US President Donald Trump has said he is “not happy” with deadly Russian strikes on Kyiv and that President Vladimir Putin should “stop” – but has not said if further action might be taken against Russia.

Overnight into Thursday, the attacks on the Ukrainian capital killed at least 12 people and injured dozens of others.

The US president said he is “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war in Ukraine, following the deadliest attacks Kyiv has seen since last July.

It is the latest road bump in efforts to advance a peace deal between the two countries – something the US president said he would be able to quickly do as part of his election campaign last year.

In rare criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!”

The attack has come at a time of growing pressure on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russian occupation of its territory as part of a peace deal.

On Thursday, Trump appeared alongside Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre at the White House and said he had “no allegiance to anybody” only an “allegiance to saving lives”.

While he admitted frustration with Putin, Trump said he would wait a week “to see if we have a deal” – but that “things will happen” if the bombings do not end.

President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the attacks during a visit to South Africa, saying he felt the US could be more forceful with Russia to secure a ceasefire.

• South Africa and Ukraine woo each other – as relationships with Trump turn sour

“We believe that if more pressure is applied to Russia, we’ll be able to make our positions closer,” Zelensky told reporters.

When asked if he would be willing to make any concessions, Zelensky said the fact that Ukraine is prepared to negotiate with Russia at all is a “huge compromise” and a “ceasefire must be the first step”.

“If Russia says it is ready to cease fire, it must stop massive strikes against Ukraine. It is Ukrainians who are running out of patience, because it is us who are under attack, and no one else,” he added.

The attack caused Zelensky to cut his trip short and return home.

Before the attack on Kyiv, the week had seen a fraying of the already imperilled relationship between Trump and Zelensky – as the US president has suggested the need for Ukraine to make land concessions as part of a peace deal.

On Wednesday, Trump claimed a deal to end the war was “very close”, but that Zelensky’s refusal to accept US terms “will do nothing but prolong” the conflict.

Ukraine has long said it will not give up Crimea, a southern peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

On Wednesday, US Vice-President JD Vance laid out the US vision for a deal, saying it would “freeze the territorial lines […] close to where they are today”, and added that Ukraine and Russia “are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own”.

• Trump criticises Zelensky as Ukraine refuses Russian control of Crimea

When asked by reporters at the White House this week about whether the administration was looking to recognise Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, Trump said he just wanted to see the war end.

Recognising Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea would not only be politically impossible for Zelensky to accept, it would also be contrary to post-war international legal norms that borders should not be changed by force.

“We’ve shown them the finish line,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday in the Oval Office, where he appeared alongside Trump and the Norwegian prime minister.

“We need both of them to say yes, but what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end.”

President Zelensky’s visit to South Africa, during which he met President Cyril Ramaphosa, signalled a dramatic improvement in the once-strained relations between the two nations.

Ramaphosa said during a news briefing alongside Zelensky that he was deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. He also reiterated South Africa’s commitment to speaking to all parties in the conflict.

He added that he had spoken to both Putin and Trump on the need to bring an end to the conflict.

Ramaphosa, in the briefing, did not go into whether Ukraine should cede territory to Russia.

The US was one of Ukraine’s closest allies until the re-election of Trump in November. Now Ukraine is keen to broaden its pool of international partners – particularly in Africa where many countries have strong links with Russia.

South Africa has also suffered from strained relations with Washington, which has expelled its ambassador and removed aid funding.

South Africa says its non-aligned position puts it in a prime position to help bring about a peace deal with Russia.

Pakistan has responded with tit-for-tat measures against India as tensions soared following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

Islamabad suspended all visas issued to Indian nationals under an exemption scheme with immediate effect, as well as expelling some of its neighbour’s diplomats and closing its airspace to Indian flights.

Indian police have named three of four suspected gunmen behind the attack, saying two are Pakistani citizens and a third is a local Kashmiri man. Pakistan denies Indian claims that it played a role in the shooting.

Tuesday’s attack saw a group of gunmen fire on tourists near Pahalgam, a resort in the disputed Himalayan region.

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say all three suspects named are members of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). None of the men have commented on the allegations.

A statement from Pakistan’s National Security Committee rubbished attempts to link the Pahalgam attack to Pakistan, saying there had been no credible investigation or verifiable evidence.

Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed that “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers and we will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

He said that the “terrorists behind the killings, along with their backers, will get a punishment bigger than they can imagine”.

“Our enemies have dared to attack the country’s soul… India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism.”

On Wednesday evening Delhi announced a raft of diplomatic measures against Islamabad in light of the killings in Kashmir – one of them was shutting the Attari-Wagah border between the two countries immediately.

India also cancelled visa services to Pakistani nationals “with immediate effect”.

In its response, Pakistan also rejected India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty – a six-decade-old water sharing treaty between the neighbours – adding that any attempt to stop or divert the water “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The country has closed its airspace to all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines and suspended all trade with India.

It has also reduced the number of diplomats in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to 30 and asked Indian defence, naval and air advisers to leave Pakistan before 30 April.

• Kashmir attack risks India military escalation against Pakistan
• India closes main border crossing with Pakistan after attack
• Rage and despair after the attack

About 1,500 people across Kashmir have been detained for questioning in connection with the attack, police sources have told BBC News.

Schools, business and shops are reopening after a shutdown across the region following the shootings.

Police have offered a reward of 2m rupees [$23,000; £17,600] for anyone offering information about any of the attackers.

Visitors from different states in India were killed, with others seriously injured, in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years in the region.

An Indian naval officer on honeymoon, a tourist guide who was the sole breadwinner for his family, and a businessman holidaying with his wife and children were among the victims.

An all-party meeting in Jammu and Kashmir expressed deep shock and anguish at what it called a “barbaric attack”.

The bodies of victims arriving in their home states around India are being given emotional farewells by their families and loved ones.

Meanwhile, reports are coming in from parts of India of Kashmiri students facing harassment in the aftermath of the killings.

A spokesperson for Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s National Conference party said several videos showing students being harassed in colleges and other places were being circulated online.

Nasir Khuehami, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, shared a video of a right-wing Hindu group threatening to physically assault Kashmiri Muslim students in the northern state of Uttarakhand to ensure they leave.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify any of these clips.

A teenage girl has been killed and three students were injured in a stabbing at a private school in western France.

The attack took place at Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides school in Nantes on Thursday afternoon.

The attacker is said to have been arrested at the scene after being restrained by a teacher.

A significant police presence and emergency services were sent to the school, with army officers also present. It has since been evacuated.

Eye-witness accounts in local media described students running through the site, with some confined to classrooms after an alarm was sounded around lunch time.

Families were informed of the knife attack and told students had been immediately held inside the school.

Authorities helped students gradually leave the site from 15:30 local time (13:30 GMT), as some parents waited nearby.

One father told the Reuters news agency they were “waiting to hold them [our children] in our arms” and “help deal with the stress this will have caused”.

The school has around 2,000 students and educates pupils from nursery through to high school, according to its website.

Psychological support has been put in place for students and teachers. Rue des Épinettes, where the school is located in the east of the city, has been closed off.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the casualties on X later on Thursday, and praised teachers at the scene.

He wrote: “By their intervention, the teachers undoubtedly prevented further tragedies. Their courage commands respect.”

After the attack, Prime Minister François Bayrou urged “an intensification” of checks for knives in schools.

National and local politicians visited the school after the attack, where Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters: “This tragedy is not a news item, it is a social phenomenon.”

He added that the “psychological profile” of the suspect was not known.

Nantes public prosecutor Antoine Leroy is said to have visited the school and will hold a news conference in the coming days.

Israel’s military has admitted killing a United Nations (UN) worker with tank fire, having previously denied responsibility, in an incident in the Gaza Strip last month.

After a UN staff member was killed when a UN compound in Deir al-Balah was damaged on 19 March, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had not struck the site.

But the IDF said on Thursday that the initial findings of its investigation into the incident indicated its troops had in fact killed the UN worker after wrongly identifying the building as containing an “enemy presence”.

It said in a statement: “The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility.”

These preliminary findings have been shared with the UN and the full conclusion will also be provided, it said.

It added: “The IDF regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the future.

“We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the family.”

The incident, which killed Bulgarian UN worker Marin Valev Marinov and seriously injured five other UN personnel, came a day after Israel renewed its offensive against Hamas after a two-month ceasefire collapsed.

At the time, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a full investigation into the incident, while a spokesperson said: “The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them and maintain their absolute inviolability.”

Following the attack, the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said that “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at a guesthouse, which was in an “isolated” location. Its executive director, Jorge Moreira da Silva, said it was “not an accident”.

The IDF said in a statement on the day of the attack: “Contrary to reports, the IDF did not strike a UN compound in Deir el-Balah. The IDF calls on media outlets to act with caution regarding unverified reports.”

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, the IDF said earlier this week that “professional failures” had led to the killing of 15 emergency workers in an incident in Gaza last month.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 1,978 people have been killed since Israel renewed its offensive on the territory, with at least 50 reported killed by Israeli strikes on Thursday.

Israel says it is putting military pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

It has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza for seven weeks. The UN says this is “further depriving people of the means for survival and undermining every aspect of civilian life”.

The Israeli military launched a 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.

More than 51,300 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Indonesia is on an ambitious mission to offer free meals to 80 million school children – but that hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.

Nearly 80 students across two high schools in Cianjur, south of the capital Jakarta, fell ill after eating the meals this week. Most of those who ended up in hospital have since been discharged.

This is the latest in a series of food poisonings that have been linked to the programme, a signature policy of President Prabowo Subianto.

Authorities investigating the case say the suspected cause is negligent food preparation. Samples from the vomit of students have been sent for lab testing, and police say they have questioned people handling the food, from cooks to packers to delivery workers.

A 16-year-old student told local media that the shredded chicken in the meal had an “unpleasant odour”. “I felt dizzy, nauseous and vomited,” he said.

Across the world, programmes offering free meals to students have proved to be effective in improving health, academic performance and attendance.

But Indonesia’s $28bn (£21bn) version – shaping up to be the most expensive of its kind – has become the target of food safety concerns and heated anti-government protests.

In February, when thousands took to the streets to protest at budget cuts, they aimed their ire at the hefty price of Prabowo’s free school meals: “Children eat for free, parents are laid off,” read one of their protest signs.

A centrepiece of Prabowo’s presidential campaign last year, the free meals programme was pitched as a way to tackle stunting – a condition caused by malnutrition that affects a fifth of children below the age of five in Indonesia.

“Through this initiative, our children will grow taller and emerge as champions,” Prabowo said in 2023.

Since he took office last October, this programme, along with other populist policies like new houses and free medical check-ups, has earned him political points. His approval ratings stood at 80% after his first 100 days in power.

In the first phase, which began in January, free school meals have made their way to 550,000 students in 26 provinces.

While the programme is “well-intentioned”, Maria Monica Wihardja, a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the BBC there has been “no evidence” of “widespread urgency” for free school meals.

According to a national survey in 2024, less than 1% of Indonesia’s households went at least one day without any meals in the past year.

Since January, a series of food poisonings have raised apprehension about the free meals.

Michelle, an elementary school student in East Nusa Tenggara province, was one of several in her school who suffered suspected food poisoning in February. She told BBC Indonesian at the time that the food, which had given her a stomach ache, was “bland and stale”.

After the incident, some parents started preparing homemade lunches for their children instead, a school official told BBC Indonesian.

This week, after the food poisoning in Cianjur, authorities have promised to step up food safety processes.

“We must improve quality,” said Dadan Hindayana, head of the National Nutrition Agency, who had visited the students in hospital.

“⁠One obvious thing is the lack of mature and in-depth planning before this program was launched,” Eliza Mardian, a researcher at the Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia, told the BBC.

“The haste ends up sacrificing quality and effectiveness, which actually worsens the public’s perception of this programme.”

The cost of the programme has not helped matters.

Indonesia has set aside more than $10bn this year for the free school meals.

By comparison, India spends $1.5bn a year to feed 120 million children in what is the world’s largest such programme. Brazil’s version costs about the same and serves some 40 million students.

To foot the steep bill in Indonesia, Prabowo has urged the country’s tycoons to help, and accepted a funding offer from China.

He also ordered $19bn in cuts to pay for it, along with other populist schemes – which made it especially controversial.

Several ministries, including education, had their budgets slashed by half. Bureaucrats who were not furloughed alleged they were forced to scrimp by limiting the use of air conditioning, lifts and even printers.

University students were furious as news spread of cancelled scholarship programmes and disruptions to their classes.

“The worst thing is when the stomach is full, but the brain is not filled,” Muhammad Ramadan, a student protester in Bandung, told BBC Indonesian – referring to Prabowo’s school meals plan.

There could be more challenges ahead, such as allegations of budget mismanagement, which have begun to emerge after Indonesia’s anti-graft bureau flagged a “real possibility” of fraud in March.

Police launched an investigation this month after a meal provider in south Jakarta accused authorities of embezzlement, saying that she has not been paid since her kitchen started preparing school meals in February.

Prabowo, who has continued to defend the programme, said this week that his administration will “handle” the allegations and “safeguard every cent of public money”.

Experts, however, say the problem runs much deeper.

Large-scale social assistance programmes in Indonesia have historically been “riddled with corruption”, Muhammad Rafi Bakri, a research analyst at Indonesia’s audit board, told the BBC.

“Given the sheer size of the budget,” he said, “this program is a goldmine for corrupt officials.”

It’s a bright spring morning in Hanover, Germany, and I’m on my way to meet a robot.

I have been invited to see the G1, a humanoid robot built by Chinese firm, Unitree, at the Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest industrial trade shows.

Standing at about 4’3″ (130cm), G1 is smaller and more affordable than other humanoid robots on the market, and has such a highly fluid range of motion and dexterity that videos of it performing dance numbers and martial arts have gone viral.

Today the G1 is being controlled remotely by Pedro Zheng, the Unitree sales manager.

He explains that customers must program each G1 for autonomous functions.

Passers-by stop and actively try to engage with the G1, which cannot be said for a lot of the other machines being shown off in the cavernous conference room.

They reach out to shake its hand, make sudden movements to see if it will respond, they laugh when G1 waves or bends backwards, they apologise if they bump into it. There’s something about its human shape that, uncanny as it is, sets people at ease.

Unitree is just one of dozens of companies around the world developing robots that have a human form.

The potential is huge – for business it promises a workforce that doesn’t need holidays or pay rises.

It could also be the ultimate domestic appliance. After all, who wouldn’t want a machine that could do the laundry and stack the dishwasher.

But the technology is still some way off. While robotic arms and mobile robots have been common in factories and warehouses for decades, conditions in those workplaces can be controlled and workers can be kept safe.

