The exemption of smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived, top US officials have said, with Donald Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook.”

“There was no Tariff ‘exception’, Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. “These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”

In the post on his Truth Social platform, Trump promised to launch a national security trade investigation into the semiconductor sector and the “whole electronics supply chain”.

“We will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China,” he added.

The White House had announced on Friday the exclusion of some electronic products from steep reciprocal tariffs on China. US stock markets were expected to stage a recovery after the announcement. Shares in Apple and chip maker Nvidia were on course to soar after tariffs on their products imported into the US were lifted for 90 days.

However, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Sunday that critical technology products from China would face separate new duties along with semiconductors within the next two months.

Lutnick said Trump would enact “a special focus-type of tariff” on smartphones, computers and other electronics products in a month or two, alongside sectoral tariffs targeting semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. The new duties would fall outside Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China, he said.

“He’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two,” Lutnick said in an interview on ABC, predicting that the levies would bring production of those products to the United States. “These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.”

The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving game of brinkmanship since Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports.

Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145%, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125% levy on US imports.

Trump’s back-and-forth on tariffs triggered the wildest swings on Wall Street since the Covid pandemic of 2020. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down more than 10% since Trump took office on 20 January.

After announcing sweeping import taxes on dozens of trade partners, Trump abruptly issued a 90-day pause for most of them. China was excluded from the reprieve.

The fallout from Trump’s tariffs – and subsequent whiplash policy reversals – sent shock waves through the US economy, with investors dumping government bonds, the dollar tumbling and consumer confidence plunging.

US senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, criticised the latest revision to Trump’s tariff plan, which economists have warned could dent economic growth and fuel inflation.

“There is no tariff policy – only chaos and corruption,” Warren said on ABC’s “This Week,” speaking before Trump’s latest post on social media.

Beijing’s commerce ministry had said Friday’s move to exempt some electronic products only “represents a small step” and insisted that the Trump administration should “completely cancel” the whole tariff strategy.

China has sought to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid the escalating trade war. Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Donald Trump’s tariff war has dived deeper into chaos after a cabinet official telegraphed new levies on semiconductors – a crucial component in electronic goods – just days after the Trump administration exempted computers and smartphones from reciprocal tariffs.

Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in an interview with NBC that the tariff exemption on several electronic devices was just temporary and that new duties would come in “a month or two”. Semiconductors would be targeted with new tariffs, he said.

Trump was forced to intervene, saying he would lay out the new tariffs on Monday and any relief would be short-lived. “NOBODY is getting ‘off the hook’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!”

Here are the key stories at a glance:

Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 April 2025.

Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser to Donald Trump, said he and Elon Musk are “great” after the president’s multi-billionaire business adviser publicly called him “a moron” who was “dumber than a sack of bricks”.

“I’ve been called worse,” Navarro said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press in some of his most extensive remarks about the insults Musk directed at him days earlier. Praising Musk’s role in the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), Navarro added: “Everything’s fine with Elon.”

Navarro’s evident attempt to be magnanimous came after Musk criticized Trump’s proposals for global tariffs, which the president has since set at 10% on all countries, with some nations receiving higher trade levies.

Navarro has had a central role in devising the tariffs. And social media posts from Musk on Monday targeted Navarro, saying he “truly is a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”. Musk had also previously said Navarro “ain’t built shit”.

Navarro, for his part, had called the chief of the electrical vehicle manufacturer Tesla a “car assembler” rather than a maker.

Asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday about that back-and-forth, Navarro remarked: “Elon and I are great. It’s not an issue.”

Welker asked Navarro if Musk’s criticism of the tariffs that Navarro helped develop won with Trump given that the president paused higher trade levies for most countries for 90 days on Wednesday.

Navarro would not directly answer. Instead, he alluded to his having served four months in prison beginning in March 2024 because he refused to comply with a subpoena from members of Congress who were investigating the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol that was carried out by Trump supporters after his first presidency ended in defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“Nobody should have to come into this government and have that happen or have to go to jail like I did,” said Navarro, who was released from prison in July and then appointed as the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing at the White House after Trump won his second presidency in November’s election.

Navarro had also dismissed Musk’s insults in an interview on CNN’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt.

“It’s no problem,” Navarro told CNN. “It’s like – it’s no problem.”

Musk has not commented.

Asked for her input on the feud between Musk and Navarro, the White House spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said: “Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue.”

Donald Trump – the oldest person to ever be elected US president – controls high cholesterol with medication and has elevated blood pressure but is “fully fit”, White House physician Sean Barbella said in a report released on Sunday.

The US navy captain’s report was published two days after Trump underwent a routine physical. It also said he was up to date on all recommended vaccines – despite his national health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr having spent years sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccination.

Trump himself has previously spread debunked claims about links between vaccines and autism often invoked by Kennedy.

Barbella’s report is the most detailed information on the health of Trump, 78, since he returned to the White House in January for a second presidency.

“President Trump exhibits excellent cognitive and physical health and is fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and Head of State,” Barbella wrote in his report.

The report noted that Trump’s high cholesterol is “well-controlled” with two medications addressing it.

The medicines are rosuvastatin and ezetimibe, generic names of the branded drugs Crestor and Zetia. They have improved Trump’s cholesterol over time.

Ideally, total cholesterol should be less than 200. At his physical in January 2018, his total cholesterol was 223. In early 2019, the reading came in at 196 and it stood at 167 in 2020. In Sunday’s report, it was listed as 140.

Trump’s blood pressure was 128 over 74. That is considered elevated. And people with elevated blood pressure are likely to develop high blood pressure – or hypertension – unless they take steps to control the condition.

The report also noted that Trump has scarring on his right ear, the result of a gunshot wound he suffered when a would-be assassin fired at him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last year.

