As the continuing India-Pakistan crisis takes a dangerous turn, nations around the world are urging calm.

The initial thinking was that after India launched air strikes, and with Pakistan claiming to have shot down several Indian jets – a claim Delhi has not confirmed – both sides could claim “victory” and de-escalate.

But there’s a danger that any protracted tit-for-tat attacks could lead them to a far more damaging prospect.

During past conflicts, such as in 2019 and 2016, it was the United States and a few other global powers that put pressure on Delhi and Islamabad to bring the situation under control and de-escalate.

Now passions are running high and the nationalist rhetoric has reached a crescendo on both sides. The neighbours are closer to war than in recent decades.

• Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it
• What we know about India’s strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir

“The World community is keeping quiet; that’s dangerous,” Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani academic who is a senior fellow at King’s College London.

“Though the flare up has been happening for decades, this is the first time the two countries find themselves in a conflict without anyone monitoring them or forcefully telling them to stop,” she said.

Unless Washington gets more involved, Islamabad and Delhi may continue with their accusations and counter-accusations.

Although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been telling the senior leaders of India and Pakistan to de-escalate, the message from other American leaders is different.

US Vice-President JD Vance has said that a potential war between India and Pakistan would be “none of our business” during an interview with Fox News.

“We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can’t control these countries, though,” Vance said.

Vance was on a visit to India when the militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians, took place.

US President Donald Trump had earlier called rising tension between India and Pakistan a “shame”.

During previous India-Pakistan skirmishes, for example in 2019, tension was defused quickly after India carried out what it called “surgical strikes” on what it called terrorist camps inside Pakistan.

One Indian military jet was shot down in the aftermath of the crisis and the pilot was captured by Pakistan. He was released two days later after reported intervention from Washington and other world powers.

But the intensity of the current conflict is different and passions are running high on both sides.

While the Trump administration’s priorities are more about tariffs, China and Ukraine-Russia, it may require a concerted attempt by the international community to lower tension between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

The other world power which has a stake in South Asia is China. Beijing has close economic and military ties with Islamabad. It has invested more than $50bn (£37.5bn) in Pakistan as parts of its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to boost trade.

China also has unresolved border issues with India and the two countries recently had a border clash in the Himalayan region 2020. Despite the tension, China is the second largest trading partner of India.

“If the US is uninterested [in resolving India-Pakistan tension] then other permanent members of the UN Security Council – P5 – should get involved. It is their responsibility as well,” Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international affairs expert tells the BBC.

As India accuses Pakistan of supporting the Kashmiri separatist rebels, who carried out the deadly attack on tourists last month, the Chinese academic says “the P-5 members can launch a credible investigation into the incident”, to address India’s concerns.

Gulf states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have close ties to both the countries, could step up their mediation efforts.

Saudi Arabian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir arrived in Delhi on 7 May in what was seen as a surprise visit amid the backdrop of a spike in tensions between India and Pakistan.

“A good meeting with Adel Al-Jubeir,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, adding that his counterpart “shared India’s perspective on firmly countering terrorism”.

The Saudi minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday for talks with Pakistan’s leaders.

There are an estimated 2.6 million Pakistanis living and working in the Gulf Kingdom. Riyadh has considerable influence in Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has loaned billions of dollars to Pakistan to bail out the country during economic crises over the years.

One way out of the current crisis could be a situation where both sides can claim victory to satisfy their audience.

Delhi says the missile strikes on suspected militant hideouts inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir were part of a commitment to hold “accountable” those responsible for the last month’s attack in Pahalgam.

“India has already said it has achieved its objectives. Now, the ball is in Pakistan’s court. If they wish to retaliate then that would elicit a strong response from India,” retired Indian Lt Gen D S Hooda said.

For Pakistan, especially for its powerful military, it would want to show its people that it can stand up against India and teach it a lesson once again by downing five of the Indian air force jets during a dog fight.

India has not acknowledged the loss of any of its fighter jets in the current skirmish.

But according to Pakistani academic Siddiqa, how the current crisis ends depends on what India’s stated objectives are.

“India’s goal posts keep changing day by day – from punishing Pakistan to attaining something more,” she said.

The new Pope, Leo XIV, has called in his first Mass at the Vatican for the Catholic Church to “desperately” counter a lack of faith.

Speaking the day after he was elected as the 267th Pope and first US leader of the Church, he warned that people were turning away from faith and instead to “technology, money, success, power, or pleasure”.