Introducing a humanoid robot to a less predictable environment, like a restaurant or a home, is a much more difficult problem.

To be useful humanoid robots would have to be strong, but that also makes them potentially dangerous – simply falling over at the wrong time could be hazardous.

So much work needs to be done on the artificial intelligence that would control such a machine.

“The AI simply has not yet reached a breakthrough moment,” a Unitree spokesperson tells the BBC.

“Today’s robot AI finds basic logic and reasoning – such as for understanding and completing complex tasks in a logical way – a challenge,” they said.

At the moment their G1 is marketed at research institutions and tech companies, who can use Unitree’s open source software for development.

For now entrepreneurs are focussing their efforts on humanoid robots for warehouses and factories.

The highest profile of those is Elon Musk. His car company, Tesla, is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus. In January he said that “several thousand” will be built this year and he expects them to be doing “useful things” in Tesla factories.

Other carmakers are following a similar path. BMW recently introduced humanoid robots to a US factory. Meanwhile, South Korean car firm Hyundai has ordered tens of thousands of robots from Boston Dynamics, the robot firm it bought in 2021.

Thomas Andersson, founder of research firm STIQ, tracks 49 companies developing humanoid robots – those with two arms and legs. If you broaden the definition to robots with two arms, but propel themselves on wheels, then he looks at more than 100 firms.

Mr Andersson thinks that Chinese companies are likely to dominate the market.

“The supply chain and the entire ecosystem for robotics is huge in China, and it’s really easy to iterate developments and do R&D [research and development],” he says.

Unitree underlines that advantage – its G1 is cheap (for a robot) with an advertised price of $16,000 (£12,500).

Also, Mr Andersson points out, the investment favours Asian nations.

In a recent report STIQ notes that almost 60% of all funding for humanoid robots has been raised in Asia, with the US attracting most of the rest.

Chinese companies have the added benefit of support from the national and local government.

For example, in Shanghai there is a state-backed training facility for robots, where dozens of humanoid robots are learning to complete tasks.

So how can US and European robot makers compete with that?

Bristol-based Bren Pierce has founded three robotics companies and the latest, Kinisi has just launched the KR1 robot.

While the robot has been designed and developed in the UK, it will be manufactured in Asia.

“The problem you get as a European or American company, you have to buy all these sub-components from China in the first place.

“So then it becomes stupid to buy your motors, buy your batteries, buy your resistors, shift them all halfway around the world to put together when you could just put them all together at the source, which is in Asia.”

As well as making his robots in Asia, Mr Pierce is keeping costs down by not going for the full humanoid form.

Designed for warehouses and factories, the KR1 does not have legs.

“All of these places have flat floors. Why would you want the added expense of a very complex form factor… when you could just put it on a mobile base?” he asks.

Where possible, his KR1 is built with mass-produced components – the wheels are the same as you would find on an electric scooter.

“My philosophy is buy as many things as you can off the shelf. So all our motors, batteries, computers, cameras, they’re all commercially available, mass produced parts,” he says.

Like his competitors at Unitree, Mr Pierce says that the real “secret sauce” is the software that allows the robot to work with humans.

“A lot of companies come out with very high-tech robots, but then you start needing a PhD in robotics to be able to actually install it and use it.

“What we’re trying to design is a very simple to use robot where your average warehouse or factory worker can actually learn how to use it in a couple of hours,” Mr Pierce says.

He says the KR1 can perform a task after being guided through it by a human 20 or 30 times.

The KR1 will be given to pilot customers to test this year.

So will robots ever break out of factories into the home? Even the optimistic Mr Pierce says it’s a long way off.

“My long term dream for the last 20 years has been building the everything robot. This is what I was doing my PhD work in I do think that is the end goal, but it’s a very complicated task,” says Mr Pierce.

“I still think eventually they will be there, but I think that’s at least 10 to 15 years away.”

Vladimir Putin initially denied having anything to do with Russia’s capture of Crimea in February 2014, when mysterious masked commandos in unidentified green uniforms seized the local parliament and fanned out across the peninsula.

Those “little green men” marked the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, which culminated in the 2022 full-scale invasion.

The future of Crimea is now at the centre of President Donald Trump’s peace plan and has prompted Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to rule out recognising Russian control of the peninsula.

The exact terms of his plan have not been published, but reports suggest it would include the US recognising Crimea as a legal part of Russia – in Latin.

For Trump, Ukraine’s southern peninsula was “lost years ago” and “is not even a part of discussion” in peace talks.

But for Zelensky to renounce Crimea as an indivisible part of Ukraine would be unconscionable.

• Follow latest updates on Ukraine war

In the words of opposition MP Iryna Gerashchenko “territorial integrity and sovereignty is a red line for Ukraine and Ukrainians”.

Trump made the point that “if [Volodymyr Zelensky] wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”

Few shots were fired, but Crimea was seized at gunpoint during a power vacuum.

Putin later admitted hatching the land-grab in an all-night meeting with his officials days after Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader was ousted in Kyiv.

For a US leader in a hurry to secure a peace deal, Crimea could become a big stumbling block.

Trump is correct that there is little chance of Ukraine regaining Crimea in the foreseeable future, and it is in reality – de facto – under Russian control. But that is a far cry from recognising it as legal.

Zelensky points to a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo said the US rejected “Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea” and pledged to continue until Ukraine’s territorial integrity was restored.

• Trump criticises Zelensky over Crimea
• US intensifies bid to end war

Zelensky’s implication is that Trump backed Ukraine on Crimea then, and should stick to that now.

If a landgrab unrecognised by the international community is approved by the US as legal, what would that mean for international law and the principles of the UN charter?

Weeks after Russia’s full-scale war began, there was an initial proposal in Istanbul to park the issue so that Russia and Ukraine would aim to resolve it in the next 10-15 years.

The idea did not take hold but it was a way of getting over that stumbling block.

Zelensky was adamant that he has no power to give up Crimea: “There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution.”

Article 2 of the constitution states that Ukraine’s sovereignty “extends throughout its entire territory” which “within its present border is indivisible and inviolable”.

Any change to Ukraine’s territory has to go to a national referendum, which must be authorised by the Ukrainian parliament.

It is not just President Trump that has problems with Kyiv. Russia also sees the Ukrainian constitution as an “obstacle” to peace efforts.

Constitutions can be changed, but not while Ukraine is under martial law.

Approving Russia’s illegal annexation would not just be a red line for Ukraine but would be a terrifying precedent for countries such as Romania that border the Black Sea. The precedent would be felt far beyond the Black Sea.

For historical reasons, Russians have long seen Crimea as part of their territory and Putin has spoken of a “living and unbreakable bond” with the peninsula, with its Black Sea resorts and balmy summer climate.

But Crimea along with the rest of Ukraine voted for independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991. It had the status of autonomous republic within and Kyiv allowed Russia to lease the port of Sevastopol as a base for the Black Sea Fleet.

After its annexation in 2014 Putin sought to cement Russia’s control over Crimea, first with a 12-mile bridge built over the Kerch Strait in 2018 and then by capturing a land bridge along the Sea of Azov coast in 2022.

Putin felt he was righting a wrong inflicted on Russia when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. Russia, he said, was “not simply robbed, it was plundered”.

• Ukraine in Maps
• Why did Putin invade Ukraine?

Crimea was first annexed by Tsarist Russia under Catherine the Great in 1783 and largely remained part of Russia until Khrushchev’s decision.

Russia and Ukraine were both Soviet republics so it was not a big deal for the Kremlin in 1954.

More than half the population of Crimea was Russian, mainly because the original majority population of Crimean Tatars were deported under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1944.

Tatars were only able to return to Crimea from exile from 1989 as the Soviet Union fell apart, and they now make up about 15% of Crimea’s population.

Russia quickly organised a referendum in March 2014 but it was rejected as a sham by the international community and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution backing Ukrainian sovereignty.

The International Criminal Court ruled that Russia’s activity in Crimea amounted to “ongoing occupation”.

Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis, a body representing Crimean Tatars, has insisted that Ukraine must categorically reject any territorial concession in exchange for peace.

“Crimea is the homeland of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and an integral part of Ukraine,” he said.

Trump’s peace plan has not yet been published, but according to various reports and remarks by US officials, Ukraine would be required to adhere to other difficult conditions.

Russia’s occupation of almost 20% of Ukraine would be de facto recognised behind existing front lines, in effect freezing the conflict in four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

That would be backed up by a “robust security guarantee”, according to US outlet Axios, presumably backed up by a “coalition of the willing” involving the UK, France but not the US.

There would be a promise not to admit Ukraine into Nato, although it could join the EU.

All US sanctions would be lifted and economic co-operation with the US enhanced.

Axios also suggests Russia would return a small occupied area of the Kharkiv region and allow Ukraine “unimpeded passage” on the Dnipro river, while the US would take charge of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, seized by Russia in 2022.

And then there is a US-Ukraine deal to share minerals profits, which Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is expected to seal with the US by Saturday.

China has called on the US to cancel its sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods entering the country as a sign that the President Donald Trump is serious about resolving the trade war between the two countries.

A Chinese official said there had been no trade talks with the US, despite suggestions otherwise from the Trump administration.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies has been escalating, with China sending back Boeing planes it ordered from the US in its latest retaliation over tariffs.

But Trump has appeared to soften his stance on China, saying that the taxes he has so far imposed on Chinese imports would “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

A trade war between China and the US is in full swing, with Trump imposing import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US, and China hitting back with a 125% tax on American products.

In one of China’s strongest statements yet over the tariff war, Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said the US should remove all “unilateral tariff measures” against China “if it truly wanted” to solve the issue.

“The person who tied the bell must untie it,” he added.

Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said China and the US had “not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariffs, let alone reached an agreement”.

He added that reports to the contrary were “false”.

Trump previously said negotiations between the countries were “active” – but this was also contradicted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said on Wednesday they had not yet begun.

Bessent added that there was an opportunity for a “big deal” between the US and China on trade.

He has previously said he expected a de-escalation of the “unsustainable” trade war, and said the current situation was “not a joke”.

Trump said on Tuesday that he would be “very nice” in negotiations with Beijing in the hope of securing a trade deal.

But following China’s latest comments, he said on his Truth Social media platform “Boeing should default China for not taking the beautifully finished planes that China committed to purchase”.

“This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” he added, before repeating accusations that synthetic opioid fentanyl “continues to pour into our country from China, through Mexico and Canada, killing hundreds of thousands of our people”.

The boss of plane manufacturer Boeing revealed China had sent back aircraft it had ordered from the US as part of its retaliation to tariffs.

Kelly Ortberg said this week that two planes had already been returned and another would follow due trade tensions between the two countries.

China held a roundtable on Wednesday to address the concerns of more than 80 foreign firms over the impact of US tariffs on their investments and operations in China, the commerce ministry said.

“It is hoped that foreign firms will turn crises into opportunities,” said Vice Commerce Minister Ling Ji.

K-pop group Just B’s member Bain has revealed to fans he is “proud to be part of the LGBT community” – a rare move in an industry known for its tight control over artists’ behaviour, where stars typically keep details of their personal lives private, particularly relationships.

The star, 23, is now among only a handful of K-pop artists who have come out publicly.

Bain made the announcement in front of fans while performing a solo at a concert in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

The moment was met with loud cheers from the crowd, according to videos circulating on social media.

“To anyone out there who’s part of the LGBT community, or still figuring it out – this is for you guys,” Bain, whose real name is Song Byeong-hee, said in a video posted on his social media after the concert.

“You are seen, you are loved, and you were born this way,” he added, before launching into a performance of Born This Way by pop icon Lady Gaga, whom he referred to as “my queen”.

His bandmates welcomed the announcement. Just B member Siwoo said he cried while watching Bain’s performance. “I know how hard it was for him, and that made me want to cry more,” he said, according to Korean media outlet News1.

The band’s fans have shown their support as well. “We love you so much and are so proud of you for being yourself,” reads a top-liked comment under his Instagram post.

“You are so loved. So proud to be your fan. Be proud of who you are,” another fan wrote.

Formed in 2021, Just B is a six-member act that has released five EPs and multiple singles.

Coming out remains extremely rare in South Korea’s highly-pressurised entertainment industry. While homosexuality is not illegal in the country, it remains taboo, and same-sex marriage is not legally recognised.

A 2022 Human Rights Watch report described discrimination against LGBT people in South Korea as “pervasive”.

Bain is not the first K-pop star to come out. Just last month, Lara, an Indian-American member of the girl group Katseye, came out as queer on a K-pop fan community platform. In 2020, Jiae from the now-disbanded girl group Wassup announced on Instagram that she is bisexual.

An Australian politician has been convicted of supplying drugs after he initially dismissed a video showing him snorting a white substance as a “deepfake”.

Former South Australian Liberal party leader David Speirs was fined A$9,000 (£4311; $5,720) and ordered to complete 37.5 hours of community service by an Adelaide court on Thursday.

Speirs was arrested in September after footage of him snorting off a plate was published by News Corp. He initially denied wrongdoing and reportedly told the news outlet it was a “deepfake” and that he had never used cocaine.

However, he later admitted that was a lie and the ensuing scandal and charges led to his resignation from parliament.

Last month, Speirs pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine to two men in August.

Speirs’ defence said he used drugs “as a form of escapism” from the stress of his work, but the offences did not occur in a work capacity.

The case had sparked intense media scrutiny, with prosecutors arguing that it was in the public’s interest given Speirs’ senior position in politics.

His lawyer had previously asked the court not to record the conviction so his client could travel overseas, but the magistrate said the offences were “too serious”.

“The need for public denunciation for this type of offending and the need for general deterrence is too great to refrain from recording a conviction,” magistrate Brian Nitschke said on Thursday.

Nitschke acknowledged Speirs’ defence that the offences occurred during a time of stress but added it was “certainly no excuse”.

Speirs stepped into the role of South Australia’s Liberal leader in 2022 and had served 10 years as a member of parliament.

He did not speak to media after his sentencing.

Prosecutors have indicted former South Korean President Moon Jae-in on charges of bribery related to his former son-in-law’s job at an airline.

Prosecutors argue his former son-in-law, identified only by his surname Seo, had little experience in the aviation industry but was hired in exchange for the airline’s CEO leading a state-funded agency.

Moon led the country from 2017 to 2022 and is best remembered for his attempts to broker a peace deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

He joins a long list of South Korean presidents whose political careers have been marred by scandal, from jail to assassination to suicide.

Former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office this month for his shock martial law declaration, is also facing criminal charges.

Besides Moon, former lawmaker Lee Sang-jik has also been indicted, prosecutors say. He is being accused of bribery and breach of trust.