A secret service sniper killed the attacker, who fatally shot one spectator while wounding two others.

Barbella’s report also references Trump’s history with Covid-19. Trump was hospitalized during a serious bout with the virus in October 2020 during a run for re-election that ended in defeat to Joe Biden.

Amid questions about his age and mental acuity, Biden then dropped out of an electoral rematch with Trump in November 2024 and endorsed his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to succeed him. Trump won the popular and electoral votes against Harris to return to the presidency.

After the exam preceding the report, Trump told journalists on Air Force One: “It went, I think, well … Every test you can imagine, I was there for a long time, the yearly physical.

“I think I did well.”

Trump also told reporters he took a cognitive test. Barbella’s report gave Trump a 30 out of 30 on what is known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.

The screening takes about 10 minutes to administer, according to information online. One version available online asks those undergoing the screening to draw a clock, repeat words, name animals and count backwards from 100 at intervals of seven, among other tasks.

Trump’s resting heart rate was 62 beats per minute, in line with previous tests. A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 beats to 100 beats per minute. And generally, a lower rate implies better cardiovascular fitness.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has urged Donald Trump to visit Ukraine to “understand what Putin did”. In a CBS interview broadcast on Sunday, Zelenskyy said: “Please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead.”

• Russia’s missile strike on Sunday on the Ukrainian city of Sumy showed the urgent need to impose a ceasefire on Russia, declared the French president, Emmanuel Macron. “Everyone knows it is Russia alone that wants this war. Today it is clear that Russia alone wants to continue with it, showing its scorn for human life, international law and diplomatic efforts made by President [Donald] Trump,” said Macron. “Strong measures are needed to impose a ceasefire on Russia. France is working tirelessly toward this goal, alongside its partners.”

• At least 34 people were killed, writes Luke Harding, and 83 others wounded by the Russian ballistic missile strikes in Sumy on Sunday morning. Two missiles landed in the crowded city centre as people went to church for Palm Sunday. One hit a trolley bus full of passengers. Two of the dead were children.

• Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, called it “a perfidious act … and it is a serious war crime, deliberate and intended”. Merz, speaking to broadcaster ARD, said: “That is the response, that is what [Vladimir] Putin does to those who talk with him of a ceasefire. Our willingness to discuss with him is interpreted not as a serious offer to make peace, but as weakness.” Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said she condemned this “new horrible and cowardly Russian attack … which goes against all real engagement in favour of peace”.

• The EU chief, Antonio Costa, said: “Russia continues its campaign of violence, showing once again that this war exists and endures only because Russia chooses so.” The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was ‘appalled at Russia’s horrific attacks on civilians in Sumy” and the Russian president “must now agree to a full and immediate ceasefire without conditions”.

• Zelenskyy called on allies to put “strong pressure” on Russia or it would continue to drag out the war. “It’s been two months since Putin ignored America’s proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said. “Unfortunately, they in Moscow are confident that they can afford to keep killing. We need to act to change the situation.”

• Dan Sabbagh analyses whether the civilian toll in Sumy could force the Trump administration to toughen its line in peace talks with Russia that have “hardly developed in two months”. Washington’s approach, under Trump, has been to try to negotiate an end to the war by talking directly with Moscow, while remaining mostly silent on Russian attacks on civilians.

• There was some condemnation from the Trump administration on Sunday. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said: “The United States extends our deepest condolences to the victims of today’s horrifying Russian missile attack on Sumy. This is a tragic reminder of why President Trump and his administration are putting so much time and effort into trying to end this war and achieve a just and durable peace. The US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg – who has played little visible part in trying to bring about a ceasefire – said: “Today’s Palm Sunday attack by Russian forces on civilian targets in Sumy crosses any line of decency.”

• Military representatives of Turkey and foreign nations will meet in Turkey on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss Black Sea security in the event of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, the Turkish defence ministry said on Sunday. It did not specify the countries attending.

Even by the warped standards of wartime, Russia’s Sunday morning attack on Sumy was astonishingly brazen. Two high-speed ballistic missiles, armed, Ukraine says, with cluster munitions, slammed into the heart of the border city in mid-morning as families went to church, waited for a theatre performance or were simply strolling about on a mild spring day.

The death toll currently stands at 34, including two children. Images from the scene show bodies or body bags on the ground, a trolley bus and cars burnt out, rubble and glass scattered around. It was reckless, cruel and vicious and its consequences entirely predictable to those who gave the order and pressed “launch”.

To contemplate a daytime city-centre attack, in the full knowledge that civilians will be present, reflects a Russian culture of impunity that has been allowed to endure without effective challenge. Nevertheless, Washington’s approach, under Donald Trump, has been to try to negotiate an end to the war by talking directly with Moscow, while remaining mostly silent on Russian attacks on civilians.

Talks between the US and Russia have continued unabated over the past two months at a time when Russian attacks on Ukraine’s cities appear to have stepped up. Nine adults and nine children were killed when a Russian ballistic missile using cluster bombs struck a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih at the end of last week.

People were burned alive in their cars and the bodies of children were found dead in the playground, yet the attack was weakly condemned by the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who, toeing the White House line, would not say the deadly missile was from Russia as she tweeted: “This is why the war must end.”

Brink has since announced she will step down and been more forthright. On Sunday, the ambassador attributed the Sumy attack to Russia and repeated that it appeared cluster bombs had been used. But now that she is on her way out, it is easier for her to speak her mind while Russia’s Vladimir Putin toys with Trump and the rest of the US administration in peace talks that have hardly developed in two months.

