Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, after 12 years as spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

His death has set in motion the centuries-old process of electing a new Pope.

The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church. Roman Catholics believe he represents a direct line back to Jesus Christ. He is considered a living successor to St Peter, who was chief among Christ’s initial disciples, the Apostles.

That gives him full and unhindered power over the entire Catholic Church and makes him an important source of authority for the world’s roughly 1.4 billion Catholics.

While many Catholics often consult the Bible for guidance, they can also turn to the teachings of the Pope, which govern the Church’s beliefs and practices.

About half of all Christians worldwide are Roman Catholics. Other denominations, including Protestants and Orthodox Christians, do not recognise the Pope’s authority.

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The Pope lives in Vatican City, the smallest independent state in the world. It is surrounded by the Italian capital, Rome.

The Pope does not receive a salary, but all his travel costs and living expenses are paid for by the Vatican.

A papal funeral has traditionally been an elaborate affair, but Pope Francis recently approved plans to make the whole procedure less complex.

Previous pontiffs were buried in three nested coffins made of cypress, lead and oak. Pope Francis has opted for a simple wooden coffin lined with zinc.

He has also scrapped the tradition of placing the Pope’s body on a raised platform – known as a catafalque – in St Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.

Instead, mourners will be invited to pay their respects while his body remains inside the coffin, with the lid removed.

Francis will also be the first Pope in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican.

He will be laid to rest in the Basilica of St Mary Major, one of four major papal basilicas in Rome.

A basilica is a church which has been granted special significance and privileges by the Vatican. The major basilicas have a particular connection to the Pope.

The new Pope has to be chosen by the Catholic Church’s most senior officials, known as the College of Cardinals.

All men, they are appointed directly by the Pope, and are usually ordained bishops.

There are currently 252 Catholic cardinals, 138 of whom are eligible to vote for the new Pope.

The others are over the age of 80, which means they cannot take part in the election, although they can join in the debate over who should be selected.

When the Pope dies (or resigns, as in the rare case of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013), the cardinals are summoned to a meeting at the Vatican, followed by the conclave, as the election is known.

During the time between the Pope’s death and the election of his successor, the College of Cardinals governs the Church.

The election is held in strict secrecy inside the Sistine Chapel, famously painted by Michelangelo.

Individual cardinals vote for their preferred candidate until a winner is determined, a process which can take several days. In previous centuries, voting has gone on for weeks or months. Some cardinals have even died during conclaves.

The only clue about how the election is proceeding is the smoke that emerges twice a day from burning the cardinals’ ballot papers. Black signals failure. The traditional white smoke means the new Pope has been chosen.

After the white smoke goes up, the new Pope normally appears within an hour on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square.

The senior cardinal participating in the conclave will announce the decision with the words “Habemus Papam” – Latin for “we have a Pope”.

He will then introduce the new Pope by his chosen papal name, which may or may not be his original given name.

For example, Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but he chose a different name for his papacy in honour of St Francis of Assisi.

In theory, any Roman Catholic man who has been baptised can be considered for election to become Pope.

In practice, however, the cardinals prefer to select one of their own.

When the Argentine-born Pope Francis was chosen at the previous conclave in 2013, he became the first pontiff ever to hail from South America, a region that accounts for roughly 28% of the world’s Catholics.

But historical precedent suggests the cardinals are far more likely to pick a European – and especially an Italian.

Of the 266 popes chosen to date, 217 have been from Italy.

His ascension to the papacy heralded many firsts.

Francis was the first Pope from the Americas or the Southern Hemisphere. Not since Syrian-born Gregory III died in 741 had there been a non-European Bishop of Rome.

He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of St Peter – Jesuits were historically looked on with suspicion by Rome.

His predecessor, Benedict XVI, was the first Pope to retire voluntarily in almost 600 years and for almost a decade the Vatican Gardens hosted two popes.

Many Catholics had assumed the new pontiff would be a younger man – but Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina was already in his seventies when he became Pope in 2013.

He had presented himself as a compromise candidate: appealing to conservatives with orthodox views on sexual matters while attracting the reformers with his liberal stance on social justice.

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It was hoped his unorthodox background would help rejuvenate the Vatican and reinvigorate its holy mission.

But within the Vatican bureaucracy some of Francis’s attempts at reform met with resistance and his predecessor, who died in 2022, remained popular among traditionalists.

From the moment of his election, Francis indicated he would do things differently. He received his cardinals informally and standing – rather than seated on the papal throne.

On 13 March 2013, Pope Francis emerged on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square.

Clad simply in white, he bore a new name which paid homage to St Francis of Assisi, the 13th Century preacher and animal lover.

He was determined to favour humility over pomp and grandeur. He shunned the papal limousine and insisted on sharing the bus taking other cardinals home.

The new Pope set a moral mission for the 1.2 billion-strong flock. “Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor,” he remarked.

His last act as head of the Catholic Church was to appear on Easter Sunday on the balcony of St Peter’s Square, waving at thousands of worshippers after weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 17 December 1936 – the eldest of five children. His parents had fled their native Italy to escape the evils of fascism.

He enjoyed tango dancing and became a supporter of his local football club, San Lorenzo.

He was lucky to escape with his life after an initial and serious bout of pneumonia, undergoing an operation to remove part of a lung. It would leave him susceptible to infection throughout his life.

As an elderly man he also suffered from pain in his right knee, which he described as a “physical humiliation”.

The young Bergoglio worked as a nightclub bouncer and floor sweeper, before graduating as a chemist.

At a local factory, he worked closely with Esther Ballestrino, who campaigned against Argentina’s military dictatorship. She was tortured, her body never found.

He became a Jesuit, studied philosophy and taught literature and psychology. Ordained a decade later, he won swift promotion, becoming provincial superior for Argentina in 1973.

Some felt he failed to do enough to oppose the generals of Argentina’s brutal military regime.

He was accused of involvement in the military kidnapping of two priests during Argentina’s Dirty War, a period when thousands of people were tortured or killed, or disappeared, from 1976 to 1983.

The two priests were tortured but eventually found alive – heavily sedated and semi-naked.

Bergoglio faced charges of failing to inform the authorities that their work in poor neighbourhoods had been endorsed by the Church. This, if true, had abandoned them to the death squads. It was an accusation he flatly denied, insisting he had worked behind the scenes to free them.

Asked why he did not speak out, he reportedly said it was too difficult. In truth – at 36 years old – he found himself in a chaos that would have tried the most seasoned leader. He certainly helped many who tried to flee the country.

He also had differences with fellow Jesuits who believed Bergoglio lacked interest in liberation theology – that synthesis of Christian thought and Marxist sociology which sought to overthrow injustice. He, by contrast, preferred a gentler form of pastoral support.

At times, the relationship bordered on estrangement. When he sought initially to become Pope in 2005 some Jesuits breathed a sigh of relief.

He was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then became Archbishop.

Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2001 and he took up posts in the Church’s civil service, the Curia.

He cultivated a reputation as a man of simple tastes, eschewing many of the trappings of a senior cleric. He usually flew economy and preferred to wear the black gown of a priest – rather than the red and purple of his new position.

In his sermons, he called for social inclusion and criticised governments that failed to pay attention to the poorest in society.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world,” he said, “which has grown the most, yet reduced misery the least.”

As Pope, he made great efforts to heal the thousand-year rift with the Eastern Orthodox Church. In recognition, for the first time since the Great Schism of 1054, the Patriarch of Constantinople attended the installation of a new Bishop of Rome.

Francis worked with Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists and persuaded the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to join him to pray for peace.

After attacks by Muslim militants, he said it was not right to identify Islam with violence. “If I speak of Islamic violence, then I have to speak of Catholic violence too,” he declared.

Politically, he allied himself with the Argentine government’s claim on the Falklands, telling a service: “We come to pray for those who have fallen, sons of the homeland who set out to defend their mother, the homeland, to claim the country that is theirs.”

And, as a Spanish-speaking Latin American, he provided a crucial service as mediator when the US government edged towards historic rapprochement with Cuba. It is difficult to imagine a European Pope playing such a critical diplomatic role.

On many of the Church’s teachings, Pope Francis was a traditionalist.

He was “as uncompromising as Pope John Paul II… on euthanasia, the death penalty, abortion, the right to life, human rights and the celibacy of priests”, according to Monsignor Osvaldo Musto, who was at seminary with him.

He said the Church should welcome people regardless of their sexual orientation, but insisted gay adoption was a form of discrimination against children.

There were warm words in favour of some kind of same-sex unions for gay couples, but Francis did not favour calling it marriage. This, he said, would be “an attempt to destroy God’s plan”.

Shortly after becoming Pope in 2013, he took part in an anti-abortion march in Rome – calling for rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception”.

He called on gynaecologists to invoke their consciences and sent a message to Ireland – as it held a referendum on the subject – begging people there to protect the vulnerable.

He resisted the ordination of women, declaring that Pope John Paul II had once and for all ruled out the possibility.

And, although he seemed at first to allow that contraception might be used to prevent disease, he praised Paul VI’s teaching on the subject – which warned it might reduce women to instruments of male satisfaction.

In 2015, Pope Francis told an audience in the Philippines that contraception involved “the destruction of the family through the privation of children”. It was not the absence of children itself that he saw as so damaging, but the wilful decision to avoid them.

The greatest challenge to his papacy, however, came on two fronts: from those who accused him of failing to tackle child abuse and from conservative critics who felt that he was diluting the faith. In particular, they had in mind his moves to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to take Communion.

Conservatives also adopted the issue of child abuse as a weapon in their long-running campaign.

In August 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former Apostolic Nuncio to the US, published an 11-page declaration of war. He released a letter describing a series of warnings made to the Vatican about the behaviour of a former cardinal, Thomas McCarrick.

It was alleged that McCarrick had been a serial abuser who attacked both adults and minors. The Pope, Archbishop Viganò said, had made him a “trusted councillor” despite knowing he was deeply corrupted. The solution was clear, he said: Pope Francis should resign.

“These homosexual networks,” the archbishop claimed, “act under the concealment of secrecy and lie with the power of octopus tentacles… and are strangling the entire Church.”

The ensuing row threatened to engulf the Church. McCarrick was eventually defrocked in February 2019, after an investigation by the Vatican.

During the Covid pandemic, Francis cancelled his regular appearances in St Peter’s Square – to prevent the virus circulating. In an important example of moral leadership, he also declared that being vaccinated was a universal obligation.

In 2022, he became the first Pope for more than a century to bury his predecessor – after Benedict’s death at the age of 95.

By now, he had his own health problems – with several hospitalisations. But Francis was determined to continue with his efforts to promote global peace and inter-religious dialogue.

In 2023, he made a pilgrimage to South Sudan, pleading with the country’s leaders to end conflict.

He appealed for an end to the “absurd and cruel war” in Ukraine, although he disappointed Ukrainians by appearing to swallow Russia’s propaganda message of having been provoked into its invasion.

And a year later, he embarked on an ambitious four-country, two-continent odyssey; with stops in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore.

In recent months, Francis had struggled with his health. In March 2025, he spent five weeks in hospital with pneumonia in both lungs.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio came to the throne of St Peter determined to change it.

There will be some who would have preferred a more liberal leader, and critics will point to his perceived weakness in confronting the institution’s legacy of clerical sexual abuse.

But change it, he did.

He appointed more than 140 cardinals from non-European countries and bequeaths his successor a Church that is far more global in outlook than the one he inherited.

And, to set an example, he was the no-frills Pope who elected not to live in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace – complete with Sistine Chapel – but in the modern block next door (which Pope John Paul II had built as a guest house).

He believed anything else would be vanity. “Look at the peacock,” he said, “it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth.”

He also hoped he could shake up the institution itself, enhancing the Church’s historic mission by cutting through internal strife, focusing on the poor and returning the Church to the people.

“We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a Church that is wrapped up in its own world,” he said shortly after his election.

“If I had to choose between a wounded Church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn Church, I would choose the first.”

Ukraine’s military has reported Russian drone attacks on several regions overnight, just hours after the end of a 30-hour “Easter truce” declared by Moscow.

Air raid alerts were issued by Ukraine’s air force for the Kyiv region, as well as Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.

In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said “explosions were heard”. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.

Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it has resumed fighting, adding that its military had “strictly observed the ceasefire and remained at the previously occupied lines and positions”.

The truce declared by President Vladimir Putin expired at midnight on Sunday Moscow time (21:00 GMT). Both sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire thousands of times.

Early on Monday residents in several Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, were urged by local authorities to go immediately to nearby shelters due to the threat of drone strikes.

In the Kyiv region, local officials said air defence forces were “working on targets”.

Ukraine’s air force also reported a “rocket danger” for central regions, and said Russian aircraft were “active in the north-eastern and eastern directions”.

In an update on Telegram, the air force said Russia launched 96 drones overnight, as well as striking the southern region of Mykolaiv two missiles and Kherson with a third missile.

In Mykolaiv, regional head Vitaliy Kim said shortly afterwards that the city had been attacked by missiles. “There were no casualties or damage,” he added.

Several hours before the truce expired, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had not given an order to extend it, Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported.

The BBC has not independently verified the claims by Ukraine and Russia.

US President Donald Trump – who has been pushing for an end to the war – said late on Sunday that “hopefully Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week”. He gave no further details.

• Rosenberg: Is Putin’s ‘Easter truce’ cause for scepticism or chance for peace?

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and currently controls about 20% Ukraine’s territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people – the vast majority of them soldiers – have been killed or injured on all sides since 2022.

Last month, Moscow came up with a long list of conditions in response to a full and unconditional ceasefire that had been agreed by the US and Ukraine.

On Saturday, President Putin said there would be an end to all hostilities from 18:00 Moscow time (15:00 GMT) on Saturday until midnight on Sunday. Kyiv said it would also adhere.

“For this period, I order all military actions to cease,” Putin said in his announcement.

“We assume that the Ukrainian side will follow our example. At the same time, our troops must be ready to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations from the enemy, any of its aggressive actions.”

However, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said late on Sunday there had been a total of 1,882 cases of Russian shelling, 812 of which involved heavy weaponry, according to a report from Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The president said the heaviest shelling and assaults were in eastern Ukraine near the besieged city of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

“The nature of Ukrainian actions will continue to be mirrored: we will respond to silence with silence, our strikes will be to protect against Russian strikes,” Zelensky said.

Earlier on Sunday, he said “there were no air raid alerts today”, referring to Russia’s daily drone and missile strikes against Ukraine.

He proposed “to cease any strikes using long-range drones and missiles on civilian infrastructure for a period of at least 30 days, with the possibility of extension”.

Zelensky also said Putin’s declaration of a truce amounted to a “PR” exercise and his words were “empty”. He accused the Kremlin of trying to create “a general impression of a ceasefire”.

“This Easter has clearly demonstrated that the only source of this war, and the reason it drags on, is Russia,” the president said.

The Russian defence ministry insisted its troops had “strictly observed the ceasefire”.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of using US-supplied Himars missiles during the ceasefire.

The surprise ceasefire announcement came shortly after Trump threatened to “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

However, a state department spokesperson said on Sunday Washington remained “committed to achieving a full and comprehensive ceasefire”.

“It is long past time to stop the death and destruction and end this war,” the spokesperson added.

China has warned it will hit back at countries that make deals with the US that hurt Beijing’s interests, as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies threatens to drag in other nations.

The comments come after reports that the US plans to pressure governments to restrict trade with China in exchange for exemptions to US tariffs.

The Trump administration has started talks with trading partners over tariffs, with a Japanese delegation visiting Washington last week and South Korea is set to start negotiations this week.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has imposed hefty taxes on Chinese imports, while other countries have also been hit with levies on their goods.

