Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump have met inside St Peter’s Basilica ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral.

The White House described the 15-minute meeting as “very productive” and Zelensky said later they had managed to discuss a lot.

Trump and Zelensky were pictured sitting locked in deep discussion, minutes before Pope Francis’ funeral was due to start.

The meeting came a day after Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal”, following talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

• Live updates: World leaders in Rome for Pope’s funeral
• Pope Francis’ funeral is chance for ‘brush-by’ diplomacy

Posting an image of Zelensky sitting with Trump, the Ukrainian leader’s head of office Andriy Yermak added a single word, “constructive”.

The two leaders had not met since their tempestuous Oval Office meeting in the White House at the end of February, when Trump told Zelensky he was not winning and “you don’t have the cards”.

He repeated that message this week, saying the Ukrainian leader had “no cards to play”.

Two images of the men showed Trump in a blue suit, Zelensky wearing a black top and trousers – with the two men sitting opposite each other having an intense conversation and holding serious expressions.

Another image posted by the Ukrainian delegation from inside St Peter’s showed the two men standing alongside Sir Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, his hand on Zelensky’s shoulder.

The implication was that the prime minister and French president had helped to bring the two together, against the sombre backdrop of the Pope’s funeral.

Steven Cheung, White House communications director, said more details about the Vatican City private meeting between Trump and Zelensky would follow.

After the meeting the two men then walked down the steps of the basilica and took their seats in the front row.

During the service Zelensky and Trump sat a short distance from each other, with Macron and other heads of state in between.

In his homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re spoke of Pope Francis’s incessant calls for peace. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” said the cardinal.

Ukrainian officials had talked of a possible second meeting but Trump’s motorcade drove away from St Peter’s immediately afterwards and his plane left Rome a short time later.

Zelensky posted on social media that they had had a “good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one”, adding that he hoped for results on everything they had said.

He said it was a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”.

Trump’s envoy Witkoff left Moscow on Friday after a fourth visit to Russia since the start of the year, after three-hour talks later described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Ushakov also added that it had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues” of which the “possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed”.

Saturday’s meetings are the first time the two leaders have met face-to-face since February after an unprecedented confrontation occurred in the Oval Office.

During the heated exchange Trump accused the Ukrainian president of “gambling with World War Three” by not going along with ceasefire plans led by Washington.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

These concessions would reportedly include giving up large portions of land, including the Crimean peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea in the past. He suggested to the BBC on Friday that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

Numerous world leaders and royals have gathered in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral.

Among the most prominent figures at the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square on Saturday morning were Prince William, US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden, Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Their attendance comes at a fragile time for international diplomacy, with Trump meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky before the service, according to Zelensky’s spokesman.

Here are some pictures of the VIP attendees.

Trump was in a front-row seat near Francis’ coffin, alongside his wife Melania Trump, across the aisle from Macron and his wife Brigitte.

Intriguingly, he and First Lady Melania were sitting between two staunch supporters of Ukraine. Estonia’s President Alar Karis was to Melania’s left, and Finland’s Alexander Stubb to Trump’s right.

Estonia and Finland are both staunch allies of another man of the moment in attendance – Zelensky, who looked sombre-faced at the Vatican. He was sitting on the same row as Macron, separated by a few other dignitaries.

Zelensky, who has been locked in negotiations and public arguments with Trump in recent weeks, was just 10 seats and one aisle away from him, on the same row.

The VIPs were in a separate section from the hundreds of thousands of members of the public who have descended on Rome for the event.

Dignitaries were sitting on the the right-hand side of the square, next to St Peter’s Basilica.

Those with the best seats were Javier Milei, president of Argentina, where Francis was from, and Italy’s prime minister and president, representing the country that surrounds the Vatican City state.

Behind them were reigning sovereigns, and other delegations were seated in alphabetical order in French, the official language of diplomacy, on other benches.

Representing British royalty, the Prince of Wales was sitting next to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the service.

Starmer was sat in the fifth row with his wife Victoria.

Behind the British leader was the World Health Organization’s director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Former US President Joe Biden was seen hand in hand with his wife Jill. He was sitting four rows behind Trump.

• LIVE UPDATES: World leaders in Rome for Pope’s funeral
• EXPLAINED: A visual guide to the funeral
• IN FULL: Funeral Mass details
• WATCH: Applause heard as Zelensky arrives for the funeral

Many European leaders, as well as royalty from European countries, were in attendance.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was at the proceedings, and was seen chatting with Macron.

Other political figures and royals attending the Pope’s funeral included:

• Poland President Andrzej Duda
• Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella
• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader
• Belgium King Philippe and Queen Mathilde
• German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
• Croatia President Zoran Milanovic
• Ecuador President Daniel Noboa
• Ireland Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin
• Moldova President Maia Sandu
• Latvia President Edgars Rinkevics
• New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
• Sweden King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
• Queen Mary of Denmark
• China Vice President Chen Chin-Jen
• Jordan King Abdullah II and Queen Rania
• Monaco Prince Albert and Princess Charlene
• Hungary President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban
• European Council President Antonio Costa
• President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, has died by suicide aged 41, her family has said.

Ms Giuffre was one of the most outspoken accusers of convicted sex offenders Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. She alleged they trafficked her to the Duke of York when she was 17, which Prince Andrew has strenuously denied.

Relatives said in a statement on Friday that she had been a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse”, and that the “toll of abuse… became unbearable”.

“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” they said.

The statement described the mother of three “as the light that lifted so many survivors” and said she died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia.

West Australia police said they were called to a home in the Neergabby area on Friday night, where Ms Giuffre was found unresponsive.

A statement continued: “The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.”

Ms Giuffre – who was born in the US – had been living with her children and husband Robert in the suburb of North Perth, although recent reports suggested the couple had split after 22 years of marriage.

Three weeks ago, Ms Giuffre posted on Instagram to say she had been seriously injured in a car accident, which her family later said she had not intended to make public. Local police later disputed the severity of the crash.

In a statement, Ms Giuffre’s long-time spokesperson Dini von Mueffling described her as “one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.

She said Ms Giuffre was a “beacon to other survivors and victims” and that “it was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her”.

After making her abuse allegations public, Ms Giuffre became a prominent campaigner and was closely associated with the Me Too movement.

Ms Giuffre alleged that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked her to Prince Andrew when she was 17.

The prince, who has denied all claims against him, reached an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022.

The settlement included a statement in which he expressed regret for his association with Epstein but contained no admission of liability or apology.

Ms Giuffre said she became a victim of sex trafficking when she was a teenager.

She said she met Maxwell, a British socialite, in 2000.

From there, she said she was introduced to American financier Epstein and alleged years of abuse by him and his associates.

Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019, where he was being held awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

He was previously convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the US for her role in Epstein’s trafficking and abuse.

At least 500 people have been injured in a massive explosion at a port in the southern Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, state media is reporting.

The blast took place at the Shahid Rajee port district on Saturday morning, shattering windows of nearby office buildings.

No fatalities have yet been reported by authorities but footage showed people lying wounded on the street. There are also reports of people being trapped under semi-collapsed buildings.

A major fire is still raging at the site and pictures show huge, billowing black clouds over the wharfs.

Workers were rushing to evacuate and transfer the injured to hospitals, authorities said.

Officials told state TV the explosion had been centred in the port and that several unsealed containers had exploded.

“The source of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area,” a crisis management official said, according to BBC Persian.

Iranian state media reported the explosion was so large it damaged buildings and cars in the vicinity. Residents also reported hearing the explosion from several kilometres away.

The number of injured being reported by state media has risen rapidly in the past hour.

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed an agreement to respect each other’s sovereignty and come up with a draft peace deal by 2 May.

The deal was signed by the two countries’ foreign ministers in Washington, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also present at Friday’s ceremony.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced in recent months as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have seized swathes of mineral-rich territory in eastern DR Congo.

After losing territory, the government in Kinshasa turned to the US for help in exchange for access to the minerals.

Relations have been so poor between DR Congo and Rwanda that the meeting in Washington and a promise to resolve disputes through dialogue is a sign of progress.

The text of the agreement says both sides now expect significant investments facilitated by the US government and private sector.

Despite the talks, fighting reportedly continued on Friday in North Kivu province.

Earlier this week, DR Congo and the M23 group said they were committed to peace, expressing hopes that a permanent ceasefire could be reached.

• 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

Officials in eastern DR Congo say some 7,000 people have been killed there since January.

The decades-long conflict has intensified since the start of the year 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.

• 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 Trump administration is restoring visas for hundreds of foreign students who had their legal status abruptly terminated stoking panic among many who feared immediate deportation, government officials have confirmed.

US Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court that immigration officials are now working on a new system for reviewing and terminating visas for international students.

The announcement follows more than 100 lawsuits filed by students who were abruptly stripped of their legal right to study in US universities.

An estimated 1,800 students and 280 universities have been impacted, according to a tally from Inside Higher Ed.

Many affected students appeared to have participated in political protests or have had previous criminal charges, such as driving infractions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said the administration would terminate status for people whose actions the administration believes run counter to US interests.

The policy has caused widespread fear and confusion across hundreds of US universities, with some students opting to leave the country pre-emptively rather than face possible detention or deportation.

The Justice Department told the court on Friday that records would be restored in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students’ compliance with their visas.

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) still maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons.

For example, “if a student fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated, or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act”, Kurlan told a federal court in California, NBC News reported.

Attorneys for the students have argued that the revocations violate the students’ legal rights, and the fear of detention has prevented them from fulfilling their studies.

Attorneys representing students across the country said that their clients had seen their records restored in recent days, according to NBC News.

Losing their SEVIS records left students vulnerable to immigration actions – and possible detention and deportation, according to Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.

“What I’m hearing is that this is a reprieve for many students who have had their status reinstated in SEVIS,” Prof Mukherjee said. “But this doesn’t mean this ordeal is over for the students who have had their records terminated.”

The Justice Department and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine “are very close to a deal”, hours after his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow.

Trump said it had been a “good day” of negotiations, while the Kremlin described the talks – which Ukraine was not present at – as “constructive”.

Earlier, Trump said on social media that “most of the major points are agreed to,” and urged Russia and Ukraine to meet “at very high levels” and “to finish it [the deal] off”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video address late on Friday that “real pressure on Russia is needed” to accept an unconditional ceasefire.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky told the BBC that territorial issues between Kyiv and Moscow could be discussed if a “full and unconditional ceasefire” was agreed upon.

Reports suggest Ukraine would be expected to give up large portions of land annexed by Russia under a US peace proposal.

Trump – who spoke to reporters as he arrived in Rome for Saturday’s funeral of Pope Francis – has said he would support Russia keeping the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Zelensky rejects this idea.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

On Friday, traffic was halted in Moscow as a convoy of cars carrying Witkoff arrived ahead of the high-level talks, the fourth such visit he has made to Russia since the start of the year.

The three-hour talks were described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

It had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues”, he said.

“Specifically on the Ukrainian crisis, the possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed,” he added.

Earlier this week, Putin signalled for the first time since the early stages of the war that he was open to talks with Zelensky.

His remarks were believed to be in response to a proposal by the Ukrainian president for a 30-hour Easter truce to be extended for 30 days. No truce has yet been agreed on.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

Crimea has become a particular flashpoint.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of recognising the peninsula as part of Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Friday: “Our position is unchanged – only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian.”

However, in later remarks he suggested to the BBC that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

He also referenced comments made by Trump in an interview with Time magazine, in which the US president said “Crimea will stay with Russia”.

“What President Trump says is true, and I agree with him in that today we do not have enough weapons to return control over the Crimean peninsula,” Zelensky said.

Washington’s peace plan has not been publicly released, but reports suggest it proposes Russia keeps the land it has gained – a condition that is in Moscow’s favour.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported it had seen US proposals handed to European officials last week, as well as subsequent counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine.

It said there are significant disparities between them.

The US deal offers American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of the Luhansk region.

By contrast, the Europeans and Ukrainians will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory after a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance, according to Reuters.

As the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was taking place, Trump claimed talks were going in the right direction.

“They’re meeting with Putin right now, as we speak, and we have a lot of things going on, and I think in the end we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals,” he told reporters in the US.

He said his aim was to bring about an end to fighting in Ukraine which he said was claiming the lives of 5,000 Ukrainian and Russians a week, adding he believed “we’re pretty close” to a peace deal.

Trump also said Zelensky had not signed the “final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States”.

“It is at least three weeks late,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be signed “immediately”.

The long-talked of minerals deal, which would give the US a stake in Ukraine’s abundant natural resource deposits, was meant to be signed in February but was derailed after an acrimonious meeting between Trump and Zelensky in Washington.

Russia and Ukraine’s positions in securing a peace deal still seem miles apart, with no representative from Ukraine invited to take part in the talks in Moscow.

Writing on social media on Friday, Zelensky criticised Russia for failing to agree to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the US on 11 March and urged allies to apply more pressure to it.

“It’s been 45 days since Ukraine agreed to President Trump’s proposal for quiet in the sky, sea and the frontline,” he said. “Russia rejects all this. Without pressure this cannot be resolved. Pressure on Russia is necessary.”

He said Russia was being allowed to import missiles from countries such as North Korea, which he said it then used in a deadly missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday, which killed 12 people and injured dozens.

“Insufficient pressure on North Korea and its allies allows them to make such ballistic missiles. The missile that killed the Kyiv residents contained at least 116 parts imported from other countries, and most of them, unfortunately, were made by US companies,” Zelensky alleged.

Following the attack on Kyiv, Trump said he was “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war, and directly addressed Putin in a post on social media, saying: “Vladimir STOP!”

Since then, however, Trump has blamed Kyiv for starting the war, telling Time magazine: “I think what caused the war to start was when they [Ukraine] started talking about joining Nato.”

Ahead of the talks between Witkoff and Putin, a senior Russian general was killed in a car bomb attack in the Russian capital. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of being responsible. Kyiv has not commented.

It was all smiles in the Kremlin.

“It’s so good to see you,” gushed Steve Witkoff as he shook the hand of the Russian president.

From his broad smile you could tell that Donald Trump’s special envoy was indeed delighted to see Vladimir Putin.

In fact, he’s been seeing rather a lot of him.