On Friday, the Russian leader spent four hours in talks with Steve Witkoff, a donor real estate developer who has become a key Trump adviser on Ukraine as well as the Middle East. What they talked about is unclear, but reports suggest Witkoff has been pushing the idea that the quickest way to get Russia to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine is to force Kyiv to hand over the entirety of four provinces that are only partly occupied by Russia’s military, including the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The dissonance between the killing and destruction in Sumy on Sunday and the photographed handshake between Witkoff and Putin is all too evident to most observers. It is not clear why it should even be contemplated that Ukraine hand over territory (something that even the US cannot easily force on Kyiv) when Russia is willing to countenance daytime attacks on civilians.

But Moscow believes, and acts like it believes, it can get away with it. The Kremlin will ignore condemnation from European leaders and wait for the news cycle to move on – and will almost certainly continue to attack Ukrainian cities to little military purpose. Not only are drone attacks commonplace, but there are now concerns they are routinely being armed with cluster munitions, while almost every day one or two hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles are thrown into the deadly mix.

In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that gradually Trump will realise Putin is not negotiating in good faith. Certainly, the attack on the centre of Sumy hardly suggests a strong appetite for peace. But it is unclear at what point, if any, the White House is prepared to conclude that killing of civilians means that it needs to put genuine pressure on Russia to negotiate rather than indulge the Kremlin.

Paramilitaries in Sudan have murdered more than 200 civilians in a wave of attacks in displacement camps and around the city of El Fasher, the last big city still in the hands of the Sudanese army in the Darfur region.

The deaths include at least 56 civilians killed by the Rapid Support Forces over two days of attacks in Um Kadadah, a town they seized on the road to El Fasher.

The violence is some of the worst in the Darfur region since the civil war between the army and the paramilitary forces began almost exactly two years ago.

The UN said killings were continuing at two large displacement camps, including of the entire medical staff of Relief International, which was operating the only remaining clinic inside Zamzam camp. RSF forces were said to be burning buildings throughout Zamzam on Sunday, claiming they were seeking Sudanese government fighters hiding in the camps.

The US has condemned both sides in the war, saying the RSF has committed genocide in Darfur and that the army has attacked civilians.

The conflict has essentially divided Sudan in two, with the army holding sway in the north and east while the RSF controls most of Darfur and parts of the south.

The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee described as “the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”.

The deaths at the weekend put extra pressure on the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, to deliver a decisive response on the issue of civilian protection when he convenes a ministerial conference on Sudan in London on Tuesday. The conference of 20 countries and organisations will inevitably shine a spotlight on the United Arab Emirates, past backers of the RSF, to issue an unambiguous statement of condemnation.

The attacks on Um Kadadah, about 180km (112 miles) east of El Fasher, came one day after RSF fighters said they had taken the town from army forces. The victims appeared to be targeted because of their ethnicity.

Lammy tweeted: “Shocking reports are emerging from El Fasher, Darfur, where indiscriminate RSF attacks have killed civilians, including aid workers. This gives added urgency to Tuesday’s Sudan conference in London with international partners. All sides must commit to protection of civilians.”

The UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said she was “appalled and gravely alarmed by reports emerging from Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps as well as El Fasher town in North Darfur”. The two camps protect as many as 700,000 civilians displaced by previous violence and famine.

The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab said it had observed that “arson attacks have burned multiple structures and significant areas of the Zamzam camp in the centre, south and south-east portions of the camp”.

The UN reported that the RSF had launched coordinated ground and air attacks on the camps and El Fasher from multiple directions on 11 April, triggering intense clashes and resulting in catastrophic consequences for civilians.

The UN said more than 100 people, including more than 20 children, were feared dead, including nine Relief International personnel. The Sudanese army said more than 70 people had been killed in El Fasher alone. The precise death toll was unverifiable due to deliberate internet shutdowns implemented by the RSF.

Last month the army recaptured the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, about 1,000km (600 miles) to the east.

Adam Regal, a spokesperson for the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, said Zamzam and Abou Shouk remained under artillery shelling and an assault by RSF armed vehicles on Sunday.

Relief International said of the loss of its staff: “We understand this was a targeted attack on all health infrastructure in the region to prevent access to healthcare for internally displaced people. We are horrified that one of our clinics was also part of this attack – along with other health facilities in El Fasher.”

Both the Biden and Trump administrations in the US have said the RSF has committed genocide in Darfur, and that the army has attacked civilians. The Sudanese government last week took the UAE to the international court of justice, the UN’s top court, claiming the UAE was complicit in genocide.

Kate Ferguson, a co-director of Protection Approaches, said: “It appears that the RSF is attacking Zamzam, Abu Shouk and El Fasher simultaneously for the first time, including a ground assault on Zamzam. This is a significant escalation in violence against civilians in the North Darfur region and requires immediate diplomatic response.”

She said she feared such “a coordinated military effort by the RSF would represent the beginning of the assault we have all so long feared – including further acts of genocide and crimes against humanity – and should trigger all emergency diplomatic and other responses.”

She added: “In hosting the conference on Tuesday, Lammy holds the heavy responsibility of securing a collective response to the appalling atrocities committed yesterday and this weekend. It is a tough but rare opportunity to bring international commitment to protect civilians in Sudan from strong words to resolute action.

“This means sincerely confronting those backing and enabling atrocity crimes, and establishing a serious senior coalition willing to advance at pace the political and technical solutions necessary to halt genocide, crimes against humanity, war and famine.”

Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the pivotal figures who ignited a global boom in Latin American literature, has died aged 89.

His death on Sunday was announced in a statement from his children, Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana Vargas Llosa.

Over a career that spanned more than 50 years, Vargas Llosa charted power and corruption in a series of novels including The Time of the Hero, Conversation in the Cathedral and The Feast of the Goat. Living a life that was as colourful as his fiction, Vargas Llosa also launched a failed bid for the Peruvian presidency, nursed a long-running feud with Gabriel García Márquez and triumphed as Nobel literature laureate in 2010.