In 2022, Lee was sentenced to six years in prison for embezzling company funds.

The founder of budget carrier Eastar Jet, Lee was named the head of the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency in 2018 – the same year that Seo was appointed executive director of his airline’s subsidiary Thai Eastar Jet.

Between 2018 and 2020, Seo received around 217 million won ($150,000; £113,000) in salary and housing support – a sum that prosecutors say constitute bribes intended for Moon.

According to prosecutors, Seo was appointed “despite any relevant experience or qualifications in the airline industry”, said a Reuters report.

He “frequently left his post for extended periods… and did not perform his duties in a manner befitting the position”, it added.

The residence of Moon Da-hye, the former president’s daughter, was raided last September during investigations of the bribery allegations.

Moon’s indictment comes amid a series of prosecutions against officials in his administration. Earlier this month, Moon’s former national security advisor and defence minister were indicted for allegedly leaking intelligence to activists.

The country’s prosecution service is often accused of being politicised – and when the government changes hands, it’s common for rival politicians to be investigated.

The current government is led by acting president and prime minister Han Duck-soo the People Power Party’s.

Moon’s Democratic Party has condemned the prosection, calling it a “politically motivated move aimed at humiliating a former president”.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he will step back from his role with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team known as Doge.

Those at the White House, including the president, have said it has long been the plan that Musk would soon step away, but the news came as the billionaire’s car business saw earnings plunge.

Musk’s announcement left many unanswered questions, including when he will actually leave the administration and what will happen to Doge, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reinforced the message that the administration was preparing for Musk’s departure.

“We have to, at some point, let him go and do that. We expected to be doing it about this time. I’ll talk to Elon about it,” Trump said at the White House.

The president also said Tesla will “be taken care of” once Musk returns and alleged that Musk was being “treated very unfairly, I guess, by some of the public”.

“He’s a great patriot, and [that] should have never happened to him,” Trump added.

However, under government rules, spending fewer days at Doge could actually prolong Musk’s stint in government.

Musk has been designated a “special government employee” (SGE) – a label that allows him to work at a paid or unpaid government job for 130 days each year.

According to a 2007 Department of Justice memo, cited in an October 2024 guidance document from the Office of Government Ethics, any day on which an SGE performs any work for the government counts as a full day towards that limit.

Measured from Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the 130-day limit – assuming Musk, who brags about working weekends, clocks roughly five days a week at Doge – would run out toward the end of May.

But scaling back would extend that timeframe. Additionally, the 130-day limit would reset in January 2026.

Musk has not given details on his intended schedule. He made the announcement on Tuesday, after Tesla reported financial troubles including a 71% drop in profits.

The drop came after repeated “Tesla takedown” protests across the globe and calls for boycotts against the car manufacturer amid Musk’s government role. While organisers have said most protests have been peaceful, some have been destructive with fires set at Tesla showrooms or at charging stations.

• Musk’s Tesla facilities in US face ‘Takedown’ protests
• Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell’
• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge

The company warned investors that the pain could continue, declining to offer a growth forecast while saying “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully hurt demand for the vehicles.

Musk told investors on an earnings call that the time he allocates to Doge “will drop significantly” and that he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”.

After the comments, Tesla’s languishing stock price rose.

It’s also unclear how many days Musk has already worked for the government, whether the government is keeping a tally, and how the limit would be enforced.

There has been criticism that the Trump administration may have flouted government rules in creating Musk’s unprecedented role, and concerns that he may not follow the time limit.

Under rules for SGEs, Musk would have to undergo ethics training, provide a confidential financial disclosure statement, and avoid conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with the US government and foreign governments, including SpaceX, which has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company’s chief executive.

The rules also prohibit special government employees from partisan activities, including wearing clothing with political slogans, while in government offices or carrying out official duties. Musk has been pictured wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in the Oval Office.

Still, in February, an anonymous White House official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that Musk would file a confidential financial disclosure at some point, and had been given an ethics briefing.

The following month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the BBC: “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws.”

For now, Musk appears to serve at Trump’s behest, with no clear oversight other than the president himself.

In a report released last week, progressive think-tank Public Citizen criticised the Trump administration and said the White House was “wildly abusing” the SGE rules.

“Right now, the public has no way to know whether SGEs like Musk who don’t file public financial disclosure reports or are permitted to oversee themselves are putting the people’s interests ahead of their own,” said report author Jon Golinger.

The BBC has contacted Musk and the Office of Personnel Management – the agency overseeing special government employees, and one where Doge employees have reportedly taken over several functions – for comment.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that around 100 Doge employees would remain in various government departments after Musk departs this year.

Musk and Trump set a deadline for Doge to finish its work, which corresponds to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

The executive order setting up Doge, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day in January, mentioned 4 July 2026 as the ending date.

Earlier, in December, Musk responded to a tweet that also said Doge would finish entirely on that date.

“The final step of DOGE is to delete itself,” he wrote.

Listen to Justin read this article

Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists are dusting down their placards, digging out their infamous fluorescent orange vests, and charging up their loud hailers — a routine they have gone through many a time before.

It has taken just three years of throwing soup, spraying corn-starch paint and blocking roads – lots and lots of roads – for the troop of climate activists to become one of the country’s most reviled campaigning organisations.

They expect hundreds of activists to turn out on Saturday in Central London.

However, despite appearances, this JSO gathering is going to be very different from what has gone before. For a start it’s existence is no secret. And secondly, there is unlikely to be any of the mass disruption that has been seen previously.

In fact, this is their last ever protest. JSO are, in their own words, “hanging up the hi-viz” and ending their campaign of civil disobedience.

The group’s official line is that they’ve won their battle because their demand that there should be no new oil and gas licences is now government policy. But privately members of JSO admit tough new powers brought in to police disruptive protests have made it almost impossible for groups like it to operate.

Sarah Lunnon, co-founder of JSO, says Saturday’s gathering will be a “joyful celebration”.

“We’ve done incredible things together, trusted each other with so much,” she says.

The group aren’t the only ones who’ll be celebrating. Many of the thousands of motorists who’ve been delayed, art lovers appalled by the attacks on great paintings, or the sports fans and theatre goers whose events were interrupted, will be glad to see the back of them. So too the police. Policing JSO protests has soaked up thousands of hours of officer time and cost millions. In 2023 the Met Police said the group’s protests cost almost £20m.

But the end of JSO also raises some big questions, including if this is really the end of disruptive climate protest in the UK or whether being forced underground could spawn new, even more disruptive or chaotic climate action. And there’s a bigger strategic question. Despite widespread public concern about the future of the planet, much of the public ended up hostile to JSO. How can the climate movement avoid a repeat of that?

JSO’s model involved small groups of committed activists undertaking targeted actions designed to cause maximum disruption or public outrage. But it had strict internal rules. The actions had to be non-violent, and activists had to be held accountable – they had to wait around to get arrested.

For leaders like Roger Hallam, who was originally jailed for five years for plotting to disrupt traffic on the M25, being seen to be punished was a key part of the publicity.

The police, roused by public anger and hostile media coverage, demanded more powers to stop the “eco-loons”, as the Sun newspaper dubbed them, and other protesters. And politicians heeded the call.

The biggest change came with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act in 2022. It made “intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance” a statutory offence. A list of loosely defined actions including causing “serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity” were now potentially serious crimes. And that opened up another legal route for the authorities: the charge of conspiracy to intentionally cause public nuisance. Now even planning a potentially disruptive action could bring substantial jail time.

The Public Order Act the following year broadened the police’s powers to manage protests and brought in new criminal offences including “locking on” to objects, causing serious disruption by tunnelling, and interfering with major infrastructure.

At the same time judges, backed by the higher courts, have removed the right of protestors to claim they had a “lawful excuse” for their actions in the vast majority of protest cases. The Court of Appeal has accepted that the “beliefs and motivation” of a defendant are too remote to constitute lawful excuse for causing damage to a property. It means they can no longer argue to juries that their right to splash paint on buildings, sit in the road, or undertake other disruptive activities, is justified by the bigger threat posed by climate change. In most trials the only question for the court now is whether the defendants did what they are accused of, not why they did it.

“We’ve seen people being found guilty and sent to prison for years,” says JSO’s Sarah Lunnon.

David Spencer, a former police officer who now is head of crime and justice at the think tank Policy Exchange, says too often the law had previously “favoured those involved in disruptive protests at the expense of the legitimate interests of other people.”

The human rights organisation Liberty sees things very differently, believing the changes amount to an attack on democracy.

Ruth Ehrlich, head of policy and campaigns at the organisation argues the legal changes have “had a chilling effect on the ways all of us are able to speak out for what we believe”.

In this context, some climate activists have concluded that it is time to drop the movement’s long-standing commitment to accountability – they will undertake disruptive actions but won’t stick around to be arrested any more.

Over the past year a group called Shut the System (STS) has carried out a series of criminal attacks on the offices of finance and insurance companies: smashing windows, daubing paint, supergluing locks, and in January this year they targeted fibre optic communication cables.

I spoke to one of the organisers on a messaging app. They argue the legal changes mean the traditional forms of accountable protest aren’t viable anymore.

“It would be impossible for people to sustain an effective campaign with people going to prison for years after a single action,” the spokesperson told me. “Activists are forced into a position where we have to go underground.”

I asked the group what they would say to people who criticise them for breaking the law. They said that in their view the stakes are such that they have to do what they think works.

This is not the first time protestors in the UK have taken clandestine action on climate issues. Over the past few years a group calling itself the Tyre Extinguishers has deflated tyres on sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in several locations, while this year another group drilled holes in the tyres of cars at a Land Rover dealership in Cornwall.

The idea of protesters causing JSO levels of disruption – but unlike JSO, avoiding justice – may send a chill down the spine of many motorists. But Dr Graeme Hayes, reader in Political Sociology at Aston University, thinks only a tiny minority of climate campaigners are likely to get involved in such actions.

He has studied environmental protest groups in the UK for decades and says the more radical groups are finding it increasingly hard to recruit people.

“There is a very strong, profound ethical commitment to being non-violent within the climate movement so I think whatever it does will be based on those principles,” he says.

Others have found legal ways to make their protests heard. A group called the Citizen’s Arrest Network (CAN) is attempting to flip the script by using the law of public nuisance – implemented so effectively against the disruptive protests of JSO – against the bosses of fossil fuel and other polluting companies.

The group exploits the right, dating back to medieval England, that allows citizens to arrest people they think have committed a crime. CAN put together alleged criminal cases against those company bosses they argue are causing public nuisance by damaging the environment. Then they “arrest” them in public, which involves handing them documents detailing the alleged crimes they are responsible for.

The group claims to have “arrested” a number of executives from fossil fuel and water companies and last month served indictments against Shell and BP to the Crown Prosecution Service. Gail Lynch, one of the organisers, says the group was born out of frustration, “disgruntled people find each other, and they need a mechanism to have their voice heard,” she says.

These days very few elected politicians speak out in favour of JSO’s actions. Yet as recently as April 2019 Extinction Rebellion (XR) staged 10 days of protests across the UK that caused widespread disruption and included blocking Oxford Circus in central London with a large pink boat. Instead of lengthy prison sentences for those involved, the protest leaders were instead rewarded with a meeting with Conservative government ministers.

Within two months the UK parliament had passed a law committing the country to bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Robert Jenrick, then a Treasury minister, was one of the ministers who met XR and was still in post when the Net Zero laws were passed.

But things are different now and Jenrick, who is now shadow Justice Secretary, is very critical of JSO’s actions.

“It was completely unacceptable that ambulances were being blocked and millions of commuters were being subjected to hours of delays and misery,” he tells me.

“Just Stop Oil’s zealotry has probably set back their cause by alienating the law-abiding majority.”

Polling evidence suggests there is still strong support for climate action amongst the public.

Ahead of the general election last year, the polling organisation More in Common, along with climate think tank ESG, found around 80% of Britons thought it was important that the government cares about tackling climate change. This broad sentiment was echoed across the political board – nearly four out of five Conservative voters and two thirds of Reform voters felt this way.

But despite this, JSO is not well regarded by the public. A 2023 YouGov poll of almost 4,000 people found just 17% had a favourable view of the group.

According to Dr Hayes, what happened with JSO has prompted deep reflection within the climate movement about its future strategy.

There are some within the green movement who will be pleased to see the end of JSO.

Rupert Read, a former spokesperson for XR is one of many who believes JSO’s message on the urgency of action on climate change got lost in the outrage caused by their disruptive campaigning.

“Just Stop Oil has been effective at getting attention,” says Read, “but that’s not the same thing as getting real change.” They generated a lot of headlines: “[but] sometimes people give you coverage precisely because they think that coverage will be bad for you and your cause.”

John Gummer, now Lord Deben, was an environment minister under Margaret Thatcher and chaired the government’s watchdog on climate change for a decade. He has been very critical of successive governments’ lack of action on climate change.

But Lord Deben believes the disruptive actions of groups like JSO are counterproductive. “I think it annoys people more than it encourages people to think seriously about the issue,” he says.

His advice to people who want to see more action on climate change is to use the democratic system more effectively, for example by telling MPs and local councillors about concerns.

XR’s former spokesperson, Mr Read, believes campaigners should now focus on building a mass movement. “If we are going to actually win on this, we need to do something that will bring most people with us because there is no way one gets to win on climate without bringing most people with one,” he says.

He’s working with the former head of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, on a new organisation, the Climate Majority Project. It lists prominent Conservatives including Lord Deben among its supporters and aims to use non-disruptive methods. The focus will be building support for climate action by focusing on tackling the impacts of extreme weather in local communities.

“The end game is that we get a situation where the political parties are racing to compete for votes on climate and nature, rather than running away from them,” explains Read.

Naturalist and presenter Chris Packham believes “empowering” voters should be the focus. “We need a larger number, a larger percentage of our populace, on board when it comes to being able to talk […] truth to power.”

But he argues there are real dangers for governments that stifle the voices of those who have legitimate concerns. “If a government is arrogant enough not to listen to people protesting and they have good grounds for protest […] there are bound to be those people who say we are going to escalate the protest.”

He helped organise last year’s Restore Nature Now march which brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets and was supported by a whole range of nature focused organisations including big charities like the National Trust and RSPB, as well as campaign groups like JSO.

Packham was hoping that by getting a whole range of activists together on a single stage “they would all see the bigger picture and recognise that there are far more commonalities between them than differences.”

But peaceful climate action does not get the same attention as non-peaceful action. “We put between 70,000 and 80,000 people on the streets of London, but because it was a peaceful demonstration made up of kids in fancy dress we didn’t get any coverage,” says Packham.