Leo said he had been elected to be a “faithful administrator” of a Church that would act as a “beacon that illuminates the dark nights of this world”.

The ascension of Robert Francis Prevost has been celebrated by the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, with joyous outbursts in his US homeland and in Peru, where he served for 20 years.

In his sermon on Friday, the new Pope said there were many settings where the Christian faith was considered “absurd” – with power, wealth, and technology dominating – but it was precisely there that missionary outreach was needed.

“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society,” he said in the address delivered in Italian.

Pope Leo, 69, wore a white papal robe trimmed in gold as he addressed the seated cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, an event broadcast live by the Vatican administration.

In an unscripted introduction before the homily, Leo also called on Church unity from his cardinals, telling them in American-accented English: “I know I can rely on each and every one of you to walk with me”.

Following weeks of anticipation, the previously-unknown Prevost was introduced as the new Pope to the world on Thursday evening in St Peter’s Square.

Tens of thousands of worshippers in the square burst into cheers when white smoke curled out of the Vatican’s chimney on the second day of the conclave’s voting.

Shortly after, the Chicago-born Prevost appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica. In his first words to the crowds he outlined a vision of a “missionary” Church which “builds bridges, which holds dialogues, which is always open”.

• Watch: ‘Oh my God, it’s Rob!’ – Pope’s brother speaks of joy
• Profile: Who is Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV?
• Analysis: Continuity the key for Pope seen as unifier in the Church
• Name: Why did he choose Leo?

He echoed his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, in calling for peace.

“Help us, and each other, to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace,” he said.

World leaders have rushed to congratulate Prevost on his election, pledging to work with him on global issues amid uncertain times. US President Donald Trump called it a “great honour” to have the first American pope.

Prevost, who had previously been the Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, was only made an archbishop and then cardinal in 2023. He was elected by his fellow cardinals in what is believed to be four rounds of voting in the secret conclave that took place two weeks after Francis died.

He is seen as being aligned with the progressive late Pope, who was viewed as a champion of human rights and the poor and celebrated for his charismatic style that sought to make the Catholic Church more outward-facing.

Vatican watchers have noted that Francis appeared to have brought Prevost to Rome in recent years, perhaps to set him up as a potential successor.

The Augustinian missionary worked for decades with the poor and marginalised in Peru, where he obtained nationality in 2015.

In his previous role as Cardinal Prevost, he had also expressed or amplified criticism of the US administration under President Trump, including its anti-immigration policies.

On an X account under his name, he had criticised Vice President JD Vance in February. Vance, who is a Catholic convert, had said Christians should love their family, neighbours, community and fellow citizens in that order. Prevost had written: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others”.

As Pope now, he faces a momentous task in leading the Church in a time of significant global conflicts. Observers have expressed hope that he can offer a counterpoint to more divisive voices on the world stage.

His next appearances, at Sunday’s midday Regina Coeli prayer in St Peter’s Basilica and a Monday news conference with journalists, will be closely watched for signs as to which direction he intends to lead the Church and what kind of Pope he will be.

South Africa has criticised the US as reports emerge suggesting Washington could receive white Afrikaners as refugees as early as next week.

A document seen by the BBC’s US partner CBS describes the potential resettlement as a “priority” for President Donald Trump’s government, however the timing has not been publicly confirmed by the White House.

In a statement published on Friday, South Africa’s foreign ministry described the purported move as “politically motivated” and designed to undermine South Africa’s “constitutional democracy”.

In February, Trump described Afrikaners as victims of “racial discrimination” in an executive order, opening up the prospect for them to resettle in the US.

The South African authorities said they would not block the departures of those chosen for resettlement, but said they had sought assurances from the US that those selected had been fully vetted and did not have pending criminal charges.

The statement added that allegations of discrimination against the country’s white minority were unfounded, and that crime statistics did not indicate that any racial group had been targeted in violent crimes on farms.

Some groups representing the rights of white farmers have said they are being deliberately killed because of their race.

A spokesperson for the US state department told the BBC they were interviewing individuals interested in resettling in the US and prioritising “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

They did not confirm when the resettlement would begin.

The Trump administration has also accused South Africa of seizing land from white farmers without compensation, something Pretoria has repeatedly denied.

Elon Musk, a top adviser in the Trump administration who grew up in South Africa during apartheid, has been critical of Pretoria, claiming that it is leading a “genocide” against white farmers.

US officials have planned a press event on Monday at Dulles airport in Virginia to welcome the group, the documents seen by CBS show.