“Appeasement cannot bring peace, and compromise cannot earn one respect,” a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson said.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests. If this happens, China will never accept it and will resolutely take countermeasures”.

The remarks echoed an editorial last week in the state-controlled China Daily, which warned the European Union against trying to “appease” the US.

The comments came after reports that the US plans to use tariff negotiations to pressure dozens of countries into imposing new barriers on trade with China.

The BBC has asked the US Treasury Department and the US Trade Representative for responses to the reports.

Trump has said more than 70 countries have reached out to start negotiations since the tariffs were announced.

“If you put the numbers on it, about 20% of Japan’s profitability comes from the United States, about 15% comes from the People’s Republic of China,” said Jesper Koll, from Japanese online trading platform operator Monex Group.

“Certainly, Japan doesn’t want to [have to] choose between America and the People’s Republic of China.”

Japan kicked off negotiations with the US last week when its top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, met the US President in Washington DC.

South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, has said his country will begin trade talks with the US later this week.

Meanwhile, US Vice President, JD Vance, is expected to meet India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to the country this week. India faces a tariff rate of 26% if it is unable to agree a trade deal with the Trump administration.

Last week, Vance said there was a “good chance” a trade deal could be reached with the UK.

“We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government,” he said in an interview with the UnHerd website.

Since Trump’s inauguration, there has been a flurry of announcements on tariffs.

The US president has said the import taxes will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised, and lead to major investments in the country.

But critics have said bringing manufacturing back to the US is complicated and could take decades and that the economy will struggle in the meantime.

Trump has also backtracked on many of his announcements.

Just hours after steep levies on dozens of America’s trading partners kicked in earlier this month, he announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs to all countries bar China, in the face of mounting opposition from politicians and the markets.

Trump has imposed taxes of up to 145% on imports from China. Other countries are now facing a blanket US tariff of 10% until July.

His administration said last week that when the new tariffs are added on to existing ones, the levies on some Chinese goods could reach 245%.

China has hit back with a 125% tax on products from the US and vowed to “fight to the end”.

The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies sent shockwaves through the global financial markets earlier this month.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has described an Israeli military report into a deadly attack on its paramedics as “full of lies”.

The Israeli military said in its report that “professional failures” led to the killing of the 15 workers in Gaza. It dismissed the deputy commander of the unit involved.

A spokeswoman for the PRCS said the report was “invalid” as it “justifies and shifts the responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different”.

Fourteen emergency workers and a UN worker were killed on 23 March after a convoy of PRCS ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck came under fire by the Israeli military.

The UN’s humanitarian chief in Gaza suggested the investigation did not go far enough. “A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place,” said Jonathan Whittall.

“Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all, eroding.”

The Red Crescent and several other international organisations have previously called for an independent investigation into the incident. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) investigation was carried out by its Fact-Finding Mechanism, which it describes as impartial.

The IDF report said the incident took place in what it called a “hostile and dangerous combat zone”, and that the commander on the ground perceived an immediate and tangible threat after vehicles approached rapidly.

It blamed “poor night visibility”, which the IDF said meant the commander did not identify the vehicles as ambulances.

But it later said that account was “mistaken” after a video found on the mobile phone of a medic who was killed showed the vehicles with their lights on and their emergency signals flashing.

The footage shows the vehicles pulling up on the road when shooting begins just before dawn.

The video continues for more than five minutes, with the paramedic saying his last prayers before the voices of Israeli soldiers are heard approaching the vehicles.

It also shows the vehicles were clearly marked and the paramedics wearing reflective hi-vis uniform.

The bodies of the 15 dead workers were buried in sand. The report said this was done “to prevent further harm” and that the decision to do so “was reasonable under the circumstances”.

They were not recovered until a week after the incident because international agencies, including the UN, could not organise safe passage to the area or locate the spot.

Journalists invited to an Israeli military briefing on Sunday were shown aerial footage, shot in the early hours of 23 March, which showed the series of three attacks. It also showed that several other vehicles, including an ambulance, passed by in the hour or so between the first and second Israeli attack, without being shot at.

Israeli officials said this proved that troops in Gaza did not open fire on medical vehicles unless they felt threatened.

The IDF also confirmed it was holding a PRCS medic it had detained following the incident. They did not confirm his name, but the International Committee of the Red Cross has previously named him as Assad al-Nassasra.

Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 51,201 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Snow leopards cannot growl. So when we step towards one of these fierce predators, she’s purring.

“Lovely,” as she’s called, was orphaned and rescued 12 years ago in Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan.

After years of relying on staff to feed her, she does not know how to hunt in the wild – and cannot be set free.

“If we release her, she would just go attack a farmer’s sheep and get killed,” Lovely’s caretaker, Tehzeeb Hussain, tells us.

Despite laws protecting them, between 221 to 450 snow leopards are killed each year, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says, which has contributed to a 20% decline in the global population over the past two decades.

More than half of these deaths were in retaliation for the loss of livestock.

Now, scientists estimate that just 4,000 to 6,000 snow leopards are left in the wild – with roughly 300 of these in Pakistan, the third-largest population in the world.

To try and reverse these worrying trends, the WWF – with the help of Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) – has developed cameras powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Their aim is to detect a snow leopard’s presence and warn villagers via text message to move their livestock to safety.

Tall, with a solar panel mounted on top, the cameras are positioned high among barren and rugged mountains at nearly 3,000m (9,843ft).

“Snow leopard territory,” says Asif Iqbal, a conservationist from WWF Pakistan. He walks us a few more steps and points to tracks on the ground: “These are pretty new.”

Asif hopes this means the camera has recorded more evidence that the AI software – which allows it to differentiate between humans, other animals and snow leopards – is working.

The WWF is currently testing 10 cameras, deployed across three villages in Gilgit-Baltistan. It has taken three years to train the AI model to detect these categories with impressive – if not perfect – accuracy.

Once we’re back down the mountain, Asif pulls up his computer and shows me a dashboard. There I am, in a series of GIFs. It correctly detects I’m a human. But as we scroll down the list, I come up again, and this time I’m listed as both a human and an animal. I’m wearing a thick white fleece, so I forgive the programme.

Then, Asif shows me the money shot. It’s a snow leopard, recorded a few nights prior, in night-vision. He pulls up another one from the week before. It’s a snow leopard raising its tail against a nearby rock. “It’s a mother leopard, looks like she’s marking her territory,” Asif says.

Setting up the cameras in rocky, high-altitude areas took a lot of trial and error. The WWF went through several types of batteries until it found one that could withstand the harsh winters. A specific paint was chosen to avoid reflecting light as animals pass by.

If the cellular service fails in the mountains, the device continues recording and capturing data locally. But the team has had to accept there are some problems they simply cannot solve.

While the camera lens is protected by a metallic box, they’ve had to replace solar panels damaged by landslides.

It is not just the technology that has caused problems. Getting the local community’s buy-in has also been a challenge. At first, some were suspicious and doubted whether the project could help them or the snow leopards.

“We noticed some of the wires had been cut,” Asif says. “People had thrown blankets over the cameras.”

The team also had to be mindful of the local culture and the emphasis on women’s privacy. Cameras had to be moved because women were walking by too often.

Some villages still have yet to sign consent and privacy forms, which means the technology cannot be rolled out in their area just yet. The WWF wants a binding promise that local farmers will not give poachers access to the footage.

Sitara lost all six of her sheep in January. She says she had taken them to graze on land above her home but that a snow leopard attacked them.

“It was three to four years of hard work raising those animals, and it all ended in one day,” she says.

The loss of her livelihood left her bedridden for several days. When asked if she is hopeful the AI cameras could help in the future, she replies: “My phone barely gets any service during the day, how can a text help?”

At a gathering of village elders, leaders of the Khyber village explain how attitudes have changed over the years, and that a growing proportion of their village understands the importance of snow leopards and their impact on the ecosystem.

According to the WWF, snow leopards hunt ibex and blue sheep, which stops these animals from overgrazing and helps to preserve grasslands so villagers can feed their livestock.

But not all are convinced. One local farmer questions the benefits of the animals.

“We used to have 40 to 50 sheep, now we’ve only got four or five, and the reason is the threat from snow leopards and from ibex eating the grass,” he says.

Climate change also has a part to play in why some feel threatened by snow leopards. Scientists say warming temperatures have led villagers to move their crops and livestock to higher areas in the mountains, encroaching on snow leopards’ own habitat, making livestock more of a target.

Whether the villagers are convinced by the conservation message or not, the WWF tells us legal penalties have served as a strong deterrent in recent years. Three men were jailed in 2020 after killing a snow leopard in Hoper valley, about a two-hour drive from Khyber. One of them had posted photos of himself with the dead animal on social media.

While those involved in the camera project are hopeful their AI devices can have an impact, they know they cannot be the sole solution.

In September, they are going to start trialling smells, sounds and lights at the camera sites to try to deter snow leopards from moving onto nearby villages, putting themselves and livestock in jeopardy.

Their work tracking these “ghosts of the mountains” is not over yet.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth shared information about US air strikes on Yemen in a second private group on the Signal app, the BBC’s US partner CBS has confirmed with sources familiar with the messages.

The messages, sent on 15 March, included flight schedules for American F/A-18 Hornets carrying out strikes on Houthi targets. The group included Hegseth’s wife, brother and personal lawyer.

The developments come a month after the existence of a separate Signal group discussing sensitive information about US military operations was revealed.

In a statement to the New York Times, which first reported the second group, the White House said no classified information was shared.

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, is a former Fox News producer and holds no official position within the Pentagon. Hegseth has previously been criticised for reportedly including his wife in meetings with foreign leaders.

His brother, Phil, and personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, both hold positions at the Department of Defense. But it is not clear why any of the three would require advanced warnings of sensitive US strike plans.

Unlike the first Signal group, the second one – called “Defense | Team Huddle” – was created by Hegseth, according to the New York Times.

The existence of the earlier Signal group was revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who was accidentally included in it. Officials similarly used that group to discuss information relating to strikes in Yemen.

The White House denied that classified information was discussed in that group either, although critics of Hegseth – including former US defence officials – question that. They say discussing such information in Signal groups could jeopardise US personnel carrying out military operations.

• Five takeaways from first leaked US military chat group
• Pentagon watchdog probing Hegseth’s Signal app use
• Four lingering questions about ‘Signalgate’
• What is messaging app Signal and how secure is it?

The existence of the second Signal group is the latest controversy surrounding the head of the Pentagon, who this year is controlling a budget of $892bn (£670bn).

Hegseth last week fired three top officials for an “unauthorised disclosure” – an accusation the officials said was “baseless”.

In an op-ed for Politico magazine published on Sunday, John Ullyot, a former top Pentagon spokesperson who resigned last week, wrote that the department was in “total chaos”.

“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot added.

However, in a statement on X, Sean Parnell, current chief spokesman for the Pentagon, accused the “Trump-hating media” of “destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda”.

He echoed the White House by saying that “there was no classified information in any Signal chat”.

Washington says its strikes in Yemen are punishment for Houthi attacks on cargo vessels transiting through the Red Sea, a critical waterway for international trade.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.

The Houthis have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed – often falsely – that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

US air strikes on an oil terminal in north-western Yemen this week killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others, according to the Houthi-run health ministry. The Houthi-led government said the attack constituted a “war crime”.

The Vatican has named 167 people who died in the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka as “heroes of faith”.

The country’s cardinal, Malcolm Ranjith, made the announcement at an event to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the suicide attacks which targeted Catholic churches and five star hotels during Easter Sunday mass, killing 269 people.

Those recognised by the Vatican were Catholic faithful attending mass at the churches that were attacked.

The bombings shook the country, which had not seen such levels of violence since the end of a civil war in 2009. However, since then investigations into the attacks have been controversial.

Muslim extremists claimed the attacks, but there has been public criticism from families of the victims and from the island’s minority Christian community, who accuse the government of dragging their feet in taking action against those suspected of carrying out the bombings.

Anger grew as information emerged that intelligence warnings about the attacks were not acted upon by security heads or the government of the time. The country’s Supreme Court has since directed then president Maithripala Sirisena to pay compensation to the victims of the bombings for “ignoring actionable intelligence” that could have prevented the attacks.

A trial was opened against 25 people accused of masterminding the attacks in 2021. However, with 23,000 charges filed against the men, lawyers involved in the case warned that the sheer number of charges and staggering witness list could mean the trial dragging on for years.

The Catholic community led by Cardinal Ranjith has repeatedly alleged that the government at the time covered up investigations “to protect the brains behind the attacks”.

A 2023 investigation by Channel 4, which raised questions about links between the government, military and the group blamed for the attacks, also prompted public anger. It alleged that the attacks were allowed to happen for political power.

Presidential elections held soon after the attacks saw Gotabaya Rajapaksa sweep to power, after campaigning on a national security platform.

He made a statement in parliament denying all the allegations raised in the documentary.

The issue gained new currency when Sri Lanka elected a new president and parliament in 2024. The newly-elected government has since alleged that the attacks were a conspiracy by a “certain group” to seize political power at the time.

They have also reopened investigations into the attacks, with a report of a presidential inquiry commission officially handed over to the country’s central investigative agency for further inquiry.

“As a government, we reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that justice is served. Ongoing efforts to investigate the attacks and uncover all truths without obstruction or delay remain a top priority. Accountability, transparency, and genuine justice are essential to honouring the memory of the victims and restoring public trust,” Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya said in a statement to mark the anniversary.

A nine-year-old boy who got trapped between rocks at a New South Wales beach on Sunday has become the seventh person to drown in Australia over the Easter weekend.

The majority of deaths were caused by strong swells washing people into the ocean from rocks. Two people remain missing.

Steven Pearce, the CEO of Surf Live Saving in New South Wales, where most of the fatalities occurred, told the ABC it was the “worst” spate of drownings on record for the Easter long weekend.

“It has just been horrendous on a weekend that’s supposed to be joyous and religious,” Pearce told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Emergency teams were able to retrieve the boy at South West Rocks, about 400 kilometres north of Sydney, but he died at the scene.

Earlier on Sunday, a helicopter spotted a father and son floating in the water near Wattamolla Beach, south of Sydney. The 14-year-old son was resuscitated, but the father was later pronounced dead.

Meanwhile, Police in Victoria are continuing to search for a 41-year-old man who went missing near San Remo on Friday.

Surf Live Saving New South Wales said it has carried out more than 150 rescues since Good Friday.

Mr Pearce said a “perfect combination” of high temperatures, the holiday weekend, and dangerous ocean swells across much of New South Wales and Victoria caused the spike in deaths.

Although conditions are set to improve on Monday, authorities urged those visiting the coastline to exercise caution.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese expressed sympathy to the victims’ families. “Please, everyone, be careful. Families in particular, be careful of your kids,” he said.

According to Royal Life Saving Australia, 323 people drowned across the country in the year to June 2024.

That figure includes those who died in rivers and creeks, as well as at beaches. Nearly 40% of the deaths were recorded in New South Wales.

Every morning, India’s newspapers are filled with reports of road accidents – passenger buses plunging into mountain gorges, drunk drivers mowing down pedestrians, cars crashing into stationary trucks and two-wheelers being knocked down by larger vehicles.

These daily tragedies underscore a silent crisis: in 2023 alone, more than 172,000 people lost their lives on Indian roads, averaging 474 deaths each day or nearly one every three minutes.

Although the official crash report for 2023 has yet to be released, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari cited the data to paint a grim picture at a road safety event in December.