This was their fourth meeting in just over two months.

In that period Witkoff has surely had more face time with Russia’s president than any other American.

The Kremlin released 27 seconds of video from the meeting. What caught my attention wasn’t so much the body language or the greetings – it was the table.

On one side sat the combined might of the Russian delegation: President Putin, flanked by his veteran foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, his envoy on foreign investment Kirill Dmitriev, plus an interpreter.

On the other side, clearly outnumbered: Witkoff and a translator.

This is not traditional diplomacy – but then again, Witkoff is not a traditional diplomat.

He is a billionaire New York real estate developer and long-time confidant of Trump – who himself is not a traditional president.

Like Trump, Witkoff has made a career in doing deals.

This is how high-level US-Russian diplomacy is being conducted now in the Trump era.

It’s how crucial decisions with potential implications for the global order are being debated.

Following this round of talks, Ushakov held a conference call for reporters. He insisted that the negotiations with Witkoff had been “constructive and very useful”.

“May I ask a question?” I began. “What are the main sticking points, the obstacles to peace in Ukraine?”

“Thank you,” Ushakov said. “We’ll end it there.” Conference call over.

From the various alleged peace proposals that have been leaked to the press, there seem to be plenty of “sticking points”. There are differences over the territorial concessions Ukraine would be required to make, security guarantees, sanctions relief for Russia and the sequencing – that is, the order in which obligations undertaken be carried out.

The day Witkoff flew to Moscow, on the edge of the city, peace was shattered.

A car bomb killed a senior Russian general.

Yaroslav Moskalik was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff. The Kremlin accused Kyiv of assassinating him.

If that’s true, it’s a sign of how Russia’s war in Ukraine has come much closer to home.

There is no guarantee that talks between Putin and Witkoff will bring peace. And there will be concern in Kyiv and in Europe that they were not at the table.

What is clear is that Putin and Trump are determined to bring their countries closer – whatever happens with the Ukraine peace process.

For Moscow and Washington, now their watchword is co-operation.

On Friday, I attended a ceremony at a Moscow military park symbolising this.

It marked the moment, 80 years ago, when American and Soviet soldiers met on the Elbe River in the dying days of World War Two. That was a time when Russia and America were allies.

A military band played as people lined up to lay flowers at a memorial to the Meeting on the Elbe.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine put the US and Russia on opposite sides, but times are changing again.

The White House and the Kremlin are trying to repair relations. Could they secure a peace deal, one that’s acceptable to Ukraine?

“We are just re-establishing contact,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told me at the ceremony.

“We are just trying to find a way out of this terrible crisis which was created by the previous American administration. They ruined many things.”

Moscow presents itself as peacekeeper. It blames Kyiv and the “collective West” for the fighting.

And yet in February 2022, it was President Putin who ordered Russian troops to invade a sovereign neighbouring country, to force it back into Moscow’s orbit.

So much has changed, not least the attitude of the White House.

President Biden had promised to support Ukraine “for as long as we can”.

Earlier this month, Trump blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for starting the war.

“You don’t start a war against someone 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles,” Trump said.

As they walked through arrivals at Manchester Airport, a couple seemed to be behaving oddly towards their baby.

Something did not sit right with Border Force officers. One worried the relationship between the three was “not genuine”.

Officers pulled the couple for questioning. The man, Raphael Ossai, claimed to be the girl’s father.

He handed them a birth certificate for the baby, which showed his travelling companion, Oluwakemi Olasanoye, as the child’s mother.

But officers found a second birth certificate, hidden in the lining of the couple’s luggage. It named another woman, Raphael’s British wife, as the little girl’s mother.

It was the start of a mystery that remains unsolved – the little girl’s true identity is still not fully known.

What we do know is the child is not related to any of the adults. The girl, who we are calling Lucy, seems to have been born in rural Nigeria in September 2022, and given to an orphanage when she was just three days old.

The couple who carried her to the UK, Ossai and Olasanoye, pleaded guilty to immigration offences and were sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by deportation.

Now Lucy has been in care in Manchester for nearly two years. The Nigerian High Commission did not engage in depth with the case despite multiple requests from the High Court.

For the last nine months the High Court in Manchester has been trying to find out who Lucy really is, as it decides what her future should be.

The court heard that on 20 June 2023, Ossai and Olasanoye unlawfully brought Lucy to the UK from Lagos, via Addis Ababa. Olasanoye had a visa to work in the UK and agreed to travel with Ossai and Lucy.

When the couple were sentenced in criminal court, it was believed that Lucy was the child of Ossai and his Nigerian-born British wife.

Ossai met his British wife in Kenya and married her in Nigeria in 2017 – but he had never been to the UK. When he applied for a visitor’s visa, he was turned down due to financial circumstances.

At the time of sentencing, the judge said the “principal motive for this offence” was to bring the baby to the UK so he and his British wife could live as a “family” with Lucy.

However during the High Court hearing, DNA tests proved Lucy is not related to either of the adults.

Documents presented to the court said that she had been born to a young student in rural Nigeria, who was not able to care for her. Her father was not known.

The papers indicated the mother had voluntarily relinquished Lucy to an orphanage.

Ossai and his British wife said they had been looking for a little girl to adopt, and he collected Lucy when she was a tiny baby.

The couple had permission to foster the little girl but not to adopt her or take her out of Nigeria.

Ossai, a music producer, took Lucy to a small flat in Lagos where he looked after her for the next nine months.

He told the court he had cared for the baby well – that he had fed her properly, played her music, and kept her safe.

But a social worker from the Children and Family Court Advisory Service CAFCASS said she believed Lucy had been neglected, underfed and under stimulated.

She had met the little girl when she was just over a year old, in October 2023.

“It was really sad when I met her,” a social worker told the court.

Giving evidence, she said it was as though the child did not realise “she was actually a person”.

“She was so lost, and not really present… she just felt so alone yet she was surrounded by people,” she added.

During an observation session, the social worker said Lucy became very “panicky” when her foster carer stood up to leave the room.

She also displayed an “extreme cry” that was “very difficult to soothe”.

When asked whether Lucy could have been traumatised by the flight or by her transfer to care, the social worker said she believes it is unlikely that alone was to blame.

She added that if Lucy had developed a secure attachment to Ossai, that would have been transferred to her foster carer.

The judge said the child lacked “basic parental attachment” but did not make a finding on the cause.

“I am sure that her being brought into this country illegally and thus separated from her carers is bound to be a significant factor,” he said.

Although Ossai has been sentenced to be deported, he and his British wife asked the High Court to assess them to care for Lucy.

Ossai said that he thought of Lucy as his daughter. His lawyers said that as the Nigerian authorities had approved him as her foster parent, the English court had no power to take her away.

Lucy had always been happy with him, Ossai said, and he thought taking her into care had upset her, especially placing her with white foster carers.

“The white may be strange to her,” he added. “When they took her from me I saw the way she was looking at them.”

His lawyers raised concerns that if Lucy were adopted by a white family, she would lose her cultural identity.

Ossai’s British wife said Lucy “is like that precious gift that I desired so much”.

She told the High Court she would do “anything and everything” for her, adding “I see her as my child”.

Both broke down and cried in court when they talked about the little girl.

The High Court Judge hearing the case, Sir Jonathan Cohen, rejected Ossai and his British wife’s application to be assessed to care for Lucy.

He said the lies they had told and the actions they had taken, especially moving Lucy from Nigeria, had “inevitably caused her very significant emotional harm”.

Lucy has been placed with several different foster carers and is residing in at least her third new home since her arrival in the UK. In April, the judge ordered she be placed for adoption in the UK and that her name be changed.

He said that Lucy “needs to have the best opportunities going forward in the world”, and that can “only be done in a placement in an alternative family”.

The judge added that she would be provided with “background” about her heritage and told what happened in her past.

He found that Ossai and his British wife had a genuine desire to adopt Lucy.

Julian Bild, an immigration lawyer for anti-trafficking charity Atleu, said in circumstances where a woman is a UK national and a child is a UK national via adoption or otherwise, “it is likely the family would be allowed to stay here”.

It is possible for a child to receive British citizenship if they are brought to and physically adopted in the UK, he said.

But he added that it is “very, very unlikely that a Nigerian could simply adopt a child to improve their immigration situation and get away with it because that would be pretty transparent”.

“A person seeking to bring a child to the UK for the purpose of adoption would first need to get a Certificate of Eligibility from the UK government before being able to do so.

“The genuineness for all of this to happen is obviously looked at very closely by the family courts, social workers and experts to ensure the arrangement is in the best interests of the child.”

The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases and therefore could not clarify whether Ossai and Olasanoye had been removed from the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that we will do everything to make sure they are not free to roam Britain’s streets, including removing them from the UK at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Since the election we’ve removed 3,594 foreign criminals, a 16% increase on the same period 12 months prior.”

The Nigerian High Commission did not respond to our requests for comment.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.

“We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the BBC when talking about Mr Musk’s cost-cutting drive on 23 April.

Doge’s website says it is focusing on cancelling contracts, grants and leases put in place by previous administrations, as well as tackling fraud and reducing the government workforce.

BBC Verify has looked at the agency’s biggest claimed savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis found that behind some of the large numbers, there is a lack of evidence to back them up.

In October, Mr Musk pledged to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget. He subsequently halved this target and on 10 April talked about making savings of $150bn from “cutting fraud and waste” by the end of the next financial year in 2026.

The US federal budget for the last financial year was $6.75tn.

Doge publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website – which stood at $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data from the Doge website on 23 April and added up the total claimed savings from contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

US media has also highlighted some accounting errors, including Doge mistakenly claiming to have saved $8bn from cancelling an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $8m.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a “digestible and transparent manner” and that, as of 20 April, it has posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists some receipts as being “unavailable for legal reasons”.

BBC Verify examined the four largest savings listed on the Doge website which had receipts attached.

The department claims these add up to $8.3bn, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to people familiar with federal contracts, this figure appears to be overstated.

For three of the savings, Doge links to documents on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This is a database which records contracts given out by the US government.

The documents show a contract’s start and end date, the maximum amount the government has agreed to spend, and how much of that has been spent.

David Drabkin, a federal contracts expert who helped develop the FPDS database, said the maximum figure listed should be treated with caution.

“FPDS does not reflect the actual paid price until some period of time after the contract has been completed and the contract actions have been recorded,” he says.

“For example, when buying research and development into a vaccine no one really knows how much that’s going to cost – so when a price is set, it’s not a definite price but rather an upper limit.”

So if Doge counts the maximum figure, that can represent projected spending over a number of years, rather than a direct saving from the country’s yearly spending.

Doge’s largest listed individual saving is $2.9bn.

It comes from cancelling a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for a facility in Texas to house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Doge appears to have taken the “total contract value” until 2028 – the end date listed – and subtracted the amount spent so far to get the $2.9bn figure.

But the contract was reviewed annually, meaning renewing it until 2028 was not guaranteed.

A source familiar with this contract – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told BBC Verify that Doge’s figure is “based on speculative, never-used figures” and that the actual spending depended on how many children were placed at the facility and the services they required.

“In truth, the government never incurred those costs and could never reach that ceiling amount. The real, documentable savings from early termination were approximately $153 million”, they estimated.

They say this figure comes from tallying up the $18m per month fixed running costs (for things like staffing and security at the facility) from February – when Doge announced the cut – to November – when the contract was subject to annual review.

They also told us that the site – which closed on the same day as the Doge announcement – never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and about 2,000 stayed at the Texas facility at its peak, before numbers fell significantly as border crossings decreased.

We contacted the Administration for Children and Families and the Department for Health and Human Services which awarded the contract but are yet to hear back.

The second largest saving listed by Doge comes from cancelling a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and an IT company called Centennial Technologies which it claims was worth $1.9bn.

The document which Doge links to has a total contract value of $1.9bn and all of the other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $0.

However, Mr Drabkin told us this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government departments have poor recording keeping, meaning the amount spent during some contracts might not always be updated in a timely fashion.

• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge
• Will Elon Musk be able to cut $2 trillion from US government spending?

The contract start date is listed as August 2024 and was estimated to run until 2031.

However, Centennial Technologies’ CEO told the New York Times that the agreement had actually been cancelled last autumn during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for further comment.

Another IT contract, this time with the Department of Defense, is the third largest claimed saving.

Doge says $1.76bn was saved by cancelling a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed as $2.4bn. An online database of government contracts called Higher Gov says this amount was the ceiling value.

Again, there is $0 recorded for the amount that had been spent at the time the contract was terminated.

It is unclear where Doge’s figure of $1.76bn comes from – we have asked the Pentagon and the supplier about it.

The fourth largest claimed saving of $1.75bn comes from cancelling a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organisation, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

Doge links to a page on USASpending.gov. It shows a grant was paid to Gavi in three instalments, during the Biden administration, totalling $880m.

Gavi confirmed that $880m had been paid out by USAID but said it had not been told the grant had been terminated.

“Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant,” a spokesperson told us.

We have not found any evidence for the $1.75bn saving claimed by Doge, and a source familiar with the contract said it was unclear where it comes from.

We asked the USAID Office of Inspector General about the grant but it did not respond to us.

While Doge may have cut a significant amount of government spending, the lack of evidence provided for its biggest claimed savings makes it impossible to independently confirm exactly how much.

Doge does not have a press office but BBC Verify has contacted the White House to ask for more evidence of these claimed savings.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The threat to Canada’s sovereignty from US President Donald Trump has dominated the election, but the country also faces a challenge from within. Some western Canadians, fed up with a decade of Liberal rule, are openly calling for separation.

Standing in front of a crowd of about 100 squeezed into a small event hall in the city of Lethbridge, Dennis Modry is asking locals about Alberta’s future.

Who thinks Alberta should have a bigger role in Canada, he asks? A dozen or so raise their hands.

Who thinks the province should push for a split from Canada and form its own nation? About half the crowd raise their hands.

“How many people would like Alberta to join the US?” Another show of support from half the crowd.

Mr Modry, a retired heart surgeon, is a co-leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a grassroots organisation pushing for an independence referendum.

The possibility of a split has long been a talking point in this conservative-leaning province. But two factors have given it new momentum: Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st US state, and the subsequent boost that has given the Liberal Party in the polls ahead of Monday’s federal election.