According to US media, 54 Afrikaners will arrive as part of the first group.

The decision to accept South Africans as refugees comes as the Trump administration has halted nearly all migrant asylum claims.

In February, South Africa criticised Trump’s executive order opening the US up to the resettlement of white Afrikaners, saying in a statement that “it is ironic” the US is open to accepting a group “that remains amongst the most economically privileged” while denying vulnerable people from other parts of the world asylum.

• Almost 70,000 South Africans interested in US asylum
• Race policies or Israel – what’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?
• The expelled envoy at the heart of the latest US-South Africa row

The US-China trade war could be letting up, with the world’s two largest economies set to begin talks in Switzerland.

Top trade officials from both sides will meet on Saturday in the first high-level meeting since US President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs in January.

Beijing retaliated immediately and a tense stand-off ensued as the two countries heaped levies on each other. Those now stand at 125%, although some Chinese imports to the US face duties as high as 245%.

There have been weeks of stern, and sometimes fiery, rhetoric where each side sought to paint the other as the more desperate party.

And yet this weekend they will face each other over the negotiating table.

So why now?

Despite multiple rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, both sides have been sending signals that they want to break the deadlock. Except it wasn’t clear who would blink first.

“Neither side wants to appear to be backing down,” said Stephen Olson, senior visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and a former US trade negotiator.

“The talks are taking place now because both countries have judged that they can move forward without appearing to have caved in to the other side.”

Still, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian emphasised on Wednesday that “the talks are being held at the request of the US”.

And the commerce ministry framed it as a favour to Washington, saying it was answering the “calls of US businesses and consumers”.

The Trump administration, however, claims it’s Chinese officials who “want to do business very much” because “their economy is collapsing”.

“They said we initiated? Well, I think they ought to go back and study their files,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.

But as the talks drew closer, the president struck a more diplomatic note: “We can all play games. Who made the first call, who didn’t make the – it doesn’t matter,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It only matters what happens in that room.”

The timing is also key for Beijing because it’s during Xi’s visit to Moscow. He was a guest of honour on Friday at Moscow’s Victory Day parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the World War Two victory over Nazi Germany.

Xi stood alongside leaders from across the Global South – a reminder to Trump’s administration that China not only has other options for trade, but it is also presenting itself as an alternative global leader.

This allows Beijing to project strength even as it heads to the negotiating table.

Trump insists that the tariffs will make America stronger, and Beijing has vowed to “fight till the end”- but the fact is the levies are hurting both countries.

Factory output in China has taken a hit, according to government data. Manufacturing activity in April dipped to the lowest level since December 2023. And a survey by news outlet Caixin this week showed that services activity has reached a seven-month low.

The BBC found that Chinese exporters have been reeling from the steep tariffs, with stock piling up in warehouses, even as they strike a defiant note and look for markets beyond the US.

“I think [China] realises that a deal is better than no deal,” says Bert Hofman, a professor at the East Asian Institute in National University Singapore.

“So they’ve taken a pragmatic view and said, ‘OK, well we need to get these talks going.'”

And so with the major May Day holiday in China over, officials in Beijing have decided the time is right to talk.

On the other side, the uncertainty caused by tariffs led to the US economy contracting for the first time in three years.

And industries that have long depended on Chinese-made goods are especially worried. A Los Angeles toy company owner told the BBC that they were “looking at the total implosion of the supply chain”.

Trump himself has acknowledged that US consumers will feel the sting.

American children may “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls”, he said at a cabinet meeting this month, “and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally”.

Trump’s approval ratings have also slid over fears of inflation and a possible recession, with more than 60% of Americans saying he was focusing too much on tariffs.

“Both countries are feeling pressure to provide a bit of reassurance to increasingly nervous markets, businesses, and domestic constituencies,” Mr Olson says.

“A couple of days of meetings in Geneva will serve that purpose.”

While the talks have been met with optimism, a deal may take a while to materialise.

The talks will mostly be about “touching base”, Mr Hofman said, adding that this could look like an “exchange of positions” and, if things go well, “an agenda [will be] set for future talks”.

The negotiations on the whole are expected to take months, much like what happened during Trump’s first term.

After nearly two years of tit-for-tat tariffs, the US and China signed a “phase one” deal in early 2020 to suspend or reduce some levies. Even then, it did not include thornier issues, such as Chinese government subsidies for key industries or a timeline for scrapping the remaining tariffs.

