It also criticises India’s sluggish approval process for genetically modified products and price caps on stents and implants.

Intellectual property concerns have landed India on the ‘Priority Watch List’, for which the report cites weak patent protections and a lack of trade secret laws. The report also frets about data localisation mandates and restrictive satellite policies, straining trade ties further. Washington fears India’s regulatory approach is increasingly mirroring China’s. If these barriers were removed, US exports could rise by at least $5.3bn annually, according to the White House.

“The timing couldn’t be worse – being in the middle of trade negotiations only deepens our disadvantage. This isn’t just about market access; it’s the whole package,” says Mr Dhar. Also, gaining an edge over Vietnam or China won’t happen overnight – building opportunities and competitive strength takes time.

Donald Trump’s politics have shifted considerably over his decades in the public sphere. But one thing he has been consistent on, since the 1980s, is his belief that tariffs are an effective means of boosting the US economy.

Now, he’s staking his presidency on his being right.

At his Rose Garden event at the White House, surrounded by friends, conservative politicians and cabinet secretaries, Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on a broad range of countries – allies, competitors and adversaries alike.

In a speech that was equal parts celebration and self-congratulation, regularly punctuated by applause from the crowd, the president recalled his longtime support of tariffs, as well as his early criticism of free trade agreements like Nafta and the World Trade Organization.

The president acknowledged that he will face pushback in the coming days from “globalists” and “special interests”, but he urged Americans to trust his instincts.

“Never forget, every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong,” he said.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement
• At a glance: What president’s new taxes mean for EU, China and others
• The full story: Trump charges high tariffs on ‘worst offenders’ globally
• Canada: No additional US tariffs for Canada, but no relief either
• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?

Now, in a second term in which he is surrounded by like-minded advisers and is the dominant force in a Republican Party that controls both chambers of Congress, Trump is in a position to turn his vision of a new America-focused trade policy into reality. These policies, he said, had made the United States into a wealthy nation more than a century ago and would again.

“For years, hard working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense,” he said. “With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again – greater than ever before.”

It is still an enormous risk for this president to take.

Economists of all stripes warn that these massive tariffs – 53% on China, 20% on the European Union and South Korea, with a 10% baseline on all nations – will be passed along to American consumers, raising prices and threatening a global recession.

Ken Rogoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, predicted that the chances of the US, the world’s largest economy, falling into recession had risen to 50% on the back of this announcement.

“He just dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system,” Mr Rogoff told the BBC World Service, adding that the consequences for this level of taxes on imports into the US “is just mind-boggling”.

Trump’s move also risks escalating a trade war with other countries and alienating allies that America has otherwise tried to strengthen ties with. The US, for instance, sees Japan and South Korea as a bulwark against Chinese expansionist ambitions. But those three countries recently announced that they would work together to respond to America’s trade policies.

If Trump is successful, however, he would fundamentally reshape a global economic order that America had originally helped to construct from the ashes of World War 2. He promises that this will rebuild American manufacturing, create new sources of revenue, and make America more self-reliant and insulated from the kind of global supply chain shocks that wreaked havoc on the US during the Covid pandemic.

It’s a tall order – and one that many believe to be highly unrealistic. But for a president who seems fixated on cementing his legacy, whether through ending wars, renaming geographic locations, acquiring new territory or dismantling federal programmes and its workforce, this is the biggest, most consequential prize to be won.

It would be, he styled, America’s “liberation day”.

What appears clear, however, is that Wednesday’s announcement, if he follows through, is almost certain to mark a historic change. The question is whether it will be a legacy of achievement or one of notoriety.

Trump’s speech was triumphant – one that belied the potentially high costs his moves would impose on the American economy and on his own political standing.

But, he said, it was worth it – even if, at the very end of his remarks, a small shadow of presidential doubt may have peaked through the bravado.

“It’s going to be a day that – hopefully – you’re going to look back in years to come and you’re going to say, you know, he was right.”

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping new set of tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that they would allow the United States to economically flourish.

These new import taxes, which Trump imposed via executive order, are expected to send economic shockwaves around the world.

But the US president believes they are necessary to address trading imbalances and to protect American jobs and manufacturing.

Here are the basic elements of the plan.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement

In a background call before Trump’s speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the president would impose a “baseline” tariff on all imports to the US.

That rate is set at 10% and will go into effect on 5 April.

It is the companies that bring the foreign goods into the US that have to pay the tax to the government, although this could have knock-on effects to consumers.

Some countries will only face the base rate. These include:

• United Kingdom
• Singapore
• Brazil
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Turkey
• Colombia
• Argentina
• El Salvador
• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia

White House officials also said that they would impose what they describe as specific reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 of the “worst offenders”.

These will go into effect on 9 April.

Trump’s officials say these countries charge higher tariffs on US goods, impose “non-tariff” barriers to US trade or have otherwise acted in ways they feel undermine American economic goals.

The key trading partners subject to these customised tariff rates include:

• European Union: 20%
• China: 54% (which includes earlier tariffs)
• Vietnam: 46%
• Thailand: 36%
• Japan: 24%
• Cambodia: 49%
• South Africa: 30%
• Taiwan: 32%

The 10% baseline rate does not apply to Canada and Mexico, since they have already been targeted during Trump’s presidency.

The White House said it would deal with both countries using a framework set out in Trump’s previous executive orders, which imposed tariffs on both countries as part of the administration’s efforts to address the entry of fentanyl to the US and border issues.

Trump previously set those tariffs at 25% on all goods entering from both countries, before announcing some exemptions and delays.

In addition, the president confirmed the beginning of a new American “25% tariff on all foreign made-automobiles”.

This tariff went into effect almost immediately, at midnight local time.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement
• At a glance: The countries hit hardest by these plans
• Watch: Three things to know about Trump’s plans
• Global reaction: How five big economies see new Trump tariffs
• UK: What this means for you and your money
• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?
• Analysis: Trump’s tariffs are his biggest gamble yet

The impact of these tariffs on the world economy will be huge.

They can be measured by the lines on a chart of US tariff revenue jumping to levels not seen in a century – beyond those seen during the high protectionism of the 1930s.

Or in the overnight stock market falls, especially in Asia.

But the true measure of these changes will be significant changes to long-standing global avenues of trade.

At its heart this is a universal tariff of 10% on all imports into the US for everyone, coming in on Friday night. On top of that dozens of “worst offenders” will be charged reciprocally for having trade surpluses.

The tariffs on Asian nations are truly remarkable. They will break the business models of thousands of companies, factories, and possibly entire nations.

Some of the supply chains created by the world’s biggest companies will be broken instantly. The inevitable impact will surely be to push them towards China.

• Live: Follow the latest reaction to the tariff announcement
• Trump’s plan at a glance
• UK firms react: ‘It’s a huge blow’

Is this just a grand negotiation? Well the US administration appears to be claiming the tariff revenue for planned tax cuts. The scope for quick adjustment seems limited. As one White House official said bluntly: “This is not a negotiation, it’s a national emergency”.

The aim of the policy is to get the US trade deficit “back to zero”. This is a total rewiring of the world economy.

But shifting factories will take years. Tariffs at this scale on East Asia especially at 30 or 40% will hike prices of clothes, toys and electronics much more quickly.

The question now is how the rest of the world responds.

There are opportunities for some consumers in Europe to benefit from cheaper diverted trade in clothes and electronics. Outside of an inward-looking number one world economy, the rest of the big economies may choose to integrate trade more closely.

As Tesla’s slumping sales may illustrate, only part of this story is about the response of governments. These days consumers can retaliate too. It may be a new sort of social media trade war.

Europe could decide not to continue buying the consumer brands created in the US, and loved across the world.

The monopoly in the provision of social media services by big US tech could be shaken up.

And US authorities may need to raise interest rates to combat the inevitable spike in inflation.

A messy global trade war looks inevitable.

Hungary is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), its government has announced.

A senior official in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government confirmed this hours after Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in Hungary for a state visit.

Orban had invited Netanyahu as soon as the warrant was issued last November, saying the ruling would have “no effect” in his country.

In November, ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” that Netanyahu bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has condemned the ICC’s decision as “antisemitic”.

The ICC, a global court, has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hungary is a founding member of the ICC, which counts 125 member states, and will be the first European Union nation to pull out of it. A withdrawal has no impact on ongoing proceedings.

During a joint press conference, Orban asserted that the ICC had become a “political court”. He added the court’s decision to issue a warrant against the Israeli leader “clearly showed” this.

Netanyahu meanwhile hailed Hungary’s “bold and principled” decision to withdraw from the court.

“It’s important for all democracies. It’s important to stand up to this corrupt organisation,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Orban on X for his “clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel”.

“The so-called International Criminal Court lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defence,” Sa’ar added.

Hungary’s decision aligns with its broader foreign policy stance under Orban, who has cultivated close ties with Israel and adopted a critical view of international institutions perceived as infringing on national sovereignty.

While Hungary’s withdrawal may carry symbolic weight and political implications, it does not significantly alter the ICC’s operational capacity or legal framework.

The court has faced similar challenges in the past and continues to function with broad international support.

But Hungary’s criticism of the ICC as “politically biased” and its decision to withdraw as Netanyahu visits may set a precedent for other nations to question or abandon their commitments to international justice based on political alliances or disagreements with specific rulings.

The US, Russia, China and North Korea are among the nations that are not part of the ICC, and therefore do not recognise its jurisdiction.

Israel is also not part of the treaty, but the ICC ruled in 2021 that it did have jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, because the UN’s Secretary General had accepted that Palestinians were a member.

Hungary now needs to send written notification to the UN Secretary General to leave the treaty, with the withdrawal taking effect one year later, according to article 127 of the Rome Statute.

ICC spokesman Fad El-Abdullah told the BBC: “On the visit of Mr Netanyahu, the Court has followed its standard procedures, after the issuance of an arrest warrant. The Court recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”

Since the warrant was issued, Hungarian authorities should technically arrest Netanyahu and hand him over to the court in the Hague, although member states do not always choose to enforce ICC warrants.

In Europe, some ICC member states said they would arrest the Israeli leader if he set foot in their country, while others, such as Germany, announced that he would not be detained if he visited.

The US has condemned the ICC’s decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu’s arrest and he has visited the country since it was issued in November. His visit to Hungary marks Netanyahu’s first trip to Europe since then.

Hungarian Defence Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, greeted Netanyahu on the tarmac of Budapest airport on Wednesday night, welcoming him to the country.

Israel is appealing against the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and strongly rejects the accusations. It both denies the authority of the ICC and the legitimacy of the warrants.

Netanyahu said at the time that it was a “dark day in the history of humanity”, and that the ICC had become “the enemy of humanity”.

“It’s an antisemitic step that has one goal – to deter me, to deter us from having our natural right to defend ourselves against enemies who try to destroy us,” he said.

In the same ruling, ICC judges also issued a warrant against Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who Israel says is dead. Hamas also rejected the allegations.

The visit comes as Israel announced it was expanding its Gaza offensive and establishing a new military corridor to put pressure on Hamas, as deadly Israeli strikes continued across the Palestinian territory.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken to Gaza. Since then, Israeli military attacks have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say.

Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is in Thailand for a regional summit as his country reels from an earthquake that killed thousands and left cities in ruins.

The earthquake in central Myanmar last Friday killed 3,085 people and injured 4,715, the junta has said. Hundreds more are missing and the toll is expected to rise.

Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Bangkok on Thursday, according to AFP, on the eve of a summit that will gather leaders of the seven countries that border the Bay of Bengal.

His attendance, which was earlier confirmed by a spokesman for the Myanmar army, will be unusual as sanctioned leaders are typically barred from these events.

Host Thailand, where the earthquake was felt and killed 21 people, has proposed that the leaders issue a joint statement on the disaster. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka are also part of the summit.

In Myanmar, many earthquake-hit areas have yet to be reached by authorities, meaning the death toll figures are unlikely to be accurate.

Countries around the world have sent aid and rescue teams to Myanmar since the quake, but poor infrastructure and an ongoing civil war has complicated relief efforts.

• Inside Mandalay: BBC finds devastation and little help for quake survivors
• What we know about the earthquake

The junta announced a temporary ceasefire late on Wednesday to expedite these efforts, after earlier rejecting proposals from armed ethnic rebel groups.

Before this, the military had continued its airstrikes in rebel-held areas, including those badly hit by the earthquake.

On Tuesday night, troops opened fire at a Chinese Red Cross convoy carrying relief supplies. The junta said the troops fired after the convoy refused to stop despite being signalled to do so.

Min Aung Hlaing is also expected speak to Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on the sidelines of the meeting in Bangkok, according to a Thai foreign ministry spokesperson.

Myanmar has been gripped by a bloody civil war since the military seized power in 2021, which led to the rise of an armed resistance that has been fighting alongside armed ethnic groups, some of which have been fighting the military for decades.

Years of violence have crippled the economy, supercharged inflation, and plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis.

Now, the earthquake has worsened the crisis. Humanitarian groups have urged the junta to lift any remaining obstructions to aid.

The UN has also urged the global community to ramp up aid before the monsoon season hits in about a month.

A Libyan writer and politician who published documents linking his country’s intelligence service to the Lockerbie bombing has been arrested on national security charges.

Samir Shegwara was taken into custody two days after the BBC reported that the files could form evidence against a Libyan who has been accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103.

The suspect, Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, is facing trial in Washington and has denied being involved in the attack that killed 270 people in December 1988.

The documents also implicate Libyan agents in the destruction of a French airliner that crashed in the Sahara desert in 1989, killing another 170 people.

Mr Shegwara said that they were retrieved from the archives of Libya’s former intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi after the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi’s regime in 2011.

Their contents were published in France in January this year, in the book The Murderer Who Must Be Saved, co-authored by Mr Shegwara and French investigative journalists Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille.

The book’s publishers said Mr Shegwara is facing legal proceedings over the “alleged possession of classified security documents, without legal justification.”

The BBC reported on 18 March that Scottish detectives are examining copies of the files, which could represent the first proof from inside Libya’s intelligence agency that it was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing.

Mr Shegwara, who is also mayor of Hay al Andalous, a municipality in Tripoli, was arrested at his office by police on 20 March.

He has been writing publicly about the documents since 2018 and has made no secret of the fact that they were in his possession.

His arrest would appear to support his belief, shared by the French journalists, that the documents are genuine.

Robert Laffont Publishing says the authenticity of the documents cannot be questioned and they contain information of “major public and historical interest” to Libya, France, Scotland and the United States.

In a statement, the company said it “deplores the prosecution of Samir Shegware as well as the pressure that seems to be exerted on him to retract his denunciation of the crimes committed by the former regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

“As such, Robert Laffont Publishing joins with Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille in calling on the Libyan authorities to drop the charges against him.”

The firm said Mr Shegwara was provisionally released on 1 April but remains under threat of reincarceration and a trial in the coming days.

A retired FBI special agent who led the agency’s original investigation into the Lockerbie disaster has described the dossier as potential “dynamite.”

One of the most significant documents appears to give an account of tests carried out on bombs hidden in suitcases, just weeks before the attack on Pan Am Flight 103.