It is in this context that Ms Lunnon of JSO believes new forms of disruptive protest will emerge in time. “The movement is there and will find new ways to confront the government,” she says. “Nobody is shutting up shop and calling it a day. We know morally that we have to continue.”

However it is clear that, for now at least, the model that made JSO so notorious is dead.

A trade war between the world’s two biggest economies is now in full swing.

Chinese exports to the US face up to 245% tariffs, and Beijing has hit back with a 125% levy on American imports. Consumers, businesses and markets are braced for more uncertainty as fears of a global recession have heightened.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has repeatedly said it is open to dialogue, but warned that, if necessary, it would “fight to the end”.

Here’s a look at what Beijing has in its arsenal to counter US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

China is the world’s second-largest economy, which means it can absorb the impacts of the tariffs better than other smaller countries.

With more than a billion people, it also has a huge domestic market that could take some of the pressure off exporters who are reeling from tariffs.

Beijing is still fumbling with the keys because Chinese people are not spending enough. But with a range of incentives, from subsidies for household appliances to “silver trains” for travelling retirees, that could change.

And Trump’s tariffs have given the Chinese Communist Party an even stronger impetus to unlock the country’s consumer potential.

The leadership may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told BBC Newshour earlier this month.

China also has a higher threshold for pain as an authoritarian regime, as it is far less worried about short-term public opinion. There is no election around the corner that will judge its leaders.

Still, unrest is a concern, especially because there is already discontent over an ongoing property crisis and job losses.

The economic uncertainty over tariffs is yet another blow for young people who have only ever known a rising China.

The Party has been appealing to nationalist sentiments to justify its retaliatory tariffs, with state media calling on people to “weather storms together”.

President Xi Jinping may be worried but, so far, Beijing has struck a defiant and confident tone. One official assured the country: “The sky will not fall.”

China has always been known as the world’s factory – but it has been pouring billions into becoming a far more advanced one.

Under Xi, it has been in a race with the US for tech dominance.

It has invested heavily in homegrown tech, from renewables to chips to AI.

Examples include the chatbot DeepSeek, which was celebrated as a formidable rival to ChatGPT, and BYD, which beat Tesla last year to become the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) maker. Apple has been losing its prized market share to local competitors such as Huawei and Vivo.

Recently Beijing announced plans to spend more than $1tn over the next decade to support innovation in AI.

US companies have tried to move their supply chains away from China, but they have struggled to find the same scale of infrastructure and skilled labour elsewhere.

Chinese manufacturers at every stage of the supply chain have given the country a decades-long advantage that will take time to replicate.

That unrivalled supply chain expertise and government support have made China a formidable foe in this trade war – in some ways, Beijing has been preparing for this since Trump’s previous term.

Ever since Trump tariffs hit Chinese solar panels back in 2018, Beijing sped up its plans for a future beyond a US-led world order.

It has pumped billions into a contentious trade and infrastructure programme, better known as the Belt and Road initiative, to shore up ties with the so-called Global South.

The expansion of trade with South East Asia, Latin America and Africa comes as China tries to wean itself off the US.

American farmers once supplied 40% of China’s soybean imports – that figure now hovers at 20%. After the last trade war, Beijing ramped up soy cultivation at home and bought record volumes of the crop from Brazil, which is now its largest soybean supplier.

“The tactic kills two birds with one stone. It deprives America’s farm belt of a once‑captive market and burnishes China’s food security credentials,” says Marina Yue Zhang, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute.

The US is no longer China’s biggest export market: that spot now belongs to South East Asia. In fact China was the largest trading partner for 60 countries in 2023 – nearly twice as many as the US. The world’s biggest exporter, it made a record surplus of $1tn at the end of 2024.

That doesn’t mean the US, the world’s biggest economy, is not a crucial trading partner for China. But it does mean it’s not going to be easy for Washington to back China into a corner.

Following reports that the White House will use bilateral trade negotiations to isolate China, Beijing has warned countries against “reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests”.

That would be an impossible choice for much of the world

“We can’t choose, and we will never choose [between China and the US],” Malaysia’s trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the BBC last week.

Trump held firm as stocks plummeted following his sweeping tariffs announcement in early April, likening his staggering levies to “medicine”.

But he made a U-turn, pausing most of those tariffs for 90 days after a sharp sell-off in US government bonds. Also known as Treasuries, these have long been seen as a safe investment. But the trade war has shaken confidence in the assets.

Trump has since hinted at a de-escalation in trade tensions with China, saying that the tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

So, experts point out, Beijing now knows that the bond market can rattle Trump.

China also holds $700bn in US government bonds. Japan, a staunch American ally, is the only non-US holder to own more than that.

Some argue that this gives Beijing leverage: Chinese media has regularly floated the idea of selling or withholding purchases of US bonds as a “weapon”.

But experts warn that China will not emerge unscathed from such a situation.

Rather, it will lead to huge losses for Beijing’s investments in the bond market and destabilise the Chinese yuan.

China will only be able to exert pressure with US government bonds “only up to a point”, Dr Zhang says. “China holds a bargaining chip, not a financial weapon.”

What China can weaponise, however, is its near monopoly in extracting and refining rare earths, a range of elements important to advanced tech manufacturing.

China has huge deposits of these, such as dysprosium, which is used in magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines, and Yttrium, which provides heat-resistant coating for jet engines.

Beijing has already responded to Trump’s latest tariffs by restricting exports of seven rare earths, including some that are essential for making AI chips.

China accounts for about 61% of rare earths production and 92% of their refining, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

While Australia, Japan and Vietnam have begun mining for rare earths, it will take years before China can be cut out of the supply chain.

In 2024, China banned the export of another critical mineral, antimony, that is crucial to various manufacturing processes. Its price more than doubled amid a wave of panic buying and a search for alternative suppliers.

The fear is that the same can happen to the rare earths market, which would severely disrupt various industries from electric vehicles to defence.

“Everything you can switch on or off likely runs on rare earths,” Thomas Kruemmer, director of Ginger International Trade and Investment, told the BBC previously.

“The impact on the US defence industry will be substantial.”

Tuesday’s bloodshed in Pahalgam – where at least 26 tourists were killed in a hail of gunfire – marks the deadliest militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019.

The victims weren’t soldiers or officials, but civilians on holiday in one of India’s most picturesque valleys. That alone makes this strike both brutal and symbolic: a calculated assault not just on lives, but on a fragile sense of normalcy the Indian state has worked hard to project in the disputed region.

Given the fraught history of Kashmir – claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but ruled by each only in part – India’s response is likely to be shaped as much by precedent as by pressure, say experts.

For starters, Delhi has swiftly taken a series of retaliatory steps: closing the main border crossing, suspending a critical water-sharing treaty, and expelling diplomats.

More significantly, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has vowed a “strong response,” pledging action not just against the perpetrators but also the masterminds behind the “nefarious acts” on Indian soil.

The question, analysts say, is not whether there will be a military response – but when, and how calibrated it will be, and at what cost.

“We are likely to see a strong response – one that signals resolve to both domestic audiences and actors in Pakistan. Since 2016 and especially after 2019, the threshold for retaliation has been set at cross-border or air strikes,” military historian Srinath Raghavan told the BBC.

“It’ll be hard for the government to act below that now. Pakistan will likely respond, as it did before. The risk, as always, is miscalculation – on both sides.”

Mr Raghavan is alluding to two previous major retaliations by India in 2016 and 2019.

After the deadly Uri attack in September 2016, where 19 Indian soldiers were killed, India launched what it called “surgical strikes” across the de facto border – also known as the Line of Control (LoC) – targeting what it said were militant launch pads in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

And in 2019, after at least 40 paramilitary personnel were killed in Pulwama, India hit an alleged militant camp in Balakot with airstrikes – its first such strike deep inside Pakistan since 1971. Pakistan responded with air raids, leading to a dogfight and the brief capture of an Indian pilot. Both sides showed strength but avoided full-scale war.

Two years later, in 2021, they agreed to an LoC ceasefire, which has largely held – despite recurring militant attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Michael Kugelman, a foreign policy analyst, believes that the combination of high fatality levels and the targeting of Indian civilians in the latest attack “suggests a strong possibility of an Indian military response against Pakistan, if Delhi determines or merely assumes any level of Pakistani complicity”.

“The chief advantage of such a reaction for India would be political, as there will be strong public pressure for India to respond forcefully, ” he told the BBC.

“Another advantage, if a retaliation successfully takes out terrorist targets, would be restoring deterrence and degrading an anti-India threat. The disadvantage is that a retaliation would risk a serious crisis and even conflict.”

What are India’s options?

Covert action offers deniability but may not satisfy the political need to visibly restore deterrence, says Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US.

That leaves India with two possible paths, he notes.

First, the 2021 LoC ceasefire has been fraying, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could greenlight a return to cross-border firing.

Second, airstrikes or even conventional cruise missile strikes, like in 2019, are also on the table – each carrying the risk of a retaliatory spiral, as seen in the air skirmishes that followed then.

“No path is without risks. The US is also distracted and may not be willing or be able to assist with crisis management,” Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

One of the gravest risks in any India-Pakistan crisis is that both sides are nuclear-armed. That fact casts a long shadow over every decision, shaping not just military strategy but political calculations.

“Nuclear weapons are both a danger and a restraint – they force decision-makers on both sides to act with caution. Any response is likely to be presented as precise and targeted. Pakistan may retaliate in kind, then look for an off-ramp, says Mr Raghavan.

“We’ve seen this pattern in other conflicts too, like Israel-Iran – calibrated strikes, followed by efforts to de-escalate. But the risk is always that things won’t go according to script.”

Mr Kugelman says that one of the lessons of the Pulwama crisis is that “each country is comfortable using limited counter retaliation”.

“India will need to weigh the political and tactical advantages of retaliation with the risk of a serious crisis or conflict.”

Hussain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, believes escalation is possible this time, with India likely to consider limited “surgical strikes” like in 2016.

“The advantage of such strikes from India’s point of view is they are limited in scope, so Pakistan does not have to respond, and yet they demonstrate to the Indian public that India has acted,” Mr Haqqani, a senior fellow at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Hudson Institute, told the BBC.

“But such strikes can also invite retaliation from Pakistan, which argues that it is being blamed in a knee jerk reaction, without any investigation or evidence.”

Whatever course India chooses – and however Pakistan responds – each step is fraught with risk. The threat of escalation looms, and with it, the fragile peace in Indian-administered Kashmir slips further out of reach.

At the same time, India must reckon with the security failures that allowed the attack to happen in the first place. “That such an attack occurred at the peak of tourist season,” Mr Raghavan noted, “points to a serious lapse – especially in a Union Territory where the federal government directly controls law and order.”

The Netherlands, March 2025. Yungblud is leaving his hotel in Amsterdam when he’s approached by a fan in floods of tears.

“You saved my life,” she sobs.

“No, you saved your own life,” he replies, quietly. “Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life, OK?”

Leaning in for a hug, he adds, “Don’t be sad, be happy. I love ya.”

It’s a remarkably touching moment, full of compassion and devoid of rock star ego.

Two weeks later, after a video of the encounter goes viral, Yungblud is still moved by the memory.

“I didn’t think people would see that, except me and her,” he says, “but it was such a moment for me.”

The interaction crystallised something he’d felt for a while.

“I always said that Bowie and My Chemical Romance saved my life, but ultimately you have to find yourself,” he says.

“Like this morning, I put my headphones on and I listened to [The Verve’s] Lucky Man, and it made me go, ‘Oh, I’m ready to face the day’.

“But Richard Ashcroft didn’t tell me I was ready to face the day. I said that to myself.

“That’s what I was trying to tell that girl in Amsterdam.”

Self-assurance is a lesson he learned the hard way.

On the surface, Yungblud, aka 27-year-old Dominic Harrison, had it all. Two number one albums, an international fanbase, a Louis Theroux documentary and enough clout to run his own festival.

But if you looked more closely, there were chinks in the armour. Those number one albums both fell out of the Top 30 after one week, a sign of a strong core fanbase, with limited crossover appeal.

And the first year of his Bludfest in Milton Keynes was criticised after long queues and a lack of water caused fans to pass out and miss the concert.

Harrison was keenly aware of it all. As he released his self-titled third album in 2022, he hit a low.

“Yungblud was number one in seven countries, and I wasn’t happy because it wasn’t the album I wanted to make,” he says.

“It was a good album, but it wasn’t exceptional.”

The problem, he says, was a record label who’d pushed him in a more commercial direction. But in polishing his sound, he lost the angry unpredictability that characterised his best work.

“It’s funny, my-self titled album was actually the one where I was most lost,” he observes.

“I felt like I compromised but, because of that, I was never taking no for an answer again.”

Nowhere is that clearer than on his comeback single, Hello Heaven, Hello.

Over nine minutes and six seconds it achieves Caligulan levels of excess, full of scorching guitar solos, throat-shredding vocal runs, and even an orchestral coda.

“” Harrison asks himself, as he re-ignites his ambition.

The song’s purposefully unsuited to radio – unlike the follow-up single, Lovesick Lullaby. Released today, it’s a free-associating rampage through a messy night out, that ends with epiphany in a drug dealer’s apartment.

Combining Liam Gallagher’s sneer with Beach Boys’ harmonies, it’s uniquely Yungblud. But the singer reveals it was originally written for his last album.

“We were actually discouraged from doing it,” he says.

“My advisor at the time, a guy called Nick Groff [vice president of A&R at Interscope, responsible for signing Billie Eilish], was like, ‘I don’t get it’.”

Warming to the theme, he continues: “The music industry is crap because it’s all about money but, as an artist, I need to make sure that anything I put out is exciting and unlimited.

“It can’t be like a 50% version of me.”

To achieve that, he shunned expensive recording studios and made his new album in a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds.

Professional songwriters were banished, too, in favour of a close group of collaborators, including guitarist Adam Warrington, and Matt Schwartz, the Israeli-British producer who helmed his 2018 debut.

“When you make an album in LA or London, everything is great, even if it’s mediocre, because people want a hit out of it,” he argues.

“When you make an album with family, all they want is the truth.”

One of the most honest tracks on the record is Zombie, a lighters-aloft ballad (think Coldplay, sung by Bruce Springsteen) about “feeling you’re ugly, and learning to battle that”.

“I always was insecure about my body, and that got highlighted as I got famous,” says the singer, who last year revealed he’d developed an eating disorder due to body dysmorphia.

“But I realised, the biggest power you can give someone over you is in how you react. So I decided, I’m going to get sober, I’m going to get fit, and I discovered boxing.”