Mr Modry told the BBC the separatist movement has grown in recent months – driven in part, he believes, by the president’s rhetoric.

“We’re not interested in that”, he said. “We’re interested in Alberta sovereignty.”

Jeffrey Rath, however – a lawyer and rancher from Calgary who is another of the project’s co-founders – was not as dismissive of Trump’s 51st state suggestion. Although he agrees independence is the priority, he could see a future where Alberta joined with the US.

“We have a lot more culturally in common with our neighbours to the south in Montana… [and] with our cousins in Texas, than we do anywhere else,” he said.

Previously on the political fringes, the possibility of a unity crisis is now being discussed out in the open.

In an opinion piece for national newspaper the Globe and Mail, Preston Manning – an Albertan considered one of the founders of the modern conservative movement in Canada – warned “large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it”.

Accusing the party of mismanaging national affairs and ignoring the priorities of western Canadians, he added: “A vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession – a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”

This sense of “western alienation”, a term used to describe the feeling that the region is often overlooked by politicians in Canada’s capital, is nothing new. For decades, many in the oil and gas-rich prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskachtewan have bemoaned how they are underrepresented, despite the region’s economic significance for the country as a whole.

That resentment grew under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which brought in environmental policies some Albertans view as a direct attack on the region’s economic growth.

National polls suggest the Liberals, now under the leadership of Mark Carney, could be headed for their fourth consecutive win come election day on Monday. That it could come in part because of a surge of support in Ontario and Quebec – the eastern provinces where so much of the population is concentrated – only adds to the regional divide.

Judy Schneider, whose husband works in the oil industry in Calgary, told the BBC she would vote “yes” in an independence referendum.

She said she didn’t see Carney, who spent much of the last decade away from Canada but was raised in Edmonton, Alberta’s capital, as a westerner.

“He can come and say ‘I’m from Alberta,’ but is he?” Ms Schneider said.

An independent Alberta remains an unlikely prospect – a recent Angus Reid poll suggested that only one in four Albertans would vote to leave Canada if a referendum were held now. A majority of Canadians, however, feel the issue should be taken seriously, a separate Nanos poll indicated.

Political analysts say the divide will pose a challenge to the country’s next prime minister, especially if Carney wins. And even a victory for Calgary-born Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would “not solve the imbalance that presently exists between the East and the West,” Mr Modry, the activist, said.

That wider sentiment has pushed Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who leads the United Conservative Party, to strike her own path in trade talks with the US, while other provincial leaders and the federal government have co-ordinated their efforts closely. She even visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

In Canada, Smith has publicly warned of a “national unity crisis” if Alberta’s demands – which centre around repealing Trudeau-era environmental laws to accelerate oil and gas production – are not met by the new prime minister within six months of the election.

While Smith has dismissed talk of outright separation as “nonsense”, critics have accused her of stoking the flames at such a consequential time for Canada’s future.

Even those within the separatist movement have different ideas on how best to achieve their goals.

Lorna Guitton, a born-and-bred Albertan and a volunteer with the Alberta Prosperity Project, told the BBC in Lethbridge that her aim was for the province to have a better relationship with the rest of Canada.

She described the current union as “broken”, and believes a referendum, or the threat of it, will give Albertans “leverage” in future negotiations with Ottawa.

But Ms Guitton also dismissed any notion of it becoming a 51st US state.

“They’ve got enough of their own problems. Why would I want to be part of that?” she said. “I would rather be my own independent, sovereign province, or a province with a better deal in Canada.”

• Patriotism surges in Quebec as Trump rattles Canada
• Who’s who in Canada’s federal election
• Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda

At his ranch outside of Calgary in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Mr Rath has a different view.

As he tended to his race horses, he spoke of the political and social attitudes of free enterprise and small government that are shared by Albertans and many Americans.

“From that perspective, I would see Alberta as being a good fit within the United States,” he said.

He is currently putting together a “fact-finding” delegation to travel to Washington DC and bring the movement directly to the Trump administration.

Many voters in Alberta, however, dismiss the notion of independence altogether, even if they agree that the province has been overlooked.

Steve Lachlan from Lethbridge agrees the West lacks representation in Ottawa but said: “We already have separation, and we need to come together.”

And the Liberals are not entirely shut out from the province. Polls suggest that Alberta may send more Liberal MPs to Ottawa than in 2021, partly due to changing demographics that led to the creation of new ridings in urban Edmonton and Calgary.

James Forrester, who lives in the battleground Calgary Centre district, told the BBC he had traditionally voted Conservative but has leaned left in recent years. This time, he will vote Liberal because of the “Carney factor”.

“I feel he’s the best guy to deal with Trump,” he said. As for the separation sentiment: “I’m not worried about it.”

Virginia Giuffre, who became a prominent accuser of Jeffrey Epstein and the Duke of York, has been described by her family as a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking” after her death aged 41.

Ms Giuffre was born Virginia Roberts in California in 1983, before her family relocated to Florida. At seven, she said she was sexually abused by a family friend and her later childhood was spent in and out of foster care.

She met Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite, in 2000 while working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach. Maxwell offered her an interview for the chance to train as a massage therapist, she said, and took her to Jeffrey Epstein.

What she had expected to be a job interview was in fact the beginning of years of abuse, according to Ms Giuffre.

Ms Giuffre was taken by Epstein on private jets around the world. She told the BBC she was abused by the US financier and “passed around like a platter of fruit” to his associates.

In 2001, at the age of 17, she said Epstein brought her to London and introduced her to Prince Andrew, who she claimed sexually abused her three times. The prince, who has denied all claims against him, reached an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022 which contained no admission of liability or apology.

• Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Ms Giuffre said Epstein had lost interest in her when she turned 19 in 2003, as she had become too old for him.

She said she convinced the wealthy financier to pay for her to get training to become a professional masseuse and he arranged for her to take a class in Thailand. But she was also expected to bring home a Thai girl that Epstein had arranged to come to the US.

Instead, on that trip, Ms Giuffre met a man named Robert whom she fell in love with and married 10 days later.

They spent time in the US before moving to Australia, initially settling in Cairns in far north Queensland before relocating close to the western city of Perth. The pair had three children together: Christian, Noah and Emily.

Reports suggest their marriage eventually broke down. On 2 February, she allegedly breached a family violence restraining order in Ocean Reef, the town where her family lived, according to Western Australia Courts.

On 22 March she posted the following on Instagram: “My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they’re being poisoned with lies.

“I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else.”

Just over a week later she posted again to say she was recovering in hospital after a “serious” vehicle collision and had “four days to live”, alongside a photo of her in hospital. Her family later said she had not intended to make the post public.

Western Australia Police disputed the severity of the crash, saying they were only able to find a report of a “minor crash” between a school bus and a car in Neergabby, about an hour north of Perth, on 24 March.

The collision was reported by the bus driver the following day, while there were no reported injuries, a police spokeswoman said.

Ms Giuffre was living at a farm in Neergabby, where she was found dead on Friday.

“It is with utterly broken hearts that we announce that Virginia passed away last night at her farm in Western Australia,” her family said in a statement, confirming her death by suicide.

“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors. Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure.”

The family added the children “were the light of her life” and that it was while holding her newborn daughter she “realized she had to fight back against those who had abused her and so many others.”

Ms Giuffre’s representative Dini von Mueffling described her as “one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know.

“Deeply loving, wise, and funny, she was a beacon to other survivors and victims. She adored her children and many animals. It was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her.”

US President Donald Trump has some well-known nemeses: illegal immigrants, low-flow showers and last, but definitely not least, the head of the US central bank.

Elevated by Trump to lead the Federal Reserve starting in 2018, Jerome Powell almost immediately found himself under fire – described on social media as a bonehead and questioned about reports that the president wanted him gone.

But however uncomfortable Powell might have been then, his position has only gotten worse.

Not only is he overseeing an economy where the risk of recession is rapidly rising, Trump has been flirting publicly with his removal, writing on social media last week: “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Coming at a time when Trump has pushed to expand presidential power, while cowing political opponents and ploughing past judicial efforts to check his action, it has raised alarm that he is more serious about, and might be more able to, exert control over the Fed than during his first term.

The tensions cooled this week, when Trump, a day after a market slide that some analysts tied to the comments, denied to reporters that he ever had any intention of firing Powell.

It came amid other hints of de-escalation in Trump’s economic rhetoric as his policies, especially trade tariffs, have faced rising political and business backlash.

But Trump did not offer much assurance that he would limit his interventions at the Fed, maintaining his right to have a view and noting that he might call Powell to discuss his concerns about the bank’s interest rate policy.

Donald Kohn, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said the shift in tone appeared intended to calm financial markets but he did not think it marked the end of a fight over the Fed, an institution considered vital to the health of the world’s largest economy.

“It’s a testimony to the market’s response,” he said. “But I think it’s way too soon to say that there’s a stability there.”

Trump’s clash with the Fed is ostensibly rooted in differences over where the bank should fix its key interest rate, which plays an influential role shaping borrowing costs for credit cards, mortgages and other loans.

Lower rates make it easier to borrow and tend to deliver an economic boost. Higher interest rates dampen activity, helping to keep prices stable.

Trump, who cut his teeth professionally taking out loans as a property developer, has long confessed to liking a low interest rate policy.

He objected when the Fed raised rates in his first term and has been pushing Powell to cut them now, arguing that inflation has cooled and keeping rates too high could do unnecessary economic damage.

“There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” he wrote on social media earlier this week, referring to Powell.

Trump is hardly the first politician to cast the bank as a scapegoat at a moment of economic turmoil – or to press for lower interest rates.

Nor is he alone in his criticism of Powell, who infamously initially dismissed post-pandemic price inflation as “transitory” and has been faulted for being too focused on backward-looking data.

Trump’s pressure on the bank, however, breaks with Washington tradition in recent decades of presidential deference to the Fed.

It has drawn comparisons to former President Richard Nixon, who pushed his Fed chairman to loosen its policies ahead of the 1972 election, moves later blamed for feeding the high-inflation, low-growth “stagflationary” dynamic of that decade.

The idea that Trump could exert control over the Fed elicits horror among many economists, who say history is littered with examples of countries where political interference at central banks led to spiralling prices and economic ruin.

Sarah Binder, professor at George Washington University and a scholar of the Federal Reserve, said confidence in Fed independence is key to maintaining market faith that inflation will be controlled.

If shaken, it could lead to higher borrowing costs for everyone, as investors demand higher interest rates for holding debt, she warned, noting that should the Fed eventually cut rates, it is likely to spark speculation about Trump’s influence – regardless of how, if at all, it played into the decision.

“That’s ultimately the problem. It is perceptions of independence that really matter and that’s what the pernicious effects of the attacks are they do raise doubts about whether the Fed can be as stalwart as central bankers want to be,” she said.

Joe Lavorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, who served on the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, said he saw little need for Trump to dial back his attacks, noting that he was making a “very classic macro argument” about the bank’s flaws.

“I’m completely on board with the president’s sympathies or comments that the Fed has historically been late,” he said, adding that he thought stock market falls had been driven primarily by questions about trade policy.

He said he believed that Fed officials would remain more responsive to financial conditions than the president, noting that, if anything, Trump’s pressure could make it more hesitant to cut, lest it be perceived as being cowed.

“Ultimately the Fed is going to do what’s prudent,” he said. “The question is just the timing.”

Powell, a longtime Washington lawyer whose term as chair is due to end next year, has maintained that he is unbothered – and uninfluenced – by the criticism and asserted that Trump does not have the legal authority to remove him.

But the strength of his position is a matter of legal debate.

By law, Fed governors can only be removed for cause, but it is unclear whether that protection extends to the role leading the board.

The administration has already taken steps to reduce the Fed’s regulatory role and is engaged in a legal battle over expanding presidential authority over other government agencies set up with features, like for cause protections, intended to insulate them from partisan pressure.

Mark Spindel, founder and chief investment officer of the Washington-based investment advisory firm Potomac River Capital, who has worked with Prof Binder on Fed studies, noted that the tradition of Fed “independence” had evolved over time, often after political or economic crisis.

“Things that are given can be taken away,” he said, hours before Trump appeared to back off.

Asked again for his thoughts a few days later, Mr Spindel wrote back just two words in reply: “Damage done.”

Imposing statues of rams and lions used to stand in the grounds of Sudan’s National Museum – priceless artefacts from the time when Nubian rulers conquered what is now Egypt to the north, along with exquisite Christian wall paintings dating from many centuries ago.

On a typical day, groups of school children would stare in awe at this reminder of their nation’s imposing past, tourists would file through one of Khartoum’s must-sees, and on occasion concerts were held in the grounds.

But that was before war broke out two years ago.

As the Sudanese military reasserts its control over the capital, having finally chased out its rival the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the full scale of the destruction of two years of war is becoming clear.

Government ministries, banks and office blocks stand blackened and burned, while the museum – a symbol of the nation’s proud history and culture – has been particularly hard hit.

Senior officials say tens of thousands of artefacts were either destroyed or shipped off to be sold during the time the RSF was in control of central Khartoum, where the museum is situated.

“They destroyed our identity, and our history,” Ikhlas Abdel Latif Ahmed, director of museums at Sudan’s National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

Before the conflict, the National Museum was a gem.

Located at the very heart of Sudan – close to the Presidential Palace, and the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers – it told a story of the succession of great civilisations that inhabited this area over time.

Now, when museum officials made an inspection visit, they were greeted with shattered glass, bullet cases on the floor and traces of looting everywhere.

• A simple guide to what is happening in Sudan
• BBC finds fear, loss and hope in Sudan’s ruined capital after army victory

“The building was very unique and very beautiful,” Ms Ahmed said.

“The militia [the description Sudanese officials give to the RSF] took so many of the unique and beautiful collections, and destroyed and damaged the rest.”

Looting has been reported at other Sudanese museums and ancient sites. Last September the UN’s world heritage organisation, Unesco, warned of a “threat to culture” and urged art dealers not to import or export artefacts smuggled out of Sudan.

Before the war, the National Museum was undergoing rehabilitation, and so many of its treasures were boxed up.

That may have made it easier for the collections to be removed.

Sudanese officials say precious artefacts from the National Museum were taken away to be sold.