The bomb which destroyed the plane was concealed inside a radio cassette player in a suitcase in the forward hold.

A copy of one of the Libyan files seen by the BBC records its subject matter as: “Experiments on the use of the suitcase and testing its effectiveness.”

The handwritten report is labelled “top secret” and dated 4 October 1988, with the sender given as the Information and Strategic Studies Centre in Tripoli, headed at the time by Abdelbasset Al-Megrahi, who was convicted over the Lockerbie bombing by a Scottish court in 2001.

The document says the tests were successful, with a “powerful and effective” explosion from a device which could not be detected by an X-ray scanner.

The report says an agent called Aboujila Kheir – assumed to be Abu Agila Masud Kheir Al-Marimi – was involved in the tests.

Another appears to detail the transfer of 10kg of explosives to an office in Malta, staffed by Al Amin Khalifah Fhimah, the Libyan who was cleared at the first Lockerbie trial.

Other documents are alleged to involve the “expenses” of agents who travelled to Malta shortly days before the attack on Pan Am 103.

The verdict from the Scottish court was that the bomb was smuggled onto a plane at Malta and then routed through the baggage system to Frankfurt and Heathrow, where it was loaded onto the American airliner.

The documents are also said to implicate Abdullah Senussi in the planning of the attacks on Pan Am 103 and the French plane, UTA Flight 772.

Colonel Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, Senussi was convicted of bombing UTA 772 after a trial held in his absence in 1999, although he was never served any of the life sentence imposed by the Paris court.

He was named as a suspect over Lockerbie by Scottish and American prosecutors in 2015.

Senussi is facing trial in Libya over his actions during the uprising against Gaddafi 14 years ago.

Police Scotland and Scotland’s prosecution service, the Crown Office, have declined to comment on Mr Shegwara’s arrest.

Tate Modern has announced it has received a major gift from a couple of art collectors in the form of a painting by the US modern artist Joan Mitchell.

It was unveiled on Thursday as one of a group of works being donated by the Miami-based philanthropists, Jorge M and Darlene Pérez.

The six-metre-long triptych, entitled Iva 1973, can now be viewed for free at the London gallery next to Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals.

Tate director Maria Balshaw said the gift was “one of the most important” it has received, describing the donation as “transformational”.

“To place such a significant and valuable work in public hands is an act of incredible generosity,” said Balshaw.

“It is also an endorsement of Tate’s ability to share our collection with the broadest possible audience,” she added. “And to care for that collection for future generations.”

Mitchell, who would’ve been 100 this year, was one of the most celebrated artists of the abstract expressionist movement.

Arts Minister, Sir Chris Bryant said the “spectacular donation” of Mitchell’s “masterpiece”, which was originally dedicated to her dog, shows “the amazing difference one person’s generosity can make”.

“I’m very grateful for this donation and for the work that went into making it possible,” he said.

“We are committed to ensuring art is for everyone, everywhere and the generosity of the Pérez family ensures that great art remains accessible to all, whilst also enriching our national collection.”

Argentine-American businessman Mr Pérez is best known as the chairman and CEO of The Related Group, a Miami-based real estate company.

He has given or pledged over $100m (£76m) to Miami’s public art museum, which was renamed the Pérez Art Museum Miami in his honour in 2013.

He also founded a not-for-profit contemporary art space in Miami called El Espacio 23.

Mr Pérez told BBC News: “We’ve been talking to the Tate for a long time, we’re great admirers of the Tate.

“Our hope is always that our art is seen by the highest number of people. The Tate has huge viewership, millions and millions of people coming in.”

He added the work suited being displayed next to other famous artists. “This painting, when you see it next to the Rothko’s, really resounds,” he said, “and it’ll be there forever.

“So when you talk about legacy, we like to think that our names will not be forgotten, and that they will live, not only with the British audience, but also with the international audience that comes to the Tate.

“We hope it fills a gap in the collection that is very important and maybe the most important art movement in America. It’s found its home, we’re very pleased with it here.”

Mrs Pérez noted female artists “play a significant role in shaping the cultural landscape” and that is was therefore “pivotal that we support and celebrate their contributions.”

“We’ve long admired Joan Mitchell’s work and are thrilled to share Iva with the world through Tate Modern.”

Their gift also includes a multimillion-dollar endowment to support Tate’s curatorial research.

Also, a range of works and photographs by artists from across Africa and the African diaspora – including by Yinka Shonibare, El Anatsui and Malick Sidibé – will make their way from the Pérezes to Tate’s collection over the coming years.

Australia has been hit with a tariff of at least 10% on all exports to the US, as Donald Trump announced his new sweeping global trade regime.

Trump cited “trade barriers” such as Australia’s biosecurity laws – singling out a ban on the import of US beef – as the reason for what he called a “reciprocal tariff”.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the measure “totally unwarranted”, but said the nation would not introduce its own tariffs – also known as import taxes – in return.

The 10% dealt to Australia was the “baseline” measure, with the most severe tariffs – of up 49% – hitting countries like China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.

“President Trump referred to reciprocal tariffs. A reciprocal tariff would be zero, not 10%,” Albanese said at a press conference on Thursday.

“The administration’s tariffs have no basis in logic and they go against the basis of our two nation’s partnership. This is not the act of a friend,” he added.

Trump’s new trade policy has hit the start of Australia’s closely battled election campaign, where the cost of living will be a key voting issue.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the tariffs were a “bad day” for Australia and would be a “significant impost” on jobs across the nation.

He also said the new tariffs were a reflection on Albanese’s relationship with Trump – who the prime minister had unsuccessfully been trying to organise a phone call with ahead of the decision.

“I just don’t think the prime minister has the strength or the ability to stand up to a situation that is unacceptable to us,” Dutton said.

The new measures come only weeks after President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium imports.

However, the prime minister said Australia would not be retaliating on US goods.

“We will not join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth,” he said.

But he warned the tariffs would have consequences for how Australians see ties with the US, and that the country would resort to formal “dispute resolution mechanisms” contained in its free trade agreement with the US if necessary.

During his “Liberation Day” speech, Trump pointed to Australia’s ban on fresh beef from the US – which was introduced in 2003, after cases of mad cow disease, an infectious neurological illness, were discovered in North America.

“They’re wonderful people and wonderful everything, but they ban American beef,” he said.

“They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers.”

“I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now,” Trump added.

The tariffs have also drawn an angry response from Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), who expressed “profound disappointment”.

“This decision is a disappointing step backward for our nations and for the global economy,” NFF President David Jochinke said.

The NFF said the US’s decision created “unnecessary uncertainty”, but vowed to work closely with the federal government to seek a resolution.

Along with its biosecurity rules, Australia’s subsidised medicines scheme and laws requiring foreign tech companies to pay local media for news had drawn the US’s ire in recent tariff discussions.

Albanese earlier this week said those issues were non-negotiable: “I continue to stand up for Australia and have said very clearly we won’t compromise and negotiate on our PBS [Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme], on our biosecurity, on our media bargaining code.”

The US is one of Australia’s most important trading relationships, raking fifth for exports. China, however, dwarfs all of Australia’s other trade partners – in 2023-24, A$212.7bn (£102.2bn, $133.4) was exported to the Asian superpower.

In comparison, last year, Australia exported $37.5bn in goods and services to the US. Business services were the biggest sector at $6.2bn, followed by intellectual property charges and beef. In the same year, Australia imported $88.2bn in goods and services from the US.

Outrage is a precious political currency and France’s far right has spent this week attempting, furiously and predictably, to capitalise on the perceived injustice of a court’s decision to block its totemic leader, Marine Le Pen, from standing in the 2027 presidential election.

The airwaves have been throbbing with indignation.

“Be outraged,” said one of Le Pen’s key deputies, on French television, in case anyone was in doubt as to what their reaction should be.

But it remains unclear whether Le Pen’s tough sentence will broaden support for her party, the National Rally (RN), or lead to greater fragmentation of the French far right. Either way, it has created a feverish mood among the nation’s politicians.

Le Pen and her allies have boldly declared that France’s institutions, and democracy itself, have been “executed”, are “dead”, or “violated”. The country’s justice system has been turned into a “political” hit squad, shamelessly intervening in a nation’s right to choose its own leaders. And Marine Le Pen has been widely portrayed, with something close to certainty, as France’s president-in-waiting, as the nation’s most popular politician, cruelly robbed of her near-inevitable procession towards the Élysée Palace.

“The system has released a nuclear bomb, and if it is using such a powerful weapon against us, it is obviously because we are about to win the elections,” Le Pen fumed at a news conference, comparing herself to the poisoned, imprisoned, and now dead Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

As France assesses its latest political tremors, an uneven pushback has begun.

Nervous about the impact the judgement may have for the country’s frail coalition government, the Prime Minister François Bayrou has admitted to feeling “troubled” by Le Pen’s sentence and worried about a “shock” to public opinion.

But other centrist politicians have taken a firmer line, stressing the need for a clear gap between the justice system and politics.

An early opinion poll appears to show the French public taking a calm line, bursting – or at least deflating – the RN’s bubble of outrage. The poll, produced within hours of the court’s ruling, showed less than a third of the country – 31% – felt the decision to block Le Pen, immediately, from running for public office, was unjust.

Tellingly, that figure was less than the 37% of French people who recently expressed an interest in voting for her as president.

In other words, plenty of people who like her as a politician also think it reasonable that her crimes should disqualify her from running for office.

And remember, French presidential elections are still two years away – an eternity in the current political climate.

Emmanuel Macron is not entitled to stand for another term and no clear alternative to Le Pen, from the left or centre of French politics, has yet emerged. Le Pen’s share of the vote has consistently risen during her previous three failed bids for the top job but it is premature, at best, to consider her a shoo-in for 2027.

Anyone who followed the court case against her and her party colleagues in an impartial fashion would struggle to conclude that the verdicts in Le Pen’s case were unreasonable.

The evidence of a massive and coordinated project to defraud the European Parliament and its associated taxpayers included jaw-droppingly incriminating emails suggesting officials knew exactly what they were doing, and the illegality of their actions.

That the corruption was for the party, not for personal gain, surely changes nothing. Corruption is corruption. Besides, other parties have also been found guilty of similar offences.

Regarding the punishments handed out by the court, here it seems fair to argue that Le Pen and her party made a strategic blunder in their approach to the case.

Had they acknowledged the facts, and their errors, and cooperated in facilitating a swift trial rather than helping to drag the process out for almost a decade, the judges – as they’ve now made clear – might have taken their attitude towards the case into consideration when considering punishments.

“Neither during the investigation nor at the trial did [Le Pen] show any awareness of the need for probity as an elected official, nor of the ensuing responsibilities,” wrote the judges in a document explaining, often indignantly, why they’d delivered such a tough sentence.

They berated Le Pen for seeking to delay or avoid justice with “a defence system that disregards the uncovering of the truth”.

It is worth noting, here, the wider hypocrisy demonstrated by elites across France’s political spectrum who have recently been muttering their sympathy for Le Pen. It is nine years since MPs voted to toughen up the laws on corruption, introducing the very sanctions – on immediately banning criminals from public office – that were used by the judges in this case.

That toughening was welcomed by the public as an antidote to a judicial system stymied by an indulgent culture of successive appeals that enabled – and sometimes still enables – politicians to dodge accountability for decades.

Le Pen is now being gleefully taunted by her critics online with the many past instances in which she has called for stricter laws on corruption.

“When are we going to learn the lessons and effectively introduce lifelong ineligibility for those who have been convicted of acts committed while in office or during their term of office?” she asked in 2013.

Reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the court’s sentencing decisions in Le Pen’s case. But the notion – enthusiastically endorsed by populist and hard-right politicians across Europe and the US – that she is a victim of a conspiratorial political plot has clearly not convinced most French people.

At least not yet.

So where does this verdict – clearly a seismic moment in French politics – leave the National Rally and the wider far-right movement?

The short answer is that no one knows. There are so many variables involved – from the fate of Le Pen’s fast-tracked appeal, to the RN’s succession strategy, to the state of France’s precarious finances, to the broader political climate and the see-sawing appetite for populism both within France and globally – that predictions are an even more dubious game than usual.

The most immediate question – given the slow pace of the legal appeal that Le Pen has vowed to initiate – is whether the RN will seek prompt revenge in parliament by attempting to bring down the fragile coalition government of François Bayrou.

That could lead to new parliamentary elections this summer and the possibility that the RN could capitalise on its victim status to increase its lead in parliament and perhaps, even, to push the country towards a deadlock in which President Macron might – yet another “might” – feel obliged to step down.

One person who will now be facing extra scrutiny is Le Pen’s almost but not quite anointed successor, 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, who could be drafted in as a replacement presidential candidate if Le Pen’s own “narrow path” towards the Élysée remains blocked on appeal.

If social-media-savvy Bardella’s popularity among French youth is any indication of his prospects, he could well sweep to victory in 2027. He has found a way to tap into the frustrations of people angry about falling living standards and concerns about immigration.

But turning youthful support into actual votes is not always straightforward, and other, more experienced and mainstream figures on the right may well be sensing an opportunity too.

The Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, is widely seen to be emerging as a potential contender. Some even wonder if the provocative television personality, Cyril Hanouna, might become a serious political force on the right of French politics.

Meanwhile, Bardella, like the RN in general, has been on a highly disciplined mission to detoxify the party’s once overtly racist and antisemitic brand. In February, for instance, he abandoned plans to speak at America’s far-right CPAC event after Donald Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon made a Nazi salute.

But this week’s events have revealed that the RN is enthusiastically committed to the distinctly Trump-ian and populist strategy of blaming its misfortunes on a “swamp” of unelected officials. Bardella, meanwhile, complained about the recent closure of two right-wing media channels alongside his party’s own legal struggles.

“There is an extremely serious drift today that does not reflect the idea we have of French democracy,” he said.

It’s the sort of language that goes down well with the RN’s core constituency, but its broader appeal may be limited in a country that remains, in many ways, deeply attached to its institutions.

To frame it another way, will French voters be more motivated by the belief that Le Pen was unfairly punished, or by concern that the judges involved have since been the victims of death threats and other insults?

As for Marine Le Pen, she has vowed that she will not be sidelined. But her destiny is not entirely in her own hands now. At the age of 56 she has become a familiar figure, fiery at times, but personally approachable, warm and, in political terms, profoundly influential and disciplined. So what next for her?

France has had one Le Pen or other (Marine’s father, Jean-Marie ran four times) on their presidential ballot paper since 1988. Always unsuccessfully.

History may well look back on this week as the moment Marine Le Pen’s fate was sealed, in one of three ways: as France’s first female and first far-right president, swept to power on a tide of outrage. As the four-time loser of a French presidential election, finally denied power by the taint of corruption. Or as someone whose soaring political career was brought to an early and shuddering halt by her own miscalculations over a serious embezzlement scandal.

An Indian court is due to hear a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s social media company X, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of misusing the law to censor content on its platform.

Last month, X sued the government saying a new website – Sahyog – launched by the federal home ministry last year, was being used to expand its censorship powers and take down content.