Among the dead that year were 10,000 children. Accidents near schools and colleges accounted for another 10,000 fatalities, while 35,000 pedestrians lost their lives. Two-wheeler riders also bore the brunt of fatalities. Over-speeding typically emerged as the single biggest cause.

A lack of basic safety precautions also proved deadly: 54,000 people died due to not wearing helmets and 16,000 from not wearing seatbelts.

Other major causes included overloading, which led to 12,000 deaths, and driving without a valid licence, which factored in 34,000 crashes. Driving on the wrong side also contributed to fatalities.

In 2021, 13% of accidents involved drivers with a learner permit or no valid licence. Many vehicles on the road are old and missing basic safety features like seatbelts – let alone airbags.

This hazardous road environment is further complicated by India’s chaotic traffic mix.

A bewildering array of users crowds India’s roads. There are motorised vehicles like cars, buses and motorcycles vying for space with non-motorised transport such as bicycles, cycle rickshaws and handcarts, animal-drawn carts, pedestrians and stray animals. Hawkers encroach upon roads and footpaths to sell their wares, forcing pedestrians onto busy roads and further complicating traffic flow.

Despite efforts and investments, India’s roads remain among the most unsafe in the world. Experts say this is a crisis rooted not just in infrastructure, but in human behaviour, enforcement gaps and systemic neglect. ​Road crashes impose a significant economic burden, costing India 3% of its annual GDP.

India has the world’s second-largest road network, spanning 6.6m kilometres (4.1m miles), just after the US. National and state highways together make up about 5% of the total network, while other roads – including gleaming access-controlled expressways – account for the rest. There are an estimated 350 million registered vehicles.

Gadkari told the road safety meeting that many road accidents happen because people lack respect and fear for the law.

“There are several reasons for accidents, but the biggest is human behaviour,” he said.

Yet that’s only part of the picture. Just last month, Gadkari pointed to poor civil engineering practices – flawed road design, substandard construction and weak management – along with inadequate signage and markings, as key contributors to the alarmingly high road accident rate.

“The most important culprits are civil engineers… Even small things like the road signages and marking system are very poor in the country,” he said.

​Since 2019, his ministry reported 59 major deficiencies in national highways, including cave-ins, Gadkari told the parliament last month. Of the 13,795 identified accident-prone “black spots”, only 5,036 have undergone long-term rectification.

Over the years, road safety audits, conducted by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre (TRIPP) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, have uncovered serious flaws in India’s road infrastructure.

Take crash barriers. These are meant to safely stop vehicles that stray off the road – without flipping them over. But in many places, they’re doing the opposite.

Despite clear standards for height, spacing and installation, on-ground reality often tells a different story: the metal barriers at the wrong height, mounted on concrete bases, or poorly placed. These flaws can cause a vehicle, especially a truck or bus, to flip over instead of being safely stopped.

“Unless installed exactly as specified, crash barriers can do more harm than good,” Geetam Tiwari, emeritus professor of civil engineering at IIT Delhi, told the BBC.

Then there are the tall medians – or road dividers, as they are locally called. On high-speed roads, medians are supposed to gently separate traffic moving in the opposite direction. They shouldn’t be taller than 10cm (3.9in) but, audits show, many are.

When a high-speed vehicle’s tyre hits a vertical median, it generates heat, risks a tyre burst, or even lifts the vehicle off the ground – leading to dangerous rollovers. Many medians in India are simply not designed keeping this threat in mind.

A stretch of a highway near the capital, Delhi, stands as a stark example – a road slicing through dense settlements on both sides without safety measures to protect residents. Throngs of people precariously stand on the medians as high-speed traffic whizzes by.

And then there are the raised carriageways. On many rural roads, repeated resurfacing has left the main road towering six to eight inches above the shoulder.

That sudden drop can be deadly – especially if a driver swerves to avoid an obstacle. Two-wheelers are most at risk, but even cars can skid, tip, or flip. With every layer added, the danger just keeps rising, experts say.

Clearly, India’s road design standards are solid on paper – but poorly enforced on the ground.

“One key issue is that non-compliance with safety standards attracts minimal penalties. Contracts often don’t clearly spell out these requirements, and payments are typically linked to kilometres constructed – not to adherence to safety norms,” says Prof Tiwari.

Minister Gadkari recently announced an ambitious plan to upgrade 25,000km of two-lane highways to four lanes. “It will help reduce accidents on the roads significantly,” he said.

Experts like Kavi Bhalla of the University of Chicago are sceptical. Mr Bhalla, who has worked on road safety in low and middle-income countries, argues that India’s road designs often mimic Western models, ignoring the country’s unique traffic and infrastructure needs.

“There is no reason to believe that road widening will lead to fewer traffic deaths. There is a lot of evidence that road upgradation in India results in higher traffic speeds, which is lethal to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists,” he says.

“A key issue is that new roads in India simply copy road designs used in the US and Europe, where the traffic environment is very different. India is trying to build US-style highway infrastructure but not investing in US-style highway safety engineering research and crash data systems,” Mr Bhalla adds.

To tackle the escalating road safety crisis, the government is “implementing” the “5Es” strategy: engineering of roads, engineering of vehicles, education, enforcement and emergency care, says KK Kapila of the International Road Federation. (​According to a report by the Law Commission of India, timely emergency medical care could have saved 50% of road crash fatalities.)

Mr Kapila is helping the federal government with a road safety plan. He says seven key states were asked to identify their most accident-prone stretches. After implementing targeted interventions based on the 5Es framework, these stretches “have become the safest” in their states, he told me.

Most economists agree building more roads is key to India’s growth, but it must be sustainable and not take priority over the lives of pedestrians and cyclists.

“The price of development shouldn’t be borne by the poorest segments of society. The only way to learn how to build such roads is to try to do interventions, evaluate if they improved safety and, if they didn’t help, modify them and evaluate again,” says Mr Bhalla. If that doesn’t happen, roads will only get smoother, cars faster – and more people will die.

Every morning, India’s newspapers are filled with reports of road accidents – passenger buses plunging into mountain gorges, drunk drivers mowing down pedestrians, cars crashing into stationary trucks and two-wheelers being knocked down by larger vehicles.

These daily tragedies underscore a silent crisis: in 2023 alone, more than 172,000 people lost their lives on Indian roads, averaging 474 deaths each day or nearly one every three minutes.

Although the official crash report for 2023 has yet to be released, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari cited the data to paint a grim picture at a road safety event in December.

Among the dead that year were 10,000 children. Accidents near schools and colleges accounted for another 10,000 fatalities, while 35,000 pedestrians lost their lives. Two-wheeler riders also bore the brunt of fatalities. Over-speeding typically emerged as the single biggest cause.

A lack of basic safety precautions also proved deadly: 54,000 people died due to not wearing helmets and 16,000 from not wearing seatbelts.

Other major causes included overloading, which led to 12,000 deaths, and driving without a valid licence, which factored in 34,000 crashes. Driving on the wrong side also contributed to fatalities.

In 2021, 13% of accidents involved drivers with a learner permit or no valid licence. Many vehicles on the road are old and missing basic safety features like seatbelts – let alone airbags.

This hazardous road environment is further complicated by India’s chaotic traffic mix.

A bewildering array of users crowds India’s roads. There are motorised vehicles like cars, buses and motorcycles vying for space with non-motorised transport such as bicycles, cycle rickshaws and handcarts, animal-drawn carts, pedestrians and stray animals. Hawkers encroach upon roads and footpaths to sell their wares, forcing pedestrians onto busy roads and further complicating traffic flow.

Despite efforts and investments, India’s roads remain among the most unsafe in the world. Experts say this is a crisis rooted not just in infrastructure, but in human behaviour, enforcement gaps and systemic neglect. ​Road crashes impose a significant economic burden, costing India 3% of its annual GDP.

India has the world’s second-largest road network, spanning 6.6m kilometres (4.1m miles), just after the US. National and state highways together make up about 5% of the total network, while other roads – including gleaming access-controlled expressways – account for the rest. There are an estimated 350 million registered vehicles.

Gadkari told the road safety meeting that many road accidents happen because people lack respect and fear for the law.

“There are several reasons for accidents, but the biggest is human behaviour,” he said.

Yet that’s only part of the picture. Just last month, Gadkari pointed to poor civil engineering practices – flawed road design, substandard construction and weak management – along with inadequate signage and markings, as key contributors to the alarmingly high road accident rate.

“The most important culprits are civil engineers… Even small things like the road signages and marking system are very poor in the country,” he said.

​Since 2019, his ministry reported 59 major deficiencies in national highways, including cave-ins, Gadkari told the parliament last month. Of the 13,795 identified accident-prone “black spots”, only 5,036 have undergone long-term rectification.

Over the years, road safety audits, conducted by the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre (TRIPP) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, have uncovered serious flaws in India’s road infrastructure.

Take crash barriers. These are meant to safely stop vehicles that stray off the road – without flipping them over. But in many places, they’re doing the opposite.

Despite clear standards for height, spacing and installation, on-ground reality often tells a different story: the metal barriers at the wrong height, mounted on concrete bases, or poorly placed. These flaws can cause a vehicle, especially a truck or bus, to flip over instead of being safely stopped.

“Unless installed exactly as specified, crash barriers can do more harm than good,” Geetam Tiwari, emeritus professor of civil engineering at IIT Delhi, told the BBC.

Then there are the tall medians – or road dividers, as they are locally called. On high-speed roads, medians are supposed to gently separate traffic moving in the opposite direction. They shouldn’t be taller than 10cm (3.9in) but, audits show, many are.

When a high-speed vehicle’s tyre hits a vertical median, it generates heat, risks a tyre burst, or even lifts the vehicle off the ground – leading to dangerous rollovers. Many medians in India are simply not designed keeping this threat in mind.

A stretch of a highway near the capital, Delhi, stands as a stark example – a road slicing through dense settlements on both sides without safety measures to protect residents. Throngs of people precariously stand on the medians as high-speed traffic whizzes by.

And then there are the raised carriageways. On many rural roads, repeated resurfacing has left the main road towering six to eight inches above the shoulder.

That sudden drop can be deadly – especially if a driver swerves to avoid an obstacle. Two-wheelers are most at risk, but even cars can skid, tip, or flip. With every layer added, the danger just keeps rising, experts say.

Clearly, India’s road design standards are solid on paper – but poorly enforced on the ground.

“One key issue is that non-compliance with safety standards attracts minimal penalties. Contracts often don’t clearly spell out these requirements, and payments are typically linked to kilometres constructed – not to adherence to safety norms,” says Prof Tiwari.

Minister Gadkari recently announced an ambitious plan to upgrade 25,000km of two-lane highways to four lanes. “It will help reduce accidents on the roads significantly,” he said.

Experts like Kavi Bhalla of the University of Chicago are sceptical. Mr Bhalla, who has worked on road safety in low and middle-income countries, argues that India’s road designs often mimic Western models, ignoring the country’s unique traffic and infrastructure needs.

“There is no reason to believe that road widening will lead to fewer traffic deaths. There is a lot of evidence that road upgradation in India results in higher traffic speeds, which is lethal to pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists,” he says.

“A key issue is that new roads in India simply copy road designs used in the US and Europe, where the traffic environment is very different. India is trying to build US-style highway infrastructure but not investing in US-style highway safety engineering research and crash data systems,” Mr Bhalla adds.

To tackle the escalating road safety crisis, the government is “implementing” the “5Es” strategy: engineering of roads, engineering of vehicles, education, enforcement and emergency care, says KK Kapila of the International Road Federation. (​According to a report by the Law Commission of India, timely emergency medical care could have saved 50% of road crash fatalities.)

Mr Kapila is helping the federal government with a road safety plan. He says seven key states were asked to identify their most accident-prone stretches. After implementing targeted interventions based on the 5Es framework, these stretches “have become the safest” in their states, he told me.

Most economists agree building more roads is key to India’s growth, but it must be sustainable and not take priority over the lives of pedestrians and cyclists.

“The price of development shouldn’t be borne by the poorest segments of society. The only way to learn how to build such roads is to try to do interventions, evaluate if they improved safety and, if they didn’t help, modify them and evaluate again,” says Mr Bhalla. If that doesn’t happen, roads will only get smoother, cars faster – and more people will die.

An 82-year-old woman who teaches the ancient Indian martial art of Kalaripayattu says she has no plans to retire.

“I’ll probably practise Kalari until the day I die,” says Meenakshi Raghavan, widely thought to be the oldest woman in the world to practise the art form.

Kalaripayattu – kalari means battleground and payattu means fight – is believed to have originated at least 3,000 years back in the southern state of Kerala and is regarded as India’s oldest martial art.

It is not solely practised for combat or fighting; it also serves to instil discipline, build strength and develop self-defence skills.

Ms Raghavan is fondly known as Meenakshi Amma – Amma means mother in the Malayalam language – in Kerala’s Vadakara, where she lives. The town is also home to other renowned exponents of the art like Unniyarcha, Aromal Chekavar and Thacholi Othenan.

Meenakshi Amma occasionally performs in other cities but mainly runs her own Kalari school, founded by her husband in 1950. Her days are busy, with classes from five in the morning to noon.

“I teach about 50 students daily. My four children were also trained [in the art form] by me and my husband. They started learning from the age of six,” she says.

Kalaripayattu has four stages and it requires patience to learn the art form.

Training begins with meypattu – an oil massage followed by exercises to condition the body.

After about two years, students progress to kolthari (stick fighting), then to angathari (weapon combat), and finally to verumkai – the highest level, involving unarmed combat. It typically takes up to five years to master Kalaripayattu.

Kung fu is believed to have adapted principles like breathing techniques and marmashastra (stimulating vital points to optimise energy flow) from Kalaripayattu, according to Vinod Kadangal, another Kalari teacher.

Legend has it that around the 6th Century, Indian Buddhist monk Bodhidharma introduced these techniques to the Shaolin monks, influencing the more famous Chinese martial art.

Meenakshi Amma still recalls the first time she stepped into a Kalari – the red-earth arena where the art is practised – 75 years ago.

“I was seven and quite good at dancing. So my guru – VP Raghavan – approached my father and suggested that I learn Kalaripayattu. Just like dance, the art form requires you to be flexible,” she says.

Hailing from Kerala’s Thiyya community, Meenakshi Amma’s guru was 15 when he and his brothers opened their own Kalaripayattu school after being denied admission elsewhere because of their low social caste.

“There was no bias when it came to girls enrolling to study Kalari – in fact, physical education was compulsory in all Kerala schools at that time. But we were expected to stop after attaining puberty,” she says.

Unlike others, Meenakshi Amma’s father encouraged her training into her late teens. At 17, she fell in love with Raghavan, and they soon married. Together, they went on to train hundreds of students, often for free.

“At the time, a lot of children came from poor families. The only money he [Raghavan] accepted was in the form of or a tribute paid to the teacher,” she says.

Donations sustained the school, while Raghavan later took a teaching job for extra income. After his death in 2007, Meenakshi Amma formally took charge.

While she has no plans to retire at the moment, she hopes to hand over the school one day to her eldest son Sanjeev.

The 62-year-old, who is also an instructor at the school, says he is lucky to have learnt from the best – his mother. But being her son earns no favours; he says she’s still his toughest opponent.

Meenakshi Amma is a local celebrity. During our interview, three politicians drop by to invite her to an awards ceremony.

“Amma, you must grace us with your presence,” one of them says with folded hands.

“Thank you for considering me, I’ll attend,” she replies.

Her students speak of “fierce admiration” for her. Many have opened their own Kalari schools across the state, a source of great pride for Meenakshi Amma.