They strongly suspect RSF fighters took some of the valuables to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE has been widely accused of funding the RSF, although both parties have always denied these accusations.

“We had a strong room for the gold collection, they managed to open it and took all the gold,” Ms Ahmed said.

“Maybe they kept it for themselves, or maybe they traded it in the market.”

So the whereabouts of pieces like a gold collar from the pyramid of King Talakhamani at Nuri, which dates to the 5th Century BC, are unknown.

Asked about the value of what was taken, Ms Ahmed replied simply: “There is no value for the museum artefacts, it’s more expensive than you could imagine.”

The de facto government of Sudan says it will contact Interpol and Unesco to attempt to recover artefacts looted from the National Museum and elsewhere.

However recovering the artefacts seems a difficult and perhaps even dangerous task, with little immediate prospect of success.

The government, and other Sudanese observers, say the RSF’s attacks against museums, universities and buildings like the National Records Office are a conscious attempt to destroy the Sudanese state – but, again, the RSF denies this.

Amgad Farid, who runs the Fikra for Studies and Development think-tank, is particularly critical of the looting.

“The RSF’s actions transcend mere criminality,” he wrote in a piece shared by his organisation.

“They constitute a deliberate and malicious assault on Sudan’s historical identity, targeting the invaluable heritage of Nubian, Coptic, and Islamic civilisations spanning over 7,000 years, constituting a cornerstone of African and global history, enshrined within these museums.

“This is not an incidental loss amid conflict – it is a calculated endeavour to erase Sudan’s legacy, to sever its people from their past, and to plunder millennia of human history for profit.”

The story of the National Museum – taken over by armed men, its gold and valuables looted and stolen – mirrors the individual stories of so many Sudanese in this conflict: they have been forced to flee, their houses occupied, their gold stolen.

According to the UN, nearly 13 million people have been forced from their homes since the fighting began in 2023, while an estimated 150,000 people have been killed.

“The war is against the people of Sudan,” Ms Ahmed says, bemoaning the war’s human cost, as well as the unimaginable loss of centuries of heritage.

She – along with other like-minded individuals – intend to restore the National Museum and other looted institutions.

“Inshallah [God willing] we will get all our collections back,” she said.

“And we build it more beautiful than before.”

• Sudanese eating charcoal and leaves to survive, aid agency warns
• The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
• Will recapture of presidential palace change course of Sudan war?
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else

When Donald Trump revealed the level of trade tariffs that countries around the world would face from the US, nations in South America breathed a sigh of relief.

Ten of the 12 states on the continent received the lowest level of 10%.

Only Guyana and Venezuela were initially hit with higher rates of 38% and 15% respectively, before these were subsequently reduced to 10%. This came as Trump decided to pause elevated rates on almost all countries for 90 days.

The exceptions are China, which has been hit with 145%, and Canada and Mexico, which have still got 25% tariffs on some exports to the US.

Commentators who describe this as a win for South America argue that the higher US tariffs on China, and on Canada and Mexico, could make South American goods more attractive to US and global buyers.

While plausible, this view oversimplifies broader global trade instability that South America is also exposed to.

Here I’ll set out this debate – starting with the potential upsides for the region.

South America is rich in commodities. Its biggest economies – Brazil and Argentina – are major exporters of soybeans and petroleum as well as, in Brazil’s case, iron ore used in steel production.

The US’s huge tariffs on Chinese goods, and China’s retaliatory 125% on US imports, may create opportunities for South American exporters.

For example, Brazil could increase agricultural exports to China to replace previous US supplies. China is already Brazil’s largest export destination, followed by the US.

There is a precedent. When Trump hit China with tariffs during his first term of office, China shifted some commodity purchases from the US to Brazil, boosting Brazilian soybean exports.

With the 2025 soybean harvest in Brazil now continuing, some are hoping for a repeat.

These include Frederico D’Avila, a farmer and ex-politician aligned with former Brazilian President Bolsonaro. Mr D’Avila was also previously a senior figure at Aprosoja, a soybean producers’ group.

He tells the BBC that President Trump’s first term was “excellent for Brazilian agriculture” as “Trump’s tariffs in that time favoured us”.

However, Juan Carlos Hallak, professor of international economics at the University of Buenos Aires, has a counterpoint. He says that raising “bilateral barriers” on commodities mostly just affects “who sells to whom”, and not financial gains for the sellers – as the prices are set globally.

So his suggestion is that South American nations shouldn’t expect more financial gains from their commodities as a result of Trump’s actions, just potentially different customers.

“The prices are [instead] affected by macroeconomic factors… for example if there is a recession,” he tells the BBC.

Yet other sectors in South America are also hoping that Trump’s actions mean they could win more global sales as countries decide to buy less from the US.

Take the Brazilian beef industry. The country’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was recently in Japan, hoping to open the Japanese market to Brazil’s beef exports.

Japan currently buys 40% of its beef from the US. But after Trump initially threatened to hit the country with 24% tariffs, Tokyo may shift to buy more meat from South America.

Other Brazilian industries, such as coffee and footwear, may gain a competitive edge over their Asian counterparts in the US market.

Brazil is the world’s biggest producer of coffee, followed by Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia.

Trump initially hit Vietnam with tariffs of 46% and Indonesia with 32%. While those higher rates are now on pause, if they are reinstated in July it will make beans from those two countries significantly more expensive in the US.

This would give both Brazilian and Colombian coffee a competitive advantage in the US, where they are already the main suppliers.

Meanwhile, Brazil’s shoemakers could see more exports to the US as a result of Trump’s high tariffs on Chinese exports. Currently China is the world’s largest manufacturer of footwear while Brazil is in fifth place.

The other three nations in the top five list of the world’s largest footwear producers are India, Vietnam and Indonesia. The US initially gave India a higher tariff rate of 26%.

Uruguay’s new President Yamandú Orsi has also said that Trump’s tariffs are helping to push a trade deal between the EU and South America’s bloc, Mercosur, closer to reality.

He said that “Europe has little choice now but to lower its demands somewhat” in negotiations, as it seeks to diversify trading partners.

You may have noted a lot of “coulds” and “ifs”. That’s not just because it is early days. It’s also because the pace and scale of US trade changes are causing wider instability.

Whether the potential positives for South America outweigh the potential negatives is hard to calculate accurately, which brings me to the risks for the continent.

Firstly, 10% is still 10%. Even countries with the lower tariff rate may face reduced US demand if prices rise. This is more of a risk for imports that compete with US domestic production, such as oil, soybeans, copper, iron ore, gold, and lithium.

The US has also hit imports of aluminium and steel, from all countries, with tariffs of 25%.

Brazil is a producer of both metals and has large reserves of their raw materials – bauxite and iron ore. Meanwhile, Argentina has one of the largest aluminium producers in South America, listed company Aluar, and a smaller steel industry.

Argentine producers warn they may both lose US access and face more Chinese imports, creating increased competition for domestic producers.

“We’re worried by the diversion of what can no longer enter the US,” Carlos Vaccaro, executive director of the Argentine Steel Chamber, told the Buenos Aires Herald.

Trump’s tariff wars have also led to global commodity price volatility, with oil and copper prices seeing slumps. Copper hit a 17-month low at the start of April. This volatility could hit the economies of Chile and Peru, where copper is the top export.

Eduardo Levy Yeyati, a former chief economist at the Central Bank of Argentina, says the impact on commodity prices and global demand is a “serious headwind” for South America.

Looking ahead, Mr Yeyati says that if Brazil and Argentina do end up enjoying a big rise in exports to the US, it could result in them getting higher tariffs from Trump.

After all, Trump’s aim is to boost domestic production, not imports from other countries.

Mr Yeyati says that Trump may be equally displeased if South American nations start exporting more to China. “If Brazil fills in the US quota of goods exports to China, the US may choose to punish Brazil.”

He theorises that Trump could also try to pressure Latin America to reduce China’s footprint in the region in return for favourable treatment. China invests billions of dollars in infrastructure projects across Central and South America.

So, calling Trump’s tariffs a clear “win” or “loss” for South America oversimplifies a complex situation. Especially if Trump announces in July that every country except China, Canada and Mexico will continue at 10%.

As Mr Hallak says: “It’s very hard to predict where this is going.”

Subject to this caveat, he envisions a future where the US protects its manufacturing industries more than its agricultural goods.

But adds: “I’m not sure Latin America is ready to take advantage of those opportunities. There will be specific opportunities for sure, but something that changes the game? I don’t think so.”

Federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge and charged her with obstruction for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant evade arrest.

Announcing her arrest, FBI director Kash Patel accused Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan of “intentionally misdirecting” immigration agents away from a Mexican man they were trying to arrest last week.

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel wrote on X.

During a preliminary court hearing on Friday, Dugan’s lawyer said she “wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety”.

The judge has been charged with obstruction and concealing an individual to avoid arrest, and faces a maximum of six years in prison if convicted on both charges.

Dugan was released on her own recognisance pending a hearing on 15 May.

The charges stem from events that played out in Dugan’s courtroom last week.

On 17 April, an immigration judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican national facing three misdemeanour battery counts stemming from a domestic fight, according to court documents filed in the case by the FBI.

The following day, Flores-Ruiz appeared in the Milwaukee court for a scheduled hearing, and six officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency arrived at the courthouse to make the arrest.

The agents identified themselves to court officials and waited outside Dugan’s courtroom, but according to the FBI affidavit, the judge became “visibly angry, commented that the situation was ‘absurd,’ left the bench, and entered chambers” when she learned of their presence.

In the hallway outside the court, Dugan and the unnamed agents then argued over the type of arrest warrant that had been issued, before the judge instructed them to report to the office of the county’s chief judge.

While several agents were in the office, affidavit says, the judge ushered Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer to a side door meant for jury members leading out of the courtroom.

But two agents remained near the courtroom and spotted Flores-Ruiz attempting to escape, the affidavit says.

Flores-Ruiz, who authorities say had previously been deported from the US in 2013, managed to exit the courthouse but was arrested just minutes later after a short foot chase.

Dugan’s arrest came one day after a former judge in New Mexico was taken into custody accused of harbouring an alleged Venezuelan gang member in his home.

“I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law and they are not,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News in an interview on Friday.

“And if you are destroying evidence, if you are obstructing justice, when you have victims sitting in a courtroom of domestic violence, and you’re escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated.”

Reaction to the arrest largely split along partisan lines.

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, called it a “gravely serious and drastic move”.

“Make no mistake, we do not have kings in this country and we are a democracy governed by laws that everyone must abide by,” Baldwin said in a statement. “By relentlessly attacking the judicial system, flouting court orders, and arresting a sitting judge, this President is putting those basic democratic values that Wisconsinites hold dear on the line.”

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson also criticised the arrest, calling it “showboating” and warned that it would have a “chilling effect” on court proceedings.

Wisconsin’s Republican US Senator, Ron Johnson, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “I would advise everyone to cooperate with federal law enforcement and not endanger them and the public by obstructing their efforts to arrest criminals and illegal aliens.”

Dugan was first elected as a judge in 2016, and was re-elected to a second six-year term in 2022.

Judicial elections in Wisconsin are non-partisan, however Dugan was endorsed by Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor.

The obstruction charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while the concealment charges can be punished by up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, a judge in Massachusetts was arrested after she allowed an undocumented immigrant defendant to retrieve property from a lockup in the courtroom. The immigrant then left the courtroom.

Judge Shelley M Richmond Joseph was charged with obstruction, but the charges were dropped in 2022, although she still faces an ongoing ethics complaint stemming from the incident.

Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all federal charges brought over the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York last year.

The 26 year old, who was arrested in December and accused of shooting Mr Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, faces the charges of murder and stalking.

His not guilty plea means he will now face trial and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.

Mr Mangione arrived at the Lower Manhattan court on Friday wearing a prison outfit and with his hands in cuffs. He acknowledged he had read the indictment against him before entering his plea, telling the judge: “not guilty”.

Earlier on Friday, federal prosecutors officially filed to seek the death penalty in this case.

They argued that he carried out Mr Thompson’s murder “to amplify an ideological message” and spark resistance to the health insurance industry.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who directed prosecutors to seek capital punishment, said in April that Mr Thompson’s death was “an act of political violence”.

Mr Mangione’s lawyers previously called discussion of executing him “barbaric”.

During the 35-minute hearing on Friday, Judge Margaret Garnett attempted to co-ordinate a pre-trial schedule, while Mr Mangione’s lawyers continued to raise objections to his indictments on both federal and state charges in New York.

The judge agreed Mr Mangione’s lawyers would need months to go through prosecutors’ “three terabytes” of evidence, including police footage, data from social media, financial and phone companies and other evidence from state prosecutors.

It means Mr Mangione’s federal trial will not take place before 2026 – with the judge planning his next federal appearance for 5 December, when a “firm trial date” will be set.

During the hearing, Mr Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, pushed for her client to be tried in federal court – where the death penalty is at stake – before state court, arguing the reverse would raise “constitutional issues”.

She also accused state prosecutors of “eavesdropping” on Mr Mangione’s recorded calls with her from jail. Judge Garnett asked prosecutors to write a letter within seven days explaining how Mr Mangione would be ensured access to a separate phone line to make privileged calls with his legal team.

The judge also asked Ms Friedman Agnifilo to submit a new motion by 27 June requesting the government be prevented from seeking the death penalty, since she submitted her first motion before prosecutors formally filed notice that they would do so.

Judge Garnett also asked prosecutors to remind Bondi and government officials of rules surrounding public statements and their impact on a fair trial and jury selection.

• The Mangione Trial – listen to the BBC’s new podcast
• Who is Luigi Mangione, CEO shooting suspect?

Mr Mangione is also facing state charges in both Pennsylvania, where he was arrested, and New York. At an arraignment in December, he pleaded not guilty to state murder and terrorism charges in New York.

Mr Thompson was shot dead in Manhattan early on 4 December last year.

The suspect escaped the scene before exiting the city. Five days later, Mr Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania.

Public reaction to Mr Thompson’s killing has shed light on deep frustrations with privatised healthcare. Some have celebrated Mr Mangione has a folk hero, and a fund set up for his legal defence garnered nearly $1m (£750,000) in donations.

Supporters gathered outside the courthouse on Friday too.