X argued the portal gave government officials wide-ranging powers to issue blocking orders that were “in violation” of India’s digital laws. It said it could not be compelled to join Sahyog, which it called a “censorship portal”.

The Indian government has said that the portal is necessary to tackle harmful online content.

Other American technology giants such as Amazon, Google and Meta have agreed to be on Sahyog.

Sahyog describes itself as a portal developed to automate the process of sending government notices to content intermediaries like X and Facebook.

The lawsuit filed in the southern state of Karnataka came after the federal railway ministry ordered X to remove “hundreds of posts”.

These included videos of a crush in Delhi in which 18 people died as they were making their way to the world’s largest religious gathering, the Kumbh Mela.

In its petition, X argues that the portal and the orders issued through it fall outside the remit of the original law that allows the government to block content.

Under this law, senior officials have the power to issue takedown orders, but after following due procedure like giving notices, opportunities for hearings and allowing for a review of any decision.

But X says the government is bypassing these procedures to issue arbitrary content takedown orders through other legal provisions that have no safeguards.

As a result, “countless” government officials, including “tens of thousands of local police officers”, are “unilaterally and arbitrarily” issuing orders, X argues in its petition.

India’s federal IT and home ministries did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

In court, the government has argued that its actions are lawful. It said it was not sending blocking orders but only issuing “notices” to platforms against unlawful content.

The government also defended the Sahyog platform saying it was a “necessity” because of the “growing volume of unlawful and harmful content online”.

The case is of “vital importance” as the blocking mechanism of the Sahyog portal has resulted in “a wholesale increase in censorship”, said Apar Gupta of the digital rights organisation, Internet Freedom Foundation.

This is not the first time the Indian government and X are at loggerheads.

The Delhi police had raided the offices of X (then Twitter) in 2021, before Musk took over, after a tweet by a ruling party spokesperson was marked as “manipulated media”.

In 2022, the company had sued the Indian government against blocking orders, at least one of which pertained to a year-long protest by farmers against new laws brought in by the government. However, the court ruled against the company and imposed a fine of 5m rupees ($58,000; £45,000).

Under Musk’s leadership, X appealed against this decision, which is currently separately being heard in the Karnataka high court.

In 2023, India called X a “habitual non-compliant platform” during the appeal proceedings.

India is also reportedly investigating X’s chatbot Grok regarding its use of inappropriate language and “controversial responses” after it made politically sensitive comments to user prompts recently.

The timing of the lawsuit is interesting as it comes when Musk’s other companies Starlink and Tesla have just begun making inroads into India with their business plans.

Earlier in March, Starlink signed an agreement with two of India’s biggest telecoms firms to bring satellite internet to India and is awaiting government approval to start providing its services.

Tesla could finally be making its debut and has begun hiring for a dozen jobs in Delhi and Mumbai. It is also reportedly hunting for showrooms in both cities.

Musk also met Prime Minister Modi when he visited the White House last month.

His growing business interests in India and closeness with US President Donald Trump give him “ample leverage” with India, Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia Institute in Washington, told the BBC.

“This means he has a lot of leeway in terms of how he operates, including making a decision to sue the Indian government,” he added, saying the case might not hurt Musk’s business prospects in the country.

The lower house of India’s parliament has passed a controversial bill that seeks to change how properties worth billions of dollars donated by Indian Muslims over centuries are governed.

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 – which brings in dozens of amendments to an existing law – was passed late on Wednesday night after a heated debate that went on for over 12 hours.

The government says the bill will introduce transparency into the management of waqf, as the properties are called.

But opposition parties and Muslim groups have called it an attempt to weaken the constitutional rights of India’s largest religious minority.

In the Lok Sabha, as the lower house is called, the bill was passed with 288 MPs voting in favour of it, and 232 against (the halfway mark is 272).

It has now been sent to the Rajya Sabha, or upper house, for discussion and passage.

If it is passed by the Rajya Sabha, it will be sent to President Droupadi Murmu for her assent before it becomes law.

The bill was first tabled in parliament in August last year but was sent to a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) after an outcry from opposition members. The version that has been passed incorporates several changes suggested by the sharply divided committee. Opposition members who were on the panel have alleged that the JPC accepted the changes suggested by the BJP and its allies while rejecting all amendments they proposed.

• Why Muslims in India are opposing changes to a property law

Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP and leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the opposition was united and would work to defeat “the unconstitutional and divisive agenda of the Modi government on the Waqf Amendment Bill”. But the numbers may not be in the opposition’s favour.

Muslim groups have argued that the bill “aims to weaken the waqf laws and pave the way for the seizure and destruction of waqf properties”.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said the bill would “dilute the Constitution, defame minority communities, divide Indian society and disenfranchise minorities”.

Federal Home Minister Amit Shah defended the bill, saying that the opposition was scaring minorities by creating “an illusion that this bill would interfere in the religious activities of Muslim brothers and in their donated property”.

The waqf properties, which include mosques, madrassas, shelter homes and thousands of acres of land donated by Muslims, are managed by boards. Some of these properties are vacant while others have been encroached upon.

In Islamic tradition, a waqf is a charitable or religious donation made by Muslims for the benefit of the community. Such properties cannot be sold or used for any other purpose – which implies that waqf properties belong to God.

The government says that the waqf boards are among India’s largest landholders. There are at least 872,351 waqf properties across India, spanning more than 940,000 acres, with an estimated value of 1.2 trillion rupees ($14.22bn; £11.26bn).

A major criticism from opponents of the bill is that it grants the government undue power to regulate the management of these endowments and determine whether a property qualifies as “waqf”.

The bill also proposes the induction of two non-Muslim members on the waqf boards which oversee these properties. Critics have opposed this provision, arguing that most religious institutions run by non-Muslims do not permit followers of other faiths in their administration.

French officials investigating the deaths of a British couple in their home in south-west France have said it was murder followed by suicide.

The bodies of Andrew and Dawn Searle, who previously lived in East Lothian in Scotland, were found on 6 February at their home in Les Pequies, about a hour north of Toulouse.

Mrs Searle’s body was found in the garden with severe wounds to her head, while her husband’s body was found inside.

The prosecutor in charge of the case has told the BBC there is no evidence that another person was involved in their deaths.

Mrs Searle, 56, grew up in Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders, and Mr Searle was originally from England.

They previously lived in Musselburgh and married in France in 2023.

Prosecutors said they had lived in the Aveyron region for five years.

According to his LinkedIn page, Mr Searle, 62, previously worked in financial crime prevention at companies including Standard Life and Barclays Bank.

Police were alerted to the incident in February by a neighbour of the couple who had gone to check on them when they failed to turn up for a planned dog walk.

The area around the property was sealed off while investigations took place, and local police called in expert help from Toulouse.

A helicopter and drone were sent to the site.

Post-mortem examinations confirmed Mr Searle died from hanging and Mrs Searle, suffered “multiple blows to the head with a blunt and sharp-edged object”.

Dawn Searle’s son, the Hollyoaks actor Callum Kerr, issued a statement on social media at the time of the deaths

He said: “At this time, Callum Kerr and Amanda Kerr are grieving the loss of their mother, Dawn Searle (née Smith, Kerr) while Tom Searle and Ella Searle are mourning the loss of their father, Andrew Searle.”

He requested that the family’s privacy be respected during this “difficult period”.

Mr Kerr, 30, walked his mother down the aisle when she married Mr Searle at a ceremony in France in 2023.

An oil tanker and cargo ship that crashed in the North Sea did not have “dedicated lookouts” in what were “patchy conditions”, an interim report has found.

The Stena Immaculate, a US-registered tanker carrying aviation fuel, was anchored 16 miles (26km) off the East Yorkshire coast when it was hit by the Portuguese-flagged Solong on 10 March.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) also released new images of the incident, which resulted in fires and a rescue operation which saved 36 crew from both vessels.

One crew member on the Solong, Mark Pernia, is missing and presumed dead. He was reported to be in the forward area of the ship at the time of impact.

According to the report, the Solong was carrying “various products including some designated as dangerous” when it left Grangemouth in Scotland by 20:00 GMT the day before the crash.

It was heading to Rotterdam using a route it had previously used, the report noted.

The Stena Immaculate was told by Associate British Ports (ABP) Vessel Traffic Services to anchor north of Humber Estuary, keeping clear of any pipeline. There were eight other vessels anchored in the same area, the report said.

The Solong collided with the tanker at a speed of about 16 knots (18mph/29km/h) at 09:47 GMT the following day.

“The visibility in the area north of the Humber light float was reported to be patchy and varying between 0.25 nautical miles (nm) and 2.0nm,” the report said.

According to the report, the collision caused a cargo tank on the Stena Immaculate to breach, spilling aviation fuel into the sea and onto the bow (front) of the Solong before igniting.

The crews of both vessels took immediate action but, according to the report, the severity of the fire hampered efforts to find Mr Pernia, a Filipino national.

Both crews evacuated to lifeboats and were “subsequently recovered by local boats and emergency responders”. Efforts were coordinated by HM Coastguard, said the report.

The MAIB said its full investigation would examine navigation and watchkeeping practices, manning and fatigue management, the condition and maintenance of the vessels involved and the environmental conditions at the time of crash.

Investigators would also look at “the use of the offshore area as an anchorage for vessels waiting to enter the Humber Estuary”, said the report.

The Solong was towed to Aberdeen on 28 March as part of the salvage operation, with the Stena Immaculate expected to be taken to the Port of Tyne, near Newcastle, for further inspection.

Concerns have also been raised by wildlife experts about the environmental impact. The report said an evaluation of the nature and extent of the pollution is ongoing.

The Solong’s Russian captain, Vladimir Motin, 59, has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter, and is due to stand trial in January 2026.

Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslatest episode of Look North here.

We still don’t know who the next James Bond will be, but 007’s new owners, Amazon MGM, say they are hard at work on the next film in London and that they will offer a “fresh” take on the franchise and honour the “legacy of this iconic character.”

The Bond anthem Goldfinger welcomed guests into the Colosseum Theatre in Las Vegas for Amazon MGM Studio’s first ever appearance at CinemaCon – heightening anticipation – but there was very little Bond news in an otherwise star-studded showcase for the streaming giant.

Since 1962, James Bond movies have been controlled by the notoriously protective Broccoli family. It shocked many fans and industry insiders when producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson agreed earlier this year to sell creative control of the franchise to Amazon – reportedly for $1bn (£760m).

Many expected the new producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman to appear at CinemaCon to divulge some details of their plans for James Bond amid rife speculation that Amazon will churn out prequels, spinoffs, and origin stories galore.

But in a nearly two-hour presentation – Ben Affleck, Ryan Gosling, Chris Pratt and Halle Berry all showcased new films – Bond was barely a blip.

Chris Hemsworth – who many speculate is in the running to become James Bond – was there to show off Crime 101, a thriller focused on robberies along Los Angeles’ 101 Freeway.

In their presentation, Amazon MGM executives Courtenay Valenti and Sue Kroll mentioned James Bond only in passing, commenting: “We are committed to honouring the legacy of this iconic character while bringing a fresh, exotic new chapter to audiences around the world alongside Amy and David.”

They added they wished Pascal and Heyman could be in Las Vegas with them, but that they were hard at work in London. “They’re both in London getting started and couldn’t be here tonight, but we wanted to thank them for what we know to make an incredible partnership,” the pair said.

Valenti and Droll then moved on to showcase Masters of The Universe

Pascal and Heyman are behind two of the most successful franchises in film history, Spider-Man for Pascal and Harry Potter for Heyman.

Amazon MGM showed off many other films, including Ryan Gosling’s space epic Project Hail Mary in which he play’s a reluctant astronaut tasked with saving humanity.

And Chris Pratt showcased Mercy while strapped to a chair on stage, spoofing his film about an AI justice system which is judge, jury and executioner and gives him 90 minutes to prove he didn’t kill his wife.

As movie theatres struggle to bring in audiences and as many consumers stay home and watch YouTube, Amazon MGM executives repeatedly told the crowd they were committed to the theatrical experience.

Mike Hopkins, the head of Amazon MGM and Prime Video, said they remained bullish on cinema and that they planned to make 15 movies a year by 2027 and that they already have 14 films ready to release in 2026.

“This really speaks to our belief in the future of the theatrical film business,” he said.

Landing a publishing deal was a dream come true for Jack Strange.

“It was incredible. I’d had so many rejections along the way,” he says.

“So when someone said yes, I cried because it’s everything I ever wanted.”

Before Jack published debut novel Look Up, Handsome, he’d written other, self-published titles.

But he felt an entirely different emotion when he found out that those works had appeared on LibGen – a so-called “shadow library” containing millions of books and academic papers taken without permission.

An investigation by The Atlantic magazine revealed Meta may have accessed millions of pirated books and research papers through LibGen – Library Genesis – to train its generative AI (Gen-AI) system, Llama.

Now author groups across the UK and around the world are organising campaigns to encourage governments to intervene.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is currently defending a court case brought by multiple authors over the use of their work.

Llama is a large language model, or LLM, similar to Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

The systems are fed huge amounts of data and trained to spot patterns within it. They use this data to create passages of text by predicting the next word in a sequence.

Despite the systems being labelled intelligent, critics argue LLMs do not “think”, have no understanding of what they produce and can confidently present errors as fact.

Tech companies argue that they need more data to make the systems more reliable, but authors, artists and other creatives say they should pay for the privilege.

A Meta spokesperson told BBC Newsbeat it had “developed transformational GenAI powering incredible innovation, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies”.

They added that “fair use of copyrighted materials is vital to this”, and that the company wants to develop AI that benefits everyone.

As well as concerns over copyright and accuracy, AI systems are also power-hungry, prompting environmental fears, and worries they could threaten jobs.

While Jack’s debut novel wasn’t part of the LibGen dataset, he did find some of his self-published books had been taken.

He says he wasn’t surprised because he’d seen so many fellow authors affected, but that it did spur him on to want to do something about it.

“There’s always something you can do. You can’t just say ‘oh well’. You’ve got to speak up and fight back,” he tells BBC Newsbeat.

Meta says open source AI like Llama will “increase human productivity, creativity, and quality of life”.

But Jack says it poses a real risk to creatives like him.

“It’s annoying that the first thing AI comes for are creative jobs that bring you joy.

“We’re so undervalued already, and we’re even more undervalued now with AI coming in.”

Jack says going up against a company like Meta, which is worth more than a trillion dollars, doesn’t feel like a fight he can take on alone.

“How much control can you take back when your work has already been taken?

“How do we live with that and how do we get protected from that?”

He’s one of a growing number of writers calling on the government to intervene, with a demonstration planned on Thursday near Meta’s London office, as well as action online.

Abie Longstaff works at the Society of Authors, a union representing writers, illustrators and translators, and tells Newsbeat they have been raising concerns about the risks of AI for years.

“We all feel that level of helplessness,” she says. “But we’re all fighting so hard.”

She says her work has also been stolen and used to train AI, something she believes has an impact on future publishing opportunities.

“Large language models work by prediction, they work by looking at patterns. They want our voice, they want our expression, they want our style.