He ended up working with the South African boxer Chris Heerden – who was recently in the news after Russia jailed his ballerina girlfriend, Ksenia Karelina.

“I met him before all that,” says Harrison, “but he’s been extremely inspirational. Boxing’s become like therapy for me.

“If someone says something bad about me, I go to the gym, hit the punch bag for an hour and talk it out.”

Fans have noticed the change… drooling over photos of his newly chiseled torso, and declaring 2025 his “shirt-off era”.

“Maybe the shirt-off era is a comeback to all the comments I’ve had,” he laughs.

“I’m claiming a freedom and a sexiness and a liberation.”

He’s clearly found a degree of serenity, without surrendering the restless energy that propelled him to fame.

Part of that is down to control. In January, he created a new company that brings together his core business of recorded music with touring operations, his fashion brand and his music festival, Bludfest.

The event kicked off in Milton Keynes last summer but suffered teething troubles, when fans were stuck in long queues.

“I will fully take responsibility for that,” says the star, who claims he was “backstage screaming” at police and promoters to get the lines moving.

“The problem was, there were six gates open when there should have been 12,” he says, suggesting people underestimated his fans’ dedication.

“When Chase and Status had played [there] a day before, there were 5,000 people when the doors opened, and another 30,000 trickled in during the day.

“With my fans, there were 20,000 kids at the gate at 10am. So we’ve learned a lot for this year. There’ll be pallets of water outside. It’ll be very different.”

Dedication to his fans is what makes Yungblud Yungblud.

He built the community directly from his phone and, whether intended or not, that connection has sustained his career – insulating him from the tyrannies of radio playlists and streaming placement.

Maintaining a personal relationship becomes harder as his fanbase grows but, ever astute, he hired a fan to oversee his social accounts.

“She’s called Jules Budd. She used to come to my gigs in Austin and she’d sell confetti to pay for gas money to the next city.

“She built an account called Yungblud Army, and she’s amazing at letting me understand what are people feeling.

“If people are outside and security aren’t treating them right, I know about it because she’s in contact with them. So I brought her in to make the community safer as it gets bigger.”

With his new album, he wants to make that community even bigger. Harking back to the sounds of Queen and David Bowie, he says it’ll “reclaim the good chords” (Asus4 and Em7, in case you’re wondering).

“The shackles are off,” he grins.

“We made an album to showcase our ambition and the way we want to play.

“Can you imagine seeing Yungblud in a stadium? 100% yes. Let’s do it.”

“Out! Out! Out!”

The voice in the Telegram video is insistent. Loud. Sometimes musical.

And the message unambiguous.

“All of Hamas, out!”

On the streets of Gaza, more and more Palestinians are expressing open defiance against the armed group that’s ruled the strip for almost 20 years.

Many hold Hamas responsible for plunging the tiny, impoverished territory into the worst crisis faced by Palestinians in more than 70 years.

“Deliver the message,” another crowd chants, as it surges through Gaza’s devastated streets: “Hamas is garbage.”

“The world is deceived by the situation in the Gaza Strip,” says Moumen al-Natour, a Gaza lawyer and former organiser of the 2019 anti-Hamas “We Want to Live” movement.

Al-Natour spoke to us from the shattered remains of his city, the flimsy canvas side of the tent which now forms part of his house billowing behind him.

“The world thinks that Gaza is Hamas and Hamas is Gaza,” he said. “We didn’t choose Hamas and now Hamas is determined to rule Gaza and tie our fate to its own. Hamas must retreat. “

Speaking out is dangerous. Hamas has never tolerated dissent. Al-Natour seems undaunted, writing a furious column for the Washington Post at the end of March.

“To support Hamas is to be for Palestinian death,” he wrote, “not Palestinian freedom”.

Wasn’t it dangerous to speak out in this way, I asked him.

“We need to take a risk and speak out,” he replied without hesitation.

“I’m 30 years old. When Hamas took over, I was 11. What have I done with my life? My life has been wasted between war and escalating violence for nothing.”

Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 by violently ousting political rivals, a year after winning national elections, there have been three major wars with Israel and two smaller conflicts.

“Humanity demands that we raise our voices,” al-Natour said, “despite suppression by Hamas”.

Hamas may be busy fighting Israel, but it’s not afraid to punish its critics.

At the end of March, 22-year old Oday al-Rubai was abducted by armed gunmen from a refugee shelter in Gaza City.

Hours later, his body was found covered in horrific wounds.

The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights said Oday had been tortured, calling his death “a grave violation of the right to life and an extrajudicial killing”.

Al-Rubai had participated in recent anti-Hamas protests. His family blamed Hamas for his death and demanded justice.

Days earlier, a frightened al-Rubai posted a dark, grainy video on social media in which he expressed his fear that Hamas militants were coming for him.

“Gaza has become a city of ghosts,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m stranded in the street, not knowing where to go. I don’t know why they’re after me. They destroyed us and brought ruin to us.”

At his funeral, a small crowd demanded revenge and repeated demands for Hamas to get out of Gaza.

Last summer, Amin Abed almost suffered the same fate, following his decision to speak out against Hamas.

Masked militants beat him senseless, broke bones all over his body and damaged his kidneys. Abed survived but had to seek medical treatment abroad.

Now living in Dubai, he’s still involved in the protest movement, and believes that Hamas’ authority is diminished.

“Hamas’ power has begun to fade,” he told me.

“It targets activists and civilians, beats and kills them to scare people. But it’s not how it was before.”

Before the ceasefire collapsed last month, Hamas fighters seemed intent on highly visible displays of power.

But now, with Israel once again attacking relentlessly, the same gunmen have retreated underground and Gaza’s civilians have been plunged back into the misery of war.

Some of the more recent protests suggest that civilians, driven to the edge of madness by a year and a half of Israeli bombardment, are losing their fear of Hamas.

Beit Lahiya, at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, has seen some of the most vociferous opposition.

In a series of voice notes, an eyewitness – who asked not to be named – described several recent incidents in which local residents prevented Hamas fighters from carrying out military actions from inside their community.

On 13 April, he said, Hamas gunmen tried to force their way into the house of an elderly man, Jamal al-Maznan.

“They wanted to launch rockets and pipes [a derogatory term used for some of Hamas’ home-made projectiles] from inside his house,” the eyewitness told us.

“But he refused.”

The incident soon escalated, with relatives and neighbours all coming to al-Maznan’s defence. The gunmen opened fire, injuring several people, but eventually were driven out.

“They were not intimidated by the bullets,” the eyewitness said of the protesters.

“They advanced and told [the gunmen] to take their things and flee. We don’t want you in this place. We don’t want your weapons that have brought us destruction, devastation and death.”

Elsewhere in Gaza, protesters have told militants to stay away from hospitals and schools, to avoid situations in which civilians are caught up in Israeli air strikes.

But such defiance is still risky. In Gaza City, Hamas shot one such protester dead.

With little to lose and hopes of an end to the war dashed once more, some Gazans direct their fury equally at Israel and Hamas.

Asked which side he blamed most for Gaza’s catastrophe, Amin Abed said it was “a choice between cholera and the plague”.

The protest movement of recent weeks is not yet a rebellion, but after almost 20 years of rule Hamas’ iron grip on Gaza is slowly slipping.

This week saw pilgrims flock to Rome to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis, the US threaten to pull out of Ukraine peace talks, and Prince Louis celebrate his seventh birthday.

But how much attention did you pay to what else has been going on in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz compiled by Ben Fell.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

The best friend of a woman who died from methanol poisoning on holiday has called on the government to do more to educate teenagers in schools about the dangers of drinking alcohol abroad.

Bethany Clarke was travelling in Laos in south-east Asia with childhood friend Simone White when they drank free shots they were offered in a hostel in November.

The following day, they both became unwell and initially thought they had food poisoning. But, a few days later, 28-year-old Simone died in hospital.

The Department for Education have been contacted for a comment about Bethany’s petition.

Simone, who was from Orpington in south-east London, and Bethany planned to stay in Cambodia for just under two weeks, and spend four days in Laos.

They fell ill after drinking six vodka shots served to them at the Nana Backpackers hostel in traveller hotspot Vang Vieng.

Five other tourists also died after drinking at the hostel.

Their drinks are thought to have contained methanol – a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.

Medical specialists say drinking as little as 25ml of methanol can be fatal, but it is sometimes added to drinks because it is cheaper than alcohol.

But Bethany, 28, tells BBC Newsbeat they didn’t even realise anything was wrong until the next day.

“This all happened on the fourth day of the trip. We did the tubing that day and that was good,” she says.

“It’s difficult to obviously describe the timeline. I think when I realised it was all going wrong was when we were on the kayaks for a trip we were doing the following morning. So just over 12 hours on.

“I guess that was when me and Simone were flat on the back of these kayaks, not being able to use our arms. We were just literally staring up into space.

“That was a moment where I thought I really don’t understand what’s happening to us. It just seemed like I was just having to accept my fate.”

Bethany says even when they tried to get help, it took them a while to be treated for methanol poisoning and they had to search for information about it themselves.

“The doctors kept saying it was food poisoning, which obviously didn’t help with trying to treat what was going on,” she says.

“This is when our other friends said ‘let’s get to a private hospital’. In the ambulance on the way there our friend mentioned to the paramedic ‘could it be methanol poisoning?’ He’d done a little bit of research on his phone.

“They rushed Simone off to have dialysis straight away and said to me ‘look can you just sign these forms and we’ll do our best to save her life?’

“And yeah, they did their best.”

Bethany says the group trusted the hostel because the reviews were good but she’s now urging others to be careful.

“We didn’t think we were doing anything stupid, but obviously now I do feel like I should have known more.

“The advice is from me ‘steer clear, drink beer’. Look up the symptoms, be mindful about where you’re drinking.

“Just don’t let it be your best friend that dies from methanol poisoning.”

Bethany’s also set up a petition calling for the dangers of methanol poisoning to be put on the school curriculum in the UK.

It says “children should be taught the dangers of consuming bootleg alcohol as part of the PSHE and/or Biology curriculum in school”.

“I think it just needs to be a five minute talk or possibly even some kind of public health advert, just giving the case study of Laos and saying this can happen,” she says.

“If people want to take the risk and drink it, at least they’ve been educated and then they might even be able to spot some of the symptoms if they do happen to drink it.”

Bethany is currently working in Australia and has since made a full recovery.

She says Simone was “so full of life, energetic, sporty, musical – there’s 100 adjectives I could probably come up with”.

“She was just the best friend that anybody could hope for.

“If you ever had a problem she’d always be trying to help you with it and she was just such a good listener.”

The government has updated its information on methanol poisoning after what happened – there’s a list of countries where its been reported and advice on how to spot it.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We provided consular assistance to British nationals and their families and we remain in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Laos.”

The Department for Education hasn’t responded to Newsbeat about the petition, but its current guidance says students should be made fully aware of the risks of types of drugs and alcohol by the time they leave school.

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

Police shot and killed an armed 30-year-old man at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Thursday morning, police said.

Two officers shot at the man around 07:00 local time (12:00 GMT), Ontario police’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), said in a statement.

No police officers were injured, and “there is no known threat to the public”, according to the SIU, which is tasked with investigating incidents involving police shootings.

Authorities say that the shooting happened after they were called to a “dispute”. After several minutes of de-escalation attempts, the man pulled out a gun and police opened fire.

On Thursday morning, Peel Regional Police officers were investigating a “man in distress” in an SUV at Terminal 1 departures, the SIU said.

Authorities said the incident happened near Terminal 1 departures.

Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said officers spent about 10 minutes speaking to the group, which included two or three people who were in a dispute.

After “an immense amount of de-escalation”, one of the individuals “abruptly” withdrew a gun, the chief said. Officers opened fire on the man.

The man – who police have not named – was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The incident temporarily sparked travel chaos at Canada’s busiest airport.

Police confirmed there were temporary road closures around the terminal, but airport authorities told the BBC that flights “continue to operate normally”.

Ontario Provincial Police advised drivers and commuters to “avoid the area”. Buses to the airport initially were rerouted, but Toronto’s public transit authority has confirmed that normal service has resumed.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford condemned the shooting.

“What’s the world coming to? You go to the airport and there’s shootings happening,” he said, according to CBC News.

Pearson airport is 20km (12 miles) away from Toronto in the city of Mississauga. It is the country’s busiest airport and sees more than 40 million passengers each year.

This not the first time it has made headlines this year.

In February, a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis overturned at Pearson and caught fire after skidding along the runway. All 80 passengers survived.

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have agreed to halt fighting in the east of the country until peace talks mediated by Qatar reach their “conclusion”.

It is the latest truce since the rebels stepped up an offensive in eastern DR Congo where authorities say 7,000 people have been killed since January.

Both sides on Wednesday jointly announced to work towards peace following more than a week of talks, which they described as “frank and constructive”.

Last month, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame also reaffirmed their commitment to an “unconditional” ceasefire in a surprise meeting in Doha.

The decades-long conflict has intensified since January when M23 staged an unprecedented offensive, seizing Goma and Bukavu – eastern Congo’s two largest cities – and sparking fears of a wider regional war.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of arming the M23 and sending troops to support the rebels in the conflict. Despite assertions from both the UN and US, Rwanda has denied supporting the M23.

• What’s the fighting in DR Congo all about?
• The evidence that shows Rwanda is backing rebels in DR Congo
• Your phone, a rare metal and the war in DR Congo

Rwanda has said its forces are acting in self-defence against the Congolese army and allied militias, some of which it accuses of links to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

DR Congo also accuses Rwanda of illegally exploiting its mineral deposits in the east of the country, which Rwanda denies.

In a joint statement released separately by the M23 and Congolese government on Wednesday, each side pledged to give peace talks a chance.

“By mutual agreement, both parties reaffirm commitment to the immediate cessation of hostilities, a categorical rejection of any hate speech, intimidation, and call on all local communities to uphold these commitments,” they said in a statement read on Congolese national TV and and posted on X by the M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka.

They said the ceasefire would apply “throughout the duration of the talks and until their conclusion”.

Sources in the Qatar talks told Reuters news agency that the outcome of the meetings were almost derailed by “technical” issues.

It is not clear how long the truce will hold as several ceasefires have been agreed since 2021, before later collapsing.

Belgium’s Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Prevot termed the truce a “crucial step towards ending the violence”.

Qatar has been mediating between the two parties after the rebels refused to attend peace talks in Angola last month.

The Congolese government had long refused to hold direct talks with M23, branding it a “terrorist” group.

• DR Congo conflict tests China’s diplomatic balancing act
• How DR Congo’s Tutsis become foreigners in their own country
• ‘They took all the women here’: Rape survivors recall horror of DR Congo jailbreak

The export of video game controllers from the UK to Russia has been banned as they can be repurposed to pilot drones used to launch attacks on Ukraine.