Shell casings with the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were found at the crime scene. Critics say these words are associated with healthcare companies avoiding payouts and increasing their profits.

Traders are counting their losses as Tanzania clamps down on people trying to flout a ban on goods from neighbouring Malawi in an escalating regional trade row.

On Friday, businesswomen told the BBC that some fellow traders had been arrested on the second day of a ban imposed by Tanzania on all agricultural imports from Malawi and South Africa.

“My bananas were seized and destroyed. Right now, our business has brought losses, and we only have a little money left,” said Jestina Chanya, a trader in Karongo, about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Tanzania.

Diplomatic efforts to address the dispute have failed but Tanzania’s agriculture minister said fresh talks were ongoing.

Last month, Malawi blocked imports of flour, rice, ginger, bananas and maize from Tanzania, and other countries, saying this was to protect local producers.

South Africa has for years prohibited the entry of bananas from Tanzania.

On Thursday, Tanzania’s Agriculture Minister Hussein Bashe said trade restrictions from those two countries “directly affected” traders from his country and described the trade barrier as “unfair and harmful”.

Bashe announced an immediate ban on all agricultural imports from the two countries, “to protect our business interests”.

Trade flows have been greatly affected at Kasumulu – the official border crossing between Tanzania and Malawi.

When the BBC visited the Malawian town of Karonga, traders – mostly women – said they were still shaken by the sight of tonnes of their produce slowly rotting, then ultimately being dumped after being denied entry into Tanzania.

“The losses I have incurred are big because I can’t go buy anything any more, and I don’t even know how I will feed my children,” said June Mwamwaja.

But Tanzanian traders have also been hit.

On Saturday Tanzania’s agriculture minister posted a video on social media showing a pile of rotten bananas in a truck which had been prevented from entering Malawi.

Tonnes of tomatoes also spoiled at the border recently after lorries from Tanzania were denied entry into Malawi.

Malawian traders like Jeniffa Mshani said they preferred agricultural goods from Tanzania because it was easier and more affordable to source them across the border.

“Tanzanian products are big and sell very well in the market, and their prices are good. Our local [Malawi] products are more expensive. I have nothing to do – I don’t have the capacity to compete with those [who have big capital]. I just can’t,” she told the BBC.

They said Tanzanian produce, especially potatoes, were larger and of better quality.

Others said their customers preferred Tanzanian plantains over Malawian ones, describing the former as tastier, while the latter were often spongy.

But since Thursday, Malawian authorities, both at the border and in nearby markets, have become increasingly strict – often arresting traders found with Tanzanian produce.

“When we bring goods from Tanzania, they turn us back. One of us was stopped and arrested right at the border,” another trader said.

Some of them said they had no idea why they were being blocked while some rich business people were still allowed to transport goods across the border.

“They are targeting us who have little capital, while those with big money are still bringing in goods,” said Ms Chanya, who sells potatoes and bananas in Karonga market.

Following the crackdown, some traders have resorted to selling their goods in secret, afraid to display them openly for fear of arrest.

“We only carry three or four bunches [of bananas], just to earn a living for the children,” said Evelina Mwakijungu, adding: “But our large consignments have been blocked, so we have no business – we’re struggling with our families”.

The normally bustling border crossing of Kasumulu remained noticeably quieter than usual with drivers seen relaxing in the shade of trees, while others played draughts or lounged in the back of their lorries.

They declined to be quoted directly but explained that they were simply waiting for word from their bosses on what to do next.

On a normal day, more than 15 lorries loaded with agricultural produce would cross the border, drivers told the BBC.

Malawi’s trade ministry spokesperson Patrick Botha told local media that they were yet to get official communication on the issue.

“We are hearing [about] this from social media. At an appropriate time, we will comment,” he was quoted as saying.

Malawi has become an increasingly important market for Tanzanian goods in recent years, with exports trebling between 2018 and 2023, according to official Tanzanian figures.

But landlocked Malawi, which has relied on Tanzanian ports to carry its exports such as tobacco, sugar and soybeans to the rest of the world, will have to reroute its goods.

It is not yet clear how hard South Africa, which exports various fruits, including apples and grapes, to Tanzania, will be hit by the ban. South African authorities are yet to comment.

The row comes at a time when Africa is supposed to be moving towards greater free trade through the establishment of a continent-wide free-trade area, which began operating four years ago.

• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• Tanzania signs major carbon credit deal covering national parks
• Tanzania’s second-hand trade war
• Malawi seeks billions of dollars from US firm over ruby sales

Six police officers have been killed in Thailand after their plane crashed into the sea during a test flight for parachute training, police have said.

The small plane was seen crashing into the water at around 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday in the Cha-am district, a coastal resort area some 130km (80 miles) southwest of Bangkok.

Royal Thai Police said in a statement on Facebook that five of the officers died at the scene, with a sixth later dying in hospital.

Authorities are examining the aircraft’s black box data recorder to determine the cause of the crash.

Local media said that the aircraft hit the water around 100 metres from the shore, while footage shared online showed people wading into the sea to reach the crash site.

The officers who died were three pilots, one engineer and two mechanics, police confirmed.

“The Royal Thai Police express their deepest condolences to the brave officers who lost their lives,” a statement added.

Police chief Kitrat Phanphet, who visited the scene alongside other officials, said initial investigations showed the plane was heading towards houses but its pilots managed to manoeuvre it towards the sea, avoiding any further fatalities.

Photographs from later on Friday showed the plane wreckage lying part-submerged in shallow water.

The UN World Food Programme says it has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza, where Israel has blocked deliveries of humanitarian aid for seven weeks.

“Today, WFP delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens,” it warned. “These kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days.”

Israel cut off aid on 2 March and resumed its offensive two weeks later after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire, saying it was putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

The UN says Israel is obliged under international law to ensure supplies for the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel says it is complying with international law and there is no aid shortage.

At the end of March, all 25 bakeries supported by the WFP in Gaza were forced to close after wheat flour and cooking fuel ran out. Food parcels distributed to families containing two weeks’ rations were also exhausted.

Malnutrition is also rapidly worsening, according to the UN. Last week, one of its humanitarian partners screened 1,300 children in northern Gaza and identified more than 80 cases of acute malnutrition – a two-fold increase from previous weeks.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there are also severe shortages of medicine, medical supplies and equipment for hospitals overwhelmed by casualties from the Israeli bombardment, and that fuel shortages are hampering water production and distribution.

World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “an awful and grim moment” had been reached in Gaza.

“This aid blockade must end. Lives depend on it.”

The WFP said the current Israeli blockade – the longest closure Gaza has ever faced – had exacerbated already fragile markets and food systems.

Food prices had skyrocketed by up to 1,400% compared to during the ceasefire, and the shortages of essential commodities raised serious nutrition concerns for vulnerable populations, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly, it warned.

“The situation inside the Gaza Strip has once again reached a breaking point: people are running out of ways to cope, and the fragile gains made during the short ceasefire have unravelled. Without urgent action to open borders for aid and trade to enter, WFP’s critical assistance may be forced to end,” the agency said.

“WFP urges all parties to prioritize the needs of civilians and allow aid to enter Gaza immediately and uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

More than 116,000 tonnes of food assistance – enough to feed one million people for up to four months – is positioned at aid corridors and is ready to be delivered as soon as Israel reopens Gaza’s border crossings, according to the agency.

In the meantime, WFP Country Director Antoine Renard told the BBC the agency was trying everything it could to keep the hot meals kitchens running.

“More than 80% of the population… have been displaced during the war. And just since 18 March [when the Israeli offensive restarted], you’ve got more than 400,000 people who have been displaced once again,” he said.

“Every time you move, every time you lose assets. So these kitchens are so essential for people to have a basic meal.”

However, even when fully supplied, the kitchens have been reaching just half the population with only 25% of daily food needs.

Gavin Kelleher, humanitarian access manager with the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the BBC from central Gaza that once the kitchens’ food stocks ran out they would no longer able to provide anything.

To survive, he said, people were eating less, bartering to “exchange a bag of diapers for lentils or cooking oil”, or selling what belongings they have left to try to get cash to access remaining food supplies.

He added that begging was also taking place on a scale not seen before in Gaza, but that people were not able to give to others anymore.

“The desperation is really, really severe.”

Earlier this week, the Israeli foreign ministry rejected criticism of the blockade from the UK, France and Germany, which called it “intolerable” and demanded it end immediately in a joint statement.

The ministry said more than 25,000 lorries carrying almost 450,000 tonnes of aid had entered Gaza during the ceasefire, adding: “Israel is monitoring the situation on the ground, and there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.”

It also said Israel was not obliged to allow in aid because Hamas had “hijacked” supplies “to rebuild its terror machine”.

Hamas has previously denied stealing aid and the UN has said it has kept “a very good chain of custody on all the aid it’s delivered”.

Last week, Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a new ceasefire, which included a demand to disarm in return for a six-week pause in hostilities and the release of 10 of the 59 hostages still in captivity. The group reiterated it would hand over all of the hostages in exchange for an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal.

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.

At least 51,439 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake has injured at least 20 people and seriously damaged multiple buildings in the Ecuadorian port city of Esmeraldas.

According to the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre, the quake struck at a depth of 30km (18.64 miles) near the Ecuadorian coast at 6:44 local time on Friday (9:44 GMT).

The quake damaged homes and public buildings, caused widespread power cuts, and led to some oil infrastructure being temporarily shut down.

President Daniel Noboa said he had deployed all government ministers to the province to coordinate the installation of shelters, deliver humanitarian aid kits and “assist with everything our people need”.

“The government is with you, and that’s how we will move forward,” he wrote in a post on social media.

Andres Mafare, 36, heard a loud crack while he was walking to the port, followed by a strong earthquake.

He told the AFP news agency he immediately ran home to try to find his wife and sons. “I ran like crazy, and when I got here saw that my house had been destroyed,” he said.

About 80% of homes were left without power, according to authorities.

Ecuador’s national oil company, Petroecuador, said it briefly suspended operations at its refinery in Esmeraldas.

In 2023, at least 15 people were killed in a 6.7-magnitude earthquake off Ecuador’s coast.

In 2016, a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake killed more than 700 people, and injured several thousand.

Sudanese people are eating leaves and charcoal to survive after fleeing an attack on a camp for displaced people near the city of el-Fasher, an aid agency has told the BBC.

“The stories we’ve been hearing are truly horrific,” Noah Taylor, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s head of operations, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

People are fleeing el-Fasher for Tawila, but are dying “on arrival,” Mr Taylor added.

He said that some were “dying of thirst”, whilst making the 40km (25 mile) journey from Zamzam camp in “blistering” temperatures.

“We’ve heard stories there are still bodies on the road between el-Fasher and Tawila.

“We spoke to a family who told us of a girl who had walked on foot by herself from el-Fasher, was repeatedly raped along the journey, and then died of her wounds when she arrived in Tawila.”

El-Fasher is the last city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur under the control of the army and its allies. Earlier this month, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked the nearby Zamzam camp, forcing tens of thousands to flee their makeshift shelters.

Many Zamzam residents had been there for two decades, after escaping previous conflicts in Darfur.

The RSF has been battling the army for the past two years in a war that has killed an estimated 150,000 people and forced some 13 million from their homes.

Aid agencies say it is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

However, funding problems have led to the UN reducing the food aid it delivers to areas of Sudan hit by famine, it says.

The RSF has been accused of targeting non-Arabic residents of Darfur during the fighting.

On Thursday, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy said this displayed “the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and may amount to crimes against humanity”.

He urged both sides to “give humanitarian actors the security guarantees needed to deliver aid rapidly”.

At least 481 people have been killed in North Darfur, around el-Fasher, since 10 April, the UN stated on Friday, warning that the total number was probably even higher.

The body’s Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, expressed concern about the situation, saying: “The systems to assist victims in many areas are on the verge of collapse, medical workers are themselves under threat and even water sources have been deliberately attacked.”

He also expressed concern over “widespread reports of sexual violence”.

The Zamzam camp had been burned “to the ground”, according to Nathaniel Raymond, head of the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab.

Mr Raymond described “systematic destruction through arson of homes” and “aid facilities”, adding that people who managed to escape Zamzam were on the road “dying of starvation”.

Mr Taylor also warned that Tawila was struggling to cope with the influx of people fleeing their homes.

“There is very little in the way of food, there is very little in the way of water,” he said, adding that the small town was currently sheltering around 130,000 to 150,000 people.

Last week, people fleeing Zamzam told the BBC their homes had been burned down and that they had been shot at. The RSF says it attacked the camp but denies committing any atrocities.

Fighting is also continuing elsewhere in Sudan.

In the southern province of West Kordofan 74 people were killed when the RSF attacked the village of al-Za’afah, the Sudan Doctors network said on Friday.

• The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
• Will recapture of presidential palace change course of Sudan war?
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump have met inside St Peter’s Basilica ahead of Pope Francis’ funeral.

The White House described the 15-minute meeting as “very productive” and Zelensky said later they had managed to discuss a lot.

Trump and Zelensky were pictured sitting locked in deep discussion, minutes before Pope Francis’ funeral was due to start.

The meeting came a day after Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal”, following talks between his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.

• Live updates: World leaders in Rome for Pope’s funeral
• Pope Francis’ funeral is chance for ‘brush-by’ diplomacy

Posting an image of Zelensky sitting with Trump, the Ukrainian leader’s head of office Andriy Yermak added a single word, “constructive”.

The two leaders had not met since their tempestuous Oval Office meeting in the White House at the end of February, when Trump told Zelensky he was not winning and “you don’t have the cards”.

He repeated that message this week, saying the Ukrainian leader had “no cards to play”.

Two images of the men showed Trump in a blue suit, Zelensky wearing a black top and trousers – with the two men sitting opposite each other having an intense conversation and holding serious expressions.

Another image posted by the Ukrainian delegation from inside St Peter’s showed the two men standing alongside Sir Keir Starmer and France’s Emmanuel Macron, his hand on Zelensky’s shoulder.

The implication was that the prime minister and French president had helped to bring the two together, against the sombre backdrop of the Pope’s funeral.

Steven Cheung, White House communications director, said more details about the Vatican City private meeting between Trump and Zelensky would follow.