“So you can as a normal person go onto one of these sites and say ‘please can you write me a book in the style of Abie Longstaff’ and they’ll write it in my style, in my voice.”

Because their works have been scraped though, writers won’t get any compensation or recognition if it’s used this way.

“We want to see compensation, we want to see that it’s more transparent,” Abie says.

“The company has taken our books and used it to make money. It has money, but instead of paying us for our intellectual property instead of licensing a word, it’s taking it all for free.”

The Society of Authors as well as other unions like the Writers’ Guild are encouraging writers to get in touch with their MPs to raise their concerns in government.

In December, the government shared a consultation in a bid to navigate the issue between copyright holders being in control and paid for their work and AI companies having “wide and lawful access to high-quality data”.

One proposal was giving tech companies automatic access to works such as books, films and TV shows to train AI models unless creators opted out.

But Abie thinks that’s the wrong way round.

“It’s like saying you’ve got to put a note on your wallet saying no-one steal it,” she says.

“It should be the AI companies asking us if they can use our work.”

Writing is something Jack had always dreamed of doing – and still does, despite the challenges he’s currently facing.

“It’s still my dream to be an author and hopefully write full time. It’s incredibly difficult now, it’s going to be more difficult with AI coming in.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Drake has been given the green light to access sensitive record company documents in his ongoing defamation case over Kendrick Lamar’s song Not Like Us.

The star had asked for copies of Kendrick Lamar’s recording contract, as well as information on salaries and bonuses for senior executives at his record label Universal Music Group (UMG).

Drake is accusing the company of defamation by allowing Lamar’s song to be published and promoted, claiming it spread the “false and malicious narrative” that he is a paedophile.

Universal filed to dismiss the case last month, calling it an “illogical” attempt to “silence” Lamar’s creative expression.

It also asked for a pause in the evidence-gathering process, known as discovery, while that request was considered.

However, on Wednesday, Judge Jeannette A Vargas, ordered that discovery should continue.

Michael Gottlieb, Drake’s lead lawyer, celebrated the decision in a statement to the BBC.

“Now it’s time to see what UMG was so desperately trying to hide,” he said.

According to a court filing, Drake’s team is seeking documents including “all contracts between UMG and Kendrick Lamar” and the salaries and incentive plans for senior record label staff, going back to 2020.

UMG had objected to the request, saying that the “costly and time-consuming” process of gathering the “commercially sensitive” information was an “undue burden” when the case could still be dismissed.

A hearing on the motion to dismiss is scheduled for 30 June.

Drake’s lawsuit marks the latest chapter in his long-running feud with Lamar.

The pair butted heads on a series of rap tracks last year. In one, Drake accused Lamar of domestic abuse.

Lamar responded with Not Like Us, in which he characterised Drake and his entourage as “certified paedophiles” who should “be registered and placed on neighbourhood watch”.

In court documents, Drake claimed that Universal knew that Lamar’s lyrics were false but “continued to fan the flames” of the controversy for profit.

The lawsuit also accused Universal of colluding with Spotify to falsely inflate streaming numbers for Not Like Us, a claim that both companies denied.

In response, Universal, which has been Drake’s label for more than a decade, said: “Not only are these claims untrue, but the notion that we would seek to harm the reputation of any artist – let alone Drake – is illogical.”

“Throughout his career, Drake has intentionally and successfully used UMG to distribute his music and poetry to engage in conventionally outrageous back-and-forth ‘rap battles’ to express his feelings about other artists.”

In addition, the label claimed that Drake had “lost a rap battle that he provoked and in which he willingly participated”.

“He now seeks to weaponise the legal process to silence an artist’s creative expression and to seek damages from [Universal] for distributing that artist’s music,” the company concluded.

Not Like Us has become the biggest hit of Kendrick Lamar’s career. In the UK, it became his first number one single, shortly after he performed it during the Super Bowl Half Time Show in February.

Driving into Mandalay, the massive scale of the destruction from last Friday’s earthquake revealed itself bit by bit.

In nearly every street we turned into, especially in the northern and central parts of the city, at least one building had completely collapsed, reduced to a pile of rubble. Some streets had multiple structures which had come down.

Almost every building we saw had cracks running through at least one of its walls, unsafe to step into. At the main city hospital they’re having to treat patients outdoors.

Myanmar’s military government has said it’s not allowing foreign journalists into the country after the quake, so we went in undercover. We had to operate carefully, because the country is riddled with informers and secret police who spy on their own people for the ruling military junta.

What we witnessed was a people who had very little help coming their way in the face of this massive disaster.

“I have hope that he’s alive, even if it’s a small chance,” said Nan Sin Hein, 41, who’s been waiting on the street opposite a collapsed five-storey building, day and night for five days.

Her 21 year-old-son Sai Han Pha is a construction worker, renovating the interiors of the building, which used to be a hotel and was being turned into an office space.

“If they can rescue him today, there’s a chance he’ll survive,” she says.

When the 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck, the bottom of the building sank into the ground, its top lurching at an angle over the street, looking like it could tip over at any minute.

Sai Han Pha and four other workers were trapped inside.

When we visited, rescue efforts had not even begun at the building and there was no sign they would start soon. There just isn’t enough help available on the ground – and the reason for that is the political situation in the country.

Even before the earthquake Myanmar was in turmoil – locked in a civil war that has displaced an estimated 3.5 million people. Its military has continued operations against armed insurgent groups despite the disaster.

This means that security forces are too stretched to put their full might behind relief and rescue operations. Except in some key locations, we didn’t see them in large numbers in Mandalay.

The military junta has put out a rare appeal for international aid, but its uneasy relations with many foreign countries, including the UK and the US, has meant that while these countries have pledged aid, help in the form of manpower on the ground is currently only from countries like India, China and Russia, among a few others.

And so far those rescue efforts appear to be focused on structures where masses of people are feared trapped – the high-rise Sky Villa condominium complex which was home to hundreds of people, and U Hla Thein Buddhist academy where scores of monks were taking an examination when the earthquake struck.

Neeraj Singh, who is leading the Indian disaster response team working at the Buddhist academy, said the structure had collapsed like a “pancake” – one layer on top of another.

“It’s the most difficult collapse pattern and the chances of finding survivors are very low. But we are still hopeful and trying our best,” he told the BBC.

Working under the sweltering sun, in nearly 40C, rescuers use metal drills and cutters to break the concrete slabs into smaller pieces. It’s slow and extremely demanding work. When a crane lifts up the concrete pieces, the stench of decaying bodies, already quite strong, becomes overwhelming.

The rescuers spot four to five bodies, but it still takes a couple of hours to pull the first one out.

Sitting on mats under a makeshift tent in the compound of the academy are families of the students. Their faces are weary and despondent. As soon as they hear a body has been recovered, they crowd around the ambulance it is placed in.

Others gather around a rescuer who shows them a photo of the body on his mobile phone.

Agonising moments pass as the families try to see if the dead man is a loved one.

But the body is so disfigured, the task is impossible. It is sent to a morgue where forensic tests will have to be conducted to confirm the identity.

Among the families is the father of 29-year-old U Thuzana. He has no hope that his son survived. “Knowing my son ended up like this, I’m inconsolable, I’m filled with grief,” U Hla Aung said, his face crumpling into a sob.

Many of Mandalay’s historical sites have also suffered significant damage, including the Mandalay Palace and the Maha Muni Pagoda, but we could not get in to see the extent of the damage.

Access to everything – collapse sites, victims and their families – was not easy because of the oppressive environment created by the military junta, with people often fearful of speaking to journalists.

Close to the pagoda, we saw Buddhist funeral rituals being held on the street outside a destroyed house. It was the home of U Hla Aung Khaing and his wife Daw Mamarhtay, both in their sixties.

“I lived with them but was out when the earthquake struck. That’s why I survived. Both my parents are gone in a single moment,” their son told us.

Their bodies were extricated not by trained rescuers, but by locals who used rudimentary equipment. It took two days to pull out the couple, who were found with their arms around each other.

Myanmar’s military government says 2,886 people have died so far, but so many collapse sites have still not even been reached by the authorities, that that count is unlikely to be accurate. We may never find out what the real death toll of the earthquake was.

Parks and open spaces in Mandalay have turned into makeshift camps, as have the banks of the moat that runs around the palace. All over the city we saw people laying out mats and mattresses outside their homes as evening approached, preferring to sleep outdoors.

Mandalay is a city living in terror, and with good reason. Nearly every night since Friday there have been big aftershocks. We woke up to an aftershock of magnitude 5 in the middle of the night.

But tens of thousands are sleeping outdoors because they have no home to return to.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. My heart still trembles when I think of that moment when the earthquake struck,” said Daw Khin Saw Myint, 72, who we met while she was waiting in a queue for water, with her little granddaughter by her side. “We ran out, but my house is gone. I’m living under a tree. Come and see.”

She works as a washerwoman and says her son suffers from a disability which doesn’t allow him to work.

“Where will I live now? I am in so much trouble. I’m living next to a rubbish dump. Some people have given me rice and a few clothes. We ran out in these clothes we are wearing.

“We don’t have anyone to rescue us. Please help us,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Another elderly woman chimes in, eyes tearing up, “No one has distributed food yet today. So we haven’t eaten.”

Most of the vehicles we saw pulling up to distribute supplies were small vans with limited stocks – donations from individuals or small local organisations. It’s nowhere near enough for the number of people in need, leading to a scramble to grab whatever relief is available.

Parts of Mandalay’s main hospital are also damaged, and so in an already difficult situation, rows and rows of beds are laid out in the hospital compound for patients.

Shwe Gy Thun Phyo, 14, has suffered from a brain injury, and has bloodshot eyes. She’s conscious but unresponsive. Her father tries to make her as comfortable as possible.

There were very few doctors and nurses around to cope with the demand for treatment, which means families are stepping in to do what medical staff should.

Zar Zar has a distended belly because of a serious abdominal injury. Her daughter sits behind her, holding her up, and fans her, to give her some relief from the heat.

We couldn’t spend a lot of time at the hospital for fear of being apprehended by the police or military.

As the window to find survivors of the earthquake narrows, increasingly those being brought into the hospital are the dead.

Nan Sin Hein, who is waiting outside the collapsed building where her son was trapped, was initially stoical, but she now looks like she is preparing to face what seems like the most likely outcome.

“I’m heartbroken. My son loved me and his little sisters. He struggled to support us,” she says.

“I am just hoping to see my son’s face, even if he is dead. I want to see his body. I want them to do everything they can to find his body.”

One month since Israel closed all crossings to Gaza for goods, all UN-supported bakeries have closed, markets are empty of most fresh vegetables and hospitals are rationing painkillers and antibiotics.

It is the longest blockade yet of Israel’s nearly 18-month-long war against Hamas. This week, during the normally festive Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, many Gazans say they have gone hungry.

“This was the worst ever Eid for us,” Um Ali Hamad, a displaced woman from Beit Lahia, told the BBC as she searched for food in Gaza City. “We can’t eat or drink. We couldn’t enjoy it. We’re exhausted.”

“We can no longer find things to eat like tomatoes, sugar or oil. They’re not available. I can barely find one meal a day. Now, there are no charity food handouts.”

“I only have one grandchild; he was born during the war. He’s three months old and we can’t find milk or nappies for him.”

Israel said it was imposing a ban on goods entering Gaza on 2 March due to Hamas’s refusal to extend the first phase of the January ceasefire deal and release more hostages.

Hamas has continued to demand a move to the second phase of the original agreement, which would see the remaining living hostages it holds being released and a full end to the war.

A two-month long truce, which started on 19 January, saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages – eight of them dead – in exchange for about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and a big surge in humanitarian aid entering the devastated territory.

Aid agencies are now calling for world powers to force Israel to allow essential goods into Gaza – including food, medicines, hygiene products and fuel – pointing to the country’s obligations under international humanitarian law.

They say they are making tough decisions about how to manage their dwindling stocks in the territory. Fuel, for example, is needed for vehicles to move aid, bakeries, hospital generators, wells and water desalination plants.

The NGO ActionAid called the month-long Israeli ban on aid entering Gaza “appalling” and warned a “new cycle of starvation and thirst” loomed.

On Tuesday, the UN dismissed as “ridiculous”, an Israeli assertion that there was enough food in Gaza to last its roughly two million residents for a long time.

“We are at the tail end of our supplies,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Cogat, the Israeli military body that controls crossings, says that during the recent ceasefire some 25,200 lorries entered Gaza carrying nearly 450,000 tonnes of aid.

“That’s nearly a third of the total trucks that entered Gaza during the entire war, in just over a month,” Cogat wrote in a post on X. “There is enough food for a long period of time, if Hamas lets the civilians have it.”

Israeli officials accuse Hamas of hoarding supplies for itself. However, Dujarric said the UN had kept “a very good chain of custody on all the aid it’s delivered”.

Shutters are down, ovens off and the shelves empty at a bakery in Gaza City – one of 25 that worked with the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) across the strip. With shortages of fuel and flour, a sign says it is closed “until further notice”.

“Closing the bakery is a catastrophe because bread is the most important staple for us,” said a grandfather, Abu Alaa Jaffar, looking on despairingly.

“Without it, people don’t know how to deal with the situation. There will be starvation much worse than we saw before.”

He and other passersby told the BBC that a 25kg (55lb) bag of flour had gone up as much as 10-fold and could now fetch 500 shekels ($135; £104) on the black market.

For months, Israel has prevented commercial goods from entering Gaza – saying that this trade benefited Hamas – and local food production has stopped almost completely because of the war.

While many food kitchens supported by international NGOs have recently stopped working as their supplies have run out, the WFP expects to continue distributing hot meals for a maximum of two weeks.

It says it will hand out its last food parcels within two days. As a “last resort” once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the biggest aid agency operating in Gaza, says it has only a few days’ worth of food left to give out.

“We’re seeing a very quick depletion of what we have in our warehouses,” said communications director Tamara al-Rifai. “Everyone is rationing everything because it’s not clear whether and when there is an end in sight.”

“What’s extremely striking to us is how fast the positive impact of the ceasefire – if I can use the word ‘positive’, namely being able to bring food and other supplies – is how fast that impact has evaporated in four weeks.”

Israel resumed the war in Gaza on 18 March. Its renewed air and ground operations have once again made it difficult for aid workers to move around and have led to hundreds of casualties, overwhelming hospitals.

The UN’s World Health Organisation (WHO) says over half of the hospitals receiving trauma cases are now virtually full.

Devices to stabilise broken bones have run out, while anaesthesia, antibiotics and fluids for wounded patients are dwindling. The WHO warns that vital supplies for pregnant mothers will run out imminently.

Dr Mark Perlmutter, an American surgeon who was recently working in Gaza, told the BBC that he was forced to use drill bits to fix a fracture in a child’s leg and that there was no working X-ray machine in the two hospitals where he was based.

He added that he was unable to clean wounds before operating or even wash his hands as soap had run out.

Another mass casualty event would mean “people are going to die from wounds that could have been corrected”, Dr Perlmutter said.