“She’s an inspiration to women everywhere – a rare person who shows love and affection to her students, yet remains a strict disciplinarian when it comes to Kalari,” says KF Thomas, a former student.

After fleeing Silicon Valley for political and business reasons, Elon Musk is building a corporate campus in rural Texas – but his new neighbours have mixed views.

Half an hour east of Austin, past the airport, the clogged-up traffic starts to melt away and the plains of Central Texas open up, leaving the booming city behind.

Somewhere along the main two-lane highway, a left turn takes drivers down Farm-to-Market Road 1209. It seems like an unlikely address for a high-tech hub, but that’s exactly what Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies, hopes it will become.

Court filings indicate that a large metal building finished in the last few months will be the new headquarters of X, his social media platform.

A short distance away, a large logo of the Boring Company, Musk’s infrastructure company, is plastered on the side of another headquarters. And across FM 1209 is a rapidly growing SpaceX facility which manufactures Starlink satellite internet equipment.

Like most technology tycoons, Musk had long made Silicon Valley his home and headquarters. Once a supporter of the Democrats, his move to Texas is part of a larger tech world trend and also appears to reflect his own transformed ideological views.

Here the land is (relatively) cheap, skilled tech workers from nearby Austin are plentiful, and local laws are favourable to development.

Of course, there are also specific political angles to the move.

In July 2024, Musk said he was quitting California after the state passed a law prohibiting teachers from enforcing rules about notifying families when students’ gender identity changes.

Musk has an estranged transgender daughter and has spoken out against what he calls “woke mind virus” – which he describes in interviews as divisive identity politics – along with anti-meritocratic and anti-free speech ideas.

And so Musk upped sticks and headed to Texas, a Republican stronghold and the fastest-growing state in the US.

In addition to the cluster of buildings near Bastrop in central Texas, he has built a SpaceX facility in Cameron County, on the southern tip of Texas near the border with Mexico. SpaceX employees there have filed a petition to create a new town called Starbase. The measure will go to a vote in May.

Locals in Bastrop have mixed feelings about the development.

“It’s almost like we have a split personality,” says Sylvia Carrillo, city manager of Bastrop, which has a growing population of more than 12,000. “Residents are happy that their children and grandchildren will have jobs in the area.

“On the other hand it can feel like we are being overwhelmed by a third party and that the development will quickly urbanise our area,” she says.

Although the Musk development is technically outside of the city’s limits, it’s close enough that Texas laws give Bastrop’s government sway over development. And, Ms Carrillo stresses, the Musk buildings are just one example of many developments springing up in a booming area.

“He’s faced a backlash that is not entirely of his own creating,” she says.

“But now that he’s here and things are changing quickly, it’s a matter of managing” issues like house and land prices and the environment, she says.

The Musk compound is still fairly bare-bones. The grandly named Hyperloop Plaza sits in the middle of the corporate buildings, and is home to the company-owned Boring Bodega, a bar, coffee shop, hairdresser and gift shop.

On a recent windy Sunday afternoon, a video game console sat unplayed in front of a couch near a display of company T-shirts, while a few children scurried back and forth to a playground outside.

The developments in Bastrop fit right into the quickening pace of activity across central Texas, where cranes perpetually loom above the Austin skyline and the housing market is a perpetual topic of conversation.

The area has gone through various industry booms and busts over the years, including lumber and coal mining, says Judy Enis, a volunteer guide at the Bastrop Museum and Visitor Center.

During World War Two, tens of thousands of soldiers – and around 10,000 German prisoners of war – poured in to Camp Swift, a US Army facility north of the town.

“That probably had more of an impact than Elon Musk,” Ms Enis notes.

Views of the tycoon are mixed, to say the least, and inseparable not only from his politics but also opinions on economic development, in what still is a predominately rural area.

Judah Ross, a local real estate agent, says the development has supercharged population growth that started as a result of the Austin boom and accelerated during the Covid pandemic.

“I’m always going to be biased because I want the growth,” Mr Ross says. “But I love it here and I want to be part of it.

“If nothing else, what’s good is the amount of jobs that this is bringing in,” he says. “In the past year, I’ve sold to people working at Boring and SpaceX.”

Alfonso Lopez, a Texan who returned to the state after working in tech in Seattle, says he initially picked Bastrop figuring he would make a quick buck on a house purchase and move on.

Instead, he quickly became enamoured with the town, its mix of local businesses and friendly people, and wants to stay.

Mr Lopez is no big fan of Musk and is critical of some of his management practices and politics, but admires the technology his companies have built and is happy to live nearby as long as the companies are good neighbours.

“As long as they don’t ruin my water or dig a tunnel beneath my house and create a sinkhole, this isn’t bad,” he says, gesturing around the metal shed housing the bodega, coffee shop and bar. “I’ll come here and watch a game.”

His concerns about water are more than theoretical. Last year The Boring Company was fined $11,876 (£8,950) by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality after being cited for water pollution violations.

The Boring Company initially planned to dump wastewater in the nearby Colorado River but, after local pressure, signed a deal to send the sludge to a Bastrop wastewater treatment plant.

The water issues appear to have delayed housebuilding, which reportedly could include more than 100 homes for Musk employees. The planned development of homes has so far failed to materialise, however. For now, the extent of living quarters is a handful of temporary trailers behind the bodega building, surrounded by a wall, acres of Texas plain and a few horses munching grass. Ms Carrillo, the city manager, says any large-scale home building is at least a year off.

In November, SpaceX applied for a free trade zone designation, which would allow it to move materials and finished products in and out of the Bastrop factory without being subject to tariffs – one of Donald Trump’s signature policies.

It’s a common practice for manufacturers, and there are hundreds of similar zones across the country.

Local officials in Texas have endorsed the proposal, saying it will boost the local economy, despite costing the county an estimated $45,000 (£34,800) in revenue this year.

The company is also getting an injection of $17.3m (£13.4m) from the Texas government to develop the site, a grant that officials say is expected to create more than 400 jobs and $280m in capital investment in Bastrop.

Few local residents wanted to directly criticise Musk when standing face-to-face with a visiting reporter. But it’s a different story online, where sharper feelings shine through.

“They will ruin everything nearby,” one resident posted on a local online forum. “Nothing good comes with him.”

The BBC contacted SpaceX, The Boring Company and X for comment.

Ms Carrillo, the city manager, says she hasn’t picked up on much personal anger on the part of locals prompted by Musk’s activities in Washington.

But to protect Bastrop, she says, the city has recently enacted laws limiting housing density and providing for public parks – measures that she says will keep the “historic nature” of the well-preserved downtown while allowing for growth on the outskirts.

Bastrop, she says, is a conservative, traditionally Republican place.

“His national stuff doesn’t really register,” she says. “His companies have been good corporate citizens, and we hope it can stay that way.”

“Are they going to think I’m going to steal stuff from here?”

That’s the question Chantelle remembers asking herself after starting a new job and wondering whether or not to share her Romany heritage.

Chantelle, 23 from Bedfordshire, says she’s proud of her background but has sometimes been “nervous” to share it because of negative portrayals of her community in the media.

“When you watch films, it’s always like, ‘Oh, these are the Gypsies, they’re the bad guys,'” she explains.

Chantelle features in Stacey Dooley’s BBC documentary Growing Up Gypsy, which follows three young Romany women as they navigate everyday life.

The show comes as the charity Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) – an organisation working to end discrimination against the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community – says it regularly hears from Romany Gypsy women who feel pressure to hide their identity in professional or public spaces to avoid discrimination and hate.

Ebony, 23 from Nottinghamshire, works as a beautician and recalls a client at a previous job, who didn’t know about her heritage, telling her she didn’t want to park in a certain area because there were Gypsies living near there.

“And I was sat there, painting her nails, like: ‘Little do you know’,” she recalls thinking.

Romany Gypsies are one of the three ethnic groups within the GRT community. Some in the community prefer to refer to themselves as travellers, while others prefer to use the term Gypsy.

Presenter Dooley says she felt privileged to be invited into the community but that being with the women and their families has shown her “how unwelcome they can sometimes be made to feel”.

It’s something that as a Romany Gypsy myself, I’ve had conflicting feelings about.

Now 26, I’m incredibly proud of my heritage – it’s often one of the first things I’ll share about myself and I have incredible memories of summers spent in the cherry orchard where my family worked.

However, I didn’t always feel that way. At school, I was reluctant to tell people about my identity for fear of being called a derogatory name and when I applied for university, my parents told me not to tick the GRT ethnicity box on the entrance form in case it hurt my chances of getting in.

I filled it in anyway, and have grown more confident in talking about my heritage but the hesitation is still there and is shared by many in the community today.

“There is a lot of hate and discrimination against travellers, and people don’t get jobs because they’re travellers,” says Ebony, on why she’s hidden her heritage in the past.

A spokesperson for the FFT says prejudice against the GRT community “remains widespread” and “too often goes unchallenged”.

And in 2021, a YouGov poll organised by the FFT suggested that 22% of people surveyed would be uncomfortable employing a Gypsy or traveller.

However, Ebony also says she’s had positive interactions with her employers when she did share her heritage and loves where she currently works.

Chantelle now enjoys working as a content creator, with more than 400,000 followers on TikTok, and is more open in speaking about her culture, explaining people online were really “interested” to learn more about her heritage.

Her content includes answering followers’ questions about her community and making traditional dishes, like bacon pudding, which she learned to make from her grandmother.

However, she still sees negative comments, with some even claiming those who live in a house are not Gypsies, which Chantelle says shows a misunderstanding of how her culture works.

“It goes back in your generations and it’s in your blood,” she says.

Despite the comments, Chantelle continues to make videos and appreciates her heritage, explaining: “I know we get talked bad about and things like that, but I’m proud of it.”

Ebony, meanwhile, hopes that people watching the documentary learn more about the GRT community and aren’t so prejudiced towards them.

“I don’t look at every non-traveller like you’re a bad person,” she says, adding that the community does experience that type of prejudice.

“That’s what I would like people to sort of open their eyes to,” she adds.

James’ reaction as he unboxes a rare, limited edition Labubu toy can only be described as pure, unadulterated joy.

The YouTuber delightedly holds up a brown plush monster, which has been described by collectors as “cute”, “ugly”, “creepy” and everything in between.

Labubus are furry snaggletoothed gremlins, which are designed by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung and sold by Chinese toy company Pop Mart.

They’re almost always sold out online and long queues often form outside the selected shops that stock them.

Labubus are also primarily sold in the blind box format, meaning customers never know what version they’ll get until they open them – a fact collectors have said adds to their appeal.

While it’s difficult to pin their recent rise in popularity to one particular ingredient, celebrity endorsement, social media unboxing videos and their ability to stir up nostalgia are all contributing factors.

James Welsh, from Hampshire, sees his Labubu collectable as an investment, which he tells the BBC “could probably earn a fair bit of money two or three years down the line”.

He has just shy of 30 Labubus which retail at around £25 for an individual toy or £153 for a box of six.

He says he has “spent hundreds and hundreds but not quite thousands” on the dolls.

Labubu maker Pop Mart has doubled its profits in the last year and is eying up global expansion in 2025.

The company, which started 15 years ago, has been described as “elevating toy buying to an act of trendy connoisseurship” and praised for embracing non-traditional designs, which have made them a hit with collectors.

Artist Kasing Lung is behind some of their popular toys including The Monsters series and Labubu.

He credits living in The Netherlands as the inspiration behind the dolls and told Hypbeast “I liked to read storybooks and was influenced by ancient European elf legends”.

Lung added that during his childhood, “there were no game consoles or computers, so I had to draw dolls with a pen, so I had the idea of painting fairy tales since I was a child”.

He first came up with the designs in 2015 and signed a licensing agreement with Pop Mart in 2019 to make them into toys.

Labubu as a name has no specific meaning, it is a fictional character based around an elf-like creature.

James says his first thought when he saw the one of the toys was, “they’re creepy but they’re also really cute and I need as many of them as I can get, I need them in every colour”.

The 36-year-old adds, “I think they [provide] some real escapism for millennials as it’s like reverting back to your youth with these toys and collectables.”

A former stylist, he now primarily creates beauty and skincare content, but has recently gained thousands of views on his channel from Labubu unboxing videos.

He tells the BBC: “there is a strong link between these plush pendants and the fashion community as well.”

“They’re a way to express who you are, you can show that through the different characters, which add a pop of colour and fashion is fun, it’s not serious at the end of the day, it’s reflective of who you are.”

There are several iterations of Labubu – from vinyl figures to plush toys – but the keychain versions have become most popular recently.

Labubu’s ascent into mainstream culture has been steady – but was elevated last year by BLACKPINK star Lisa.

The K-pop singer was seen with a Labubu creature hanging from her handbag and also called the toys “her secret obsession” in an interview.

Rihanna was also spotted with one of the toys attached to her bag in recent weeks, which has led to fashion fans replicating her look.

But for collectors such as 22-year-old Chulie, who shares her purchases on TikTok, she says Labubu becoming a “fashion trend” misses the point of why they’re so loved.

“For me, it’s all about the nostalgia and the surprise aspect,” she tells the BBC.

One of Pop Mart’s biggest selling points for collectors is the way their toys are packaged in what’s known as blind boxes, which make the experience of getting one like a lucky dip.

You don’t know what character you are getting until you unseal the package, so it’s always a gamble for collectors.

“You know it’s fun, it’s a dopamine hit”, James says.

“It’s gambling for some of us – kind of like a happy meal, you don’t know what toy you’re getting until you open it up.”

It also makes the toy perfect for the world of social media, as creators can catch their genuine surprise on camera and share it with other fans – something James says provides comfort and “escapism from the real world”.

Chulie says, as a child, she would collect Pokemon trading cards, so collecting another surprise item “triggered memories for me”.

“When you’re having a rough time, especially for me personally, it’s a big serotonin boost to not only buy a collectable and keep it, but share the experience with other people as well,” she adds.

Others have compared Labubus to Beanie Babies, which were popular in the 1990s and 2000s, and say collecting Labubus evokes feelings of childhood nostalgia.

For some fans, just documenting the experience of getting a Labubu is a talking point, with many showing the long queues and hours of research required to find out where new collections are being stocked.

It’s prompted backlash on some social media channels, with users criticising collectors that have bought large numbers of items.

“Just because you don’t understand someone’s hobby, doesn’t mean it’s not valid in any way,” James says.

While James hasn’t spent hours and hours queuing to build his collection, he says he “has gone out of my way” to source authentic dolls online. As with any popular item, counterfeits have made their way onto the market.

“I spend a fair bit of money on my hobby, but it’s my adult money,” he jokes.

Chulie says she currently has 10 Labubus, but has sold some to other fans when she’s ended up with the same toy twice.

“When I first got exposed to them, I wasn’t sure why people were spending money on them, because in the US they start at around $21 [£16], which is minimum wage for a lot of people.

“But it’s so addictive getting one, and it’s really hard to stop buying once you start,” she adds.

Boy meets girl. Girl falls for boy. Girl fends off love rivals and boy – finally – declares his affection for her.

If you are a fan of reality TV dating shows, you will have seen several variations of this plot – it is a well-worn storyline that has played out on the likes of Love Island, Love is Blind and The Bachelor.

But in Ethiopia, this romantic scenario has broken convention.

Content creator Bethel Getahun won over insurance agent Messiah Hailemeskel in Latey: Looking for Love – a reality TV show that ignited debates about dating norms in the conservative East African country.

Latey’s premise mirrored that of the aforementioned hit US show, The Bachelor (in fact, Latey is Amharic for bachelor/bachelorette).