After the meeting the two men then walked down the steps of the basilica and took their seats in the front row.

During the service Zelensky and Trump sat a short distance from each other, with Macron and other heads of state in between.

In his homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re spoke of Pope Francis’s incessant calls for peace. “‘Build bridges, not walls’ was an exhortation he repeated many times,” said the cardinal.

Ukrainian officials had talked of a possible second meeting but Trump’s motorcade drove away from St Peter’s immediately afterwards and his plane left Rome a short time later.

Zelensky posted on social media that they had had a “good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one”, adding that he hoped for results on everything they had said.

He said it was a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results”.

Trump’s envoy Witkoff left Moscow on Friday after a fourth visit to Russia since the start of the year, after three-hour talks later described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Ushakov also added that it had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues” of which the “possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed”.

Saturday’s meetings are the first time the two leaders have met face-to-face since February after an unprecedented confrontation occurred in the Oval Office.

During the heated exchange Trump accused the Ukrainian president of “gambling with World War Three” by not going along with ceasefire plans led by Washington.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

These concessions would reportedly include giving up large portions of land, including the Crimean peninsula which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea in the past. He suggested to the BBC on Friday that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

Virginia Giuffre, who accused Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse, has died by suicide aged 41, her family has said.

Ms Giuffre was one of the most outspoken accusers of convicted sex offenders Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. She alleged they trafficked her to the Duke of York when she was 17, which Prince Andrew has strenuously denied.

Relatives said in a statement on Friday that she had been a “fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse”, and that the “toll of abuse… became unbearable”.

“She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking,” they said.

The statement described the mother of three “as the light that lifted so many survivors” and said she died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia.

West Australia police said they were called to a home in the Neergabby area on Friday night, where Ms Giuffre was found unresponsive.

A statement continued: “The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.”

Ms Giuffre – who was born in the US – had been living with her children and husband Robert in the suburb of North Perth, although recent reports suggested the couple had split after 22 years of marriage.

Three weeks ago, Ms Giuffre posted on Instagram to say she had been seriously injured in a car accident, which her family later said she had not intended to make public. Local police later disputed the severity of the crash.

In a statement, Ms Giuffre’s long-time spokesperson Dini von Mueffling described her as “one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever had the honour to know”.

She said Ms Giuffre was a “beacon to other survivors and victims” and that “it was the privilege of a lifetime to represent her”.

After making her abuse allegations public, Ms Giuffre became a prominent campaigner and was closely associated with the Me Too movement.

Ms Giuffre alleged that Epstein and Maxwell trafficked her to Prince Andrew when she was 17.

The prince, who has denied all claims against him, reached an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022.

The settlement included a statement in which he expressed regret for his association with Epstein but contained no admission of liability or apology.

Ms Giuffre said she became a victim of sex trafficking when she was a teenager.

She said she met Maxwell, a British socialite, in 2000.

From there, she said she was introduced to American financier Epstein and alleged years of abuse by him and his associates.

Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019, where he was being held awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

He was previously convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the US for her role in Epstein’s trafficking and abuse.

Numerous world leaders and royals have gathered in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral.

Among the most prominent figures at the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square on Saturday morning were Prince William, US President Donald Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden, Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Their attendance comes at a fragile time for international diplomacy, with Trump meeting Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky before the service, according to Zelensky’s spokesman.

Here are some pictures of the VIP attendees.

Trump was in a front-row seat near Francis’ coffin, alongside his wife Melania Trump, across the aisle from Macron and his wife Brigitte.

Intriguingly, he and First Lady Melania were sitting between two staunch supporters of Ukraine. Estonia’s President Alar Karis was to Melania’s left, and Finland’s Alexander Stubb to Trump’s right.

Estonia and Finland are both staunch allies of another man of the moment in attendance – Zelensky, who looked sombre-faced at the Vatican. He was sitting on the same row as Macron, separated by a few other dignitaries.

Zelensky, who has been locked in negotiations and public arguments with Trump in recent weeks, was just 10 seats and one aisle away from him, on the same row.

The VIPs were in a separate section from the hundreds of thousands of members of the public who have descended on Rome for the event.

Dignitaries were sitting on the the right-hand side of the square, next to St Peter’s Basilica.

Those with the best seats were Javier Milei, president of Francis’ native Argentina, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Italian President Sergio Mattarella, representing the country that surrounds the Vatican City state.

Behind them were reigning sovereigns, and other delegations were seated in alphabetical order in French, the official language of diplomacy, on other benches.

Representing British royalty, the Prince of Wales was sitting next to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the service.

Starmer was sat in the fifth row with his wife Victoria.

Behind the British leader was the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Former US President Joe Biden was seen hand in hand with his wife Jill. He was sitting four rows behind Trump.

• LIVE UPDATES: World leaders in Rome for Pope’s funeral
• EXPLAINED: A visual guide to the funeral
• IN FULL: Funeral Mass details
• WATCH: Applause heard as Zelensky arrives for the funeral

Many European leaders, as well as royalty from European countries, were in attendance.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was at the proceedings, and was seen chatting with Macron.

Other political figures and royals attending the Pope’s funeral included:

• Poland President Andrzej Duda
• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader
• Belgium King Philippe and Queen Mathilde
• German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
• Croatia President Zoran Milanovic
• Ecuador President Daniel Noboa
• Ireland Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin
• Moldova President Maia Sandu
• Latvia President Edgars Rinkevics
• New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
• Sweden King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia
• UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
• Queen Mary of Denmark
• China Vice President Chen Chin-Jen
• Jordan King Abdullah II and Queen Rania
• Hungary President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban
• European Council President Antonio Costa
• President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola

Will India be able to stop the Indus river and two of its tributaries from flowing into Pakistan?

That’s the question on many minds, after India suspended a major treaty governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries, following Tuesday’s horrific attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

The suspension is among several steps India has taken against Pakistan, accusing it of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies. It has also hit back with reciprocal measures against Delhi, and said stopping water flow “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The treaty allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

Disputes have flared in the past, with Pakistan objecting to some of India’s hydropower and water infrastructure projects, arguing they would reduce river flows and violate the treaty. (More than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and around a third of its hydropower depend on the Indus basin’s water.)

India, meanwhile, has been pushing to review and modify the treaty, citing changing needs – from irrigation and drinking water to hydropower – in light of factors like climate change.

Over the years, Pakistan and India have pursued competing legal avenues under the treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But this is the first time either side has announced a suspension – and notably, it’s the upstream country, India, giving it a geographic advantage.

But what does the suspension really mean? Could India hold back or divert the Indus basin’s waters, depriving Pakistan of its lifeline? And is it even capable of doing so?

Experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes.

“The infrastructure India has are mostly run-of-the-river hydropower plants that do not need massive storage,” said Himanshu Thakkar, a regional water resources expert with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Such hydropower plants use the force of running water to spin turbines and generate electricity, without holding back large volumes of water.

Indian experts say inadequate infrastructure has kept India from fully utilising even its 20% share of the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus waters under the treaty – a key reason they argue for building storage structures, which Pakistan opposes citing treaty provisions.

Experts say India can now modify existing infrastructure or build new ones to hold back or divert more water without informing Pakistan.

“Unlike in the past, India will now not be required to share its project documents with Pakistan,” said Mr Thakkar.

But challenges like difficult terrain and protests within India itself over some of its projects have meant that construction of water infrastructure in the Indus basin has not moved fast enough.

After a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016, Indian water resources ministry officials had told the BBC they would speed up construction of several dams and water storage projects in the Indus basin.

Although there is no official information on the status of such projects, sources say progress has been limited.

Some experts say that if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season, when water availability is already at its lowest.

“A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season – when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical,” Hassan F Khan, assistant professor of Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Studies at Tufts University, wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

“That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.”

The treaty requires India to share hydrological data with Pakistan – crucial for flood forecasting and planning for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water.

Pradeep Kumar Saxena, India’s former IWT commissioner for over six years, told the Press Trust of India news agency that the country can now stop sharing flood data with Pakistan.

The region sees damaging floods during the monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. But Pakistani authorities have said India was already sharing very limited hydrological data.

“India was sharing only around 40% of the data even before it made the latest announcement,” Shiraz Memon, Pakistan’s former additional commissioner of the Indus Waters Treaty, told BBC Urdu.

Another issue that comes up each time there is water-related tension in the region is if the upstream country can “weaponise” water against the downstream country.

This is often called a “water bomb”, where the upstream country can temporarily hold back water and then release it suddenly, without warning, causing massive damage downstream.

Could India do that?

Experts say India would first risk flooding its own territory as its dams are far from the Pakistan border. However, it could now flush silt from its reservoirs without prior warning – potentially causing damage downstream in Pakistan.

• How water shortages are brewing wars

Himalayan rivers like the Indus carry high silt levels, which quickly accumulate in dams and barrages. Sudden flushing of this silt can cause significant downstream damage.

There’s a bigger picture: India is downstream of China in the Brahmaputra basin, and the Indus originates in Tibet.

In 2016, after India warned that “blood and water cannot flow together” following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan, China blocked a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo – that becomes the Brahmaputra in northeast India.

China, that has Pakistan as its ally, said they had done it as it was needed for a hydropower project they were building near the border. But the timing of the move was seen as Beijing coming in to help Islamabad.

After building several hydropower plants in Tibet, China has green-lit what will be the world’s largest dam on the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing claims minimal environmental impact, but India fears it could give China significant control over the river’s flow.

The threat to Canada’s sovereignty from US President Donald Trump has dominated the election, but the country also faces a challenge from within. Some western Canadians, fed up with a decade of Liberal rule, are openly calling for separation.

Standing in front of a crowd of about 100 squeezed into a small event hall in the city of Lethbridge, Dennis Modry is asking locals about Alberta’s future.

Who thinks Alberta should have a bigger role in Canada, he asks? A dozen or so raise their hands.

Who thinks the province should push for a split from Canada and form its own nation? About half the crowd raise their hands.

“How many people would like Alberta to join the US?” Another show of support from half the crowd.

Mr Modry, a retired heart surgeon, is a co-leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project, a grassroots organisation pushing for an independence referendum.

The possibility of a split has long been a talking point in this conservative-leaning province. But two factors have given it new momentum: Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st US state, and the subsequent boost that has given the Liberal Party in the polls ahead of Monday’s federal election.

Mr Modry told the BBC the separatist movement has grown in recent months – driven in part, he believes, by the president’s rhetoric.

“We’re not interested in that”, he said. “We’re interested in Alberta sovereignty.”

Jeffrey Rath, however – a lawyer and rancher from Calgary who is another of the project’s co-founders – was not as dismissive of Trump’s 51st state suggestion. Although he agrees independence is the priority, he could see a future where Alberta joined with the US.

“We have a lot more culturally in common with our neighbours to the south in Montana… [and] with our cousins in Texas, than we do anywhere else,” he said.

Previously on the political fringes, the possibility of a unity crisis is now being discussed out in the open.

In an opinion piece for national newspaper the Globe and Mail, Preston Manning – an Albertan considered one of the founders of the modern conservative movement in Canada – warned “large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it”.

Accusing the party of mismanaging national affairs and ignoring the priorities of western Canadians, he added: “A vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession – a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it.”

This sense of “western alienation”, a term used to describe the feeling that the region is often overlooked by politicians in Canada’s capital, is nothing new. For decades, many in the oil and gas-rich prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskachtewan have bemoaned how they are underrepresented, despite the region’s economic significance for the country as a whole.

That resentment grew under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, which brought in environmental policies some Albertans view as a direct attack on the region’s economic growth.

National polls suggest the Liberals, now under the leadership of Mark Carney, could be headed for their fourth consecutive win come election day on Monday. That it could come in part because of a surge of support in Ontario and Quebec – the eastern provinces where so much of the population is concentrated – only adds to the regional divide.

Judy Schneider, whose husband works in the oil industry in Calgary, told the BBC she would vote “yes” in an independence referendum.

She said she didn’t see Carney, who spent much of the last decade away from Canada but was raised in Edmonton, Alberta’s capital, as a westerner.

“He can come and say ‘I’m from Alberta,’ but is he?” Ms Schneider said.

An independent Alberta remains an unlikely prospect – a recent Angus Reid poll suggested that only one in four Albertans would vote to leave Canada if a referendum were held now. A majority of Canadians, however, feel the issue should be taken seriously, a separate Nanos poll indicated.

Political analysts say the divide will pose a challenge to the country’s next prime minister, especially if Carney wins. And even a victory for Calgary-born Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre would “not solve the imbalance that presently exists between the East and the West,” Mr Modry, the activist, said.

That wider sentiment has pushed Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who leads the United Conservative Party, to strike her own path in trade talks with the US, while other provincial leaders and the federal government have co-ordinated their efforts closely. She even visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

In Canada, Smith has publicly warned of a “national unity crisis” if Alberta’s demands – which centre around repealing Trudeau-era environmental laws to accelerate oil and gas production – are not met by the new prime minister within six months of the election.

While Smith has dismissed talk of outright separation as “nonsense”, critics have accused her of stoking the flames at such a consequential time for Canada’s future.

Even those within the separatist movement have different ideas on how best to achieve their goals.

Lorna Guitton, a born-and-bred Albertan and a volunteer with the Alberta Prosperity Project, told the BBC in Lethbridge that her aim was for the province to have a better relationship with the rest of Canada.

She described the current union as “broken”, and believes a referendum, or the threat of it, will give Albertans “leverage” in future negotiations with Ottawa.

But Ms Guitton also dismissed any notion of it becoming a 51st US state.

“They’ve got enough of their own problems. Why would I want to be part of that?” she said. “I would rather be my own independent, sovereign province, or a province with a better deal in Canada.”

• Patriotism surges in Quebec as Trump rattles Canada
• Who’s who in Canada’s federal election
• Canada’s top candidates talk up fossil fuels as climate slips down agenda

At his ranch outside of Calgary in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Mr Rath has a different view.

As he tended to his race horses, he spoke of the political and social attitudes of free enterprise and small government that are shared by Albertans and many Americans.

“From that perspective, I would see Alberta as being a good fit within the United States,” he said.

He is currently putting together a “fact-finding” delegation to travel to Washington DC and bring the movement directly to the Trump administration.