Born in Arequipa in 1936, Vargas started working as a crime reporter when he was just 15. Four years later, he eloped with his 32-year-old aunt by marriage, Julia Urquidi, a departure his father called a “virile act”. A trip to Paris in 1958 was the beginning of 16 years abroad, living in Madrid, Barcelona and London as well as the French capital. But while working as a journalist, broadcaster and teacher, Vargas Llosa began to return to his homeland in fiction.

In 1963 his first novel, The Time of the Hero, was published in Spain. But this story of a murder at the Leoncio Prado military academy – where Vargas Llosa spent two years as a teenager – and the subsequent cover-up was deemed so shocking in Peru that it is said that 1,000 copies were burned on the school’s parade ground.

Vargas Llosa found himself at the centre of a boom in Latin American literature alongside writers such as Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes and Márquez. His 1971 study, Garcia Márquez: Story of a Deicide, brought the literature of the new world into conversation with the old, but his friendship with the novelist didn’t last. When Márquez greeted Vargas Llosa outside a Mexico City cinema in 1976, he received a punch to the face in reply. Speaking at an event in Madrid, three years after Márquez died in 2014, Vargas Llosa said he was sad to hear of his former friend’s death but refused to elaborate on the reasons for the feud. “We’re moving toward dangerous ground,” he said. “The time has come to put an end to this conversation.”

Plays, short stories and novels including Conversation in the Cathedral, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and The War of the End of the World confirmed his literary reputation. But as his profile grew, Vargas Llosa became increasingly involved in politics. Moving away from the Marxism of his youth, he hosted a chatshow on Peruvian television and, in 1984, turned down an offer from the conservative president Fernando Belaúnde Terry to become his prime minister.

In 1987 Vargas Llosa drew a crowd of 120,000 to a rally in Lima protesting plans to nationalise the Peruvian financial system, and launched a presidential campaign. Three years later, after many abusive phone calls and death threats, he was defeated in the second round by Alberto Fujimori and left the country within hours.

“I didn’t lie,” he told the Guardian in 2002. “I said we needed radical reforms and social sacrifices, and in the beginning it worked. But then came the dirty war, presenting my reforms as something that would destroy jobs. It was very effective, especially with the poorest of society. In Latin America we prefer promises to reality.”

Vargas Llosa took up Spanish citizenship in 1993, as the stream of plays, essays and novels continued. The Feast of the Goat, published in 2000, entered the mind of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo to chilling effect. His 2006 novel The Bad Girl follows an on-off affair that spans more than 40 years.

When the Swedish Academy called in 2010, Vargas Llosa at first thought it was a joke. The Nobel prize was “a fairytale for a week” he told the Guardian in 2012, but “a nightmare for a year”, the public attention leaving him barely able to write: “You can’t imagine the pressure to give interviews, to go to book fairs.”

The laureate used his new global platform to speak out against manipulation in the Peruvian media, propaganda from the Russian Federation and Donald Trump. However, in May 2022 he said that he would be backing Brazil’s far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro over Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s general election. Though the former president’s “clowning around” is “very difficult for a liberal to accept”, he explained that “between Bolsonaro and Lula, I of course prefer Bolsonaro. Even with Bolsonaro’s foolishness, he’s not Lula.”

“I learned from my political experiences that I am a writer, not a politician,” Vargas Llosa explained to the Guardian in 2012. “Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more literary than political.”

From 1976 until 1979, Vargas Llosa served as president of PEN International, the worldwide writers’ freedom of expression group. Due to his objection to the Catalan independence movement, he resigned as emeritus president in 2019 after the organisation called for the release of two jailed Catalan civil society leaders and claimed Catalans had been persecuted “in a way not seen since the Franco dictatorship”.

Despite the author’s international profile, he carried on making space for fiction, with four novels appearing after the Nobel prize. In 2023, he announced his newest novel Le dedico mi silencio (I Give You My Silence) would be his last, telling La Vanguardia, “Although I’m an optimist, I don’t think I’ll live long enough to work on a new novel, especially because it takes me three or four years to write one. But I’ll never stop working and I hope that I’ll have the strength to carry on until the end.”

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia where he will seek to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid an escalating trade war.

Xi will visit Vietnam from Monday before travelling to Malaysia and Cambodia, a high-profile tour that Chinese officials have described as being of “major importance”.

China will probably use the visit to emphasise that it is a stable partner, contrasting itself with Washington which imposed, then suspended, punishing tariffs across south-east Asia, an export-reliant region, in an announcement that sent shock waves through global markets.

Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, and Cambodia, where the garments and footwear sector is crucial to the economy, were among the worst hit by US tariffs, set at 46% and 49% respectively.

It is expected that China will sign dozens of deals with Vietnam on Monday including possible investment and cooperation arrangements to develop its railway network.

On Sunday, China called on the US to “completely cancel” its 145% tariffs for Chinese imports to the US, except in relation to consumer electronics and key chipmaking equipment.

“We urge the US to … take a big step to correct its mistakes, completely cancel the wrong practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and return to the right path of mutual respect,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement. Retaliatory Chinese-imposed tariffs of 125% on US goods took effect on Saturday.

Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator, who is now a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, said that during Xi’s tour of neighbouring countries, China would probably “try to position itself as the responsible leader of the rules-based trade system while painting the US as a rogue nation intent on taking a sledgehammer to trade relationships”.

It was unclear if meaningful, concrete agreements would emerge from the meetings, but they would be symbolically important, Olson added.

For officials in Hanoi, the visit will form part of a delicate balancing act between China and the US, both of which are important economic partners.

The US is a crucial export market for south-east Asia and a security partner that serves as a counterbalance to China’s assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea. However, trade in the region is closely intertwined with China, with countries from the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, counting as the biggest recipient of Chinese exports last year, according to China’s customs data.