Ten women had to compete for the affection of Mr Messiah, a 38-year-old Ethiopian-American who grew up and lives in Dallas.

Throughout the series, the women battled it out in boxing matches, basketball contests and even a bizarre task where they had to devise a TV advert for a mattress, à la The Apprentice.

Broadcast on YouTube, Latey is a rare dating programme in a country where courtship is traditionally a private affair.

Winning such a ground-breaking show felt “surreal”, 25-year-old Ms Bethel told the BBC’s Focus on Africa podcast. Weeks on from the finale, which racked up more than 620,000 views, her victory still “feels like a badge of honour”.

Of course, not everyone feels the same way.

“The concept of a dating show is entirely [a] Western idea,” says Ethiopian vlogger Semere Kassaye.

“Dating in Ethiopia has always been a private matter, something that is nurtured carefully and only brought to the attention of family or society when it reaches a level of maturity.”

Mr Semere, 41, also feels that the show devalues women, treating them as objects to be acquired.

Several viewers voiced the same opinion – one commenter on YouTube wrote: “Ladies, you are not an object that the one with money can easily pick you up.”

Another asked: “Lots of creativity on the production but if it is against the culture, what is the point?”

Ms Bethel agrees that the concept of women openly competing for a man clashes with Ethiopian traditions, but insists that the show is more than its central premise.

“The whole point of the show is to represent different kinds of women,” she says.

“If you have seen the episodes, you can see every woman in that episode has a lot of different struggles, backgrounds, and all different kinds of stuff that hasn’t really been expressed or represented in media in Ethiopia.”

Arguably, Latey succeeds in this respect. The women – who include hotel managers, flight attendants and accountants – swiftly bond, sharing their personal stories with each other and the viewers.

In one of the more heart-breaking scenes, actress Vivian divulges that she fled to Ethiopia from Eritrea, a neighbouring country that enforces indefinite military conscription for all able-bodied citizens. It has also been widely accused of human rights violations.

Vivian travelled alone to Ethiopia and has not seen her mother in five years.

“I miss her so much,” she says tearfully.

Elsewhere, Rahel, a model, explains that she dropped out of school to take on multiple jobs and provide for her siblings, while other women have emotional conversations about grief and their reverence for those who raised them.

By baring these women’s realities – and their romantic desires – Latey cemented its place as the “content of its times”, producer Metasebia Yoseph tells the BBC.

Ms Metasebia, co-founder of D!nkTV, Latey’s production company, says the show “rocked the boat”, but is far from an affront to Ethiopian culture.

“Number one – it is not hyper-sexualised,” she says.

“We leave it on the more innocent, get-to-know-you, stages of dating.”

She says the show also asks its viewers to interrogate the concept of culture, “sparking dialogue about ‘What is our culture? Are we a monolith?'”

Adapting a universal reality TV formula to Ethiopia has delighted many, with one fan commenting: “I totally love the risk-taking, considering how reserved we are as a society… I have always wanted to see other shows in Ethiopian version. This is a ground-breaking moment.”

A second viewer wrote: “I never imagined watching The Bachelor in Ethiopia, but you have done an excellent job bringing it to life.”

Off the back of this success, D!nk TV is planning a second series.

This time, Ms Metasebia says, a single woman could be the one picking her match from 10 male hopefuls.

“We’re getting a lot of feedback from the audience, people want to see the roles reversed,” she explains.

As for Ms Bethel and Mr Messiah? Sadly, their love story has come to a halt.

“It is long distance because he’s in America right now with his son. So it’s really difficult… I don’t know where it’s going to go, basically,” she says.

But Ms Bethel is still close to some of her fellow contestants, who she fondly refers to as her “sorority”.

She is proud that Latey showcased “the romantic side of Ethiopia” and believes the show will lead to better representations of women in Ethiopian media.

“It is a new way of showcasing women and how they express themselves,” she says.

“It is a new way of seeing.”

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Christians around the world are celebrating Easter.

All Christians, from Orthodox and Western churches, are observing the holiday on the same day this year – not often the case because the churches use different calendars.

In Greece, the sky lit up with fireworks, while worshippers in Jerusalem lit candles at the church where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead, which is remembered at Easter.

Here is a look at how some have been celebrating the holiday as days of festivities culminate in Easter Sunday.

A nine-year-old boy who got trapped between rocks at a New South Wales beach on Sunday has become the seventh person to drown in Australia over the Easter weekend.

The majority of deaths were caused by strong swells washing people into the ocean from rocks. Two people remain missing.

Steven Pearce, the CEO of Surf Live Saving in New South Wales, where most of the fatalities occurred, told the ABC it was the “worst” spate of drownings on record for the Easter long weekend.

“It has just been horrendous on a weekend that’s supposed to be joyous and religious,” Pearce told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Emergency teams were able to retrieve the boy at South West Rocks, about 400 kilometres north of Sydney, but he died at the scene.

Earlier on Sunday, a helicopter spotted a father and son floating in the water near Wattamolla Beach, south of Sydney. The 14-year-old son was resuscitated, but the father was later pronounced dead.

Meanwhile, Police in Victoria are continuing to search for a 41-year-old man who went missing near San Remo on Friday.

Surf Live Saving New South Wales said it has carried out more than 150 rescues since Good Friday.

Mr Pearce said a “perfect combination” of high temperatures, the holiday weekend, and dangerous ocean swells across much of New South Wales and Victoria caused the spike in deaths.

Although conditions are set to improve on Monday, authorities urged those visiting the coastline to exercise caution.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese expressed sympathy to the victims’ families. “Please, everyone, be careful. Families in particular, be careful of your kids,” he said.

According to Royal Life Saving Australia, 323 people drowned across the country in the year to June 2024.

That figure includes those who died in rivers and creeks, as well as at beaches. Nearly 40% of the deaths were recorded in New South Wales.

Two Russian aircraft flying close to Nato airspace were detected by British fighter jets in separate incidents earlier this week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said.

A pair of RAF Typhoons were scrambled to intercept a Russian Ilyushin Il-20M “Coot-A” intelligence aircraft over the Baltic Sea on 15 April, while another two Typhoons intercepted an unknown aircraft leaving the Kaliningrad airspace on 17 April.

The two intercepts, which took off from Malbork Air Base in Poland, were part of the UK’s contribution to Nato’s enhanced air policing.

They were the RAF’s first intercepts since aircraft arrived in the region to begin the defence of Nato’s eastern flank, working alongside Sweden.

The UK’s involvement in Nato’s enhanced air policing is called Operation Chessman and sees personnel from across the RAF deployed to Malbork alongside Sweden, Nato’s newest member.

The undertaking follows Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.

Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard said that the UK was “unshakable” in its commitment to Nato.

“With Russian aggression growing and security threats on the rise, we are stepping up to reassure our Allies, deter adversaries and protect our national security through our Plan for Change,” he said.

Mr Pollard added that the “mission shows our ability to operate side by side with NATO’s newest member Sweden and to defend the Alliance’s airspace wherever and whenever needed, keeping us safe at home and strong abroad”.

This is not the first time RAF jets have been used to intercept Russian aircraft.

Last year, two Typhoons based at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland were scrambled after a Russian Bear-F bomber flew over the North Sea.

At the time, the MoD said the Russian reconnaissance plane had been detected in the UK’s “area of interest”, but had not been able to enter UK sovereign airspace.

Fifty Russian aircraft were also intercepted by RAF pilots based at Lossiemouth in 2023, when 21 aircraft were intercepted in a 21-day period.

In a separate incident in 2023, Typhoon fighters and a Norwegian F-35A fighter aircraft were launched as part of Nato’s response to a Russian aircraft near Uk airspace.

Incidents like this – known as quick reaction alerts – are not uncommon and involve RAF crews shadowing Russian military aircraft near UK airspace and during operations further afield, if necessary. They have occurred since the Cold War era.

Intercepts are not just used to track Russian aircraft, though. In October 2024, RAF fighters were scrambled to intercept a civilian airliner which had reported a bomb on board.

Afterwards, an RAF spokesman said the alert ended without incident, and the Boeing 777-300 “was released to continue to its original destination”.

The layout of Myanmar’s capital city Nay Pyi Taw will be redrawn after the devastating earthquake last month, the country’s military ruler has said.

During a government meeting, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said that buildings which collapsed during the earthquake were so badly affected because they were built on soft soil.

Office buildings will be rebuilt and must be resistant to future earthquakes, he said, with tests on soil also being conducted before any rebuilding is done.

The BBC has seen evidence indicating about 70% of government buildings were damaged by the quake in the capital, and some offices have reportedly been moved to Yangon.

Myanmar was devastated by a huge earthquake which hit the country on 28 March. The 7.7 magnitude quake was so strong it was felt in Thailand and south-west China.

According to state media, over 3,500 people were killed and 5,012 were injured in Myanmar as a result of the quake.

The city of Nay Pyi Taw covers at least four times the area of London, but with only a fraction of the people. Its history is short: it has only existed since 2005, raised out of the flatlands by the then military rulers of Myanmar, which was previously known as Burma.

The name Nay Pyi Taw means “seat of the king”. The reasons for moving the capital some 370km inland from the largest city, Yangon, have never been entirely clear.

The city bears all the hallmarks of a planned capital: the road leading from parliament to the presidential palace is 20 lanes wide, but carries hardly any traffic. Shiny shopping malls and empty luxury hotels line the boulevards. There’s a safari park, a zoo, and at least three stadiums.

Since 2021, Myanmar has been plagued by civil war between the junta, which seized power in a military coup, and ethnic militias and resistance forces across the country.

A 20-day ceasefire was declared by the military council on 2 April, following the announcement of a pause in hostilities by an alliance made up of three rebel groups.

The ceasefires were announced to help relief efforts, but the military has reportedly continued to attack rebel-held areas.

The military council’s photo archives show that several government buildings, including the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Planning and the Court of the Union were severely damaged in the earthquake.

Most of the buildings are still in ruins as repair work on them has not yet started.

The removal of important government documents has reportedly been ordered, along with equipment and other moveable items.

Reconstruction of the buildings could take years, and as a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Tourism have reportedly moved their offices to the former capital Yangon – 366km (228m) away.

Other departments are relocating their offices to open air halls called “hotai” in Nay Pyi Taw, which are built with steel frames.

Social media posts written by staff at the National Museum in Nay Pyi Taw say they have moved inscriptions and manuscripts and are trying to save as many as possible of the tens of thousands of books, along with literature and computers.

Trading cryptocurrency was just a bit of fun for Tzoni Raykov, but losing $1,500 worth to an administrative error has left him with serious concerns about his treatment by the industry.

The oil engineer has held an account with Revolut for several years – using its app to split bills with friends after going out for dinner or drinks. They would pay each other using traditional currency, like the pound sterling or US dollar.

But after seeing the e-money firm advertise its cryptocurrency services, he decided to give it a try.

What Tzoni thought would be a straightforward transfer of cryptocurrency coins has left the Bulgarian national angry and out of pocket.

His experience highlights some of the frustrations people have had using cryptocurrency where many of the customer safeguards which underpin standard online banking transactions, some mandated by law, do not apply.

“When they treat you like this, it makes you feel like you can’t do anything,” he told BBC News. “Like you are powerless.”

While the cryptocurrency market is dominated by Bitcoin, there is a plethora of other digital currencies, including USDC – which Tzoni had already amassed in a separate crypto account.

His frustrations began in February when he decided to transfer some of his USDC coins to his Revolut account.

As a precaution – which Revolut suggests doing – he first sent 10 of the coins, worth $10. It was a success and the funds were credited to his Revolut account.

Days later he tried to make a larger transfer of what he thought was 1,500 USDC. The transfer was completed but, this time, the funds were not credited to his account.

Tzoni says the problem occurred because Revolut’s deposit instructions were unclear.

When you transfer cryptocurrency from one account to another, you have to select a network to send it through – like choosing which courier service to use when sending a parcel.

Revolut’s deposit instructions say to transfer USDC to it, you have to use a network called Polygon. In his first, successful, deposit Tzoni selected one called “Polygon PoS”.

In the second deposit, when he tried to transfer 1,500 USDC, he selected a different network – “Polygon (bridged)”.

He thought it would work just as well but says instead it caused the coins to be converted into USDC.e – a different cryptocurrency.

This is what Revolut received. The company does not handle USDC.e coins.

After seeing his Revolut account had not been credited with the 1,500 coins, Tzoni contacted the Revolut support team.

In messages seen by BBC News, they told him the issue seemed to be with “the specific type of Polygon network used, which led to the conversion”.

In another, he was told: “The app currently specifies ‘Polygon’ without differentiating between standard and bridged options. I’ll note your feedback for future improvements.”

Tzoni thinks if Revolut’s deposit instructions had been more specific, his problem would have been avoided.

When approached by BBC News about this case, Revolut gave a different answer.

The firm said the problem was not because Tzoni had used the wrong Polygon network – which he claimed turned his coins into USDC.e.

The deposit failure was “not because the network itself had ‘converted’ the token”, it said, without explaining why its support team had suggested to Tzoni that it was.

Revolut told us the deposit ultimately failed because the USDC.e coins it received were not supported by the company’s technology.

It said: “As is standard industry practice due to the significant technical challenges involved in supporting every combination of token and chain, the recovery of these unsupported assets does not sit within Revolut’s scope.”

It means the 1,500 USDC.e coins have not been credited to Tzoni’s account or sent back to him.

To Tzoni’s mind, this isn’t acceptable treatment from a company of Revolut’s size and reputation, which handles normal banking deposits as well as cryptocurrency, stocks and commodities.

Revolut says it has 10 million users in the UK while last year it was granted a provisional banking licence, paving the way for it to become a fully fledged UK bank.

When using a High Street bank, a mistaken transfer of traditional currency would usually be resolved with the money being reverted back to the customer.

This was established in 2014 in a voluntary code of practice that most UK banks signed up to. There is no such equivalent in the cryptocurrency industry.

After contacting Revolut several times in recent weeks, Tzoni has been told the coins are effectively lost.

“They are waiting for me to get bored and give up, to accept the money is gone. But I won’t,” Tzoni said, pointing out the coins are in the Revolut system. “It is ridiculous that they can behave like this.”

While Tzoni’s loss of cryptocurrency is significant to him, the sum is tiny compared with the size of the industry, which has risen sharply in value over the past 18 months.

The global market peaked in value at $3.9tn last December, following the re-election of Donald Trump. Since then it has fallen by $1.1tn, according to tracking website CoinGecko.

Government policies in the US and other countries are also changing to favour the cryptocurrency industry, even though it has suffered several scandals.

FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency firms, went bankrupt in 2022. Sam Bankman-Fried, its chief executive, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year for defrauding customers of billions of dollars.

Investigators also found FTX was using QuickBooks, a popular accounting software designed for individuals and small businesses, to manage the money.

John Ray III, a lawyer tasked with recovering funds from FTX for defrauded customers, told a bankruptcy court: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

He later told a congressional hearing: “Nothing against QuickBooks. It’s a very nice tool, just not for a multibillion-dollar company.”

A couple of months ago Bybit, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange by some estimates, was tricked out of $1.5bn worth of coins by hackers thought to be working for North Korea.

The firm had been using Safe, a free digital storage software popular with individuals who want to store cryptocurrency on their own devices, as part of their business operations.

Following the theft, Bybit’s chief executive said they “should have upgraded and moved away from Safe” earlier.

One of the problems with cryptocurrency firms, says Prof Mark Button, who researches cybercrime, is they can grow very quickly, which means they don’t always keep up with the accounting and security challenges of managing so much money.