In fact, many of them stayed in place through Joe Biden’s presidency, and Trump’s latest tariffs add to those older levies.

What could emerge this time is a “phase one deal on steroids”, Mr Olson said: that is, it would go beyond the earlier deal and try to address flashpoints. There are many, from the illegal fentanyl trade which Washington wants China to crack down harder on to Beijing’s relationship with Moscow.

But all of that is far down the line, experts warn.

“The systemic frictions that bedevil the US-China trade relationship will not be solved any time soon,” Mr Olson adds.

“Geneva will only produce anodyne statements about ‘frank dialogues’ and the desire to keep talking.”

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel’s blockade continues for a third month.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said “distribution centres” protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres’ perimeters.

It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to “weaponize” aid.

“We will not participate,” the spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told the BBC in Geneva, “only in efforts that are in line with our principles”.

He added: “There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organisation.”

Since early March, Israel has cut off all supplies from reaching Gaza – including food, shelters, medicines and fuel – leading to a humanitarian crisis for its 2.1 million residents.

A third of the community kitchens in Gaza – one of the territory’s last remaining lifelines – have been forced to shut down over the past two weeks due to shortages of food and fuel, according to OCHA.

Among them were the last two field kitchens of World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity which had been providing 133,000 meals daily before it ran out of ingredients on Tuesday.

Prices of basic foodstuffs have also skyrocketed at local markets, with a 25kg (55lb) bag of flour now selling for $415 (£313) in Gaza City – a 30-fold increase compared to the end of February, OCHA says.

Huckabee told journalists in Jerusalem that US President Donald Trump saw aid for Gaza as an urgent matter and that his team was tasked “to do everything possible to accelerate that and to as expeditiously as possible get humanitarian aid into the people”.

Israel and the US accuse Hamas of diverting aid. “Previous actions have often been met with Hamas stealing the food that was intended for hungry people,” the ambassador said.

The UN and other agencies say they have strong supervisory mechanisms and that when aid has surged into Gaza, incidents of looting have largely halted. The World Health Organization says none of its medical supplies have been looted during the war.

The Trump administration is trying to build momentum behind the new aid initiative ahead of the president’s trip next week to wealthy Arab Gulf countries that could help to fund it.

It says that a non-governmental organisation has been set up and that aid delivery will not be under Israeli military control.

Huckabee said: “The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary security because this is a war zone. But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food, or even the bringing of food into Gaza.”

The newly registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) appears to have been set up for this purpose.

A 14-page document from GHF, seen by the BBC, promises to set up four distribution sites, giving out food, water and hygiene kits initially for 1.2 million people – less than 60% of the population. It says the project aims to reach all Gazans eventually.

Aimed at potential donors, the paper states that “months of conflict have collapsed traditional relief channels in Gaza”.

It goes on: “GHF was established to restore that vital lifeline through an independent, rigorously-audited model that gets assistance directly – and only – to those in need.”

The document maintains that GHF is “guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence”.

Its boards of directors and advisors are said to include a former chief executive of World Central Kitchen, along with the American former head of the UN’s World Food Programme, David Beasley – though his participation is not yet confirmed.

Full details of how the aid mechanism will work on the ground are not given.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which saw about 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Some 59 are still held captive, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 52,700 people in Gaza, mostly women, children and the elderly, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Last Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet approved an intensified military offensive against Hamas in Gaza which could involve forcibly displacing the population to the south, seizing the entire territory indefinitely, and controlling aid.

This was quickly met with widespread international condemnation. Many of Israel’s allies pointed out that it was bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid.

The UK’s Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, told Parliament on Monday that the British government was gravely concerned that the Israeli announcements could lead to the 19-month-long war in Gaza entering “a dangerous new phase”.

On the subject of aid, he said: “As the UN has said, it is hard to see how, if implemented, the new Israeli plan to deliver aid through private companies would be consistent with humanitarian principles and meet the scale of the need. We need urgent clarity from the Israeli government on their intentions.

“We must remember what is at stake. These humanitarian principles matter for every conflict around the world. They should be applied consistently in every war zone.”

This week, the US Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, briefed members of the UN Security Council – which includes the UK – behind closed doors about the new plan to resume the delivery of aid.

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that Israeli forces were already setting up distribution hubs in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in “a sterile zone” designed to be free of any Hamas presence.

According to reports, Israel expects that aid will be distributed to security-screened representatives from each Gazan family who would be allowed to take supplies for his or her relatives only. They would be allowed into the hubs only on foot.