There are concerns in the region that the 145% tariff imposed on China by the US could lead to a flood of cheap Chinese goods to nearby countries, undermining local industry.

Vietnam and many others in the region have traditionally sought to avoid taking sides between the US and China and will want to avoid antagonising either party, especially as it tries to persuade Washington to lower its 46% tariff.

Vietnam, where US exports account for 30% of GDP, had already made several concessions in the run-up to the tariff announcement, and was shocked by the severity of the tariff announced this month.

It has since sent the deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, to Washington, offered to remove all tariffs on US imports and promised to buy more US goods, including defence and security products.

Vietnam is also preparing to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped from its territory to the US and tighten controls on sensitive exports to China, according to a Reuters report. This includes stricter rules relating to the export of dual-use goods such as semiconductors, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, it was reported.

Vietnam was considered by many to be a winner in the trade war that occurred under the last Trump administration, as many companies moved there from China to skirt tariffs imposed by the US. However, this caused Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US to surpass $123bn (£94bn), leaving it especially vulnerable in the latest tariff announcement.

Vietnam, a communist one-party state, has set an ambitious target of becoming a high-income nation by 2045 – a goal driven by its exports, which would be derailed by the 46% tariff.

Cambodia and Malaysia are also seeking to negotiate with Trump. The US tariffs could devastate Cambodia’s garment industry, which employs 750,000 workers. Cambodia is especially exposed as exports to the US account for 25% of the country’s GDP.

Xi last visited Vietnam in December but he has not travelled to Cambodia and Malaysia in nine and 12 years respectively. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said the visit to Malaysia would mark “an important milestone” for the two countries, while describing Cambodia as an “iron-clad friend”.

The Malaysian communications minister, Fahmi Fadzil, said Xi’s visit was “part of the government’s efforts … to see better trade relations with various countries including China”.

Cambodia is one of China’s strongest allies in the region and it recently announced the completion of a China-backed project to upgrade a major naval base.

The country’s prime minister, Hun Manet, who took the reins from his dictator father Hun Sen in 2023, said at the recent inauguration of a Chinese-funded road that “Cambodian-Chinese ties have not changed”.

Xi’s visits form part of a wider charm offensive pursued by China in the wake of the trade war. Xi also vowed to deepen China’s strategic partnership with Indonesia in a call with that country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, on Sunday, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

On Friday, Xi told the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, during a meeting in Beijing that China and the EU should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying”, Xinhua reported.

China’s premier, Li Qiang, spoke by phone with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last week for talks that emphasised the responsibility of both parties to support a “strong reformed trading system, free, fair and founded on a level playing field”.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will visit Vietnam on Monday as he begins a tour of south-east Asia where he will seek to strengthen ties with neighbouring countries amid an escalating trade war.

Xi will visit Vietnam from Monday before travelling to Malaysia and Cambodia, a high-profile tour that Chinese officials have described as being of “major importance”.

China will probably use the visit to emphasise that it is a stable partner, contrasting itself with Washington which imposed, then suspended, punishing tariffs across south-east Asia, an export-reliant region, in an announcement that sent shock waves through global markets.

Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse, and Cambodia, where the garments and footwear sector is crucial to the economy, were among the worst hit by US tariffs, set at 46% and 49% respectively.

It is expected that China will sign dozens of deals with Vietnam on Monday including possible investment and cooperation arrangements to develop its railway network.

On Sunday, China called on the US to “completely cancel” its 145% tariffs for Chinese imports to the US, except in relation to consumer electronics and key chipmaking equipment.

“We urge the US to … take a big step to correct its mistakes, completely cancel the wrong practice of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and return to the right path of mutual respect,” a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement. Retaliatory Chinese-imposed tariffs of 125% on US goods took effect on Saturday.

Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator, who is now a visiting senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, said that during Xi’s tour of neighbouring countries, China would probably “try to position itself as the responsible leader of the rules-based trade system while painting the US as a rogue nation intent on taking a sledgehammer to trade relationships”.

It was unclear if meaningful, concrete agreements would emerge from the meetings, but they would be symbolically important, Olson added.

For officials in Hanoi, the visit will form part of a delicate balancing act between China and the US, both of which are important economic partners.

The US is a crucial export market for south-east Asia and a security partner that serves as a counterbalance to China’s assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea. However, trade in the region is closely intertwined with China, with countries from the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, counting as the biggest recipient of Chinese exports last year, according to China’s customs data.

There are concerns in the region that the 145% tariff imposed on China by the US could lead to a flood of cheap Chinese goods to nearby countries, undermining local industry.

Vietnam and many others in the region have traditionally sought to avoid taking sides between the US and China and will want to avoid antagonising either party, especially as it tries to persuade Washington to lower its 46% tariff.

Vietnam, where US exports account for 30% of GDP, had already made several concessions in the run-up to the tariff announcement, and was shocked by the severity of the tariff announced this month.

It has since sent the deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, to Washington, offered to remove all tariffs on US imports and promised to buy more US goods, including defence and security products.

Vietnam is also preparing to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped from its territory to the US and tighten controls on sensitive exports to China, according to a Reuters report. This includes stricter rules relating to the export of dual-use goods such as semiconductors, which can be used for both civilian and military purposes, it was reported.

Vietnam was considered by many to be a winner in the trade war that occurred under the last Trump administration, as many companies moved there from China to skirt tariffs imposed by the US. However, this caused Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US to surpass $123bn (£94bn), leaving it especially vulnerable in the latest tariff announcement.

Vietnam, a communist one-party state, has set an ambitious target of becoming a high-income nation by 2045 – a goal driven by its exports, which would be derailed by the 46% tariff.

Cambodia and Malaysia are also seeking to negotiate with Trump. The US tariffs could devastate Cambodia’s garment industry, which employs 750,000 workers. Cambodia is especially exposed as exports to the US account for 25% of the country’s GDP.