“For me it illustrates that if we are going to be serious about cryptocurrencies in the future… there needs to be some kind of regulation.”

In Tzoni’s case, it might have been easier for him to get his cryptocurrency back or be compensated if there were laws stating what firms need to do if they are sent a coin they don’t handle.

Higher industry standards might also have prevented him making such a transaction in the first place.

Mykhailo Tiutin is chief technology officer at AMLBot, a company that analyses how risky cryptocurrency transactions are.

Their service runs checks similar to those supported by banks, where details for a transfer, such as the account holder’s name, sort code and account number, are verified.

He says cryptocurrency is safe enough for the average person to use but that they should be careful about which products and services they choose. He says he has also lost cryptocurrency after making an administrative mistake.

“You have to do your own research,” he told us. “The successes and the losses are ultimately at your own risk.”

Prison officers are to demand that staff be immediately given electric stun guns to protect themselves while guarding the UK’s most dangerous jails when they meet the justice secretary on Wednesday.

The meeting with Shabana Mahmood comes after Hashem Abedi, one of the men responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing, threw hot oil at officers and stabbed them with makeshift weapons at HMP Frankland in County Durham.

Mark Fairhurst, national chair of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), told the BBC that they are “calling for the tactical use of taser”.

In a statement, Mahmood said “we must do better to protect our prison officers in the future”.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Fairhurst said: “My concerns are that when we face life threatening situations, we no longer have tactical options.

“If extendible batons and incapacitant spray fail to work adequately, we have no other options available.”

“That’s why we are calling for the tactical use of taser. We want specially trained staff on site who respond to incidents with the ability to deploy taser to neutralise that threat.

“At the moment we haven’t got that.”

Prison officers currently only carry an extendable baton and Pava incapacitant spray – synthetic pepper spray.

The POA will also renew calls for all staff to have stab vests.

Mr Fairhurst has also called for American “Supermax”-style rules imposed on the UK’s most dangerous inmates.

This would mean selected high-risk inmates would leave their cell only when handcuffed and escorted by three staff, he told the Guardian newspaper.

There would also be no mixing with other prisoners, and they would be restricted to their basic entitlement of rights and privileges.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said there will be a full, independent review into the incident, which has drawn criticism from survivors and the families of victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Former prison governor Ian Acheson said the current protective equipment issued to prison officers, particularly those that deal with the most dangerous prisoners, is inadequate compared to the “level of threat” they face.

“We need some urgent action by the Ministry of Justice to protect frontline staff or we are very close to having a frontline prison officer murdered on duty,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Security measures at the separation centre did allow prisoners access to kitchens – where Abedi carried out his attack – but this has been suspended by the MoJ following the incident.

Mahmood said the review would “provide recommendations and findings that highlight whether there are any changes in process or policies that can be implemented at HMP Frankland and more broadly across the High Security Estate”.

An internal review into protective body armour will be also carried out, she said.

There was no mention of electric stun guns in the statement.

Abedi, who helped his older brother Salman plan the Manchester Arena bombing, was jailed for life with a minimum 55 years in prison after being convicted of murdering 22 people.

He had been held in a separation centre – which holds a small number of inmates deemed to be dangerous and extremist – at Frankland.

He moved to Frankland after carrying out an earlier attack on prison officers in London’s Belmarsh prison in 2020, for which three years and 10 months was added to his sentence.

Abedi has since been returned to Belmarsh.

The winners of the 2024 Sony World Photography Awards have been announced, with Zed Nelson named as Photographer of the Year for , a project exploring the fractured relationship between humans and the natural world.

Nelson’s project takes its name from the term Anthropocene – the current geological epoch where human activity has become the dominant force shaping the Earth’s environment.

The project explores the tension between the human desire to connect with nature and ongoing environmental degradation.

Nelson’s constructed environments highlight the growing gap between conservation efforts and ecological destruction.

The Anthropocene Illusion goes beyond a documentary, offering a thought-provoking exploration of modern human life in an era shaped by human impact.

Nelson’s work, selected from the 10 professional competition category winners, triumphed in the wildlife and nature category.

Here are the other category winners.

The Tokyo Toilet Project by Ulana Switucha (Canada)

The Tokyo Toilet Project in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan, is an urban redevelopment initiative aimed at creating modern public restrooms that encourage use.

These images are part of a larger series documenting the architectural design of these structures within their urban setting.

Rhi-Entry by Rhiannon Adam (United Kingdom)

In 2018, Japanese billionaire and art collector Yusaku Maezawa launched a global search for eight artists to join him on a week-long lunar mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship, the first civilian deep space flight.

The mission would follow a path similar to Apollo 8’s 1968 journey, which inspired astronaut Bill Anders to suggest NASA should have sent poets to capture the awe of space.

In 2021, Rhiannon Adam was chosen as the only female crew member from one million applicants and for three years she immersed herself in the space industry.

Maezawa abruptly cancelled the mission, leaving the crew to pick up the pieces of their disrupted lives – the experience informed Adam’s thought provoking project.

Divided Youth of Belfast by Toby Binder (Germany)

For years, Toby Binder has been documenting the experiences of young people born after the peace agreement in Northern Ireland, capturing what it means to grow up amid the intergenerational tensions in both Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods.

Alquimia Textil by Nicolás Garrido Huguet (Peru)

Alquimia Textil is a collaborative project by Nicolás Garrido Huguet and fashion designer María Lucía Muñoz, highlighting the natural dyeing techniques of Pumaqwasin artisans in Chinchero, Cusco, Peru.

The project seeks to raise awareness and preserve these ancestral practices, which involve hours of meticulous work often overlooked in the textile industry.

The Strata of Time by Seido Kino (Japan)

This project invites viewers to consider what it means for a country to grow, and the advantages and disadvantages linked to that growth, by overlaying archival photographs from the 1940s-60s within current scenes.

The Journey Home from School by Laura Pannack (United Kingdom)

Laura Pannack’s project explores the tumultuous public lives of young people in the gang-governed Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa, where their daily commute carries the risk of death.

Using handmade, lo-fi experimental techniques, this project explores how young people have to walk to and from school avoiding the daily threat of gang crossfire.

M’kumba by Gui Christ (Brazil)

M’kumba is an ongoing project that illustrates the resilience of Afro-Brazilian communities in the face of local religious intolerance.

Gui Christ wanted to photograph a proud, young generation representing African deities and mythological tales.

Shred the Patriarchy by Chantal Pinzi (Italy)

India, the world’s most populous country, only has a handful of female skaters.

Through the art of falling and getting back up, these women challenge stereotypes, fight marginalisation and reclaim public spaces in both urban and rural areas.

Still Waiting by Peter Franck (Germany)

Still Waiting presents collages that capture moments of pause, of waiting.

Tbourida La Chute by Olivier Unia

The Open competition celebrates the power and dynamism of a single photograph.

Olivier Unia was chosen for his photograph Tbourida La Chute.

Many of the photographs taken during a traditional Moroccan ‘tbourida’ show the riders firing their rifles.

With this image, the photographer wanted to share another side of the event, and show how dangerous it can be when a rider is thrown from their mount.

The Last Day We Saw the Mountains and the Sea by Micaela Valdivia Medina (Peru)

Medina’s project explores female prison spaces across Chile, and the dynamics that shape the lives of incarcerated women and their families.

For the 2025 Youth competition, photographers aged 19 and under were invited to respond to an Open Call and enter their best images from the last year.

The winner, chosen from a shortlist of 11 photographers, was Daniel Dian-Ji Wu, Taiwan, 16 years old, for his image of a skateboarder doing a trick, silhouetted against a sunset in Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

The prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Photography 2025 was awarded to acclaimed documentary photographer Susan Meiselas.

For more than five decades, photographer Susan Meiselas has focused her lens on capturing compelling stories from diverse communities.

From documenting the lives of women performing striptease at rural American fairs to chronicling the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, her work provides an intimate portrait of resilience and humanity.

All photos courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2025. Exhibition at Somerset House, London, 17 April – 5 May 2025.

Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, after 12 years as spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

His death has set in motion the centuries-old process of electing a new Pope.

The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church. Roman Catholics believe he represents a direct line back to Jesus Christ. He is considered a living successor to St Peter, who was chief among Christ’s initial disciples, the Apostles.

That gives him full and unhindered power over the entire Catholic Church and makes him an important source of authority for the world’s roughly 1.4 billion Catholics.

While many Catholics often consult the Bible for guidance, they can also turn to the teachings of the Pope, which govern the Church’s beliefs and practices.

About half of all Christians worldwide are Roman Catholics. Other denominations, including Protestants and Orthodox Christians, do not recognise the Pope’s authority.

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The Pope lives in Vatican City, the smallest independent state in the world. It is surrounded by the Italian capital, Rome.

The Pope does not receive a salary, but all his travel costs and living expenses are paid for by the Vatican.

A papal funeral has traditionally been an elaborate affair, but Pope Francis recently approved plans to make the whole procedure less complex.

Previous pontiffs were buried in three nested coffins made of cypress, lead and oak. Pope Francis has opted for a simple wooden coffin lined with zinc.

He has also scrapped the tradition of placing the Pope’s body on a raised platform – known as a catafalque – in St Peter’s Basilica for public viewing.

Instead, mourners will be invited to pay their respects while his body remains inside the coffin, with the lid removed.

Francis will also be the first Pope in more than a century to be buried outside the Vatican.

He will be laid to rest in the Basilica of St Mary Major, one of four major papal basilicas in Rome.

A basilica is a church which has been granted special significance and privileges by the Vatican. The major basilicas have a particular connection to the Pope.

The new Pope has to be chosen by the Catholic Church’s most senior officials, known as the College of Cardinals.

All men, they are appointed directly by the Pope, and are usually ordained bishops.

There are currently 252 Catholic cardinals, 138 of whom are eligible to vote for the new Pope.

The others are over the age of 80, which means they cannot take part in the election, although they can join in the debate over who should be selected.

When the Pope dies (or resigns, as in the rare case of Pope Benedict XVI in 2013), the cardinals are summoned to a meeting at the Vatican, followed by the conclave, as the election is known.

During the time between the Pope’s death and the election of his successor, the College of Cardinals governs the Church.

The election is held in strict secrecy inside the Sistine Chapel, famously painted by Michelangelo.

Individual cardinals vote for their preferred candidate until a winner is determined, a process which can take several days. In previous centuries, voting has gone on for weeks or months. Some cardinals have even died during conclaves.

The only clue about how the election is proceeding is the smoke that emerges twice a day from burning the cardinals’ ballot papers. Black signals failure. The traditional white smoke means the new Pope has been chosen.

After the white smoke goes up, the new Pope normally appears within an hour on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square.

The senior cardinal participating in the conclave will announce the decision with the words “Habemus Papam” – Latin for “we have a Pope”.

He will then introduce the new Pope by his chosen papal name, which may or may not be his original given name.

For example, Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, but he chose a different name for his papacy in honour of St Francis of Assisi.

In theory, any Roman Catholic man who has been baptised can be considered for election to become Pope.

In practice, however, the cardinals prefer to select one of their own.

When the Argentine-born Pope Francis was chosen at the previous conclave in 2013, he became the first pontiff ever to hail from South America, a region that accounts for roughly 28% of the world’s Catholics.

But historical precedent suggests the cardinals are far more likely to pick a European – and especially an Italian.

Of the 266 popes chosen to date, 217 have been from Italy.

China has warned it will hit back at countries that make deals with the US that hurt Beijing’s interests, as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies threatens to drag in other nations.

The comments come after reports that the US plans to pressure governments to restrict trade with China in exchange for exemptions to US tariffs.

The Trump administration has started talks with trading partners over tariffs, with a Japanese delegation visiting Washington last week and South Korea is set to start negotiations this week.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has imposed hefty taxes on Chinese imports, while other countries have also been hit with levies on their goods.

“Appeasement cannot bring peace, and compromise cannot earn one respect,” a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson said.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests. If this happens, China will never accept it and will resolutely take countermeasures”.

The remarks echoed an editorial last week in the state-controlled China Daily, which warned the European Union against trying to “appease” the US.

The comments came after reports that the US plans to use tariff negotiations to pressure dozens of countries into imposing new barriers on trade with China.

The BBC has asked the US Treasury Department and the US Trade Representative for responses to the reports.

Trump has said more than 70 countries have reached out to start negotiations since the tariffs were announced.

“If you put the numbers on it, about 20% of Japan’s profitability comes from the United States, about 15% comes from the People’s Republic of China,” said Jesper Koll, from Japanese online trading platform operator Monex Group.

“Certainly, Japan doesn’t want to [have to] choose between America and the People’s Republic of China.”

Japan kicked off negotiations with the US last week when its top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, met the US President in Washington DC.

South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, has said his country will begin trade talks with the US later this week.

Meanwhile, US Vice President, JD Vance, is expected to meet India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to the country this week. India faces a tariff rate of 26% if it is unable to agree a trade deal with the Trump administration.

Last week, Vance said there was a “good chance” a trade deal could be reached with the UK.

“We’re certainly working very hard with Keir Starmer’s government,” he said in an interview with the UnHerd website.

Since Trump’s inauguration, there has been a flurry of announcements on tariffs.

The US president has said the import taxes will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised, and lead to major investments in the country.

But critics have said bringing manufacturing back to the US is complicated and could take decades and that the economy will struggle in the meantime.

Trump has also backtracked on many of his announcements.

Just hours after steep levies on dozens of America’s trading partners kicked in earlier this month, he announced a 90-day pause on those tariffs to all countries bar China, in the face of mounting opposition from politicians and the markets.

Trump has imposed taxes of up to 145% on imports from China. Other countries are now facing a blanket US tariff of 10% until July.

His administration said last week that when the new tariffs are added on to existing ones, the levies on some Chinese goods could reach 245%.

China has hit back with a 125% tax on products from the US and vowed to “fight to the end”.

The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies sent shockwaves through the global financial markets earlier this month.

His ascension to the papacy heralded many firsts.

Francis was the first Pope from the Americas or the Southern Hemisphere. Not since Syrian-born Gregory III died in 741 had there been a non-European Bishop of Rome.

He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of St Peter – Jesuits were historically looked on with suspicion by Rome.

His predecessor, Benedict XVI, was the first Pope to retire voluntarily in almost 600 years and for almost a decade the Vatican Gardens hosted two popes.

Many Catholics had assumed the new pontiff would be a younger man – but Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina was already in his seventies when he became Pope in 2013.

He had presented himself as a compromise candidate: appealing to conservatives with orthodox views on sexual matters while attracting the reformers with his liberal stance on social justice.

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It was hoped his unorthodox background would help rejuvenate the Vatican and reinvigorate its holy mission.

But within the Vatican bureaucracy some of Francis’s attempts at reform met with resistance and his predecessor, who died in 2022, remained popular among traditionalists.

From the moment of his election, Francis indicated he would do things differently. He received his cardinals informally and standing – rather than seated on the papal throne.

On 13 March 2013, Pope Francis emerged on the balcony overlooking St Peter’s Square.

Clad simply in white, he bore a new name which paid homage to St Francis of Assisi, the 13th Century preacher and animal lover.

He was determined to favour humility over pomp and grandeur. He shunned the papal limousine and insisted on sharing the bus taking other cardinals home.

The new Pope set a moral mission for the 1.2 billion-strong flock. “Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor,” he remarked.

His last act as head of the Catholic Church was to appear on Easter Sunday on the balcony of St Peter’s Square, waving at thousands of worshippers after weeks in hospital with double pneumonia.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 17 December 1936 – the eldest of five children. His parents had fled their native Italy to escape the evils of fascism.