It is part of a package of around 150 trade sanctions against Russia announced by the Foreign Office on Thursday.

The European Union enforced a similar ban on video games and joysticks earlier this year.

Other technology items used in the defence and energy sectors are among items which can also no longer be exported to Russia, including software used to search for new oil and gas wells.

Sanctions were also announced on exports of chemicals, electronics, machinery and metals to limit Russia’s military capability.

This includes electronic circuits and other components that can be used in weapons systems.

“Gaming consoles will no longer be repurposed to kill in Ukraine,” Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said.

He added: “Putin thought he could use British markets to boost his war effort, buying harmless goods and turning them into tools of war – but the UK is exposing and acting on this sinister trade.

“Today’s action clamps down on Russia’s sneaky trading and deprives Putin of the goods he desperately needs to fight his barbaric war.”

He added that cutting off Russia’s energy revenues “will drain Putin’s war chest”.

“And our tough new measures will also degrade Russia’s military machine – new export sanctions mean Putin will no longer be able to get his hands on specialist technology used to produce weaponry for his illegal war.”

The latest package is part of wider sanctions by the US, UK and EU on Russia, in response to its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Sanctions are penalties imposed by one country on another, to stop them acting aggressively or breaking international law.

The UK also condemned a Russian missile strike on Kyiv that killed nine people and injured dozens overnight on Thursday, one day after Ukrainian, US, UK and European officials met in London to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine.

UK foreign minister David Lammy said on X: “While Ukrainian ministers were in London working towards peace, [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia was attacking the Ukrainian people.”

Pakistan has responded with tit-for-tat measures against India as tensions soared following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

Islamabad suspended all visas issued to Indian nationals under an exemption scheme with immediate effect, as well as expelling some of its neighbour’s diplomats and closing its airspace to Indian flights.

Indian police have named three of four suspected gunmen behind the attack, saying two are Pakistani citizens and a third is a local Kashmiri man. Pakistan denies Indian claims that it played a role in the shooting.

Tuesday’s attack saw a group of gunmen fire on tourists near Pahalgam, a resort in the disputed Himalayan region.

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say all three suspects named are members of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). None of the men have commented on the allegations.

A statement from Pakistan’s National Security Committee rubbished attempts to link the Pahalgam attack to Pakistan, saying there had been no credible investigation or verifiable evidence.

Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed that “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers and we will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

He said that the “terrorists behind the killings, along with their backers, will get a punishment bigger than they can imagine”.

“Our enemies have dared to attack the country’s soul… India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism.”

On Wednesday evening Delhi announced a raft of diplomatic measures against Islamabad in light of the killings in Kashmir – one of them was shutting the Attari-Wagah border between the two countries immediately.

India also cancelled visa services to Pakistani nationals “with immediate effect”.

In its response, Pakistan also rejected India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty – a six-decade-old water sharing treaty between the neighbours – adding that any attempt to stop or divert the water “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The country has closed its airspace to all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines and suspended all trade with India.

It has also reduced the number of diplomats in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to 30 and asked Indian defence, naval and air advisers to leave Pakistan before 30 April.

• Kashmir attack risks India military escalation against Pakistan
• India closes main border crossing with Pakistan after attack
• Rage and despair after the attack

About 1,500 people across Kashmir have been detained for questioning in connection with the attack, police sources have told BBC News.

Schools, business and shops are reopening after a shutdown across the region following the shootings.

Police have offered a reward of 2m rupees [$23,000; £17,600] for anyone offering information about any of the attackers.

Visitors from different states in India were killed, with others seriously injured, in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years in the region.

An Indian naval officer on honeymoon, a tourist guide who was the sole breadwinner for his family, and a businessman holidaying with his wife and children were among the victims.

An all-party meeting in Jammu and Kashmir expressed deep shock and anguish at what it called a “barbaric attack”.

The bodies of victims arriving in their home states around India are being given emotional farewells by their families and loved ones.

Meanwhile, reports are coming in from parts of India of Kashmiri students facing harassment in the aftermath of the killings.

A spokesperson for Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s National Conference party said several videos showing students being harassed in colleges and other places were being circulated online.

Nasir Khuehami, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, shared a video of a right-wing Hindu group threatening to physically assault Kashmiri Muslim students in the northern state of Uttarakhand to ensure they leave.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify any of these clips.

The government is no longer ruling out a youth visa deal with the EU, ahead of a summit next month to “reset” relations after Brexit.

Labour has previously said it has “no plans” for such a scheme, which would make it easier for young people to study and work abroad.

But an agreement has emerged as a key European demand in ongoing negotiations between the two sides to boost co-operation. Downing Street declined to repeat its previous opposition to reporters on Thursday, saying it would not provide a “running commentary” on talks.

It comes as over 60 Labour MPs called on ministers to strike a “new and bespoke youth visa scheme for UK and EU citizens aged under 30”.

In a letter to EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, they argued a mutual deal for time-limited visas, subject to a cap, would “extend new cultural, educational, and economic opportunities to young people in the UK”.

Sir Keir Starmer met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later, as preparations increase for the summit in London on 19 May.

Following the meeting, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “Discussing the ongoing negotiations to strengthen the UK-EU partnership, they both agreed that good progress had been made.

“They asked their teams to continue their important work in the coming weeks, with the aim of delivering as ambitious a package as possible at the first UK-EU summit next month.”

The Labour government is aiming to forge closer economic ties to the EU after Brexit. Both sides have also expressed a renewed interest in a defence and security pact amid the war in Ukraine.

A defence deal would potentially unlock full UK access to a €150bn (£128bn) EU-backed loans scheme, with British firms otherwise limited to providing up to 35% of the value of projects funded under the programme.

Speaking at UK Trade and Business Commission meeting on Thursday, Germany’s ambassador to the UK Miguel Berger said he wanted to see progress on a youth visa deal as part of a “package approach” to the talks, where different topics are linked together.

He added that EU citizens had faced “many obstacles” to moving to the UK since Brexit, including “very high thresholds” for skilled work visas.

The UK currently offers visas allowing young people from 12 non-EU countries including Japan, South Korea and Uruguay to study or work in the UK for up to two years. Those from Australia, Canada or New Zealand can extend by a further year.

These visas are subject to annual quotas, ranging from 100 visas for Andorra to 42,000 for Australia, with ballots held where they are oversubscribed.

Applicants from these countries need at least £2,530 in savings, cannot apply for most benefits, and have to pay an annual NHS surcharge of £776 for students and £1,035 for workers.

The European Commission first suggested an EU-wide youth deal in April last year, claiming Rishi Sunak’s government had approached European capitals to discuss individual visa deals, risking “differential treatment” of EU citizens.

Under its original proposal, people aged between 18 and 30 would be able to apply for visas lasting up to four years to work, study, train or volunteer, with no overall cap on the number of visas issued.

It also said EU applicants should not have to pay the NHS surcharge, and should be able to pay the same university tuition fees as British students, rather than the higher fees they have had to pay since Brexit.

There have been suggestions that the Home Office, tasked with delivering government plans to lower overall migration, is pushing for any eventual agreement to be more limited than that suggested by the European Commission.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is reportedly arguing for visas to be limited to one year so that EU citizens taking part do not show up in official immigration figures, with applications also subject to an overall cap.

Asked about the reports, Mr Berger declined to comment, saying that “we have to leave that to the negotiations”.

The EU has been keen to stress that a visa deal would not replicate the bloc’s rules on freedom of movement, under which EU citizens were automatically entitled to live and work in the UK without applying for a visa.

Documents circulated between EU states also suggest a deal could be rebranded as a “youth experience” scheme, in an apparent bid to downplay any link to migration.

But any deal that is negotiated is likely to lead to a political row, with the Conservatives and Reform UK critical of a proposed agreement.

During a local election campaign visit earlier, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said a deal risked “another avenue which people might use to game the system,” adding that Labour “doesn’t know how to negotiate”.

She added: “Where are all these people they want to bring in going to work?”

Reform leader Nigel Farage said a deal could lead to a “huge number of people” coming to the UK, adding it would be “completely against what the Brexit vote demanded”.

An agreement has however been strongly supported by the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, which have long been calling on the Labour government to reach an agreement with the EU.

In his comments on Thursday, Mr Berger insisted a deal would have “nothing to do with migration” as those taking part in the scheme would “go home” once their visa has ended.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are calling for stronger protections for children from the dangers of social media, saying “enough is not being done”.

Prince Harry and Meghan unveiled a memorial in New York City which is dedicated to the memory of children whose families believe harmful material online contributed to their deaths.

“We want to make sure that things are changed so that… no more kids are lost to social media,” Prince Harry told BBC Breakfast in New York.

“Life is better off social media,” he added, saying that he was “grateful” that his children were still too young to be online.

“The easiest thing to say is to keep your kids away from social media,” Prince Harry said at an Archewell Foundation event in New York.

“The sad reality is the kids who aren’t on social media normally get bullied at school because they can’t be part of the same conversation as everybody else.”

The installation unveiled by Prince Harry and Meghan is called the Lost Screen Memorial and is made of 50 smartphone-shaped light-boxes, each displaying a photograph of a child whose life was lost “due to the harms of social media”. It will be open for 24 hours.

The children’s images were shared by parents who are part of the Parents’ Network. This is a support network, set up by Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation, for parents whose children have experienced harm from social media.

Prince Harry and Meghan have been supporting families who say social media played a role in the deaths of their children.

They have backed calls to technology firms that say parents should be able to gain access to information on the phones of children who have died, despite arguments about privacy.

The prince said tech firms were “getting away with it” by arguing they didn’t need to disclose information to UK families because of privacy considerations.

“You are telling a parent, you are telling a dad and a mum that they can’t have the details of what their kid was up to on social media because of the privacy of their kid. It’s wrong,” he said.

Meghan said the danger of social media was a global issue and “one thing we can all agree on is that children should be safe”.

She praised the parents who were speaking out.

“I think in many ways what we see through these parents is the hope and the promise of something better, because… they just want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” said Meghan.

Separately to Prince Harry and Meghan’s event in New York, a group of British parents staged a protest outside Meta’s offices on Thursday.

Ellen Roome, from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, was among the families.

She believes her 14-year-old son Jools died after an online challenge went wrong in 2022. She says his social media accounts could provide evidence. An inquest into his death found he took his own life.

Earlier in the week, Ms Roome told BBC Breakfast: “It’s too late for our son Jools, but there are plenty of other children around the world that we still need to help. This is a massive issue globally.

“There was nothing that gave us any indication that there was a problem.”

Mark Kenevan, whose son Isaac died aged 13 in 2022, said: “All we’re asking is… please help us protect our children.”

A coroner ruled that Isaac died as a result of misadventure, but the Kenevans say social media platforms were also to blame.

Lisa Kenevan, Isaac’s mother, said the families banding together had given them strength.

“Our voices are getting stronger, and we’re not going to go away,” she said.

The Kenevans filed a wrongful death lawsuit against TikTok in the US earlier this year alongside three other British families.

The lawsuit accuses the platform of pushing dangerous prank and challenge videos to children to boost engagement time.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has said it shares the goal of keeping teens safe online. The firm said it had recently introduced “teen accounts” with enhanced protections.

“We believe teens deserve consistent protections across all the different apps they use – not just our platforms,” Meta said in a statement.

In the UK on Thursday, the media regulator Ofcom published measures intended to improve protections for children online, including requiring tougher age checks and more robust action to prevent children accessing harmful content.

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Vladimir Putin initially denied having anything to do with Russia’s capture of Crimea in February 2014, when mysterious masked commandos in unidentified green uniforms seized the local parliament and fanned out across the peninsula.

Those “little green men” marked the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, which culminated in the 2022 full-scale invasion.

The future of Crimea is now at the centre of President Donald Trump’s peace plan and has prompted Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to rule out recognising Russian control of the peninsula.

The exact terms of his plan have not been published, but reports suggest it would include the US recognising Crimea as a legal part of Russia – in Latin.

For Trump, Ukraine’s southern peninsula was “lost years ago” and “is not even a part of discussion” in peace talks.

But for Zelensky to renounce Crimea as an indivisible part of Ukraine would be unconscionable.

• Follow latest updates on Ukraine war

In the words of opposition MP Iryna Gerashchenko “territorial integrity and sovereignty is a red line for Ukraine and Ukrainians”.

Trump made the point that “if [Volodymyr Zelensky] wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”

Few shots were fired, but Crimea was seized at gunpoint during a power vacuum.

Putin later admitted hatching the land-grab in an all-night meeting with his officials days after Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader was ousted in Kyiv.

For a US leader in a hurry to secure a peace deal, Crimea could become a big stumbling block.

Trump is correct that there is little chance of Ukraine regaining Crimea in the foreseeable future, and it is in reality – de facto – under Russian control. But that is a far cry from recognising it as legal.

Zelensky points to a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo said the US rejected “Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea” and pledged to continue until Ukraine’s territorial integrity was restored.

• Trump criticises Zelensky over Crimea
• US intensifies bid to end war

Zelensky’s implication is that Trump backed Ukraine on Crimea then, and should stick to that now.

If a landgrab unrecognised by the international community is approved by the US as legal, what would that mean for international law and the principles of the UN charter?

Weeks after Russia’s full-scale war began, there was an initial proposal in Istanbul to park the issue so that Russia and Ukraine would aim to resolve it in the next 10-15 years.

The idea did not take hold but it was a way of getting over that stumbling block.

Zelensky was adamant that he has no power to give up Crimea: “There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution.”

Article 2 of the constitution states that Ukraine’s sovereignty “extends throughout its entire territory” which “within its present border is indivisible and inviolable”.

Any change to Ukraine’s territory has to go to a national referendum, which must be authorised by the Ukrainian parliament.

It is not just President Trump that has problems with Kyiv. Russia also sees the Ukrainian constitution as an “obstacle” to peace efforts.

Constitutions can be changed, but not while Ukraine is under martial law.

Approving Russia’s illegal annexation would not just be a red line for Ukraine but would be a terrifying precedent for countries such as Romania that border the Black Sea. The precedent would be felt far beyond the Black Sea.

For historical reasons, Russians have long seen Crimea as part of their territory and Putin has spoken of a “living and unbreakable bond” with the peninsula, with its Black Sea resorts and balmy summer climate.

But Crimea along with the rest of Ukraine voted for independence from the collapsing Soviet Union in 1991. It had the status of autonomous republic within and Kyiv allowed Russia to lease the port of Sevastopol as a base for the Black Sea Fleet.