Xi last visited Vietnam in December but he has not travelled to Cambodia and Malaysia in nine and 12 years respectively. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said the visit to Malaysia would mark “an important milestone” for the two countries, while describing Cambodia as an “iron-clad friend”.

The Malaysian communications minister, Fahmi Fadzil, said Xi’s visit was “part of the government’s efforts … to see better trade relations with various countries including China”.

Cambodia is one of China’s strongest allies in the region and it recently announced the completion of a China-backed project to upgrade a major naval base.

The country’s prime minister, Hun Manet, who took the reins from his dictator father Hun Sen in 2023, said at the recent inauguration of a Chinese-funded road that “Cambodian-Chinese ties have not changed”.

Xi’s visits form part of a wider charm offensive pursued by China in the wake of the trade war. Xi also vowed to deepen China’s strategic partnership with Indonesia in a call with that country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, on Sunday, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

On Friday, Xi told the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, during a meeting in Beijing that China and the EU should “jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying”, Xinhua reported.

China’s premier, Li Qiang, spoke by phone with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last week for talks that emphasised the responsibility of both parties to support a “strong reformed trading system, free, fair and founded on a level playing field”.

A Palestinian paramedic who has been missing since a massacre of medics and rescue workers by Israeli troops in Gaza last month is being detained in Israel, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The whereabouts of Assad al-Nsasrah, a Palestinian paramedic, had been unknown for weeks since an incident on 23 March when workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) and Palestinian civil defence came under fire as they drove ambulances to rescue injured colleagues in the southern city of Rafah.

Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed in the attack by Israeli troops. The UN has said they were deliberately shot “one by one” and the bodies, along with the rescue vehicles, were then buried with a bulldozer in a sandy pit, in what appears to have been an attempt to cover up the killings. Witnesses who uncovered the bodies said the workers were found still in their uniforms and some had their hands tied.

The Red Crescent called the attack on its workers a “grave violation of international law” and has called for an international investigation.

Nsasrah, 47, from Gaza, who had been working for Red Crescent for 16 years, was among the medics in the ambulances caught up in the ambush, and he had not been seen since. In an interview with the Guardian, another survivor, the Red Crescent volunteer Munther Abed, 27, said he had seen Nsasrah being taken away alive and blindfolded by Israeli officers at the scene of the killings.

On Sunday, the ICRC said it had “received information that the PRCS medic Assad al-Nsasrah has been detained in an Israeli place of detention”. The ICRC spokesperson gave no further details on where Nsasrah was being held and confirmed that Israel had not granted access to visit him.

“The ICRC has not been able to visit any Palestinian detainees held in Israeli places of detention since 7 October 2023,” said the spokesperson. “The ICRC continues to call for access to all places of detention and reiterates publicly and privately that all detainees must always be treated humanely and with dignity.”

In a statement, PRCS called on the international community to demand the release of Nsasrah, a father of six, stating that he had been “forcibly abducted while carrying out his humanitarian duties”.

There was no immediate comment from the Israel military.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have faced mounting pressure over inconsistencies in their account of the attack. They had initially claimed troops opened fire on vehicles that were “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals.

However, the IDF had to backtrack after mobile phone footage, from a medic who was among those killed at the scene, showed the ambulances – clearly marked with the Red Crescent logo – driving with flashing red emergency lights and headlights on their vehicles.

Abed, the medic who survived the attack, described how he was held for several hours by Israeli forces after the ambulances came under fire. He said he was fully stripped, beaten again and interrogated about his past before he was finally released.

The IDF said they were now re-examining “operational information” to understand why the initial account had been “mistaken”, and that an investigation was being carried out.

They added that a preliminary inquiry had indicated “troops opened fire due to a perceived threat after a previous encounter in the area, and that six of the individuals killed in the incident were identified as Hamas terrorists”. However, none of those killed in the attack were armed and no proof has yet been presented that any of those killed were Hamas militants.

Rory McIlroy, Masters champion. Four words that belie what this remarkable Northern Irishman achieved on a spine-tingling afternoon at Augusta National. They ignore, too, the torturous process McIlroy endured to realise this lifetime goal.

Did he win the 89th Masters the hard way? Too right he did. From a seemingly untouchable position, McIlroy was dragged back into a scrap he was so desperate to avoid. He emerged from it on the first extra hole, where the unlikely adversary of Justin Rose was nudged aside. Rory McIlroy, Masters champion.

No wonder the scenes were so moving as McIlroy battered down the Masters door. McIlroy reduced so many others to tears, let alone himself. Finally, they were of unbridled joy. It almost felt the heartache had been worth it. What a ride. What a gobsmacking, exhausting ride. From 5ft on the last hole of regulation play, McIlroy passed up a chance to claim the Masters. Soon, he would be hugging his lifetime friend and caddie Harry Diamond in a scene of euphoria. This was a success built on sheer guts. Rory, you are immortal now.

“I started to wonder if it would ever be my time,” McIlroy admitted in the Butler Cabin. He was not the only one.

McIlroy joins Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus as winners of golf’s career grand slam. He also has Tiger Woods, his childhood idol, for company in that special group. We have known about McIlroy’s genius since he flicked golf balls into a washing machine on national television in 1999. He had long since been holing putts outside the family home on the outskirts of Belfast with the dream of winning the Masters. Little did anybody know that his career would be so storied, so dramatic, such compulsive viewing.

McIlroy did not exactly sprint into the pantheon of legends. Augusta National tugged upon every dark corner of his psyche, from a point where McIlroy looked like he would enjoy a procession. Rose and Ludvig Åberg had late hope. Rose’s rampaging 66 meant second at 11 under. McIlroy’s 73 tied that. Patrick Reed took third.