So far, at least 1,066 Palestinians have been killed – about one third of whom are children – since Israel began its renewed military offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The WHO also warns of serious public health concerns after the facilities for diagnosing infectious diseases were forced to close.

The international health charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on Israel to halt what it calls the “collective punishment of Palestinians”.

It says some patients are being treated without pain relief and that those with conditions requiring regular medication, such as epilepsy or diabetes are having to ration their supplies.

Last year, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

South Africa has brought an ongoing case before the UN’s top court, alleging that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel rejects the claim as “baseless.”

The war in Gaza was triggered by the deadly Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken to Gaza. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, Palestinian health authorities say.

Arab mediators are continuing to try to resurrect the ceasefire.

Hamas said on Saturday that it had accepted a new proposal from Egypt. Israel said it had made a counterproposal in coordination with the US, which has also been mediating.

There have been no signs of an imminent breakthrough or an end to the Israel closure of crossings into Gaza.

Val Kilmer, who has died at the age of 65, was often underrated as an actor.

He had extraordinary range: excelling in comedies, westerns, crime dramas, musical biopics and action-adventures films alike.

And perhaps his best performance combined his skills as a stage actor with a fine singing voice, to bring to life 1960s-counterculture icon Jim Morrison, in Oliver Stone’s film The Doors.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote: “If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it.

“In movies as different as Real Genius, Top Gun, Top Secret!, he has shown a range of characters so convincing that it’s likely most people, even now, don’t realise they were looking at the same actor.”

• Top Gun and Batman actor dies aged 65
• Look back at Val Kilmer’s best-known roles

Val Edward Kilmer was born, on 31 December 1959, into a middle-class family in Los Angeles.

His parents were Christian Scientists, a movement to which Kilmer would adhere for the rest of his life.

He attended Chatsworth High School, in the San Fernando Valley, where future actor Kevin Spacey was among his classmates and where he developed a love of drama.

Kilmer’s ambition was to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada), in London, but his application was rejected because, at 17, he was a year below the minimum entry age.

Instead, Kilmer became the then youngest pupil to enrol at the Julliard School, in New York, one of the world’s most prestigious drama conservatories.

A gifted student, Kilmer co-wrote and made his stage debut in How It All Began, a play based on the life of a German radical, at the Public Theatre.

But he recalled a tough regime.

“I had a mean teacher once, who kind of said, ‘How dare you think you can act Shakespeare? You don’t know how to walk across the room yet,’… and in a way, that’s true,” Kilmer said.

Minor parts, including in Henry IV Part 1 and As You Like It, preceded a meatier role as Alan Downie in the 1983 production of Slab Boys, with Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon.

Kilmer made his film debut in spy spoof Top Secret!, written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker. He played star Nick Rivers, sucked into an East German plot to reunify Germany.

The film proved Kilmer had a good voice and he later released an album under the name of his fictional character.

He also published a book of poetry, My Edens After Burns, some of which reflected on a relationship with a young Michelle Pfeiffer.

Two years later, Kilmer played Lt Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, Tom Cruise’s deadly fighter pilot rival in Top Gun.

A thrilling patriotic Cold War buddy movie, it cost just $15m (£12m) to make but took more than $350m at the box office.

Kilmer’s increased profile led to renewed press interest in his eventful private life.

He dated Daryl Hannah, Angelina Jolie and Cher. In 1988, he married Joanne Whalley, whom he had met when they appeared in the fantasy film Willow,

The couple had two children but divorced after eight years of marriage.

Despite his rising popularity in the cinema, Kilmer did not abandon the stage, playing Hamlet at the 1988 Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and then Giovanni in a New York production of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.

But in the 1990s, he proved he could carry a major film as a lead actor.

Director Stone had long wanted to make a biopic of The Doors, focusing on the band’s singer, who had died of a drugs overdose in Paris in 1971.

A number of actors were considered, including John Travolta and Richard Gere, before Stone chose Kilmer because of his physical resemblance to Morrison and strong singing voice.

In his trademark single-minded approach, Kilmer lost weight and learned 50 Doors songs by heart, as well as spending time in a studio perfecting Morrison’s stage style.

And in his 1996 biography of Oliver Stone, James Riordan said the surviving Doors could not tell recordings of Kilmer singing their songs from Morrison’s original.

Kilmer also played Elvis Presley in Tony Scott’s True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino, and sickly alcoholic gambler and dentist Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone – a retelling of the story of Wyatt Earp’s gunfight at the OK Corral, which some critics called his finest performance.

In 1995, Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton in the third of a trilogy of Batman films, Batman Forever.

But he later said he had been uncomfortable with the role and declined to play it in the follow-up, Batman and Robin.

Kilmer’s reputation for being difficult on set had reportedly exploded into open warfare with the director, Joel Schumacher, normally the most temperate of men, who called his leading man’s behaviour “difficult and childish”.

John Frankenheimer, who directed Kilmer in The Island of Dr Moreau, was even blunter.

“I don’t like Val Kilmer,” he said. “I don’t like his work ethic and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”

The actor responded: “When certain people criticise me for being demanding, I think that’s a cover for something they didn’t do well. I think they’re trying to protect themselves.

“I believe I’m challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that,” he told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.

Kilmer remained much in demand and reportedly received $6m for his role as Simon Templar in the 1997 film The Saint – although, critics were not overwhelmed by the film or his performance.

In the early 2000s, there was no shortage of film appearances – but Kilmer’s cinema career had hit a plateau.

In 2004, he returned to the theatre, in a musical production of The Ten Commandments, in Los Angeles.

A year later, Kilmer starred in London’s West End, in Andrew Rattenbury’s adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice – as Frank Chambers, the drifter played by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film.

And in 2006, he reunited with director Scott, for sci-fi film Deja Vu, which received a mixed response.

Kilmer also voiced Kitt – the futuristic car – in a pilot for television series Nightrider.

He spent years working on a one-man show, Citizen Twain, which examined the relationship between Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and her long-term critic writer Mark Twain.

A 90-minute film was eventually released, directed by Kilmer.

In 2014, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer.

Chemotherapy and radiation left him with a tube in his trachea and difficulty breathing.

As a Christian Scientist, Kilmer had mixed views about seeking medical interventions and at times ascribed physical improvements to the power of prayer rather than medicine. On occasion, he denied he had cancer at all.

In 2021, Kilmer made Val, a documentary about his life.

It delved into his darkest places and experiences, including his brother Wesley’s accidental drowning as a teenager and the breakdown of his marriage.

A year later, there was time for a final starring role.

Planned for a decade, Top Gun: Maverick reunited Kilmer and Cruise, updating their former rivalry in the post-Cold War era.

Kilmer’s cancer could not be hidden. Instead, it was written into his character’s story.

“It’s time to let go,” Iceman tells Maverick in one poignant scene.

Kilmer will be remembered as a complicated man and a fine but difficult actor.

He never embraced the kind of Hollywood party lifestyle his looks and fame might have brought him.

Instead, he tended to slip away to spend time with his children, on a ranch he owned in New Mexico.

“I don’t really have too much of a notion about success or popularity, ” Kilmer once said.

“I never cultivated fame, I never cultivated a persona, except possibly the desire to be regarded as an actor.”

Twenty-three more women have come forward to the police with allegations against serial rapist Zhenhao Zou – a Chinese PhD student found guilty in London last month of drugging and raping 10 women across two continents.

Police said at the conclusion of his trial they had video evidence, filmed by Zou himself, of potentially 50 more victims – and they have been trying to trace these women. Detectives now say, however, that they believe Zou’s “offending group is far greater”.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual violence

Two women who have contacted police in the past month with new allegations have also spoken to the BBC World Service. One said Zou raped her in his hometown in China, after spiking her drink which left her conscious but unable to speak or move. The other said Zou drugged her too – in London – and that she had woken up to find him filming himself sexually assaulting her.

We have also spoken to two women whose testimony helped convict Zou – who will be sentenced in June. “If I had spoken up earlier, maybe there wouldn’t have been so many victims after me,” one of them told us.

She and the other women say they struggle with the guilt of now knowing that Zou has assaulted so many women.

One of the women making new allegations, who we are calling Alice, told the BBC that Zou had assaulted her in London in 2021, but that she had only felt able to go to police after his trial last month. “I didn’t know that was something you could report,” the Chinese national told us.

She says she first met Zou while out clubbing in London with other Chinese-student friends. The group had all added one another on WeChat, a popular social messaging app.

Not long afterwards, a mutual friend invited Alice to have drinks at Zou’s upmarket student accommodation in Bloomsbury.

There were two bottles of spirits on the table, she says, both already opened and half-empty. She began to share drinks from one of the bottles with her friend – but says Zou only drank from the other one.

Alice says her friend normally tolerated alcohol well, but this time became drunk very quickly and appeared to fall asleep on the floor. The alcohol kicked in suddenly for Alice too, she says.

“Normally when you drink too much, you feel good for a while. But that night I just felt extremely dizzy and sleepy right away.”

Zou persuaded her it wouldn’t be safe to take a taxi home in the state she was in, she told us, and asked her to take a nap in his bedroom. She says she agreed, knowing her friend was also still in the apartment.

The next thing she says she remembers is waking up to Zou removing her trousers.

“I stopped him right away,” she says – explaining how she then noticed a torchlight from a mobile phone above her head, and realised, to her horror, that he was filming her.

Alice describes trying to leave his bedroom but being aggressively “yanked back from the doorway”. Zou used such strong force to try to keep her in the bedroom, she says, that she “had to cling on to the door frame with both hands”.

It was only when she threatened to scream for help, that he let go – she told us – with Zou then telling her not to make “a big deal” of things, or to go to the police.

Zou contacted Alice the next day on WeChat, she says, but he made no mention of the previous night. He asked her to dinner but she says she ignored him and they were never in touch again.

Alice confided in a few close friends, but took things no further.

“I thought that, first, you needed evidence. And second, something substantial had to have happened before you could call the police.”

Alice says the next time she saw Zou’s face was nearly four years later in the media – after he was charged by police.

It is challenging for foreign nationals to report sexual crimes in the UK, says Sarah Yeh, a trustee at Southeast and East Asian Women’s Association in London.

“It would be daunting for anyone [from] overseas to be traumatised by rape and then have to navigate the British legal system and the NHS, or even access the services provided for victims,” she told us.

They might not understand their rights or what resources are available to them – she says – as well as being concerned about repercussions, negative impacts on their studies, shame brought on themselves and their families, and potential legal challenges.

About a year after Alice says she was assaulted, she discovered that one of her male friends in London also knew Zou, but had cut all contact because he found out Zou had been spiking women’s drinks.

The friend – who the BBC is calling Jie – told us he “wasn’t surprised at all” when he heard Zou had been convicted.

“A lot of friends at the time probably knew [what Zou was doing]. I reckon some of our female friends knew too.”

Jie told us he accidentally drank from someone else’s glass at a party in 2022, and then became “unwell” and “very sleepy”. Zou then told him he had spiked the drink – says Jie – and had meant for a woman at the party to drink it.

Jie says Zou later showed him a small bag of drugs and asked if he wanted to “collaborate with him”. He says he took from this that Zou wanted his help finding girls whose drinks he could spike. Jie says he refused.

The BBC asked Jie why he had initially continued to see Zou and why he didn’t go to the police. Jie told us they both had lots of mutual friends so it was difficult not to socialise together. He says he did warn his friends about Zou, telling them not to hang out with him “because he was drugging people”.

Jie doesn’t like thinking about those memories, he says, and that is why he hasn’t gone to the police – adding that he had believed the women’s testimonies were enough to convict Zou.

Eventually, Jie says, he did cut all ties with him.

Another young woman who has been in touch with police in London and China since Zou’s trial is “Rachel”. She says she was drugged and raped by him in 2022 in his hometown of Dongguan – in Guangdong province.

Rachel told the BBC she had gone on a date with Zou, having met him online. She thought they were going to a bar, she says, but ended up at his home – a large villa which Zou had described as one of his family’s many properties.

With his back turned to her, she says Zou mixed her a green-coloured cocktail. They then started a drinking game, she says, and she experienced a “wave of dizziness”. Rachel has told UK police that Zou took her up to a bedroom, where she became unable to speak or move her body, and then raped her.

She thought about calling the police the next day, but decided against it. She feared it would be very difficult to prove non-consent. “It’s hard for me to prove the fact that I was willing to go to his place for drinks and that was not a signal that I was consenting to sex,” she told us.

She added that Dongguan is a small place and there was always a risk that people she knew – her parents, relatives and colleagues – would find out and think she was “indiscreet”.

We have seen Rachel’s statement to UK police. She wants her story to be heard now, she says, to encourage more victims to come forward – and because she would like to see Zou prosecuted in China as well as the UK.

Cdr Kevin Southworth – who leads public protection at the Metropolitan Police – told the BBC officers were still working their way through the 23 potential new cases and that some of the people were “definitely not identical” to those featured in Zou’s seized secret footage or from the charge cases so far.

“It speaks to the fact that his offending group is actually far greater than we had realised,” he says.

A second trial for the convicted rapist has not been ruled out and there is “certainly a case” to discuss with the Crown Prosecution Service, given the numbers of women coming forward, he adds.

The BBC has also spoken to the only two victims who police were able to identify ahead of Zou’s trial – both are Chinese nationals who had been studying in London. The women got to know each other on social media after one of them, who we are calling Beth, posted about her experience.

Beth was raped by Zou in 2023 and had tried to report the crime to the Metropolitan Police soon afterwards. But then she decided not to pursue things because she felt unsure of UK law and had been left feeling discouraged after her initial interaction with the police, which included a poor translation of her 999 call.

“Back then I didn’t know [Zou’s name]. I didn’t know his address, I could only give general information,” she says.

In frustration, Beth posted a warning on social media about what had happened to her. Another Chinese student, “Clara”, says she “immediately” knew this was the same man who had drugged and raped her after a night out in London’s Chinatown, two years before.

Every detail in Beth’s post pointed to the same man, says Clara: “He has a Guangdong accent, he looks honest and he wears a Rolex submariner watch.”

The women began to speak online and Beth encouraged Clara to report what had happened to her to the police.

Months later, police contacted Beth to say they were re-investigating the case. Clara had come forward.

On Zou’s seized devices, police had also found a video featuring Beth.

The Met has since expressed regret over how it initially handled her allegations.

“We want to avoid situations where victims feel like they’re maybe not being taken seriously, or heaven forbid, being disbelieved,” says Cdr Southworth. Additional training is now being rolled out to all front line officers, he says.

Clara describes a positive experience with British police. She says she didn’t want to fly to London for the trial, in case her parents found out, so the Met sent two officers to China to support her as she gave evidence by video instead.

The officers were assisted by the Chinese authorities, who have been working collaboratively with the Met and are “very supportive”, says Cdr Southworth.

“I hope that can give some encouragement to victim-survivors, wherever they are in the world, that you are safe to come forward.”

In addition to his time in London, Zou also studied in Belfast between 2017 and 2019 – police do not know if his campaign of drug rape had already begun while he was there.

Beth – who gave her evidence in court in London – says it was only afterwards that she realised that she and Clara were the only two women to have helped convict Zou.