After its annexation in 2014 Putin sought to cement Russia’s control over Crimea, first with a 12-mile bridge built over the Kerch Strait in 2018 and then by capturing a land bridge along the Sea of Azov coast in 2022.

Putin felt he was righting a wrong inflicted on Russia when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. Russia, he said, was “not simply robbed, it was plundered”.

• Ukraine in Maps
• Why did Putin invade Ukraine?

Crimea was first annexed by Tsarist Russia under Catherine the Great in 1783 and largely remained part of Russia until Khrushchev’s decision.

Russia and Ukraine were both Soviet republics so it was not a big deal for the Kremlin in 1954.

More than half the population of Crimea was Russian, mainly because the original majority population of Crimean Tatars were deported under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1944.

Tatars were only able to return to Crimea from exile from 1989 as the Soviet Union fell apart, and they now make up about 15% of Crimea’s population.

Russia quickly organised a referendum in March 2014 but it was rejected as a sham by the international community and the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution backing Ukrainian sovereignty.

The International Criminal Court ruled that Russia’s activity in Crimea amounted to “ongoing occupation”.

Refat Chubarov, Chairman of the Mejlis, a body representing Crimean Tatars, has insisted that Ukraine must categorically reject any territorial concession in exchange for peace.

“Crimea is the homeland of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and an integral part of Ukraine,” he said.

Trump’s peace plan has not yet been published, but according to various reports and remarks by US officials, Ukraine would be required to adhere to other difficult conditions.

Russia’s occupation of almost 20% of Ukraine would be de facto recognised behind existing front lines, in effect freezing the conflict in four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

That would be backed up by a “robust security guarantee”, according to US outlet Axios, presumably backed up by a “coalition of the willing” involving the UK, France but not the US.

There would be a promise not to admit Ukraine into Nato, although it could join the EU.

All US sanctions would be lifted and economic co-operation with the US enhanced.

Axios also suggests Russia would return a small occupied area of the Kharkiv region and allow Ukraine “unimpeded passage” on the Dnipro river, while the US would take charge of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, seized by Russia in 2022.

And then there is a US-Ukraine deal to share minerals profits, which Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal is expected to seal with the US by Saturday.

US President Donald Trump has said he is “not happy” with deadly Russian strikes on Kyiv and that President Vladimir Putin should “stop” – but has not said if further action might be taken against Russia.

Overnight into Thursday, the attacks on the Ukrainian capital killed at least 12 people and injured dozens of others.

The US president said he is “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war in Ukraine, following the deadliest attacks Kyiv has seen since last July.

It is the latest road bump in efforts to advance a peace deal between the two countries – something the US president said he would be able to quickly do as part of his election campaign last year.

In rare criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!”

The attack has come at a time of growing pressure on Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russian occupation of its territory as part of a peace deal.

On Thursday, Trump appeared alongside Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre at the White House and said he had “no allegiance to anybody” only an “allegiance to saving lives”.

While he admitted frustration with Putin, Trump said he would wait a week “to see if we have a deal” – but that “things will happen” if the bombings do not end.

President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the attacks during a visit to South Africa, saying he felt the US could be more forceful with Russia to secure a ceasefire.

• South Africa and Ukraine woo each other – as relationships with Trump turn sour

“We believe that if more pressure is applied to Russia, we’ll be able to make our positions closer,” Zelensky told reporters.

When asked if he would be willing to make any concessions, Zelensky said the fact that Ukraine is prepared to negotiate with Russia at all is a “huge compromise” and a “ceasefire must be the first step”.

“If Russia says it is ready to cease fire, it must stop massive strikes against Ukraine. It is Ukrainians who are running out of patience, because it is us who are under attack, and no one else,” he added.

The attack caused Zelensky to cut his trip short and return home.

Before the attack on Kyiv, the week had seen a fraying of the already imperilled relationship between Trump and Zelensky – as the US president has suggested the need for Ukraine to make land concessions as part of a peace deal.

On Wednesday, Trump claimed a deal to end the war was “very close”, but that Zelensky’s refusal to accept US terms “will do nothing but prolong” the conflict.

Ukraine has long said it will not give up Crimea, a southern peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

On Wednesday, US Vice-President JD Vance laid out the US vision for a deal, saying it would “freeze the territorial lines […] close to where they are today”, and added that Ukraine and Russia “are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own”.

• Trump criticises Zelensky as Ukraine refuses Russian control of Crimea

When asked by reporters at the White House this week about whether the administration was looking to recognise Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, Trump said he just wanted to see the war end.

Recognising Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea would not only be politically impossible for Zelensky to accept, it would also be contrary to post-war international legal norms that borders should not be changed by force.

“We’ve shown them the finish line,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday in the Oval Office, where he appeared alongside Trump and the Norwegian prime minister.

“We need both of them to say yes, but what happened last night with those missile strikes should remind everybody of why this war needs to end.”

President Zelensky’s visit to South Africa, during which he met President Cyril Ramaphosa, signalled a dramatic improvement in the once-strained relations between the two nations.

Ramaphosa said during a news briefing alongside Zelensky that he was deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. He also reiterated South Africa’s commitment to speaking to all parties in the conflict.

He added that he had spoken to both Putin and Trump on the need to bring an end to the conflict.

Ramaphosa, in the briefing, did not go into whether Ukraine should cede territory to Russia.

The US was one of Ukraine’s closest allies until the re-election of Trump in November. Now Ukraine is keen to broaden its pool of international partners – particularly in Africa where many countries have strong links with Russia.

South Africa has also suffered from strained relations with Washington, which has expelled its ambassador and removed aid funding.

South Africa says its non-aligned position puts it in a prime position to help bring about a peace deal with Russia.

China has called on the US to cancel its sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods entering the country as a sign that the President Donald Trump is serious about resolving the trade war between the two countries.

A Chinese official said there had been no trade talks with the US, despite suggestions otherwise from the Trump administration.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies has been escalating, with China sending back Boeing planes it ordered from the US in its latest retaliation over tariffs.

But Trump has appeared to soften his stance on China, saying that the taxes he has so far imposed on Chinese imports would “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”.

A trade war between China and the US is in full swing, with Trump imposing import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US, and China hitting back with a 125% tax on American products.

In one of China’s strongest statements yet over the tariff war, Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said the US should remove all “unilateral tariff measures” against China “if it truly wanted” to solve the issue.

“The person who tied the bell must untie it,” he added.

Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said China and the US had “not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariffs, let alone reached an agreement”.

He added that reports to the contrary were “false”.

Trump previously said negotiations between the countries were “active” – but this was also contradicted by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said on Wednesday they had not yet begun.

Bessent added that there was an opportunity for a “big deal” between the US and China on trade.

He has previously said he expected a de-escalation of the “unsustainable” trade war, and said the current situation was “not a joke”.

Trump said on Tuesday that he would be “very nice” in negotiations with Beijing in the hope of securing a trade deal.

But following China’s latest comments, he said on his Truth Social media platform “Boeing should default China for not taking the beautifully finished planes that China committed to purchase”.

“This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” he added, before repeating accusations that synthetic opioid fentanyl “continues to pour into our country from China, through Mexico and Canada, killing hundreds of thousands of our people”.

The boss of plane manufacturer Boeing revealed China had sent back aircraft it had ordered from the US as part of its retaliation to tariffs.

Kelly Ortberg said this week that two planes had already been returned and another would follow due trade tensions between the two countries.

China held a roundtable on Wednesday to address the concerns of more than 80 foreign firms over the impact of US tariffs on their investments and operations in China, the commerce ministry said.

“It is hoped that foreign firms will turn crises into opportunities,” said Vice Commerce Minister Ling Ji.

Gwyneth Paltrow said she has returned to eating food she previously restricted, including sourdough bread, pasta and cheese, having been on a strict paleo diet for several years.

The Oscar-winning US actress-turned-health guru has advocated for the benefits of a range of different diets while promoting her lifestyle business.

Speaking on her most recent Goop podcast this week, she said: “I went into hardcore macrobiotic for a certain time, that was an interesting chapter where I got obsessed with eating very, very healthily.”

Paltrow said she got into “wellness and food” because of her father’s throat cancer but has now broadened out her food choices.

A paleo diet is based on the idea that if we eat like our ancient ancestors, we’ll be healthier and reduce our risk of certain diseases.

“I really deepened my connection with food and the whole philosophy around macrobiotics, which is essentially just how they eat in the mountains of Japan, so very local, very seasonal,” she explained.

“Lots of fish, vegetables, rice, no dairy, no sugar, etc.”

The star went on to admit that during that period of time she “might have got a little didactic about it.” “I felt so good, I wanted to share that with my dad, my friends and family.”

She said she had become “intoxicated by that idea” that if she and her loved ones stayed hydrated and ate “whole foods” then “we could just feel so much better”.

• 10 things you may not know about carbs

She added she still feels the same way today, to an extent, but that things had “gotten a little more complicated” as she had gotten older regarding “inflammation and health stuff.”

“It’s the reason that Brad and I became paleo a few years ago now, although I’m a little bit sick of it, if I’m honest,” she added, with reference to her husband Brad Falchuk, co-creator of the Glee TV series.

“I’m getting back into eating sourdough bread, and some cheese – there, I said it. A little pasta after being strict with it for so long.

“But again I think it’s a good template, right? Eating foods that are as whole and fresh as possible. I don’t think there is any doctor or nutritionist that would refute that, it’s a good starting point.”

Priya Tew, specialist dietitian from Dietitian UK and media spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, said it was “great to hear” that Paltrow was “adding back into her very restrictive diet”.

“This is definitely a good thing,” she told the BBC.

“Carbohydrates are a vital part of our diets, providing fibre, B vitamins and energy. They are also key for our gut microbiome and also bring taste and enjoyment to meals.

“It sounds like Gwyneth is moving towards a more balanced and nutritious diet, considering her realm of influence it is good to hear that she is finding this of benefit.”

She added: “Nutrition research shows us that cutting out whole food groups is not good for our overall health.

“We need diversity and variety to help us meet all our nutritional needs, to bring taste into out diets and prevent boredom and to also bring pleasure!”

Having largely stepped away from Hollywood in recent times to focus on health and wellness, Paltrow is set to make her big screen return opposite Timothée Chalamet in the upcoming sports action movie Marty Supreme.

She won the best actress Oscar in 1999 for starring in period drama Shakespeare In Love, and also featured in Sliding Doors and a string of later Marvel movies.

Indonesia is on an ambitious mission to offer free meals to 80 million school children – but that hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.

Nearly 80 students across two high schools in Cianjur, south of the capital Jakarta, fell ill after eating the meals this week. Most of those who ended up in hospital have since been discharged.

This is the latest in a series of food poisonings that have been linked to the programme, a signature policy of President Prabowo Subianto.

Authorities investigating the case say the suspected cause is negligent food preparation. Samples from the vomit of students have been sent for lab testing, and police say they have questioned people handling the food, from cooks to packers to delivery workers.

A 16-year-old student told local media that the shredded chicken in the meal had an “unpleasant odour”. “I felt dizzy, nauseous and vomited,” he said.

Across the world, programmes offering free meals to students have proved to be effective in improving health, academic performance and attendance.

But Indonesia’s $28bn (£21bn) version – shaping up to be the most expensive of its kind – has become the target of food safety concerns and heated anti-government protests.

In February, when thousands took to the streets to protest at budget cuts, they aimed their ire at the hefty price of Prabowo’s free school meals: “Children eat for free, parents are laid off,” read one of their protest signs.

A centrepiece of Prabowo’s presidential campaign last year, the free meals programme was pitched as a way to tackle stunting – a condition caused by malnutrition that affects a fifth of children below the age of five in Indonesia.

“Through this initiative, our children will grow taller and emerge as champions,” Prabowo said in 2023.

Since he took office last October, this programme, along with other populist policies like new houses and free medical check-ups, has earned him political points. His approval ratings stood at 80% after his first 100 days in power.

In the first phase, which began in January, free school meals have made their way to 550,000 students in 26 provinces.

While the programme is “well-intentioned”, Maria Monica Wihardja, a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the BBC there has been “no evidence” of “widespread urgency” for free school meals.

According to a national survey in 2024, less than 1% of Indonesia’s households went at least one day without any meals in the past year.

Since January, a series of food poisonings have raised apprehension about the free meals.

Michelle, an elementary school student in East Nusa Tenggara province, was one of several in her school who suffered suspected food poisoning in February. She told BBC Indonesian at the time that the food, which had given her a stomach ache, was “bland and stale”.

After the incident, some parents started preparing homemade lunches for their children instead, a school official told BBC Indonesian.

This week, after the food poisoning in Cianjur, authorities have promised to step up food safety processes.

“We must improve quality,” said Dadan Hindayana, head of the National Nutrition Agency, who had visited the students in hospital.

“⁠One obvious thing is the lack of mature and in-depth planning before this program was launched,” Eliza Mardian, a researcher at the Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia, told the BBC.

“The haste ends up sacrificing quality and effectiveness, which actually worsens the public’s perception of this programme.”

The cost of the programme has not helped matters.

Indonesia has set aside more than $10bn this year for the free school meals.

By comparison, India spends $1.5bn a year to feed 120 million children in what is the world’s largest such programme. Brazil’s version costs about the same and serves some 40 million students.

To foot the steep bill in Indonesia, Prabowo has urged the country’s tycoons to help, and accepted a funding offer from China.

He also ordered $19bn in cuts to pay for it, along with other populist schemes – which made it especially controversial.

Several ministries, including education, had their budgets slashed by half. Bureaucrats who were not furloughed alleged they were forced to scrimp by limiting the use of air conditioning, lifts and even printers.

University students were furious as news spread of cancelled scholarship programmes and disruptions to their classes.

“The worst thing is when the stomach is full, but the brain is not filled,” Muhammad Ramadan, a student protester in Bandung, told BBC Indonesian – referring to Prabowo’s school meals plan.

There could be more challenges ahead, such as allegations of budget mismanagement, which have begun to emerge after Indonesia’s anti-graft bureau flagged a “real possibility” of fraud in March.

Police launched an investigation this month after a meal provider in south Jakarta accused authorities of embezzlement, saying that she has not been paid since her kitchen started preparing school meals in February.

Prabowo, who has continued to defend the programme, said this week that his administration will “handle” the allegations and “safeguard every cent of public money”.

Experts, however, say the problem runs much deeper.

Large-scale social assistance programmes in Indonesia have historically been “riddled with corruption”, Muhammad Rafi Bakri, a research analyst at Indonesia’s audit board, told the BBC.

“Given the sheer size of the budget,” he said, “this program is a goldmine for corrupt officials.”