More than a decade had passed since McIlroy won the last of his quartet of majors. Near misses had come and gone, none as painful as at last year’s US Open. It felt appropriate that McIlroy had Bryson DeChambeau, the man who pipped him at Pinehurst, for company here. DeChambeau capsized. He spent Saturday evening watching James Bond movies and Sunday afternoon starring in one: Bogeys Galore.

There were moments that implied the golfing gods were on McIlroy’s side. He played a dangerous, low second shot to the 11th which clung on for dear life at the top of a bank leading to a water hazard. Moments later, DeChambeau found the same pond. There were also examples of McIlroy’s jaw-dropping talent, such as the second shot to the 7th, which danced through trees. Those who criticise McIlroy’s propensity to live dangerously should remember the theatre when his audacity pays off.

McIlroy’s nerves were jangling to the extent he made a terrible mess of the 1st, his double bogey cancelling out a two-stroke lead. DeChambeau licked his lips. A DeChambeau birdie to McIlroy’s par at the 2nd and the Californian was ahead.

McIlroy jabbed back with a birdie at the 3rd as DeChambeau three-putted. DeChambeau did the same at the next with McIlroy’s birdie earning him a three-stroke lead. It remained that way until the 9th, where McIlroy collected another shot and DeChambeau wasted an opportunity. McIlroy smiled when reaching dry land at the 12th, his playing partner now six back. The danger lay elsewhere; Rose and Åberg.

Yet with six holes to play the only person who could beat McIlroy was McIlroy himself. Case in point; the 13th, where McIlroy laid up before astonishingly chipping into Rae’s Creek. Cue McIlroy’s fourth – yes, fourth – double bogey of the week. Åberg made a four at the 15th for 10 under. Rose had birdied the same hole. McIlroy’s five-shot lead after 10 evaporated into a three-way tie as his par putt on the 14th somehow remained above ground. How would he recover from tossing this away? How would he ever recover?

McIlroy’s iron into the 15th, bent around pine trees from 209 yards, is among the finest of his life. A birdie ensued. Rose matched 11 under at the 16th. Although he later made a triple bogey at the last, Åberg’s race ended on the penultimate hole. Up ahead, Rose converted for a closing birdie – he had made a bogey on the 17th – to again tie McIlroy. A downhill birdie putt on the 16th gave McIlroy fresh hope but it missed to the right.

One birdie from the last two was needed to avoid a playoff. There, Rose would not be lacking in incentive; he lost in extra holes to Sergio García in 2017. McIlroy delivered that three on the 17th but wobbled on the last after finding a greenside bunker from the fairway. Tension, wild tension. Back to the 18th tee they went.

Lost in this melee will be that McIlroy’s approach in the playoff hole was a thing of utter beauty. This time, it was a putt he could not possibly miss. Rose is due huge credit for his contribution to this major.

When dust eventually settles, we will be left to ponder what on earth else McIlroy might fixate on for the remainder of his career. He has reached the promised land in only his 36th year. Rory McIlroy, Masters champion.

Pete Marocco, the Trump administration official who played a major role in dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has left the state department, a US official said on Sunday.

Donald Trump’s administration has moved to fire nearly all USAID staff, as billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” has slashed funding and dismissed contractors across the federal bureaucracy in what it calls an attack on wasteful spending.

“Pete was brought to state with a big mission – to conduct an exhaustive review of every dollar spent on foreign assistance. He conducted that historic task and exposed egregious abuses of taxpayer dollars,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“We all expect big things are in store for Pete on his next mission,” the official added.

Sources told Reuters that Marocco, who was the director of foreign assistance at the state department, may have been pushed out but they declined to give further explanation.

As recently as Thursday, he held a “listening session” at the state department with nearly two dozen experts to discuss the future of foreign assistance and seek input, according to a source familiar with the event and an invitation to the session seen by Reuters.

When he returned to the state department less than a month ago, he said in an internal email: “I am going to return to my post as the Director of Foreign Assistance to bring value back to the American people.”

Trump has claimed without evidence that USAID was rife with fraud and run by “radical left lunatics”, while Musk falsely accused it of being a “criminal” organization.

Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to reinstate at least six recently canceled US foreign aid programs for emergency food assistance.

The quick reversal of decisions made just days ago underscored the rapid-fire nature of Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. That has led to programs being cut, restored then cut again, disrupting international humanitarian operations.

When Gemma Lucy Smart received an invitation to attend an academic conference in the US, she was excited. But that was before Donald Trump was returned to office.

Now Smart, who has a disability and is queer, has decided it’s too risky to travel to Seattle for the social sciences conference in September.

The disabilities officer at the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations and a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney will instead attend remotely.

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, the Society for Social Studies of Science made its conference “hybrid” in response to what it said were “unpredictable” developments at the US border.

“They were concerned about people entering,” Smart said.

“I work on the history of psychiatry, so my field has a lot to do with diversity, equity and inclusion. They [the conference organisers] very explicitly said, ‘We don’t believe it is safe for everyone to travel to the US, particularly our trans and diverse colleagues.’

“The focus on that is really troubling. That, if you legitimately have a different passport than you were given at a young age, you could be detained.”

The conference’s co-chairs announced the hybrid move on 21 January – a day after Trump began his second term. They said the decision reflected “conversations with disability justice and environmental justice scholars and activists”.

“It also comes on the heels of political shifts that have made travel to the US more tenuous for many STS [science, technology and medicine] contributors,” they added.

Australian academics are not only cancelling trips to the US for key conferences. Scholarships are being rescinded and grant funding pulled as the fallout from the Trump administration’s interference continues.

It follows media reports of travellers having their devices searched at the US border and being denied entry, including a French scientist who had messages on his phone critical of Donald Trump.