He enjoyed tango dancing and became a supporter of his local football club, San Lorenzo.

He was lucky to escape with his life after an initial and serious bout of pneumonia, undergoing an operation to remove part of a lung. It would leave him susceptible to infection throughout his life.

As an elderly man he also suffered from pain in his right knee, which he described as a “physical humiliation”.

The young Bergoglio worked as a nightclub bouncer and floor sweeper, before graduating as a chemist.

At a local factory, he worked closely with Esther Ballestrino, who campaigned against Argentina’s military dictatorship. She was tortured, her body never found.

He became a Jesuit, studied philosophy and taught literature and psychology. Ordained a decade later, he won swift promotion, becoming provincial superior for Argentina in 1973.

Some felt he failed to do enough to oppose the generals of Argentina’s brutal military regime.

He was accused of involvement in the military kidnapping of two priests during Argentina’s Dirty War, a period when thousands of people were tortured or killed, or disappeared, from 1976 to 1983.

The two priests were tortured but eventually found alive – heavily sedated and semi-naked.

Bergoglio faced charges of failing to inform the authorities that their work in poor neighbourhoods had been endorsed by the Church. This, if true, had abandoned them to the death squads. It was an accusation he flatly denied, insisting he had worked behind the scenes to free them.

Asked why he did not speak out, he reportedly said it was too difficult. In truth – at 36 years old – he found himself in a chaos that would have tried the most seasoned leader. He certainly helped many who tried to flee the country.

He also had differences with fellow Jesuits who believed Bergoglio lacked interest in liberation theology – that synthesis of Christian thought and Marxist sociology which sought to overthrow injustice. He, by contrast, preferred a gentler form of pastoral support.

At times, the relationship bordered on estrangement. When he sought initially to become Pope in 2005 some Jesuits breathed a sigh of relief.

He was named Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992 and then became Archbishop.

Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal in 2001 and he took up posts in the Church’s civil service, the Curia.

He cultivated a reputation as a man of simple tastes, eschewing many of the trappings of a senior cleric. He usually flew economy and preferred to wear the black gown of a priest – rather than the red and purple of his new position.

In his sermons, he called for social inclusion and criticised governments that failed to pay attention to the poorest in society.

“We live in the most unequal part of the world,” he said, “which has grown the most, yet reduced misery the least.”

As Pope, he made great efforts to heal the thousand-year rift with the Eastern Orthodox Church. In recognition, for the first time since the Great Schism of 1054, the Patriarch of Constantinople attended the installation of a new Bishop of Rome.

Francis worked with Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists and persuaded the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to join him to pray for peace.

After attacks by Muslim militants, he said it was not right to identify Islam with violence. “If I speak of Islamic violence, then I have to speak of Catholic violence too,” he declared.

Politically, he allied himself with the Argentine government’s claim on the Falklands, telling a service: “We come to pray for those who have fallen, sons of the homeland who set out to defend their mother, the homeland, to claim the country that is theirs.”

And, as a Spanish-speaking Latin American, he provided a crucial service as mediator when the US government edged towards historic rapprochement with Cuba. It is difficult to imagine a European Pope playing such a critical diplomatic role.

On many of the Church’s teachings, Pope Francis was a traditionalist.

He was “as uncompromising as Pope John Paul II… on euthanasia, the death penalty, abortion, the right to life, human rights and the celibacy of priests”, according to Monsignor Osvaldo Musto, who was at seminary with him.

He said the Church should welcome people regardless of their sexual orientation, but insisted gay adoption was a form of discrimination against children.

There were warm words in favour of some kind of same-sex unions for gay couples, but Francis did not favour calling it marriage. This, he said, would be “an attempt to destroy God’s plan”.

Shortly after becoming Pope in 2013, he took part in an anti-abortion march in Rome – calling for rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception”.

He called on gynaecologists to invoke their consciences and sent a message to Ireland – as it held a referendum on the subject – begging people there to protect the vulnerable.

He resisted the ordination of women, declaring that Pope John Paul II had once and for all ruled out the possibility.

And, although he seemed at first to allow that contraception might be used to prevent disease, he praised Paul VI’s teaching on the subject – which warned it might reduce women to instruments of male satisfaction.

In 2015, Pope Francis told an audience in the Philippines that contraception involved “the destruction of the family through the privation of children”. It was not the absence of children itself that he saw as so damaging, but the wilful decision to avoid them.

The greatest challenge to his papacy, however, came on two fronts: from those who accused him of failing to tackle child abuse and from conservative critics who felt that he was diluting the faith. In particular, they had in mind his moves to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to take Communion.

Conservatives also adopted the issue of child abuse as a weapon in their long-running campaign.

In August 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former Apostolic Nuncio to the US, published an 11-page declaration of war. He released a letter describing a series of warnings made to the Vatican about the behaviour of a former cardinal, Thomas McCarrick.

It was alleged that McCarrick had been a serial abuser who attacked both adults and minors. The Pope, Archbishop Viganò said, had made him a “trusted councillor” despite knowing he was deeply corrupted. The solution was clear, he said: Pope Francis should resign.

“These homosexual networks,” the archbishop claimed, “act under the concealment of secrecy and lie with the power of octopus tentacles… and are strangling the entire Church.”

The ensuing row threatened to engulf the Church. McCarrick was eventually defrocked in February 2019, after an investigation by the Vatican.

During the Covid pandemic, Francis cancelled his regular appearances in St Peter’s Square – to prevent the virus circulating. In an important example of moral leadership, he also declared that being vaccinated was a universal obligation.

In 2022, he became the first Pope for more than a century to bury his predecessor – after Benedict’s death at the age of 95.

By now, he had his own health problems – with several hospitalisations. But Francis was determined to continue with his efforts to promote global peace and inter-religious dialogue.

In 2023, he made a pilgrimage to South Sudan, pleading with the country’s leaders to end conflict.

He appealed for an end to the “absurd and cruel war” in Ukraine, although he disappointed Ukrainians by appearing to swallow Russia’s propaganda message of having been provoked into its invasion.

And a year later, he embarked on an ambitious four-country, two-continent odyssey; with stops in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Singapore.

In recent months, Francis had struggled with his health. In March 2025, he spent five weeks in hospital with pneumonia in both lungs.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio came to the throne of St Peter determined to change it.

There will be some who would have preferred a more liberal leader, and critics will point to his perceived weakness in confronting the institution’s legacy of clerical sexual abuse.

But change it, he did.

He appointed more than 140 cardinals from non-European countries and bequeaths his successor a Church that is far more global in outlook than the one he inherited.

And, to set an example, he was the no-frills Pope who elected not to live in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace – complete with Sistine Chapel – but in the modern block next door (which Pope John Paul II had built as a guest house).

He believed anything else would be vanity. “Look at the peacock,” he said, “it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth.”

He also hoped he could shake up the institution itself, enhancing the Church’s historic mission by cutting through internal strife, focusing on the poor and returning the Church to the people.

“We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a Church that is wrapped up in its own world,” he said shortly after his election.

“If I had to choose between a wounded Church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn Church, I would choose the first.”

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth shared information about US air strikes on Yemen in a second private group on the Signal app, the BBC’s US partner CBS has confirmed with sources familiar with the messages.

The messages, sent on 15 March, included flight schedules for American F/A-18 Hornets carrying out strikes on Houthi targets. The group included Hegseth’s wife, brother and personal lawyer.

The developments come a month after the existence of a separate Signal group discussing sensitive information about US military operations was revealed.

In a statement to the New York Times, which first reported the second group, the White House said no classified information was shared.

Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, is a former Fox News producer and holds no official position within the Pentagon. Hegseth has previously been criticised for reportedly including his wife in meetings with foreign leaders.

His brother, Phil, and personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, both hold positions at the Department of Defense. But it is not clear why any of the three would require advanced warnings of sensitive US strike plans.

Unlike the first Signal group, the second one – called “Defense | Team Huddle” – was created by Hegseth, according to the New York Times.

The existence of the earlier Signal group was revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who was accidentally included in it. Officials similarly used that group to discuss information relating to strikes in Yemen.

The White House denied that classified information was discussed in that group either, although critics of Hegseth – including former US defence officials – question that. They say discussing such information in Signal groups could jeopardise US personnel carrying out military operations.

• Five takeaways from first leaked US military chat group
• Pentagon watchdog probing Hegseth’s Signal app use
• Four lingering questions about ‘Signalgate’
• What is messaging app Signal and how secure is it?

The existence of the second Signal group is the latest controversy surrounding the head of the Pentagon, who this year is controlling a budget of $892bn (£670bn).

Hegseth last week fired three top officials for an “unauthorised disclosure” – an accusation the officials said was “baseless”.

In an op-ed for Politico magazine published on Sunday, John Ullyot, a former top Pentagon spokesperson who resigned last week, wrote that the department was in “total chaos”.

“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot added.

However, in a statement on X, Sean Parnell, current chief spokesman for the Pentagon, accused the “Trump-hating media” of “destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda”.

He echoed the White House by saying that “there was no classified information in any Signal chat”.

Washington says its strikes in Yemen are punishment for Houthi attacks on cargo vessels transiting through the Red Sea, a critical waterway for international trade.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted dozens of merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have sunk two vessels, seized a third, and killed four crew members.

The Houthis have said they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have claimed – often falsely – that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

US air strikes on an oil terminal in north-western Yemen this week killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others, according to the Houthi-run health ministry. The Houthi-led government said the attack constituted a “war crime”.

US Vice-President JD Vance has arrived in the Indian capital, Delhi, where he is due to hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi amid global trade tensions sparked by Washington’s tariff policies.

The talks are likely to focus on fast tracking a much-awaited bilateral trade deal between the two countries.

Vance is also expected to go on a sightseeing tour of Agra and Jaipur with his family.

His visit comes as countries across the world rush to negotiate trade deals before US President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs ends on 9 July.

“The two sides will also exchange views on regional and global developments of mutual interest,” India’s foreign ministry said ahead of Vance’s visit.

The vice-president is accompanied by his children and wife Usha Vance whose parents migrated to the US from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

After his arrival in Delhi on Monday morning, Vance visited the Akshardham temple complex in the city.

He is due to meet the Indian prime minister for formal talks later in the day and Modi is to host Vance for dinner in the evening.

The visit comes amid escalating trade tensions between Washington and several countries after Trump announced steep reciprocal tariffs on them.

Trump, who has repeatedly called Delhi a tariff abuser, had announced a tariff of 27% on India before he temporarily paused it on 9 April.

India has already slashed tariffs on some US goods, with further cuts expected as the balance of trade is still stacked heavily in favour of Delhi, which enjoys a $45bn trade surplus.

India’s average tariffs of around 12% are also significantly higher than the US’s 2%.

Until recently, the US was India’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $190bn (£144bn).

Prime Minister Modi was among the first leaders to meet Trump after his inauguration. Modi hailed a “mega partnership” with the United States following his meeting with the president.

Trump and Modi set an ambitious target to more than double bilateral trade to $500bn, as the two leaders announced a deal for India to import more from America, including oil and gas.

Weeks later, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard visited India, followed by a US delegation led by Assistant Trade Representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch.

Vance’s India tour is also seen as significant as Trump is likely to visit the country later this year for the Quad summit, which will also host leaders of Australia and Japan.

Speaking about Vance’s engagements in India, Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal last week said Delhi was “very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties”.

A nine-year-old boy who got trapped between rocks at a New South Wales beach on Sunday has become the seventh person to drown in Australia over the Easter weekend.

The majority of deaths were caused by strong swells washing people into the ocean from rocks. Two people remain missing.

Steven Pearce, the CEO of Surf Live Saving in New South Wales, where most of the fatalities occurred, told the ABC it was the “worst” spate of drownings on record for the Easter long weekend.

“It has just been horrendous on a weekend that’s supposed to be joyous and religious,” Pearce told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Emergency teams were able to retrieve the boy at South West Rocks, about 400 kilometres north of Sydney, but he died at the scene.

Earlier on Sunday, a helicopter spotted a father and son floating in the water near Wattamolla Beach, south of Sydney. The 14-year-old son was resuscitated, but the father was later pronounced dead.

Meanwhile, Police in Victoria are continuing to search for a 41-year-old man who went missing near San Remo on Friday.

Surf Live Saving New South Wales said it has carried out more than 150 rescues since Good Friday.

Mr Pearce said a “perfect combination” of high temperatures, the holiday weekend, and dangerous ocean swells across much of New South Wales and Victoria caused the spike in deaths.

Although conditions are set to improve on Monday, authorities urged those visiting the coastline to exercise caution.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese expressed sympathy to the victims’ families. “Please, everyone, be careful. Families in particular, be careful of your kids,” he said.

According to Royal Life Saving Australia, 323 people drowned across the country in the year to June 2024.

That figure includes those who died in rivers and creeks, as well as at beaches. Nearly 40% of the deaths were recorded in New South Wales.

Trading cryptocurrency was just a bit of fun for Tzoni Raykov, but losing $1,500 worth to an administrative error has left him with serious concerns about his treatment by the industry.

The oil engineer has held an account with Revolut for several years – using its app to split bills with friends after going out for dinner or drinks. They would pay each other using traditional currency, like the pound sterling or US dollar.

But after seeing the e-money firm advertise its cryptocurrency services, he decided to give it a try.

What Tzoni thought would be a straightforward transfer of cryptocurrency coins has left the Bulgarian national angry and out of pocket.

His experience highlights some of the frustrations people have had using cryptocurrency where many of the customer safeguards which underpin standard online banking transactions, some mandated by law, do not apply.

“When they treat you like this, it makes you feel like you can’t do anything,” he told BBC News. “Like you are powerless.”

While the cryptocurrency market is dominated by Bitcoin, there is a plethora of other digital currencies, including USDC – which Tzoni had already amassed in a separate crypto account.

His frustrations began in February when he decided to transfer some of his USDC coins to his Revolut account.

As a precaution – which Revolut suggests doing – he first sent 10 of the coins, worth $10. It was a success and the funds were credited to his Revolut account.

Days later he tried to make a larger transfer of what he thought was 1,500 USDC. The transfer was completed but, this time, the funds were not credited to his account.

Tzoni says the problem occurred because Revolut’s deposit instructions were unclear.

When you transfer cryptocurrency from one account to another, you have to select a network to send it through – like choosing which courier service to use when sending a parcel.

Revolut’s deposit instructions say to transfer USDC to it, you have to use a network called Polygon. In his first, successful, deposit Tzoni selected one called “Polygon PoS”.

In the second deposit, when he tried to transfer 1,500 USDC, he selected a different network – “Polygon (bridged)”.

He thought it would work just as well but says instead it caused the coins to be converted into USDC.e – a different cryptocurrency.

This is what Revolut received. The company does not handle USDC.e coins.

After seeing his Revolut account had not been credited with the 1,500 coins, Tzoni contacted the Revolut support team.

In messages seen by BBC News, they told him the issue seemed to be with “the specific type of Polygon network used, which led to the conversion”.

In another, he was told: “The app currently specifies ‘Polygon’ without differentiating between standard and bridged options. I’ll note your feedback for future improvements.”

Tzoni thinks if Revolut’s deposit instructions had been more specific, his problem would have been avoided.

When approached by BBC News about this case, Revolut gave a different answer.

The firm said the problem was not because Tzoni had used the wrong Polygon network – which he claimed turned his coins into USDC.e.

The deposit failure was “not because the network itself had ‘converted’ the token”, it said, without explaining why its support team had suggested to Tzoni that it was.