A teenage girl has been killed and three students were injured in a stabbing at a private school in western France.

The attack took place at Notre-Dame-de-Toutes-Aides school in Nantes on Thursday afternoon.

The attacker is said to have been arrested at the scene after being restrained by a teacher.

A significant police presence and emergency services were sent to the school, with army officers also present. It has since been evacuated.

Eye-witness accounts in local media described students running through the site, with some confined to classrooms after an alarm was sounded around lunch time.

Families were informed of the knife attack and told students had been immediately held inside the school.

Authorities helped students gradually leave the site from 15:30 local time (13:30 GMT), as some parents waited nearby.

One father told the Reuters news agency they were “waiting to hold them [our children] in our arms” and “help deal with the stress this will have caused”.

The school has around 2,000 students and educates pupils from nursery through to high school, according to its website.

Psychological support has been put in place for students and teachers. Rue des Épinettes, where the school is located in the east of the city, has been closed off.

French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the casualties on X later on Thursday, and praised teachers at the scene.

He wrote: “By their intervention, the teachers undoubtedly prevented further tragedies. Their courage commands respect.”

After the attack, Prime Minister François Bayrou urged “an intensification” of checks for knives in schools.

National and local politicians visited the school after the attack, where Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told reporters: “This tragedy is not a news item, it is a social phenomenon.”

He added that the “psychological profile” of the suspect was not known.

Nantes public prosecutor Antoine Leroy is said to have visited the school and will hold a news conference in the coming days.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he will step back from his role with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team known as Doge.

Those at the White House, including the president, have said it has long been the plan that Musk would soon step away, but the news came as the billionaire’s car business saw earnings plunge.

Musk’s announcement left many unanswered questions, including when he will actually leave the administration and what will happen to Doge, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reinforced the message that the administration was preparing for Musk’s departure.

“We have to, at some point, let him go and do that. We expected to be doing it about this time. I’ll talk to Elon about it,” Trump said at the White House.

The president also said Tesla will “be taken care of” once Musk returns and alleged that Musk was being “treated very unfairly, I guess, by some of the public”.

“He’s a great patriot, and [that] should have never happened to him,” Trump added.

However, under government rules, spending fewer days at Doge could actually prolong Musk’s stint in government.

Musk has been designated a “special government employee” (SGE) – a label that allows him to work at a paid or unpaid government job for 130 days each year.

According to a 2007 Department of Justice memo, cited in an October 2024 guidance document from the Office of Government Ethics, any day on which an SGE performs any work for the government counts as a full day towards that limit.

Measured from Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the 130-day limit – assuming Musk, who brags about working weekends, clocks roughly five days a week at Doge – would run out toward the end of May.

But scaling back would extend that timeframe. Additionally, the 130-day limit would reset in January 2026.

Musk has not given details on his intended schedule. He made the announcement on Tuesday, after Tesla reported financial troubles including a 71% drop in profits.

The drop came after repeated “Tesla takedown” protests across the globe and calls for boycotts against the car manufacturer amid Musk’s government role. While organisers have said most protests have been peaceful, some have been destructive with fires set at Tesla showrooms or at charging stations.

• Musk’s Tesla facilities in US face ‘Takedown’ protests
• Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell’
• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge

The company warned investors that the pain could continue, declining to offer a growth forecast while saying “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully hurt demand for the vehicles.

Musk told investors on an earnings call that the time he allocates to Doge “will drop significantly” and that he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”.

After the comments, Tesla’s languishing stock price rose.

It’s also unclear how many days Musk has already worked for the government, whether the government is keeping a tally, and how the limit would be enforced.

There has been criticism that the Trump administration may have flouted government rules in creating Musk’s unprecedented role, and concerns that he may not follow the time limit.

Under rules for SGEs, Musk would have to undergo ethics training, provide a confidential financial disclosure statement, and avoid conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with the US government and foreign governments, including SpaceX, which has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company’s chief executive.

The rules also prohibit special government employees from partisan activities, including wearing clothing with political slogans, while in government offices or carrying out official duties. Musk has been pictured wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in the Oval Office.

Still, in February, an anonymous White House official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that Musk would file a confidential financial disclosure at some point, and had been given an ethics briefing.

The following month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the BBC: “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws.”

For now, Musk appears to serve at Trump’s behest, with no clear oversight other than the president himself.

In a report released last week, progressive think-tank Public Citizen criticised the Trump administration and said the White House was “wildly abusing” the SGE rules.

“Right now, the public has no way to know whether SGEs like Musk who don’t file public financial disclosure reports or are permitted to oversee themselves are putting the people’s interests ahead of their own,” said report author Jon Golinger.

The BBC has contacted Musk and the Office of Personnel Management – the agency overseeing special government employees, and one where Doge employees have reportedly taken over several functions – for comment.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that around 100 Doge employees would remain in various government departments after Musk departs this year.

Musk and Trump set a deadline for Doge to finish its work, which corresponds to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

The executive order setting up Doge, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day in January, mentioned 4 July 2026 as the ending date.

Earlier, in December, Musk responded to a tweet that also said Doge would finish entirely on that date.

“The final step of DOGE is to delete itself,” he wrote.

Pakistan has responded with tit-for-tat measures against India as tensions soared following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

Islamabad suspended all visas issued to Indian nationals under an exemption scheme with immediate effect, as well as expelling some of its neighbour’s diplomats and closing its airspace to Indian flights.

Indian police have named three of four suspected gunmen behind the attack, saying two are Pakistani citizens and a third is a local Kashmiri man. Pakistan denies Indian claims that it played a role in the shooting.

Tuesday’s attack saw a group of gunmen fire on tourists near Pahalgam, a resort in the disputed Himalayan region.

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir say all three suspects named are members of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). None of the men have commented on the allegations.

A statement from Pakistan’s National Security Committee rubbished attempts to link the Pahalgam attack to Pakistan, saying there had been no credible investigation or verifiable evidence.

Earlier Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed that “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers and we will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

He said that the “terrorists behind the killings, along with their backers, will get a punishment bigger than they can imagine”.

“Our enemies have dared to attack the country’s soul… India’s spirit will never be broken by terrorism.”

On Wednesday evening Delhi announced a raft of diplomatic measures against Islamabad in light of the killings in Kashmir – one of them was shutting the Attari-Wagah border between the two countries immediately.

India also cancelled visa services to Pakistani nationals “with immediate effect”.

In its response, Pakistan also rejected India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty – a six-decade-old water sharing treaty between the neighbours – adding that any attempt to stop or divert the water “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The country has closed its airspace to all Indian-owned or Indian-operated airlines and suspended all trade with India.

It has also reduced the number of diplomats in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad to 30 and asked Indian defence, naval and air advisers to leave Pakistan before 30 April.

• Kashmir attack risks India military escalation against Pakistan
• India closes main border crossing with Pakistan after attack
• Rage and despair after the attack

About 1,500 people across Kashmir have been detained for questioning in connection with the attack, police sources have told BBC News.

Schools, business and shops are reopening after a shutdown across the region following the shootings.

Police have offered a reward of 2m rupees [$23,000; £17,600] for anyone offering information about any of the attackers.

Visitors from different states in India were killed, with others seriously injured, in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years in the region.

An Indian naval officer on honeymoon, a tourist guide who was the sole breadwinner for his family, and a businessman holidaying with his wife and children were among the victims.

An all-party meeting in Jammu and Kashmir expressed deep shock and anguish at what it called a “barbaric attack”.

The bodies of victims arriving in their home states around India are being given emotional farewells by their families and loved ones.

Meanwhile, reports are coming in from parts of India of Kashmiri students facing harassment in the aftermath of the killings.

A spokesperson for Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s National Conference party said several videos showing students being harassed in colleges and other places were being circulated online.

Nasir Khuehami, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, shared a video of a right-wing Hindu group threatening to physically assault Kashmiri Muslim students in the northern state of Uttarakhand to ensure they leave.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify any of these clips.

It’s a bright spring morning in Hanover, Germany, and I’m on my way to meet a robot.

I have been invited to see the G1, a humanoid robot built by Chinese firm, Unitree, at the Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest industrial trade shows.

Standing at about 4’3″ (130cm), G1 is smaller and more affordable than other humanoid robots on the market, and has such a highly fluid range of motion and dexterity that videos of it performing dance numbers and martial arts have gone viral.

Today the G1 is being controlled remotely by Pedro Zheng, the Unitree sales manager.

He explains that customers must program each G1 for autonomous functions.

Passers-by stop and actively try to engage with the G1, which cannot be said for a lot of the other machines being shown off in the cavernous conference room.

They reach out to shake its hand, make sudden movements to see if it will respond, they laugh when G1 waves or bends backwards, they apologise if they bump into it. There’s something about its human shape that, uncanny as it is, sets people at ease.

Unitree is just one of dozens of companies around the world developing robots that have a human form.

The potential is huge – for business it promises a workforce that doesn’t need holidays or pay rises.

It could also be the ultimate domestic appliance. After all, who wouldn’t want a machine that could do the laundry and stack the dishwasher.

But the technology is still some way off. While robotic arms and mobile robots have been common in factories and warehouses for decades, conditions in those workplaces can be controlled and workers can be kept safe.

Introducing a humanoid robot to a less predictable environment, like a restaurant or a home, is a much more difficult problem.

To be useful humanoid robots would have to be strong, but that also makes them potentially dangerous – simply falling over at the wrong time could be hazardous.

So much work needs to be done on the artificial intelligence that would control such a machine.

“The AI simply has not yet reached a breakthrough moment,” a Unitree spokesperson tells the BBC.

“Today’s robot AI finds basic logic and reasoning – such as for understanding and completing complex tasks in a logical way – a challenge,” they said.

At the moment their G1 is marketed at research institutions and tech companies, who can use Unitree’s open source software for development.

For now entrepreneurs are focussing their efforts on humanoid robots for warehouses and factories.

The highest profile of those is Elon Musk. His car company, Tesla, is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus. In January he said that “several thousand” will be built this year and he expects them to be doing “useful things” in Tesla factories.

Other carmakers are following a similar path. BMW recently introduced humanoid robots to a US factory. Meanwhile, South Korean car firm Hyundai has ordered tens of thousands of robots from Boston Dynamics, the robot firm it bought in 2021.

Thomas Andersson, founder of research firm STIQ, tracks 49 companies developing humanoid robots – those with two arms and legs. If you broaden the definition to robots with two arms, but propel themselves on wheels, then he looks at more than 100 firms.

Mr Andersson thinks that Chinese companies are likely to dominate the market.

“The supply chain and the entire ecosystem for robotics is huge in China, and it’s really easy to iterate developments and do R&D [research and development],” he says.

Unitree underlines that advantage – its G1 is cheap (for a robot) with an advertised price of $16,000 (£12,500).

Also, Mr Andersson points out, the investment favours Asian nations.

In a recent report STIQ notes that almost 60% of all funding for humanoid robots has been raised in Asia, with the US attracting most of the rest.

Chinese companies have the added benefit of support from the national and local government.

For example, in Shanghai there is a state-backed training facility for robots, where dozens of humanoid robots are learning to complete tasks.

So how can US and European robot makers compete with that?

Bristol-based Bren Pierce has founded three robotics companies and the latest, Kinisi has just launched the KR1 robot.

While the robot has been designed and developed in the UK, it will be manufactured in Asia.

“The problem you get as a European or American company, you have to buy all these sub-components from China in the first place.

“So then it becomes stupid to buy your motors, buy your batteries, buy your resistors, shift them all halfway around the world to put together when you could just put them all together at the source, which is in Asia.”

As well as making his robots in Asia, Mr Pierce is keeping costs down by not going for the full humanoid form.

Designed for warehouses and factories, the KR1 does not have legs.

“All of these places have flat floors. Why would you want the added expense of a very complex form factor… when you could just put it on a mobile base?” he asks.

Where possible, his KR1 is built with mass-produced components – the wheels are the same as you would find on an electric scooter.

“My philosophy is buy as many things as you can off the shelf. So all our motors, batteries, computers, cameras, they’re all commercially available, mass produced parts,” he says.

Like his competitors at Unitree, Mr Pierce says that the real “secret sauce” is the software that allows the robot to work with humans.

“A lot of companies come out with very high-tech robots, but then you start needing a PhD in robotics to be able to actually install it and use it.

“What we’re trying to design is a very simple to use robot where your average warehouse or factory worker can actually learn how to use it in a couple of hours,” Mr Pierce says.

He says the KR1 can perform a task after being guided through it by a human 20 or 30 times.

The KR1 will be given to pilot customers to test this year.

So will robots ever break out of factories into the home? Even the optimistic Mr Pierce says it’s a long way off.

“My long term dream for the last 20 years has been building the everything robot. This is what I was doing my PhD work in I do think that is the end goal, but it’s a very complicated task,” says Mr Pierce.

“I still think eventually they will be there, but I think that’s at least 10 to 15 years away.”

K-pop group Just B’s member Bain has revealed to fans he is “proud to be part of the LGBT community” – a rare move in an industry known for its tight control over artists’ behaviour, where stars typically keep details of their personal lives private, particularly relationships.

The star, 23, is now among only a handful of K-pop artists who have come out publicly.

Bain made the announcement in front of fans while performing a solo at a concert in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.

The moment was met with loud cheers from the crowd, according to videos circulating on social media.

“To anyone out there who’s part of the LGBT community, or still figuring it out – this is for you guys,” Bain, whose real name is Song Byeong-hee, said in a video posted on his social media after the concert.

“You are seen, you are loved, and you were born this way,” he added, before launching into a performance of Born This Way by pop icon Lady Gaga, whom he referred to as “my queen”.

His bandmates welcomed the announcement. Just B member Siwoo said he cried while watching Bain’s performance. “I know how hard it was for him, and that made me want to cry more,” he said, according to Korean media outlet News1.

The band’s fans have shown their support as well. “We love you so much and are so proud of you for being yourself,” reads a top-liked comment under his Instagram post.

“You are so loved. So proud to be your fan. Be proud of who you are,” another fan wrote.

Formed in 2021, Just B is a six-member act that has released five EPs and multiple singles.

Coming out remains extremely rare in South Korea’s highly-pressurised entertainment industry. While homosexuality is not illegal in the country, it remains taboo, and same-sex marriage is not legally recognised.

A 2022 Human Rights Watch report described discrimination against LGBT people in South Korea as “pervasive”.

Bain is not the first K-pop star to come out. Just last month, Lara, an Indian-American member of the girl group Katseye, came out as queer on a K-pop fan community platform. In 2020, Jiae from the now-disbanded girl group Wassup announced on Instagram that she is bisexual.