“I thought for a long time that I wasn’t an important part of the case against Zou,” she says.

Now she is glad she testified and is encouraging other women to come forward.

If you have information about this story that you would like to share with us please get in touch.

You can contact BBC journalist wanqing.zhang@bbc.co.uk – please include contact details if you are willing to speak to her.

Uriah Rennie became a familiar face to millions of football fans after becoming the Premier League’s first black referee.

Once described as the “fittest” match official in global football and a martial arts expert, he is now learning to walk again after a rare condition left him paralysed from the waist down.

After spending five months in hospital, the 65-year-old has spoken to BBC News about rehabilitation, his fighting spirit and a brand new role.

Rennie, who officiated more than 300 top-flight fixtures between 1997 and 2008, was on a birthday trip to Turkey last year when he was hit with a sudden striking pain in his back.

“I thought I had just slept funny on a sun lounger, I was hoping to go paragliding but because of my backache I couldn’t go,” he says.

“By the end of the holiday I couldn’t sleep a wink from the pain, and by the time I got home I could barely walk.”

Rennie made history in 1997 when he officiated a match between Derby County and Wimbledon, becoming the top division’s first black referee.

Tall in stature and a kick-boxing and aikido expert, protesting players rapidly discovered he was more than comfortable standing his ground during arguments.

A magistrate in Sheffield since 1996, he has campaigned for issues such as improving equality and inclusion in sport, supporting mental health and tackling deprivation.

Rennie was on the verge of starting a new role as Sheffield Hallam University chancellor when he was admitted to Northern General Hospital in October.

“I spent a month laid on my back and another four months sitting in bed,” he says.

“They kept me in hospital until February, they found a nodule pushing on my spine and it was a rare neurological condition so it’s not something they can operate on.

“I have had to learn to move all over again, I’m retraining my legs.”

“It was strange – I went from running around the city to in essence being in traction for such a long time.

“I didn’t have any previous back problems but quite suddenly I wasn’t able to move and was in a spinal unit.”

Discussing his current movement, he says: “I can move my feet and I can stand with a frame attached to my wheelchair but I need to work on my glutes.”

He jokingly shows the wheelchair scuffs on the skirting boards around his home, with physiotherapy currently taking up much of his day.

“I rock around in my chair doing my exercises, I’m a very good, compliant patient,” he laughs.

“It has been frustrating but family and friends have been invaluable, the hospital was absolutely superb and the university has been exceptional.”

He officially starts as university chancellor in May, a position he has been determined to take up despite his recent experiences.

“I emphasised I wanted to make a difference to Sheffield and to communities here,” he says.

“I carried on working with community sports teams while in hospital, directing them from my bed.”

He studied for an MBA at the university during his refereeing career and received an honorary doctorate in 2023 for his work with sport and local communities.

• Sam Allison: Why has it taken 15 years for another black Premier League ref?

“I’m aiming to be the best I can physically,” he says.

“No one has told me I won’t walk again, but even if someone did say that I want to be able to say I did everything I could to try.”

Rennie, who moved from Jamaica to the UK as a young child and grew up in the Wybourn area of the city, says being the first black referee was about “creating a legacy to enable other people to stand on your shoulders”.

Discussing his latest challenge, he says the spinal cord compression has given him a new outlook on life.

“Lots of people are in wheelchairs, but it doesn’t define them,” he says.

“It has made me resilient and forceful and I will never give up – I’m not on my own, there is a village helping me.”

He concludes: “I recognise how brittle things are in life now.

“I don’t know if I am going to walk fully, but I know what I need to do to try and you must never give up hope.”

South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds

A federal judge has permanently dismissed the criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, weeks after the Trump administration directed prosecutors to drop the corruption charges.

The move led to the resignation of Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor who accused Adams of striking a deal with the Trump administration to dismiss his case in exchange for immigration enforcement.

The Manhattan judge dismissed the case “with prejudice”, which means the Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot refile the charges against Adams based on the same evidence.

Adams was charged with conspiracy, fraud, soliciting illegal campaign contributions, and bribery. He had denied any wrongdoing.

In an indictment last September, Adams was alleged to have accepted gifts totalling more than $100,000 (£75,000) from Turkish citizens in exchange for favours.

But in February, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove, a Trump appointee, ordered New York prosecutors to drop the case against Adams. He argued the case “restricted” the mayor’s ability to address “illegal immigration and violent crime” – a key goal of the Trump administration.

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon and six other high-level Justice officials resigned over the order, saying there was no legal justification to dismiss Adams’ case.

Sassoon, in a letter to Bove’s boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleged that the mayor’s team had offered “what amounted to a quid pro quo”, saying Adams would be able to help with administration policies “only if the indictment were dismissed”.

In a scathing 78-page ruling on Wednesday, US District Judge Dale Ho said he was unconvinced by the justice department’s logic that the case against Adams was preventing the mayor from enforcing the administration’s immigration actions.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” he said.

His decision to drop the case permanently, Judge Ho said, ensured that the administration could not use the indictment as “leverage” over Adams or the city of New York.

“Dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents,” the judge wrote.

Judge Ho noted that some people would “undoubtedly” find his ruling unsatisfying, wondering why “if DOJ’s ostensible reasons for dropping this case are so troubling, the Court does not simply deny the Motion to Dismiss altogether”.

But, he repeated, the court cannot order the justice department to continue prosecuting if it has decided to drop the case.

A DOJ spokesperson called the case “an example of political weaponization and a waste of resources”. “We are focused on arresting and prosecuting terrorists while returning the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe,” the spokesperson told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after the case was dismissed, Adams said the case “should have never been brought and I did nothing wrong”.

The dismissal ruling comes less than three months before the 24 June New York City mayoral race primary. Polls suggest Adams is trailing behind several other Democratic candidates.

But he told reporters that he did plan to run for re-election.

“And you know what, I’m gonna win,” he said.

The former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, says his US visa has been revoked.

Arias, a Nobel laureate, said he was informed of the decision weeks after he had publicly criticised Donald Trump, comparing the behaviour of the US president to that of a Roman emperor.

The 84-year-old, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering an end to conflicts in Central America, said US authorities had given no explanation.

Arias hinted, however, that it may be due to his rapprochement with China during the time he was president from 2006 to 2010.

Speaking at a news conference in the Costa Rican capital, San José, Arias said he had “no idea” what the reason for the cancellation was.

He said he had received a “terse” email “of a few lines” from the US government informing him of the decision.

He added that he thought that it was not President Trump but the US State Department which had taken the decision.

While he said it would be conjecture on his part to speculate about the reason behind the visa revocation, he did point out that “I established diplomatic relations with China.

“That, of course, is known throughout the world,” he told journalists of his 2007 decision to cut ties with Taiwan and establish them with China instead.

The Trump administration has sought to oppose China’s influence in the Western hemisphere and has accused a number of Central American governments of cosying up to the Chinese government and Chinese companies.

• Read: Rubio demands Panama ‘reduce China influence’ over canal

However, it has been supportive of the current Costa Rican President, Rodrigo Chaves, praising his decision to exclude Chinese firms from participating in the development of 5G in Costa Rica.

But this perceived closeness between President Chaves and the US was criticised by Arias, who wrote a post on social media in February saying that “it has never been easy for a small country to disagree with the US government, less so when its president behaves like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do”.

He added that “during my governments, Costa Rica never received orders from Washington as if we were a banana republic”.

Arias is not the only Costa Rican to have had his US visa revoked. Three members of the country’s national assembly who opposed President Chaves’s decree to exclude Chinese companies from participating in the development of 5G have also had theirs cancelled.

After three years and one month, 7,500 tonnes of stone and £5m spent, the road dubbed ‘the UK’s wonkiest’ has been fixed – but why did it take so long to repair?

In February 2022 the B4069 Lyneham Banks in Wiltshire gave way, suffering a landslip after Storm Eunice.

It was closed and slipped even more, causing huge cracks in the surface and leading to it becoming a playground for BMX riders.

About 90 metres of the road was lost. That might not sound like much, but the fix has required some serious engineering – much more than just laying some tarmac.

In fact, the tarmacking and painting only took about a week. But what went before was far more complex, not least because the road was still slowly sliding away.

Wiltshire Council said it had to wait for the land to mostly stop moving before it could do much.

It also had to get a lot of ground investigations done, something the council has said was “absolutely necessary” and means the same problem should not happen again.

The new section of road and its supports has been designed to last around 120 years and took 25,000 work hours.

Contractors Octavius did the work, which the company perhaps understatedly described as “a challenge”, starting in July 2024.

“The hillside was still creeping when we commenced work, and such ground conditions demanded some creative solutions,” said Chris Hudson, operations director of Octavius’ highways business.

Massive excavators and cranes were needed – something made trickier by being in a rural area with limited access to the site.

The repair crews also had extra issues with more wet weather and not wanting to make the slipping worse.

“We came with an initial plan – the access changed that plan several times. We adapted,” said Mr Hudson.

He explained that masses of earth had to be taken away to make the area more stable.

Then a 108m-long huge retaining wall had to be put in place.

Big concrete pillars called bored piles – 120 of them – were put into the ground.

They go down 14 metres. To put that into perspective, most UK homes would not have foundations beyond a couple of metres into the earth.

A large beam was then put on top of those and the slope above and below the road was reshaped with new drainage, using 560m of drainage channels and grates and 1,000 tonnes of stone counterforts.

Altogether for the project, 650 cubic metres of concrete was needed and 2,370 bags of grout.

There have been finishing touches too – 600 new plants now run alongside the road.

The road would usually take around 5,500 vehicles a day, but for three years these have all been diverted through smaller villages.

Locals have said they are thrilled to have it re-open and Wiltshire Council has thanked the community for its patience

Stewards are to be stationed next to a statue of Molly Malone in Dublin to discourage people from touching it.

Dublin City Council is running a pilot scheme for a week in May after complaints of people groping the sculpture’s breasts.

The council also said it has plans to re-patinate (re-cover) parts of the statue that have become discoloured by people touching it.

“Dublin City Council do not want anyone to touch any work of art whether indoors or outdoors to avoid damage and costly repairs,” a spokesperson said.

“The low plinth height and space around the statue allows crowds to congregate easily and the Molly Malone statue is a feature of tours given by tour guides.”

The council said other potential options to stop people touching the statue such as moving it or raising the plinth that it sits on are “under review”.

However, it said that these options would be “costly”, adding that placing a railing around the artwork “may increase risk”.

“A pilot week of stewarding will occur in May to begin educating those who are interacting with the statue and requesting they do not touch the statue or step on the plinth and discussing the reasons for not doing so,” the council statement said.

Tilly Cripwell, a student who has campaigned for the statue to be treated with more respect, criticised the idea of stewards as “short sighted and quite short term”.

However, she welcomed the planned restoration work as an “important advancement”.

She told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that she hoped behaviours would change “and if not [the statue should] potentially raised on a plinth”.

She also called for a plaque to be installed to explain the legacy of Molly Malone.

The Molly Malone statue was erected 37 years ago in tribute to a legendary Dublin woman who sold shellfish in the streets of the Irish capital.

It is not clear if the character is based on a real or fictional person, but the figure of Molly Malone has come to represent part of Dublin’s working class community.

She was also the subject of a traditional folk song, which tells the story of a fishmongers’ daughter who sold cockles and mussels from a wheelbarrow.

According to the colourful lyrics, Molly died of a fever but then returned as a ghost, still wheeling her wheelbarrow through the city’s streets.

Many public artworks in Dublin are popularly referred to by rhyming nicknames and for years, the Molly Malone statue was known as “the tart with the cart”.

This name was in part due to suggestions that Molly Malone worked as a fishmonger by day and as a sex worker by night.

The statue was first erected in Dublin’s Grafton Street in 1988, created by the renowned bronze sculptor, Jeanne Rynhart.

It was later moved to nearby St Andrews’ Street to accommodate the construction of a tram line.

New trade tariffs unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Wednesday are expected to have a major global impact, and have been condemned by the European Union and other key US allies.

But Trump’s latest import taxes may get a different response in China, whose leader could see them as a gift.

Here, BBC reporters in five major economies look at the nuances of how the announcements are being received where they are.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen spoke on behalf of all European Union (EU) countries when she said the new tax imports would cause “dire” consequences for millions of people around the globe.

She said there was “no clear path through the complexity and chaos” that the new tariffs would unleash worldwide.

But the Commission has promised to protect EU businesses, some of which will be more hard hit than others – like Germany’s car industry, Italy’s luxury goods and France’s wine and champagne producers.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called an emergency meeting of French business leaders later on Thursday.

As the biggest single market in the world, the EU can hurt the US – targeting goods and services, including ‘big tech’ like Apple and Meta with counter-measures.

But it says its aim is not to up the ante here – it’s to persuade Trump to negotiate.

On Wednesday night, Italian PM Georgia Meloni said that while she considered the tariffs wrong, everything would be done to try and reach an agreement with the US.

A 54% tariff hit on Chinese goods entering the US is certainly huge and will no doubt hurt Chinese companies trying to sell into that market.

Beijing’s countermeasures will also hurt US companies trying to reach the massive Chinese market.

But, in one way, these moves from Trump are also a gift to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi is portraying his country as a champion of free trade, a backer of multilateral institutions, and making comparisons with the world’s other superpower which is seen as trashing both of these.

Just last week, China’s leader was sitting down with chief executives from big international corporations – including many from Europe – and the imagery was clear. The US under Donald Trump = chaos, trade destruction, national self-interest. China under Xi Jinping = stability, free trade, global cooperation.

The Chinese government has already mobilised its state media sector to attack this latest round of tariffs from the Trump Administration.

People may quibble with the Chinese Communist Party’s reading of where the world sits, but every time Trump takes measures like these, it makes Xi’s sales pitch easier to deliver.

And economic necessity may draw many countries closer to China and further from the US.

• Are Trump’s Asia tariffs a ‘full-frontal assault’ on China?
• ‘Not the act of a friend’: Australia angry over tariffs

Folks in government here had picked up a sense of the mood music – a sense that the UK was “in the good camp rather than the bad camp” as one figure put it to me – but they had no idea in advance what that would mean exactly.

But now we do know – a 10% tariff on the UK’s exports to the US.

I detect a sense of relief among ministers, but make no mistake – they are not delighted. The tariffs imposed on the UK will have significant effects, and the tariffs on the UK’s trading partners will have a profound impact on jobs, industries and global trading flows in the weeks, months and years to come.

It will be “hugely disruptive,” as one government source put it.

There is an acute awareness in particular about the impact on the car industry.

Negotiations with the US over a trade deal continue. I am told a team of four UK negotiators are in “pretty intensive” conversation with their US counterparts – talking remotely, but willing to head to Washington if signing a deal appears imminent.

• Read more from Chris Mason: UK ministers stay up late for Trump announcements

Asian economies are among the hardest hit by Trump’s new tariffs. Americans will have to pay a 46% tax on imported goods from Vietnam, and 49% for goods from Cambodia.

Relatively speaking, India has fared better.