Many voters in Alberta, however, dismiss the notion of independence altogether, even if they agree that the province has been overlooked.

Steve Lachlan from Lethbridge agrees the West lacks representation in Ottawa but said: “We already have separation, and we need to come together.”

And the Liberals are not entirely shut out from the province. Polls suggest that Alberta may send more Liberal MPs to Ottawa than in 2021, partly due to changing demographics that led to the creation of new ridings in urban Edmonton and Calgary.

James Forrester, who lives in the battleground Calgary Centre district, told the BBC he had traditionally voted Conservative but has leaned left in recent years. This time, he will vote Liberal because of the “Carney factor”.

“I feel he’s the best guy to deal with Trump,” he said. As for the separation sentiment: “I’m not worried about it.”

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – set up to cut US government spending – claims to have saved, on average, more than $10bn a week since President Trump entered office.

“We’re talking about almost $200bn and rising fast,” Trump told the BBC when talking about Mr Musk’s cost-cutting drive on 23 April.

Doge’s website says it is focusing on cancelling contracts, grants and leases put in place by previous administrations, as well as tackling fraud and reducing the government workforce.

BBC Verify has looked at the agency’s biggest claimed savings, examining the figures and speaking to experts.

Our analysis found that behind some of the large numbers, there is a lack of evidence to back them up.

In October, Mr Musk pledged to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal government budget. He subsequently halved this target and on 10 April talked about making savings of $150bn from “cutting fraud and waste” by the end of the next financial year in 2026.

The US federal budget for the last financial year was $6.75tn.

Doge publishes a running total of its estimated savings on its website – which stood at $160bn the last time the site was updated on 20 April.

However, less than 40% of this figure is broken down into individual savings.

We downloaded the data from the Doge website on 23 April and added up the total claimed savings from contracts, grants and leases.

Our analysis found only about half of these itemised savings had a link to a document or other form of evidence.

US media has also highlighted some accounting errors, including Doge mistakenly claiming to have saved $8bn from cancelling an immigration contract which in fact had a total value of $8m.

Doge says it is working to upload all receipts in a “digestible and transparent manner” and that, as of 20 April, it has posted receipts “representing around 30% of all total savings”. It also lists some receipts as being “unavailable for legal reasons”.

BBC Verify examined the four largest savings listed on the Doge website which had receipts attached.

The department claims these add up to $8.3bn, but after examining the evidence provided and speaking to people familiar with federal contracts, this figure appears to be overstated.

For three of the savings, Doge links to documents on the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). This is a database which records contracts given out by the US government.

The documents show a contract’s start and end date, the maximum amount the government has agreed to spend, and how much of that has been spent.

David Drabkin, a federal contracts expert who helped develop the FPDS database, said the maximum figure listed should be treated with caution.

“FPDS does not reflect the actual paid price until some period of time after the contract has been completed and the contract actions have been recorded,” he says.

“For example, when buying research and development into a vaccine no one really knows how much that’s going to cost – so when a price is set, it’s not a definite price but rather an upper limit.”

So if Doge counts the maximum figure, that can represent projected spending over a number of years, rather than a direct saving from the country’s yearly spending.

Doge’s largest listed individual saving is $2.9bn.

It comes from cancelling a contract – which started in 2023 under President Biden – for a facility in Texas to house up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

Doge appears to have taken the “total contract value” until 2028 – the end date listed – and subtracted the amount spent so far to get the $2.9bn figure.

But the contract was reviewed annually, meaning renewing it until 2028 was not guaranteed.

A source familiar with this contract – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told BBC Verify that Doge’s figure is “based on speculative, never-used figures” and that the actual spending depended on how many children were placed at the facility and the services they required.

“In truth, the government never incurred those costs and could never reach that ceiling amount. The real, documentable savings from early termination were approximately $153 million”, they estimated.

They say this figure comes from tallying up the $18m per month fixed running costs (for things like staffing and security at the facility) from February – when Doge announced the cut – to November – when the contract was subject to annual review.

They also told us that the site – which closed on the same day as the Doge announcement – never reached its maximum capacity of 3,000 children, and about 2,000 stayed at the Texas facility at its peak, before numbers fell significantly as border crossings decreased.

We contacted the Administration for Children and Families and the Department for Health and Human Services which awarded the contract but are yet to hear back.

The second largest saving listed by Doge comes from cancelling a contract between the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and an IT company called Centennial Technologies which it claims was worth $1.9bn.

The document which Doge links to has a total contract value of $1.9bn and all of the other cost fields, including the amount already spent, are for $0.

However, Mr Drabkin told us this does not necessarily mean that nothing had been spent on the contract.

He said several government departments have poor recording keeping, meaning the amount spent during some contracts might not always be updated in a timely fashion.

• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge
• Will Elon Musk be able to cut $2 trillion from US government spending?

The contract start date is listed as August 2024 and was estimated to run until 2031.

However, Centennial Technologies’ CEO told the New York Times that the agreement had actually been cancelled last autumn during the Biden administration.

The company did not respond to our requests for further comment.

Another IT contract, this time with the Department of Defense, is the third largest claimed saving.

Doge says $1.76bn was saved by cancelling a contract with an IT services company called A1FEDIMPACT.

On the contract document, the total value is listed as $2.4bn. An online database of government contracts called Higher Gov says this amount was the ceiling value.

Again, there is $0 recorded for the amount that had been spent at the time the contract was terminated.

It is unclear where Doge’s figure of $1.76bn comes from – we have asked the Pentagon and the supplier about it.

The fourth largest claimed saving of $1.75bn comes from cancelling a USAID grant to Gavi, a global health organisation, which campaigns to improve access to vaccines.

Doge links to a page on USASpending.gov. It shows a grant was paid to Gavi in three instalments, during the Biden administration, totalling $880m.

Gavi confirmed that $880m had been paid out by USAID but said it had not been told the grant had been terminated.

“Gavi has not received a termination notice related to this grant,” a spokesperson told us.

We have not found any evidence for the $1.75bn saving claimed by Doge, and a source familiar with the contract said it was unclear where it comes from.

We asked the USAID Office of Inspector General about the grant but it did not respond to us.

While Doge may have cut a significant amount of government spending, the lack of evidence provided for its biggest claimed savings makes it impossible to independently confirm exactly how much.

Doge does not have a press office but BBC Verify has contacted the White House to ask for more evidence of these claimed savings.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

As they walked through arrivals at Manchester Airport, a couple seemed to be behaving oddly towards their baby.

Something did not sit right with Border Force officers. One worried the relationship between the three was “not genuine”.

Officers pulled the couple for questioning. The man, Raphael Ossai, claimed to be the girl’s father.

He handed them a birth certificate for the baby, which showed his travelling companion, Oluwakemi Olasanoye, as the child’s mother.

But officers found a second birth certificate, hidden in the lining of the couple’s luggage. It named another woman, Raphael’s British wife, as the little girl’s mother.

It was the start of a mystery that remains unsolved – the little girl’s true identity is still not fully known.

What we do know is the child is not related to any of the adults. The girl, who we are calling Lucy, seems to have been born in rural Nigeria in September 2022, and given to an orphanage when she was just three days old.

The couple who carried her to the UK, Ossai and Olasanoye, pleaded guilty to immigration offences and were sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by deportation.

Now Lucy has been in care in Manchester for nearly two years. The Nigerian High Commission did not engage in depth with the case despite multiple requests from the High Court.

For the last nine months the High Court in Manchester has been trying to find out who Lucy really is, as it decides what her future should be.

The court heard that on 20 June 2023, Ossai and Olasanoye unlawfully brought Lucy to the UK from Lagos, via Addis Ababa. Olasanoye had a visa to work in the UK and agreed to travel with Ossai and Lucy.

When the couple were sentenced in criminal court, it was believed that Lucy was the child of Ossai and his Nigerian-born British wife.

Ossai met his British wife in Kenya and married her in Nigeria in 2017 – but he had never been to the UK. When he applied for a visitor’s visa, he was turned down due to financial circumstances.

At the time of sentencing, the judge said the “principal motive for this offence” was to bring the baby to the UK so he and his British wife could live as a “family” with Lucy.

However during the High Court hearing, DNA tests proved Lucy is not related to either of the adults.

Documents presented to the court said that she had been born to a young student in rural Nigeria, who was not able to care for her. Her father was not known.

The papers indicated the mother had voluntarily relinquished Lucy to an orphanage.

Ossai and his British wife said they had been looking for a little girl to adopt, and he collected Lucy when she was a tiny baby.

The couple had permission to foster the little girl but not to adopt her or take her out of Nigeria.

Ossai, a music producer, took Lucy to a small flat in Lagos where he looked after her for the next nine months.

He told the court he had cared for the baby well – that he had fed her properly, played her music, and kept her safe.

But a social worker from the Children and Family Court Advisory Service CAFCASS said she believed Lucy had been neglected, underfed and under stimulated.

She had met the little girl when she was just over a year old, in October 2023.

“It was really sad when I met her,” a social worker told the court.

Giving evidence, she said it was as though the child did not realise “she was actually a person”.

“She was so lost, and not really present… she just felt so alone yet she was surrounded by people,” she added.

During an observation session, the social worker said Lucy became very “panicky” when her foster carer stood up to leave the room.

She also displayed an “extreme cry” that was “very difficult to soothe”.

When asked whether Lucy could have been traumatised by the flight or by her transfer to care, the social worker said she believes it is unlikely that alone was to blame.

She added that if Lucy had developed a secure attachment to Ossai, that would have been transferred to her foster carer.

The judge said the child lacked “basic parental attachment” but did not make a finding on the cause.

“I am sure that her being brought into this country illegally and thus separated from her carers is bound to be a significant factor,” he said.

Although Ossai has been sentenced to be deported, he and his British wife asked the High Court to assess them to care for Lucy.

Ossai said that he thought of Lucy as his daughter. His lawyers said that as the Nigerian authorities had approved him as her foster parent, the English court had no power to take her away.

Lucy had always been happy with him, Ossai said, and he thought taking her into care had upset her, especially placing her with white foster carers.

“The white may be strange to her,” he added. “When they took her from me I saw the way she was looking at them.”

His lawyers raised concerns that if Lucy were adopted by a white family, she would lose her cultural identity.

Ossai’s British wife said Lucy “is like that precious gift that I desired so much”.

She told the High Court she would do “anything and everything” for her, adding “I see her as my child”.

Both broke down and cried in court when they talked about the little girl.

The High Court Judge hearing the case, Sir Jonathan Cohen, rejected Ossai and his British wife’s application to be assessed to care for Lucy.

He said the lies they had told and the actions they had taken, especially moving Lucy from Nigeria, had “inevitably caused her very significant emotional harm”.

Lucy has been placed with several different foster carers and is residing in at least her third new home since her arrival in the UK. In April, the judge ordered she be placed for adoption in the UK and that her name be changed.

He said that Lucy “needs to have the best opportunities going forward in the world”, and that can “only be done in a placement in an alternative family”.

The judge added that she would be provided with “background” about her heritage and told what happened in her past.

He found that Ossai and his British wife had a genuine desire to adopt Lucy.

Julian Bild, an immigration lawyer for anti-trafficking charity Atleu, said in circumstances where a woman is a UK national and a child is a UK national via adoption or otherwise, “it is likely the family would be allowed to stay here”.

It is possible for a child to receive British citizenship if they are brought to and physically adopted in the UK, he said.

But he added that it is “very, very unlikely that a Nigerian could simply adopt a child to improve their immigration situation and get away with it because that would be pretty transparent”.

“A person seeking to bring a child to the UK for the purpose of adoption would first need to get a Certificate of Eligibility from the UK government before being able to do so.

“The genuineness for all of this to happen is obviously looked at very closely by the family courts, social workers and experts to ensure the arrangement is in the best interests of the child.”

The Home Office said it could not comment on individual cases and therefore could not clarify whether Ossai and Olasanoye had been removed from the UK.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Foreign nationals who commit crime should be in no doubt that we will do everything to make sure they are not free to roam Britain’s streets, including removing them from the UK at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Since the election we’ve removed 3,594 foreign criminals, a 16% increase on the same period 12 months prior.”

The Nigerian High Commission did not respond to our requests for comment.

The Trump administration is restoring visas for hundreds of foreign students who had their legal status abruptly terminated stoking panic among many who feared immediate deportation, government officials have confirmed.

US Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court that immigration officials are now working on a new system for reviewing and terminating visas for international students.

The announcement follows more than 100 lawsuits filed by students who were abruptly stripped of their legal right to study in US universities.

An estimated 1,800 students and 280 universities have been impacted, according to a tally from Inside Higher Ed.

Many affected students appeared to have participated in political protests or have had previous criminal charges, such as driving infractions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said the administration would terminate status for people whose actions the administration believes run counter to US interests.

The policy has caused widespread fear and confusion across hundreds of US universities, with some students opting to leave the country pre-emptively rather than face possible detention or deportation.

The Justice Department told the court on Friday that records would be restored in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students’ compliance with their visas.

But Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) still maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons.

For example, “if a student fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated, or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act”, Kurlan told a federal court in California, NBC News reported.

Attorneys for the students have argued that the revocations violate the students’ legal rights, and the fear of detention has prevented them from fulfilling their studies.

Attorneys representing students across the country said that their clients had seen their records restored in recent days, according to NBC News.

Losing their SEVIS records left students vulnerable to immigration actions – and possible detention and deportation, according to Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.

“What I’m hearing is that this is a reprieve for many students who have had their status reinstated in SEVIS,” Prof Mukherjee said. “But this doesn’t mean this ordeal is over for the students who have had their records terminated.”

The Justice Department and ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US President Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine “are very close to a deal”, hours after his envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in Moscow.

Trump said it had been a “good day” of negotiations, while the Kremlin described the talks – which Ukraine was not present at – as “constructive”.

Earlier, Trump said on social media that “most of the major points are agreed to,” and urged Russia and Ukraine to meet “at very high levels” and “to finish it [the deal] off”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video address late on Friday that “real pressure on Russia is needed” to accept an unconditional ceasefire.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky told the BBC that territorial issues between Kyiv and Moscow could be discussed if a “full and unconditional ceasefire” was agreed upon.

Reports suggest Ukraine would be expected to give up large portions of land annexed by Russia under a US peace proposal.