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Before this Trump administration, US visa applicants were required to declare if they had a disability. But Smart said she began to hear accounts of people being stopped and “detained or denied” on the basis of their condition.

“They are doing things like checking if your medication matches your declared disability,” she said. “If it doesn’t, they can deny you entry.

“As an openly disabled person, I would be very hesitant to be entering right now. If the conference hadn’t switched online, I wouldn’t have taken the risk.”

In a statement uploaded to its website in late January, the Society for Social Studies of Science said it was aware that US border control was “unpredictable”.

“We … will be watching events closely in the coming months to make sure that we are supporting international attendees to the greatest possible extent,” organisers said. “Attendees are also encouraged to consult their own countries’ travel advice.”

Australia’s National Tertiary Education Union said it had received multiple reports from members that US policy shifts have caused academics to cancel travel, while others have had planned research partnerships terminated with little explanation.

The union’s national president, Dr Alison Barnes, said members had expressed “deeply concerning impacts on their work and careers”.

“Academics are cancelling travel to the US, abandoning valuable research partnerships, and dealing with suddenly terminated grants and contracts,” she said.

“One researcher had their five-year USAID-funded conservation program terminated literally within days of the policy changes … another had a 10-year collaboration with the CDC abruptly ended when their US counterpart was sacked by email.

“Many academics tell us they’re avoiding US travel entirely due to genuine fears about border detention and visa issues.”

Barnes said many LGBTQ+ researchers, in particular, no longer felt safe travelling to the US for conferences, “directly impacting their career progression”.

“We’re seeing grant applications go unanswered, contracts for 2025 jeopardised, and researchers facing significant career uncertainty,” she said.

“When our academics fear travelling to major conferences or partnering with US institutions, the impacts ripple through the entire global knowledge ecosystem.

“These changes threaten to isolate US research from vital international exchange at precisely the time when global collaboration is most needed.”

Smart has a colleague who was shortlisted for a scholarship at an Ivy League university. The academic, who is openly trans, works on gender issues in her research.

“They have been told that the number of scholarships is dwindling, if there are any at all, and that it wouldn’t be safe to enter the country,” Smart said. Her colleague declined to comment further but confirmed they had been warned by the university that travel would be risky.

A PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne and the national president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, Jesse Gardner-Russell, said academic conferences were crucial for developing connections and partnerships with international collaboration, particularly for early-and mid-career researchers.

“In Stem, the majority of the large research labs with the top equipment will generally be found in the United States,” he said.

“If there are cuts to NIH [National Institutes of Health] funding and how those grants are rolled out, there will be large implications on our researchers even if they don’t directly receive that money, because it’s impacting their collaborators.”

Last year Gardner-Russell went to the US for an international research conference in his field of ophthalmology.

“I would never have learned of these individuals or their research if I hadn’t had the opportunity to go there and be ingrained in that unique research culture,” he said.

“Losing students that might have to make a judgment call as to whether they can attend a conference based on the possibility of getting detained at the US is really troubling.”

He said there were also concerns about intellectual property, citing reports of phones and devices being taken and examined at the border.

Separately, on Friday, the host of the cybersecurity podcast Risky Business, Patrick Gray, posted to Bluesky that he had cancelled a planned trip from Australia to the IT security conference RSA due to take place in San Francisco in April.

“Unfortunately, I have received advice that crossing the border into the United States right now would be a bad idea,” he wrote.

According to Smartraveller, which provides advice on behalf of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, customs and border protection have strict requirements and “broad powers” for temporary detainment or deportation when assessing eligibility.

“Officials may ask to inspect your electronic devices, emails, text messages or social media accounts,” it says. “If you refuse, they can deny your entry.

“You may be held at the port of entry or a nearby detention facility. The Australian government cannot intervene on your behalf, and our ability to provide consular assistance in these circumstances may be limited.”

Jean Marsh, the actor and writer best known for co-creating and starring in the 1970s TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90.

The film-maker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who was a close friend of Marsh, said she died of complications with dementia in her London home on Sunday.

“Jean died peacefully in bed looked after by one of her very loving carers,” he said. “You could say we were very close for 60 years. She was as wise and funny as anyone I ever met, as well as being very pretty and kind, and talented as both an actress and writer.

“An instinctively empathetic person who was loved by everyone who met her. We spoke on the phone almost every day for the past 40 years.”

Upstairs, Downstairs, covering class relations in Edwardian England, ran for five series from 1971 to 1975 in the UK and was also screened in the US. It won seven Emmy awards and a Peabody award, and Marsh won the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series in 1975 for her portrayal of Rose, the head parlour maid of the elegant Bellamy family that the show centred on.

Marsh also co-created The House of Eliott and appeared in films such as Cleopatra in 1963, Frenzy in 1972, The Eagle Has Landed in 1976, The Changeling in 1980, Return to Oz in 1985, Willow in 1988, Fatherland in 1994 and Monarch in 2000.

She became known for her appearances in the Doctor Who universe, including Joan of England in The Crusade, then as Sara Kingdom, a companion of the First Doctor. She later portrayed a villain opposite the Seventh Doctor.

Marsh was awarded an OBE in 2012 for services to drama.

The actor was born as Lyndsay Torren Marsh on 1 July 1934. She was six when the blitz began, and at seven she started ballet classes and took an interest in the performing arts. Rather than pursuing a traditional career, Marsh went to theatre school – which her parents considered a practical move, according to the New York Times.

In 1972, she told the Guardian: “If you were very working class in those days, you weren’t going to think of a career in science. You either did a tap dance or you worked in Woolworths.”

Marsh came up with the idea for Upstairs, Downstairs with her friend the actor Eileen Atkins when the pair were house-sitting at a wealthy friend’s house in the south of France. After explaining that she wished she lived in luxury more often, Marsh got the idea to create a show that explored class relationships within household dynamics.