But a 26% across-the-board tariff rate is still steep, and will severely affect major “labour-intensive exports”, says Priyanka Kishore of the Asia Decoded consultancy.

“That will likely have a knock-on impact on domestic demand and headline gross domestic product(GDP)” at a time when growth is already stuttering, according to Kishore.

But India’s electronics exports may potentially benefit as higher tariffs on rivals such as Vietnam could leads to the re-routing of trade.

That is unlikely to mitigate the overall negative growth impact of Trump’s salvo though.

Unlike Canada, Mexico or the European Union, India has so far adopted a conciliatory approach to Trump and is negotiating a bilateral deal with the US. Whether this triggers a retaliation in Delhi, will be very closely watched.

The pharmaceutical industry – which accounts for India’s largest industrial exports at some $13bn (£9.9bn) annually – will be breathing a sigh of relief, however, as medicines are exempt from these “reciprocal” tariffs.

• Can Trump’ tariffs spark manufacturing boom in India?

Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” are targeting dozens of African countries, including 30% for South Africa and 50% for Lesotho.

Many of these nations are already grappling with the effects of US foreign aid cuts, which provided health and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable countries.

South Africa – like some of the continent’s other biggest economies including Nigeria and Kenya – has long had open trade agreements with the US, and the new tariffs could significantly affect existing economic ties.

It is included in the long list of countries dubbed the “worst offenders” that now face higher US rates – payback for unfair trade policies, Trump says.

“They have got some bad things going on in South Africa. You know, we are paying them billions of dollars, and we cut the funding because a lot of bad things are happening in South Africa,” he said, before going on to name other countries.

In a statement, the South African presidency condemned the new tariffs as “punitive”, saying they could “serve as a barrier to trade and shared prosperity”.

• Read more from Wycliffe Muia: South Africa and Nigeria among countries hit by Trump’s tariffs

• At a glance: The countries hit hardest by these plans
• UK: What this means for you and your money
• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?
• Analysis: Trump’s tariffs are his biggest gamble yet

US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping new set of tariffs on Wednesday, arguing that they would allow the United States to economically flourish.

These new import taxes, which Trump imposed via executive order, are expected to send economic shockwaves around the world.

But the US president believes they are necessary to address trading imbalances and to protect American jobs and manufacturing.

Here are the basic elements of the plan.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement

In a background call before Trump’s speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the president would impose a “baseline” tariff on all imports to the US.

That rate is set at 10% and will go into effect on 5 April.

It is the companies that bring the foreign goods into the US that have to pay the tax to the government, although this could have knock-on effects to consumers.

Some countries will only face the base rate. These include:

• United Kingdom
• Singapore
• Brazil
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Turkey
• Colombia
• Argentina
• El Salvador
• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia

White House officials also said that they would impose what they describe as specific reciprocal tariffs on roughly 60 of the “worst offenders”.

These will go into effect on 9 April.

Trump’s officials say these countries charge higher tariffs on US goods, impose “non-tariff” barriers to US trade or have otherwise acted in ways they feel undermine American economic goals.

The key trading partners subject to these customised tariff rates include:

• European Union: 20%
• China: 54% (which includes earlier tariffs)
• Vietnam: 46%
• Thailand: 36%
• Japan: 24%
• Cambodia: 49%
• South Africa: 30%
• Taiwan: 32%

The 10% baseline rate does not apply to Canada and Mexico, since they have already been targeted during Trump’s presidency.

The White House said it would deal with both countries using a framework set out in Trump’s previous executive orders, which imposed tariffs on both countries as part of the administration’s efforts to address the entry of fentanyl to the US and border issues.

Trump previously set those tariffs at 25% on all goods entering from both countries, before announcing some exemptions and delays.

In addition, the president confirmed the beginning of a new American “25% tariff on all foreign made-automobiles”.

This tariff went into effect almost immediately, at midnight local time.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement
• At a glance: The countries hit hardest by these plans
• Watch: Three things to know about Trump’s plans
• Global reaction: How five big economies see new Trump tariffs
• UK: What this means for you and your money
• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?
• Analysis: Trump’s tariffs are his biggest gamble yet

Hungary is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), its government has announced.

A senior official in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government confirmed this hours after Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in Hungary for a state visit.

Orban had invited Netanyahu as soon as the warrant was issued last November, saying the ruling would have “no effect” in his country.

In November, ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” that Netanyahu bore “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has condemned the ICC’s decision as “antisemitic”.

The ICC, a global court, has the authority to prosecute those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Hungary is a founding member of the ICC, which counts 125 member states, and will be the first European Union nation to pull out of it. A withdrawal has no impact on ongoing proceedings.

During a joint press conference, Orban asserted that the ICC had become a “political court”. He added the court’s decision to issue a warrant against the Israeli leader “clearly showed” this.

Netanyahu meanwhile hailed Hungary’s “bold and principled” decision to withdraw from the court.

“It’s important for all democracies. It’s important to stand up to this corrupt organisation,” Netanyahu said.

Earlier Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Orban on X for his “clear and strong moral stance alongside Israel”.

“The so-called International Criminal Court lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defence,” Sa’ar added.

Hungary’s decision aligns with its broader foreign policy stance under Orban, who has cultivated close ties with Israel and adopted a critical view of international institutions perceived as infringing on national sovereignty.

While Hungary’s withdrawal may carry symbolic weight and political implications, it does not significantly alter the ICC’s operational capacity or legal framework.

The court has faced similar challenges in the past and continues to function with broad international support.

But Hungary’s criticism of the ICC as “politically biased” and its decision to withdraw as Netanyahu visits may set a precedent for other nations to question or abandon their commitments to international justice based on political alliances or disagreements with specific rulings.

The US, Russia, China and North Korea are among the nations that are not part of the ICC, and therefore do not recognise its jurisdiction.

Israel is also not part of the treaty, but the ICC ruled in 2021 that it did have jurisdiction over the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, because the UN’s Secretary General had accepted that Palestinians were a member.

Hungary now needs to send written notification to the UN Secretary General to leave the treaty, with the withdrawal taking effect one year later, according to article 127 of the Rome Statute.

ICC spokesman Fad El-Abdullah told the BBC: “On the visit of Mr Netanyahu, the Court has followed its standard procedures, after the issuance of an arrest warrant. The Court recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”

Since the warrant was issued, Hungarian authorities should technically arrest Netanyahu and hand him over to the court in the Hague, although member states do not always choose to enforce ICC warrants.

In Europe, some ICC member states said they would arrest the Israeli leader if he set foot in their country, while others, such as Germany, announced that he would not be detained if he visited.

The US has condemned the ICC’s decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu’s arrest and he has visited the country since it was issued in November. His visit to Hungary marks Netanyahu’s first trip to Europe since then.

Hungarian Defence Minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, greeted Netanyahu on the tarmac of Budapest airport on Wednesday night, welcoming him to the country.

Israel is appealing against the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and strongly rejects the accusations. It both denies the authority of the ICC and the legitimacy of the warrants.

Netanyahu said at the time that it was a “dark day in the history of humanity”, and that the ICC had become “the enemy of humanity”.

“It’s an antisemitic step that has one goal – to deter me, to deter us from having our natural right to defend ourselves against enemies who try to destroy us,” he said.

In the same ruling, ICC judges also issued a warrant against Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, who Israel says is dead. Hamas also rejected the allegations.

The visit comes as Israel announced it was expanding its Gaza offensive and establishing a new military corridor to put pressure on Hamas, as deadly Israeli strikes continued across the Palestinian territory.

The war in Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed some 1,200 people and led to 251 hostages being taken to Gaza. Since then, Israeli military attacks have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say.

The lower house of India’s parliament has passed a controversial bill that seeks to change how properties worth billions of dollars donated by Indian Muslims over centuries are governed.

The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 – which brings in dozens of amendments to an existing law – was passed late on Wednesday night after a heated debate that went on for over 12 hours.

The government says the bill will introduce transparency into the management of waqf, as the properties are called.

But opposition parties and Muslim groups have called it an attempt to weaken the constitutional rights of India’s largest religious minority.

In the Lok Sabha, as the lower house is called, the bill was passed with 288 MPs voting in favour of it, and 232 against (the halfway mark is 272).

It has now been sent to the Rajya Sabha, or upper house, for discussion and passage.

If it is passed by the Rajya Sabha, it will be sent to President Droupadi Murmu for her assent before it becomes law.

The bill was first tabled in parliament in August last year but was sent to a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) after an outcry from opposition members. The version that has been passed incorporates several changes suggested by the sharply divided committee. Opposition members who were on the panel have alleged that the JPC accepted the changes suggested by the BJP and its allies while rejecting all amendments they proposed.

• Why Muslims in India are opposing changes to a property law

Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP and leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, said the opposition was united and would work to defeat “the unconstitutional and divisive agenda of the Modi government on the Waqf Amendment Bill”. But the numbers may not be in the opposition’s favour.

Muslim groups have argued that the bill “aims to weaken the waqf laws and pave the way for the seizure and destruction of waqf properties”.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi said the bill would “dilute the Constitution, defame minority communities, divide Indian society and disenfranchise minorities”.

Federal Home Minister Amit Shah defended the bill, saying that the opposition was scaring minorities by creating “an illusion that this bill would interfere in the religious activities of Muslim brothers and in their donated property”.

The waqf properties, which include mosques, madrassas, shelter homes and thousands of acres of land donated by Muslims, are managed by boards. Some of these properties are vacant while others have been encroached upon.

In Islamic tradition, a waqf is a charitable or religious donation made by Muslims for the benefit of the community. Such properties cannot be sold or used for any other purpose – which implies that waqf properties belong to God.

The government says that the waqf boards are among India’s largest landholders. There are at least 872,351 waqf properties across India, spanning more than 940,000 acres, with an estimated value of 1.2 trillion rupees ($14.22bn; £11.26bn).

A major criticism from opponents of the bill is that it grants the government undue power to regulate the management of these endowments and determine whether a property qualifies as “waqf”.

The bill also proposes the induction of two non-Muslim members on the waqf boards which oversee these properties. Critics have opposed this provision, arguing that most religious institutions run by non-Muslims do not permit followers of other faiths in their administration.

The former president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, says his US visa has been revoked.

Arias, a Nobel laureate, said he was informed of the decision weeks after he had publicly criticised Donald Trump, comparing the behaviour of the US president to that of a Roman emperor.

The 84-year-old, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in brokering an end to conflicts in Central America, said US authorities had given no explanation.

Arias hinted, however, that it may be due to his rapprochement with China during the time he was president from 2006 to 2010.

Speaking at a news conference in the Costa Rican capital, San José, Arias said he had “no idea” what the reason for the cancellation was.

He said he had received a “terse” email “of a few lines” from the US government informing him of the decision.

He added that he thought that it was not President Trump but the US State Department which had taken the decision.

While he said it would be conjecture on his part to speculate about the reason behind the visa revocation, he did point out that “I established diplomatic relations with China.

“That, of course, is known throughout the world,” he told journalists of his 2007 decision to cut ties with Taiwan and establish them with China instead.

The Trump administration has sought to oppose China’s influence in the Western hemisphere and has accused a number of Central American governments of cosying up to the Chinese government and Chinese companies.

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However, it has been supportive of the current Costa Rican President, Rodrigo Chaves, praising his decision to exclude Chinese firms from participating in the development of 5G in Costa Rica.

But this perceived closeness between President Chaves and the US was criticised by Arias, who wrote a post on social media in February saying that “it has never been easy for a small country to disagree with the US government, less so when its president behaves like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do”.

He added that “during my governments, Costa Rica never received orders from Washington as if we were a banana republic”.

Arias is not the only Costa Rican to have had his US visa revoked. Three members of the country’s national assembly who opposed President Chaves’s decree to exclude Chinese companies from participating in the development of 5G have also had theirs cancelled.

Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs have shaken global trade, but disruption often creates opportunity.

Starting 9 April, Indian goods will face tariffs of up to 27% (Trump’s tariff chart lists India’s rate as 26%, but the official order says 27% – a discrepancy seen for other nations too). Before the tariff hike, US rates across trading partners averaged 3.3%, among the lowest globally, compared to India’s 17%, according to the White House.

However, with the US imposing even higher tariffs on China (54%), Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%) and Bangladesh (37%), India “presents an opportunity” in textiles, electronics and machinery, according to the Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).

High tariffs on Chinese and Bangladeshi exports open space for Indian textile manufacturers to expand in the US market. While Taiwan leads in semiconductors, India can tap into packaging, testing and lower-end chip manufacturing – if it strengthens infrastructure and policy support. Even a partial supply chain shift from Taiwan, driven by 32% tariffs, could work in India’s favour.

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Machinery, automobiles and toys – sectors led by China and Thailand – are ripe for tariff-driven relocation. India can capitalise by attracting investment, scaling production and boosting exports to the US, according to a note by GTRI.

But will India be able to seize the moment?

High tariffs have increased costs for companies dependent on global value chains, hobbling India’s ability to compete in international markets. Despite growing exports – primarily driven by services – India runs a significant trade deficit. India’s share of global exports is a mere 1.5%. Trump has repeatedly branded India a “tariff king” and a “big abuser” of trade ties. With his new tariffs, the fear is that Indian exports will be less competitive.

“Overall, the US’s protectionist tariff regime could act as a catalyst for India to gain from global supply chain realignments,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI.

“However, to fully leverage these opportunities, India must enhance its ease of doing business, invest in logistics and infrastructure and maintain policy stability. If these conditions are met, India is well-positioned to become a key global manufacturing and export hub in the coming years.”

That’s easier said than done. Biswajit Dhar, a trade expert from the Delhi-based Council for Social Development think tank, points out that countries like Malaysia and Indonesia are possibly better positioned than India.

“We may regain some lost ground in garments now that Bangladesh faces higher tariffs, but the reality is we’ve treated garments as a sunset sector and failed to invest. Without building capacity, how can we truly benefit from these tariff shifts?” says Mr Dhar.

Since February, India has ramped up efforts to win Trump’s favour – pledging $25bn in US energy imports, courting Washington as a top defence supplier and exploring F-35 fighter deals. To ease trade tensions, it scrapped the 6% digital ad tax, cut bourbon whiskey tariffs to 100% from 150% and slashed duties on luxury cars and solar cells. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Starlink nears final approval. The two countries have launched extensive trade talks to narrow the US’s $45bn trade deficit with India.

Yet, India did not escape the tariff war.

“India should be concerned – there was hope that ongoing trade negotiations would shield it from reciprocal tariffs. Facing these tariffs now is a serious setback,” says Abhijit Das, former head of the Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

One upside: pharmaceuticals are exempt from reciprocal tariffs, a relief for India’s generic drug makers. India supplies nearly half of all generic medicines in the US, where these lower-cost alternatives account for 90% of prescriptions.

However, exports in key sectors like electronics, engineering goods – automobile parts, industrial machines – and marine products could take a hit. It would be especially troubling for electronics, given the heavy investments through India’s flagship “production-linked incentives” (PLI) schemes to boost local manufacturing.