Revolut told us the deposit ultimately failed because the USDC.e coins it received were not supported by the company’s technology.

It said: “As is standard industry practice due to the significant technical challenges involved in supporting every combination of token and chain, the recovery of these unsupported assets does not sit within Revolut’s scope.”

It means the 1,500 USDC.e coins have not been credited to Tzoni’s account or sent back to him.

To Tzoni’s mind, this isn’t acceptable treatment from a company of Revolut’s size and reputation, which handles normal banking deposits as well as cryptocurrency, stocks and commodities.

Revolut says it has 10 million users in the UK while last year it was granted a provisional banking licence, paving the way for it to become a fully fledged UK bank.

When using a High Street bank, a mistaken transfer of traditional currency would usually be resolved with the money being reverted back to the customer.

This was established in 2014 in a voluntary code of practice that most UK banks signed up to. There is no such equivalent in the cryptocurrency industry.

After contacting Revolut several times in recent weeks, Tzoni has been told the coins are effectively lost.

“They are waiting for me to get bored and give up, to accept the money is gone. But I won’t,” Tzoni said, pointing out the coins are in the Revolut system. “It is ridiculous that they can behave like this.”

While Tzoni’s loss of cryptocurrency is significant to him, the sum is tiny compared with the size of the industry, which has risen sharply in value over the past 18 months.

The global market peaked in value at $3.9tn last December, following the re-election of Donald Trump. Since then it has fallen by $1.1tn, according to tracking website CoinGecko.

Government policies in the US and other countries are also changing to favour the cryptocurrency industry, even though it has suffered several scandals.

FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency firms, went bankrupt in 2022. Sam Bankman-Fried, its chief executive, was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year for defrauding customers of billions of dollars.

Investigators also found FTX was using QuickBooks, a popular accounting software designed for individuals and small businesses, to manage the money.

John Ray III, a lawyer tasked with recovering funds from FTX for defrauded customers, told a bankruptcy court: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

He later told a congressional hearing: “Nothing against QuickBooks. It’s a very nice tool, just not for a multibillion-dollar company.”

A couple of months ago Bybit, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange by some estimates, was tricked out of $1.5bn worth of coins by hackers thought to be working for North Korea.

The firm had been using Safe, a free digital storage software popular with individuals who want to store cryptocurrency on their own devices, as part of their business operations.

Following the theft, Bybit’s chief executive said they “should have upgraded and moved away from Safe” earlier.

One of the problems with cryptocurrency firms, says Prof Mark Button, who researches cybercrime, is they can grow very quickly, which means they don’t always keep up with the accounting and security challenges of managing so much money.

“For me it illustrates that if we are going to be serious about cryptocurrencies in the future… there needs to be some kind of regulation.”

In Tzoni’s case, it might have been easier for him to get his cryptocurrency back or be compensated if there were laws stating what firms need to do if they are sent a coin they don’t handle.

Higher industry standards might also have prevented him making such a transaction in the first place.

Mykhailo Tiutin is chief technology officer at AMLBot, a company that analyses how risky cryptocurrency transactions are.

Their service runs checks similar to those supported by banks, where details for a transfer, such as the account holder’s name, sort code and account number, are verified.

He says cryptocurrency is safe enough for the average person to use but that they should be careful about which products and services they choose. He says he has also lost cryptocurrency after making an administrative mistake.

“You have to do your own research,” he told us. “The successes and the losses are ultimately at your own risk.”

Perched on top of Santorini’s sheer cliffs is a world-famous tourist industry worth millions. Underneath is the fizzing risk of an almighty explosion.

A huge ancient eruption created the dreamy Greek island, leaving a vast crater and a horse-shoe shaped rim.

Now scientists are investigating for the first time how dangerous the next big one could be.

BBC News spent a day on board the British royal research ship the Discovery as they searched for clues.

Just weeks before, nearly half of Santorini’s 11,000 residents had fled for safety when the island shut down in a series of earthquakes.

It was a harsh reminder that under the idyllic white villages dotted with gyros restaurants, hot tubs in AirBnB rentals, and vineyards on rich volcanic soil, two tectonic plates grind in the Earth’s crust.

Prof Isobel Yeo, an expert on highly dangerous submarine volcanoes with Britain’s National Oceanography Centre, is leading the mission. Around two-thirds of the world’s volcanoes are underwater, but they are hardly monitored.

“It’s a bit like ‘out of sight, out of mind’ in terms of understanding their danger, compared to more famous ones like Vesuvius,” she says on deck, as we watch two engineers winching a robot the size of a car off the ship’s side.

This work, coming so soon after the earthquakes, will help scientists understand what type of seismic unrest could indicate a volcanic eruption is imminent.

Santorini’s last eruption was in 1950, but as recently as 2012 there was a “period of unrest”, says Isobel. Magma flowed into the volcanoes’ chambers and the islands “swelled up”.

“Underwater volcanoes are capable of really big, really destructive eruptions,” she says.

“We are lulled into a sense of false security if you’re used to small eruptions and the volcano acting safe. You assume the next will be the same – but it might not,” she says.

The Hunga Tunga eruption in 2022 in the Pacific produced the largest underwater explosion ever recorded, and created a tsunami in the Atlantic with shockwaves felt in the UK. Some islands in Tonga, near the volcano, were so devastated that their people have never returned.

Beneath our feet on the ship, 300m (984ft) down, are bubbling hot vents. These cracks in the Earth turn the seafloor into a bright orange world of protruding rocks and gas clouds.

“We know more about the surface of some planets than what’s down there,” Isobel says.

The robot descends to the seabed to collect fluids, gases and snap off chunks of rock.

Those vents are hydrothermal, meaning hot water pours out from cracks, and they often form near volcanoes.

They are why Isobel and 22 scientists from around the world are on this ship for a month.

So far, no-one has been able to work out if a volcano becomes more or less explosive when sea water in these vents mixes with magma.

“We are trying to map the hydrothermal system,” Isobel explains. It’s not like making a map on land. “We have to look inside the earth,” she says.

The Discovery is investigating Santorini’s caldera and sailing out to Kolombo, the other major volcano in this area, about 7km (4.3 miles) north-east of the island.

The two volcanoes are not expected to erupt imminently, but it is only a matter of time.

The expedition will create data sets and geohazard maps for Greece’s Civil Protection Agency, explains Prof Paraskevi Nomikou, a member of the government emergency group that met daily during the earthquake crisis.

She is from Santorini, and grew up hearing about past earthquakes and eruptions from her grandfather. The volcano inspired her to become a geologist.

“This research is very important because it will inform local people how active the volcanoes are, and it will map the area that will be forbidden to access during an eruption,” she says.

It will reveal which parts of the Santorini sea floor are the most hazardous, she adds.

These missions are incredibly expensive, so Isobel crams in experiments night and day as the scientists work in 12-hour shifts.

John Jamieson, a professor at Canada’s Memorial University in Newfoundland, shows us volcanic rocks extracted from the vents.

“Don’t pick that one up,” he warns. “It’s full of arsenic.”

Pointing to another that looks like a black and orange meringue with gold dusting, he explains: “This is a real mystery – we don’t even know what it is made of.”

These rocks tell the history of the fluid, temperature and material inside the volcano. “This is a geological environment different to most others – it’s really exciting,” he says.

But the mission’s beating heart is a dark shipping container on deck where four people stare at screens mounted on a wall.

Using a joystick that wouldn’t look out of a place on a gaming console, two engineers drive the underwater robot. Isobel and Paraskevi trade theories about what is in a pool of fluid that the robot has found.

They have recorded very small earthquakes around the volcano, caused by fluid moving through the system and causing fractures. Isobel plays us an audio recording of the fractures reverberating. It sounds like the bass in a nightclub being amped up and down.

They identify how fluid moves through rocks by pulsing an electromagnetic field into the earth.

This is creating a 3D map that shows how the hydrothermal system is connected to the volcano’s magma chamber where an eruption is generated.

“We are doing science for the people, not science for the scientists. We are here to make people feel safe,” Paraskevi says.

The recent earthquake crisis in Santorini highlighted how exposed the island’s residents are to the seismic threats and how reliant they are on tourism.

Back on dry land, photographer Eva Rendl meets me in her favourite location for wedding shoots. When the so-called swarm of earthquakes hit in February, she left the island with her daughter.

“It was really scary, as it got more and more intense,” she says.

She’s back now but business is slower. “People have cancelled bookings. Normally I start shoots in April but my first job isn’t until May,” Eva says.

In the main square of Santorini’s upmarket town Oia, British-Canadian tourist Janet tells us six of her group of 10 cancelled their holiday.

She believes more accurate scientific information about the likelihood of earthquakes and volcanoes would help others feel more reassured about visiting.

“I get the Google alerts, I get the scientists’ alerts, and it helps me feel safe,” she said.

But Santorini will always be a dream destination. In Imerovigli, we see two people climbing onto the curved rooftops to get the perfect shot.

The couple – married for just 15 minutes – travelled from Latvia and were not put off by the island’s underwater risks.

“Actually we wanted to get married by a volcano,” Tom says, his bride Kristina by his side.

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died at the age of 88.

“This morning at 07:35 local time (05:35 GMT) the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell said in the statement, published by the Vatican.

His death comes after he appeared at St Peter’s Square on Sunday to wish “Happy Easter” to thousands of worshippers.

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, was discharged from hospital last month after five weeks of treatment for an infection that led to double pneumonia.

“He taught us to live the values ​​of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell continued his statement.

“With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God.”

• LIVE UPDATES: Pope Francis dies aged 88
• ANALYSIS: The Pope from Latin America who changed Catholic Church
• EXPLAINER: What next after the death of Pope Francis?

Tributes from around the world have been pouring in, including from King Charles III who met with the Pope privately earlier this month during his state visit to Italy.

The King said he was “deeply saddened” to hear of his death, adding: “His Holiness will be remembered for his compassion, his concern for the unity of the Church and for his tireless commitment to the common causes of all people of faith, and to those of goodwill who work for the benefit of others.”

Meanwhile, the acting head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of York, described him as a “holy man of God” who was “also very human”.

“Francis’s whole life and ministry was centred on Jesus who comes among us not to be served, but to serve,” Stephen Cottrell said in a statement.

US Vice-President JD Vance, who met the Pope on Easter Sunday, said his “heart goes out” to Christians.

“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill,” he said.

The White House said in a post on X: “Rest in Peace, Pope Francis.”

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised him as “great man” and said she had the privilege of enjoying his friendship, advice and teachings.

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Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at St Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, where Pope Francis made what would be his last public appearance. He was seen in his wheelchair waving from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to cheering crowds.

“Dear brothers and sisters, happy Easter,” he said.

In his Easter blessing, delivered by a clergy member, he said: “There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.”

“What a great thirst for death, for killing we see in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world.”

The governing of the Church will now be handled by the College of Cardinals, its most senior officials, until the new Pope is chosen. There are currently 252 Catholic cardinals, 138 of whom are eligible to vote for the new Pope.

They will be summoned to a meeting at the Vatican, followed by the conclave, as the election is known.

The Pope had struggled with his health in recent months, having spent five weeks in hospital with pneumonia in both lungs.

During his time in hospital, he presented “two very critical episodes” where his “life was in danger”, according to one of his doctors.

He has suffered a number of health issues throughout his life, including having part of one of his lungs removed at age 21, making him more prone to infections.

Francis’s papacy heralded many firsts and while he never stopped introducing reforms to the Catholic Church, he remained popular among traditionalists

• IN PICTURES: Defining images of the first Latin American pope
• WATCH: The pontiff’s last public appearance on Easter Sunday

He was the first Pope from the Americas or the southern hemisphere. He was also the first non-European Pope in centuries, after Syrian-born Gregory III who died in 741.

He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of St Peter. Jesuits were historically looked on with suspicion by Rome.

Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, was the first Pope to retire voluntarily in almost 600 years and for almost a decade the Vatican Gardens hosted two popes.

Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 17 December 1936. His parents had fled their native Italy to escape fascism. In his early life, he worked as a nightclub bouncer and floor sweeper, before graduating as a chemist.

Ahead of becoming the head of the Catholic Church in 2013, he presented himself as a compromise candidate by appealing to conservatives while attracting the reformers with his liberal stance on social justice.

His early actions as Pope included washing the feet of the elderly and prisoners and advocating for the rights of refugees and migrants.

But on many of the Church’s teachings, Pope Francis was a traditionalist. There were warm words in favour of some kind of same-sex unions for gay couples, but Francis did not favour calling it marriage. This, he said, would be “an attempt to destroy God’s plan”.

Shortly after becoming Pope, he took part in an anti-abortion march in Rome – calling for rights of the unborn “from the moment of conception”.

King Charles has said he and Queen Camilla have “heavy hearts” after Pope Francis’s death, as they paid tribute to his “compassion” and “tireless commitment” to people of faith.

The King said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace that though “deeply saddened”, their sorrow had been “somewhat eased” by the Pope being able to “share an Easter greeting with the Church and the world he served with such devotion” before he died aged 88.

The King and Camilla met the pontiff on a state visit to Italy earlier this month – one of several he said he remembered with “particular affection”.

During the private meeting, Pope Francis had wished them a happy 20th wedding anniversary.

The King said: “His Holiness will be remembered for his compassion, his concern for the unity of the Church and for his tireless commitment to the common causes of all people of faith, and to those of goodwill who work for the benefit of others.

“His belief that care for Creation is an existential expression of faith in God resounded with so many across the world. Through his work and care for both people and planet, he profoundly touched the lives of so many.”

The King and Pope Francis have both been long-standing advocates of combatting climate change. In 2023, the pontiff warned that world was “collapsing” due climate change and may be “nearing breaking point”.

The same year, Pope Francis also threw his weight behind calls for an end to fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas at the COP28 climate conference, describing “the destruction of the environment is an offense against God”.

Viewed as among the more progressive popes, he had the difficult task of maintaining Church unity in a changing world.

Pope Francis allowed priests to bless same-sex couples in 2023, a significant step forward for LGBT Catholics – but a controversial move for many, which fell short of allowing blessings in regular church rituals or weddings, while marking a departure from a long-held Church position.

He also opposed gay adoption, as well as holding other traditional views, like rejecting the death penalty, abortion and supporting the celibacy of priests.

The King said he and Camilla had been “greatly moved to have been able to visit him” earlier in April, after first meeting the Pope in 2017 while Charles was still Prince of Wales.

The royal couple sent their “most heartfelt condolences and profound sympathy to the Church he served with such resolve and to the countless people around the world who, inspired by his life, will be mourning the devastating loss of this faithful follower of Jesus Christ”.

Also paying tribute, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was joining “millions around the world in grieving the death”.

He praised the Pope’s leadership of the Catholic Church as “courageous” and coming from a “place of deep humility”.

“Pope Francis was a pope for the poor, the downtrodden and the forgotten. He was close to the realities of human fragility, meeting Christians around the world facing war, famine, persecution and poverty,” Sir Keir said.

“Yet he never lost the faith-fuelled hope of a better world.”

Other senior British politicians to pay tribute include:

• Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who said the Pope’s death on Easter Monday “feels especially poignant”, adding that he “reminded us that leadership isn’t about power, but about service”
• Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney, a practicing Catholic, said the Pope was a “voice for peace, tolerance and reconciliation”
• Eluned Morgan, the first minister of Wales, said Pope Francis “led with unwavering humility, courage and profound compassion”
• Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill noted the Pope’s 2018 visit to Ireland, during which he “spoke passionately in support of the peace process”, while Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly offered her “sincere condolences to all those who mourn” his death