Trump – who spoke to reporters as he arrived in Rome for Saturday’s funeral of Pope Francis – has said he would support Russia keeping the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Zelensky rejects this idea.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls almost 20% of Ukrainian territory.

On Friday, traffic was halted in Moscow as a convoy of cars carrying Witkoff arrived ahead of the high-level talks, the fourth such visit he has made to Russia since the start of the year.

The three-hour talks were described as “very useful” by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov.

It had brought the “Russian and US positions closer together, not just on Ukraine but also on a range of other international issues”, he said.

“Specifically on the Ukrainian crisis, the possibility of resuming direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives was in particular discussed,” he added.

Earlier this week, Putin signalled for the first time since the early stages of the war that he was open to talks with Zelensky.

His remarks were believed to be in response to a proposal by the Ukrainian president for a 30-hour Easter truce to be extended for 30 days. No truce has yet been agreed on.

Kyiv has been on the receiving end of growing pressure from Trump to accept territorial concessions as part of an agreement with Moscow to end the war.

Crimea has become a particular flashpoint.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected the idea of recognising the peninsula as part of Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Friday: “Our position is unchanged – only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian.”

However, in later remarks he suggested to the BBC that “a full and unconditional ceasefire opens up the possibility to discuss everything”.

He also referenced comments made by Trump in an interview with Time magazine, in which the US president said “Crimea will stay with Russia”.

“What President Trump says is true, and I agree with him in that today we do not have enough weapons to return control over the Crimean peninsula,” Zelensky said.

Washington’s peace plan has not been publicly released, but reports suggest it proposes Russia keeps the land it has gained – a condition that is in Moscow’s favour.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported it had seen US proposals handed to European officials last week, as well as subsequent counter-proposals from Europe and Ukraine.

It said there are significant disparities between them.

The US deal offers American legal acceptance of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of other occupied areas, including all of the Luhansk region.

By contrast, the Europeans and Ukrainians will only discuss what happens to occupied Ukrainian territory after a ceasefire has come into effect.

The US plan also rules out Ukraine’s membership in the Nato military alliance, according to Reuters.

As the meeting between Witkoff and Putin was taking place, Trump claimed talks were going in the right direction.

“They’re meeting with Putin right now, as we speak, and we have a lot of things going on, and I think in the end we’re going to end up with a lot of good deals, including tariff deals and trade deals,” he told reporters in the US.

He said his aim was to bring about an end to fighting in Ukraine which he said was claiming the lives of 5,000 Ukrainian and Russians a week, adding he believed “we’re pretty close” to a peace deal.

Trump also said Zelensky had not signed the “final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States”.

“It is at least three weeks late,” he said, adding that he hoped it would be signed “immediately”.

The long-talked of minerals deal, which would give the US a stake in Ukraine’s abundant natural resource deposits, was meant to be signed in February but was derailed after an acrimonious meeting between Trump and Zelensky in Washington.

Russia and Ukraine’s positions in securing a peace deal still seem miles apart, with no representative from Ukraine invited to take part in the talks in Moscow.

Writing on social media on Friday, Zelensky criticised Russia for failing to agree to a 30-day ceasefire proposed by the US on 11 March and urged allies to apply more pressure to it.

“It’s been 45 days since Ukraine agreed to President Trump’s proposal for quiet in the sky, sea and the frontline,” he said. “Russia rejects all this. Without pressure this cannot be resolved. Pressure on Russia is necessary.”

He said Russia was being allowed to import missiles from countries such as North Korea, which he said it then used in a deadly missile strike on Kyiv on Thursday, which killed 12 people and injured dozens.

“Insufficient pressure on North Korea and its allies allows them to make such ballistic missiles. The missile that killed the Kyiv residents contained at least 116 parts imported from other countries, and most of them, unfortunately, were made by US companies,” Zelensky alleged.

Following the attack on Kyiv, Trump said he was “putting a lot of pressure” on both sides to end the war, and directly addressed Putin in a post on social media, saying: “Vladimir STOP!”

Since then, however, Trump has blamed Kyiv for starting the war, telling Time magazine: “I think what caused the war to start was when they [Ukraine] started talking about joining Nato.”

Ahead of the talks between Witkoff and Putin, a senior Russian general was killed in a car bomb attack in the Russian capital. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of being responsible. Kyiv has not commented.

Who will be the next pope? The decision could have a profound impact on the Catholic Church and the world’s 1.4 billion baptised Roman Catholics.

It also promises to be a highly unpredictable and open process for a host of reasons.

The College of Cardinals will meet in conclave in the Sistine Chapel to debate and then vote for their preferred candidates until a single name prevails.

With 80% of the cardinals appointed by Pope Francis himself, they are not only electing a pope for the first time, but will offer a broad global perspective.

For the first time in history, fewer than half of those given a vote will be European.

And although the college may be dominated by his appointments, they were not exclusively “progressive” or “traditionalist”.

For those reasons, it is harder than ever to predict who will be elected the next pope.

Could the cardinals elect an African or an Asian pope, or might they favour one of the old hands of the Vatican administration?

Here are some of the names being mentioned as Francis’s potential successor.

• LIVE UPDATES: Follow the latest after the Pope’s death
• IN PICTURES: Symbolism on show as Pope lies in open coffin
• EXPLAINER: Key candidates in an unpredictable contest to be the next Pope
• PROFILE: Acting head of the Vatican Cardinal Kevin Farrell
• VISUAL GUIDE: How the next Pope is chosen by secret vote

Nationality: Italian

Age: 70

Softly spoken Italian Cardinal Parolin was the Vatican’s secretary of state under Pope Francis – making him the pope’s chief adviser. The secretary of state also heads the Roman Curia, the Church’s central administration.

Having acted effectively as deputy pope, he could be considered a frontrunner.

He is viewed by some as more likely to prioritise diplomacy and a global outlook than the purity of Catholic dogma. His critics consider that a problem, while his supporters see a strength.

But he has been critical of the legalisation of same-sex marriage around the world, calling a landmark 2015 vote in favour in the Republic of Ireland “a defeat for humanity”.

The bookmakers may back him but Cardinal Parolin will be well aware of an old Italian saying that stresses the uncertainty of the pope-picking process: “He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal.”

Some 213 of the previous 266 popes have been Italian and even though there has not been an Italian pope in 40 years, the pivot of the upper echelons of the Church away from Italy and Europe may mean there may not be another for now.

Nationality: Filipino

Age: 67

Could the next pope come from Asia?

Cardinal Tagle has decades of pastoral experience – meaning he has been an active Church leader among the people as opposed to a diplomat for the Vatican or cloistered expert on Church law.

The Church is massively influential in the Philippines, where about 80% of the population is Catholic. The country currently has a record five members of the College of Cardinals – which could make for a significant lobbying faction if they all back Cardinal Tagle.

He is considered a moderate within the Catholic definition, and has been dubbed the “Asian Francis” because of a dedication to social issues and sympathy for migrants that he shared with the late pope.

He has opposed abortion rights, calling them “a form of murder” – a position in line with the Church’s broader stance that life begins at conception. He has also spoken against euthanasia.

But in 2015 when he was Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Tagle called for the Church to reassess its “severe” stance towards gay people, divorcees and single mothers, saying past harshness had done lasting harm and left people feeling “branded”, and that each individual deserved compassion and respect.

The cardinal was considered a candidate to be pope as far back as the 2013 conclave in which Francis was elected.

Asked a decade ago how he viewed suggestions he could be next, he replied: “I treat it like a joke! It’s funny.”

Nationality: Congolese

Age: 65

It’s very possible the next pope could be from Africa, where the Catholic Church continues to add millions of members. Cardinal Ambongo is a leading candidate, hailing from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He has been Archbishop of Kinshasa for seven years, and was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis.

He is a cultural conservative, opposing blessings for same-sex marriage, stating that “unions of persons of the same sex are considered contradictory to cultural norms and intrinsically evil”.

Though Christianity is the majority religion in the DRC, Christians there have faced death and persecution at the hands of jihadist group Islamic State and associated rebels. Against that backdrop, Cardinal Ambongo is viewed as a fierce advocate for the Church.

But in a 2020 interview, he spoke in favour of religious plurality, saying: “Let Protestants be Protestants and Muslims be Muslims. We are going to work with them. But everyone has to keep their own identity.”

Such comments could lead some cardinals to wonder if he fully embraces their sense of mission – in which Catholics hope to spread the Church’s word throughout the world.

Nationality: Ghanaian

Age: 76

If chosen by his peers, the influential Cardinal Turkson would likewise have the distinction of being the first African pope for 1,500 years.

Like Cardinal Ambongo, he has claimed not to want the job. “I’m not sure whether anyone does aspire to become a pope,” he told the BBC in 2013.

Asked if Africa had a good case to provide the next pope based on the Church’s growth on the continent, he said he felt the pope shouldn’t be chosen based on statistics, because “those types of considerations tend to muddy the waters”.

He was the first Ghanaian to be made a cardinal, back in 2003 under Pope John Paul II.

Like Cardinal Tagle, Cardinal Turkson was considered a potential pope a decade later, when Francis was chosen. In fact, bookmakers made him the favourite ahead of voting.

A guitarist who once played in a funk band, Cardinal Turkson is known for his energetic presence.

Like many cardinals from Africa, he leans conservative. However, he has opposed the criminalisation of gay relationships in African countries including his native Ghana.

In a BBC interview in 2023, while Ghana’s parliament was discussing a bill imposing harsh penalties on LGBTQ+ people, Turkson said he felt homosexuality should not be treated as an offence.

In 2012, he was accused of making fear-mongering predictions over the spread of Islam in Europe at a Vatican conference of bishops, for which he later apologised.

Nationality: Hungarian

Age: 72

A cardinal since the age of 51, Peter Erdo is highly regarded in the Church in Europe, having twice led the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences from 2006 to 2016.

He is well known among African cardinals and he has worked on Catholic relations with the Orthodox Church.

The archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary grew up in a Catholic family under communism, and he is considered a potential compromise candidate.

Erdo played a prominent role in Pope Francis’s two visits to Hungary in 2021 and 2023, and he was part of the conclaves that elected Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict.

His conservative views on the family have found favour with some parts of the Church and he has navigated the “illiberal democracy” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. During Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, he said the Church would not take in migrants as it was tantamount to human trafficking.

Nationality: Italian

Age: 83

Only cardinals under 80 can vote in the conclave, but Angelo Scola could still be elected.

The former Archbishop of Milan was a frontrunner in 2013 when Francis was chosen, but he is thought to have fallen victim to the adage of entering the conclave as Pope and leaving as cardinal.

His name has resurfaced ahead of the conclave, because of a book he is publishing this week on old age. The book features a preface written by Pope Francis shortly before he was admitted to hospital in which he said “death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something”.

Francis’s words show genuine affection for Scola, but the college of cardinals might not see his focus on old age as ideal for a new pope.

Nationality: German

Age: 71

Germany’s top Catholic cleric is also very much a Vatican insider too.

The Archbishop of Munich and Freising was chosen as an adviser when Francis became pope in 2013. For 10 years he advised the Pope on Church reform and still oversees financial reform of the Vatican.

He has advocated a more accommodating approach towards homosexuals or transgender people in Catholic teaching.

But in 2021 he offered to resign over serious mistakes in tackling child sexual abuse in Germany’s Catholic Church. That resignation was rejected by Francis.

Two years ago he left the Council of Cardinals, the Pope’s most important advisory body, in what was seen in Germany as a setback for his career in the Church.

Nationality: Canadian

Age: 80

Cardinal Ouellet has twice before been seen as a potential candidate for Pope, in 2005 and 2013.

For years he ran the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, which chooses candidates for the episcopate around the world, so he has played a significant and formative role in vetting the future members of the Catholic hierarchy.

As another octogenarian, he will not be able to play a part in the conclave itself, which may hinder his chances.

Ouellet is viewed as a conservative with a modern outlook, who is strongly in favour of maintaining the principle of celibacy for priests.

He opposes the ordination of women priests, but he has called for a greater role for women in running the Catholic Church, saying that “Christ is male, the Church is feminine”.

Nationality: American

Age: 69

Could the papacy go to an American for the first time?

Chicago-born Cardinal Prevost is certainly seen as having many of the necessary qualities for the role.

Two years ago Pope Francis chose Prevost to replace Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, handing him the task of selecting the next generation of bishops.

He worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there.

Prevost is not just considered an American, but as someone who headed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

He is seen a reformer, but at 69 might be viewed as too young for the papacy. His period as archbishop in Peru was also clouded by allegations of covering up sexual abuse claims, which were denied by his diocese.

Nationality: Guinean

Age: 79

Well-liked by conservatives in the Church, Cardinal Sarah is known for his adherence to doctrine and traditional liturgy and was often considered opposed to Pope Francis’s reformist leanings.

The son of a fruit-picker, Sarah became the youngest archbishop aged 34 when Pope John Paul II appointed him prelate in Conakry in Guinea.

He has had a long and impressive career, retiring in 2021 as head of the Vatican’s office that oversees the Catholic Church’s liturgical rites.

While not considered a favourite for the papacy, he could attract strong support from conservative cardinals.

Nationality: Italian

Age: 60

Ordained in Italy when he was 25, Pizzaballa moved to Jerusalem the following month and has lived there ever since.

Pope Francis made him Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem five years ago and later cardinal, and Pizzaballa has spoken of the city as “the heart of the life of this world”.

Fellow cardinals will have been impressed by his deep understanding of Israelis and Palestinians and the ongoing war in Gaza.

However, his relative young age and inexperience as a cardinal may count against him, as could his affinity to Francis among cardinals seeking a change in direction.

Nationality: Canadian

Age: 78

Cardinal Czerny was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis and is like him a Jesuit, a leading order of the Catholic Church known for its charitable and missionary work around the world.

Although he was born in the former Czechoslovakia, his family moved to Canada when he was two.

He has worked widely in Latin America and in Africa, where he founded the African Jesuit Aids Network and taught in Kenya.

Czerny is popular with progressives in the Church and was considered close to Pope Francis. He is currently head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Human Integral Development.

Although a strong candidate, it seems unlikely the cardinals would choose a second Jesuit pope in succession.