“I’m apprehensive about our exporters’ capacity – many are small manufacturers who will struggle to absorb a 27% tariff hike, making them uncompetitive. High logistical costs, rising business expenses and deteriorating trade infrastructure only add to the challenge. We’re starting at a major disadvantage,” says Mr Dhar.

Many see these tariffs as Trump’s bargaining chip in trade negotiations with India. The latest US Trade Representative report underscores Washington’s frustration with India’s trade policies.

Released on Monday, the report flags India’s strict import rules on dairy, pork and fish, requiring non-GMO certification without scientific backing. It also criticises India’s sluggish approval process for genetically modified products and price caps on stents and implants.

Intellectual property concerns have landed India on the ‘Priority Watch List’, for which the report cites weak patent protections and a lack of trade secret laws. The report also frets about data localisation mandates and restrictive satellite policies, straining trade ties further. Washington fears India’s regulatory approach is increasingly mirroring China’s. If these barriers were removed, US exports could rise by at least $5.3bn annually, according to the White House.

“The timing couldn’t be worse – being in the middle of trade negotiations only deepens our disadvantage. This isn’t just about market access; it’s the whole package,” says Mr Dhar. Also, gaining an edge over Vietnam or China won’t happen overnight – building opportunities and competitive strength takes time.

Global stock markets fell on Thursday as investors reacted to US President Donald Trump’s sweeping announcements on tariffs.

The UK’s FTSE 100 share index fell 1.5% and other European markets were also lower, echoing falls seen earlier in Asia.

While stocks fell, the price of gold, which is seen as a safer asset in times of turbulence, touched a record high.

Traders are concerned about the global economic impact of Trump’s tariffs, which they fear could stoke inflation and stall growth.

Markets across Asia had fallen sharply after Trump’s announcement, with the Nikkei in Japan closing down nearly 3% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index 1.5% lower.

Shares in Europe followed the downward trend, with Germany’s Dax index down 2.2% and France’s Cac 40 dropping 2.5%.

The price of gold hit a record high of $3,167.57 an ounce at one point on Thursday, before falling back.

Futures markets also suggest US shares will open lower when trading begins later. The S&P 500 is indicated to fall by 3% and the Dow Jones by 2.4%.

The decision by the US government to impose a combination of a 10% baseline levy and higher duties on a number of other trading partners reverses decades of liberalisation that shaped the global trade order.

“This is the worst-case scenario,” said Jay Hatfield, chief executive at Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

“Enough to potentially send the US into a recession,” he added, echoing nervous market sentiment.

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George Saravelos, head of FX at Deutsche Bank Research, said the new US trade tariffs were a “highly mechanical” reaction to trade deficits, rather than the “sophisticated assessment” the White House had promised.

Mr Saravelos warned the move “risks lowering the policy credibility of the [Trump] administration”.

“The market may question the extent to which a sufficiently structured planning process for major economic decisions is taking place. After all, this is the biggest trade policy shift from the US in a century,” he said.

Shares in sportswear firm Adidas fell more than 10%, while stocks in rival Puma tumbled more than 9% as key countries where their goods are made were hit with steep levies.

The new taxes include a 54% tariff on US imports from China and 46% on goods from Vietnam.

Among luxury goods firms, jewellery maker Pandora fell more than 12%, and LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) fell more than 3% after tariffs were imposed on the European Union and Switzerland.

There are worries that the tariffs could affect US consumer spending which is a massive part of the global economy – between 10% and 15%, according to some economists’ estimates.

As US President Donald Trump laid out tariffs on virtually every one of America’s trading partners on Wednesday, he had strong words for Beijing.

“I have great respect for President Xi [Jinping] of China, great respect for China, but they were taking tremendous advantage of us,” Trump said during his roughly hour-long address.

Holding up a chart listing countries and territories that he said had put up trade barriers to US goods, Trump said: “If you look at that… China, first row, 67%. That’s tariffs charged to the USA, including currency manipulation and trade barriers.”

“We are going to be charging [them] a discounted reciprocal tariff of 34%,” he added. “In other words, they charge us, we charge them, we charge them less. So how can anybody be upset?”

But China’s Commerce Ministry immediately called the move “a typical act of unilateral bullying” and pledged to take “resolute countermeasures to safeguard its rights and interests”.

And state news agency Xinhua accused Trump of “turning trade into an over simplistic tit-for-tat game”.

Experts believe Beijing has good reason to be upset.

For one, the latest announcement is an add on to existing tariffs of 20% on Chinese goods.

Secondly, by imposing heavy tariffs on other South East Asian countries including Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, it has ‘slammed the door shut’ on how China rejigged its supply chains to get around the tariffs imposed on Beijing during Trump’s first term.

There were five Asian nations in the 10 countries and territories hit with the highest tariffs.

Trump has imposed new tariffs on Chinese imports since returning to the White House in January, ratcheting up levies to 20%.

In less than a week, these tariffs will jump to 54%, apart from on products like cars, steel and aluminium, which will be subjected to lower tariffs.

Beijing has also been on the receiving end of other Trump trade salvos.

Earlier on Wednesday, the President signed an executive order to end a provision for low-value parcels from China.

This had allowed Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to ship packages with a retail value of under $800 (£617) to the US, without taxes and inspections.

Close to 1.4 billion shipments entered the US under the provision in the last financial year, according to customs data.

The removal of the exemption could force some Chinese firms to pass the extra cost on to customers, making their goods less competitive in the US.

When taken together, this is a worrying picture for Beijing, said Deborah Elms from the Hinrich Foundation consultancy.

“I don’t think the new tariffs are necessarily aimed at China. But when the United States stacks tariffs on top of each other, specifically towards China, the numbers become eye-watering quite quickly.”

“China and the Chinese will have to retaliate. They are not going to be able to sit back and watch this,” she said.

Trump also imposed heavy tariffs, ranging from 46% to 49%, on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

This represents “a full-frontal assault on Beijing’s extended supply chain,” said Stephen Innes from investment firm SPI Asset Management.

“Vietnam… and others in the periphery are collateral damage in what is shaping up to be the most aggressive realignment of US trade policy in a generation,” he added. “This isn’t tit-for-tat – it’s strategic containment via tariff warfare.”

Laos and Cambodia, which are among the poorest countries in the region, are heavily dependant on Chinese investment in supply chain infrastructure. The high tariff rates are expected to hit both countries hard.

China is Vietnam’s largest trading partner. It was one of the key beneficiaries of US-China tensions during Trump’s first term.

In 2018, Trump hit China with tariffs, causing some businesses to rethink where they made their products. Some chose to shift manufacturing to Vietnam.

This has led to an increase of exports from Vietnam to the US, with Chinese companies that have moved production to there contributing to that figure.

“Vietnam was clearly targeted [by Trump] due to its role as a conduit for China’s circumvention of previous tariffs”, former US trade negotiator Stephen Olson told the BBC.

While the US remains Vietnam’s biggest export market, China is its largest supplier of goods, accounting for more than a third of imports, according to the latest official data.

Chinese firms were also behind nearly one in every three new investments in Vietnam last year.

Pushan Dutt, a professor at the INSEAD business school, said the new taxes on South East Asia will be “prohibitive” for China.

“China has a problem with demand and in the last Trump administration their firms had nimbly reacted to tariffs by rejigging supply chains and moving them to [South East Asian Nations]. This door has been slammed shut,” he added.

But Trump’s taxes on the region will also impact US companies that manufacture goods in South East Asia.

For instance, American businesses including technology giants Apple and Intel, and sportswear giant Nike have large factories in Vietnam.

A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam found that most US manufacturers there expect to lay off staff if tariffs are imposed.

There is the question of what China can do to respond to the new tariffs, given it only has days before they are due to take effect.

Mr Olson said he expects Beijing to have a “forceful” response with tariffs and other measures making it more difficult for US companies to operate in China.

With the Chinese economy already facing challenges, Beijing faces “tough choices” in the days ahead, said Professor Dutt.

“Exporting to other regions threatens de-industrialisation in these destinations – and political leaders there are unlikely to accept this. That means China has to finally unleash domestic demand and the Chinese household,” he added.

The tariffs could also push China to try and build alliances with other Asian nations who have been on the receiving end of the tariffs.

Wang Huiyao, a former China Communist Party member who works with the Center for China and Globalisation think tank, called on Asian countries to “work together to go through this difficult time and fight protectionism”.

“In the end, the US could be losing all the influence and isolate itself,” he added.

Some discussions are already underway. China, South Korea and Japan recently held its first economic talks in five years.

They agreed to speed up talks for free trade agreement – which was first proposed over a decade ago.

The new tariffs could give them added incentive to do so.

However, Beijing could face some short-term pain while talks with Washington take its course.

“Ultimately, the US and China are headed for a negotiating table where they’ll try to reach some type of a grand bargain on a wide range of issues,” Mr Olson said.

“That won’t necessarily happen soon and I expect things to get worse before they get better,” he added.

Donald Trump’s politics have shifted considerably over his decades in the public sphere. But one thing he has been consistent on, since the 1980s, is his belief that tariffs are an effective means of boosting the US economy.

Now, he’s staking his presidency on his being right.

At his Rose Garden event at the White House, surrounded by friends, conservative politicians and cabinet secretaries, Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on a broad range of countries – allies, competitors and adversaries alike.

In a speech that was equal parts celebration and self-congratulation, regularly punctuated by applause from the crowd, the president recalled his longtime support of tariffs, as well as his early criticism of free trade agreements like Nafta and the World Trade Organization.

The president acknowledged that he will face pushback in the coming days from “globalists” and “special interests”, but he urged Americans to trust his instincts.

“Never forget, every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong,” he said.

• Live updates: Reaction to Trump’s tariffs announcement
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• Explainer: What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?

Now, in a second term in which he is surrounded by like-minded advisers and is the dominant force in a Republican Party that controls both chambers of Congress, Trump is in a position to turn his vision of a new America-focused trade policy into reality. These policies, he said, had made the United States into a wealthy nation more than a century ago and would again.

“For years, hard working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense,” he said. “With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again – greater than ever before.”

It is still an enormous risk for this president to take.

Economists of all stripes warn that these massive tariffs – 53% on China, 20% on the European Union and South Korea, with a 10% baseline on all nations – will be passed along to American consumers, raising prices and threatening a global recession.

Ken Rogoff, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, predicted that the chances of the US, the world’s largest economy, falling into recession had risen to 50% on the back of this announcement.

“He just dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system,” Mr Rogoff told the BBC World Service, adding that the consequences for this level of taxes on imports into the US “is just mind-boggling”.

Trump’s move also risks escalating a trade war with other countries and alienating allies that America has otherwise tried to strengthen ties with. The US, for instance, sees Japan and South Korea as a bulwark against Chinese expansionist ambitions. But those three countries recently announced that they would work together to respond to America’s trade policies.

If Trump is successful, however, he would fundamentally reshape a global economic order that America had originally helped to construct from the ashes of World War 2. He promises that this will rebuild American manufacturing, create new sources of revenue, and make America more self-reliant and insulated from the kind of global supply chain shocks that wreaked havoc on the US during the Covid pandemic.

It’s a tall order – and one that many believe to be highly unrealistic. But for a president who seems fixated on cementing his legacy, whether through ending wars, renaming geographic locations, acquiring new territory or dismantling federal programmes and its workforce, this is the biggest, most consequential prize to be won.

It would be, he styled, America’s “liberation day”.

What appears clear, however, is that Wednesday’s announcement, if he follows through, is almost certain to mark a historic change. The question is whether it will be a legacy of achievement or one of notoriety.

Trump’s speech was triumphant – one that belied the potentially high costs his moves would impose on the American economy and on his own political standing.

But, he said, it was worth it – even if, at the very end of his remarks, a small shadow of presidential doubt may have peaked through the bravado.

“It’s going to be a day that – hopefully – you’re going to look back in years to come and you’re going to say, you know, he was right.”

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

An Indian court is due to hear a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s social media company X, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of misusing the law to censor content on its platform.

Last month, X sued the government saying a new website – Sahyog – launched by the federal home ministry last year, was being used to expand its censorship powers and take down content.

X argued the portal gave government officials wide-ranging powers to issue blocking orders that were “in violation” of India’s digital laws. It said it could not be compelled to join Sahyog, which it called a “censorship portal”.

The Indian government has said that the portal is necessary to tackle harmful online content.

Other American technology giants such as Amazon, Google and Meta have agreed to be on Sahyog.

Sahyog describes itself as a portal developed to automate the process of sending government notices to content intermediaries like X and Facebook.

The lawsuit filed in the southern state of Karnataka came after the federal railway ministry ordered X to remove “hundreds of posts”.

These included videos of a crush in Delhi in which 18 people died as they were making their way to the world’s largest religious gathering, the Kumbh Mela.

In its petition, X argues that the portal and the orders issued through it fall outside the remit of the original law that allows the government to block content.

Under this law, senior officials have the power to issue takedown orders, but after following due procedure like giving notices, opportunities for hearings and allowing for a review of any decision.

But X says the government is bypassing these procedures to issue arbitrary content takedown orders through other legal provisions that have no safeguards.

As a result, “countless” government officials, including “tens of thousands of local police officers”, are “unilaterally and arbitrarily” issuing orders, X argues in its petition.

India’s federal IT and home ministries did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

In court, the government has argued that its actions are lawful. It said it was not sending blocking orders but only issuing “notices” to platforms against unlawful content.

The government also defended the Sahyog platform saying it was a “necessity” because of the “growing volume of unlawful and harmful content online”.

The case is of “vital importance” as the blocking mechanism of the Sahyog portal has resulted in “a wholesale increase in censorship”, said Apar Gupta of the digital rights organisation, Internet Freedom Foundation.

This is not the first time the Indian government and X are at loggerheads.

The Delhi police had raided the offices of X (then Twitter) in 2021, before Musk took over, after a tweet by a ruling party spokesperson was marked as “manipulated media”.

In 2022, the company had sued the Indian government against blocking orders, at least one of which pertained to a year-long protest by farmers against new laws brought in by the government. However, the court ruled against the company and imposed a fine of 5m rupees ($58,000; £45,000).

Under Musk’s leadership, X appealed against this decision, which is currently separately being heard in the Karnataka high court.

In 2023, India called X a “habitual non-compliant platform” during the appeal proceedings.

India is also reportedly investigating X’s chatbot Grok regarding its use of inappropriate language and “controversial responses” after it made politically sensitive comments to user prompts recently.

The timing of the lawsuit is interesting as it comes when Musk’s other companies Starlink and Tesla have just begun making inroads into India with their business plans.

Earlier in March, Starlink signed an agreement with two of India’s biggest telecoms firms to bring satellite internet to India and is awaiting government approval to start providing its services.

Tesla could finally be making its debut and has begun hiring for a dozen jobs in Delhi and Mumbai. It is also reportedly hunting for showrooms in both cities.

Musk also met Prime Minister Modi when he visited the White House last month.

His growing business interests in India and closeness with US President Donald Trump give him “ample leverage” with India, Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia Institute in Washington, told the BBC.

“This means he has a lot of leeway in terms of how he operates, including making a decision to sue the Indian government,” he added, saying the case might not hurt Musk’s business prospects in the country.