The Israeli defence establishment was said to have assessed that the average quantity of aid that would have to be distributed as 70kg (154lb) per family per week.

The Israeli military would ultimately be stationed outside the distribution hubs, allowing aid workers to hand out food without soldiers being directly involved, the reports say.

Israel and the US argue that the new system would prevent Hamas from being able to steal food for its own benefit. By preventing its access to aid and involvement in security for convoys, they hope to reduce the group’s influence over the Gazan population.

However, there are major questions over the plan’s feasibility. The current UN system uses some 400 points of aid distribution, while the situation in Gaza is now at a crisis point, with warnings that mass starvation is imminent.

At a UN briefing in Geneva, aid officials said they had carried out “careful analysis” before deciding they could not participate in the US-Israeli scheme. They said they had not been formally presented with the GHF document that is currently circulating.

James Elder, spokesman for the UN’s children’s agency Unicef, said the plan that had been laid out would lead to more children suffering, not fewer. He noted that civilians would have to travel to militarised zones to receive aid, meaning the most vulnerable – children and the elderly – would struggle to get there.

He said the decision to locate all the distribution points in the south appeared designed to use aid as “a bait” to forcibly displace Gazans once again. The UN says 90% of the population has been displaced during the war, often many times.

The plan that has been discussed with UN agencies envisages just 60 lorry loads of aid entering each day – far less than they say is needed to meet growing needs, and a tenth of the number that went in daily during the recent two-month ceasefire.

OCHA’s Jens Laerke said that in short, the proposals from Israel “do not meet the minimum bar for principled humanitarian support”.

Analysts say that the current impasse over aid for Gaza is not only an existential threat to the UN’s vast humanitarian operation in the Palestinian territory but could also have implications for its future work.

If it was to agree to a scheme accommodating the demands of the military on one side in a conflict, it could dent perceptions of the UN’s neutrality and impartiality, and set a dangerous precedent leading to similar demands in other war zones where it operates.

The UN and other aid agencies also point out that they currently have tonnes of supplies piled up near Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter, if Israel would allow it.

Without an end to the blockade, the risk of famine is expected to grow.

In Jabalia, in northern Gaza, which has already been the focus of Israeli military operations against Hamas, Palestinian families told the BBC of their growing despair as they waited for a food handout at a takia, or community kitchen, which turned into a chaotic scramble.

“Every day I come here and wait with my cooking pot to feed my children,” Umm Ahmed said. “The pot doesn’t fill us up. We have been suffering for two months. There’s no flour or anything. Open the borders so we can eat properly.”

She said she would not comply with Israeli efforts to force her to move south to Rafah to receive aid.

“We don’t have money for transport, we don’t have money to eat!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to evacuate from here, I’d rather die than leave.”

“The takia is our last source of food,” said Mohammed, who had been waiting for five hours in line. “My wife is pregnant and sick and I’m unable to get her to the hospital. How am I supposed to get to Rafah?”

When 68 million Filipinos head to the polls on Monday, Sara Duterte’s name will not be on the ballot.

But the results of the election, which includes 12 senate races, will have a huge impact on her political future.

They will affect both her role as the Philippines’ current vice-president and any hopes she might have of running for the country’s presidency one day, as she faces the prospect of a ban from politics – decided by lawmakers in the Senate.

The 46-year-old is the eldest daughter of the Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte. She trained as a lawyer before entering politics in 2007, when she was elected as her father’s vice-mayor in their family’s hometown Davao.

Rodrigo Duterte has described her as the “alpha” character of the family, who always gets her way.

The younger Duterte was previously filmed punching a court official in the face after he refused her request, leading one local news outlet to bestow the nickname of “the slugger” upon her.

She and her father are known to share similar traits, as well as a shared passion for riding big motorbikes.

As one cable from the US embassy in Manila in 2009, leaked by Wikileaks, described her: “A tough-minded individual who, like her father, is difficult to engage.”

In 2010, she succeeded her father to become the first female mayor of Davao. But it was only in 2021 that she decided to make her way to national politics.

The next year she ran on a joint ticket with the scion of another political dynasty – Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He was going for the top job, with Duterte as his deputy.

The assumption was that she would then be in a prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028, as presidents are limited only to one six-year term in the Philippines.

The strategy proved effective and the duo won by a landslide.

But then it quickly started to unravel.

Cracks started to emerge in their alliance even before the euphoria of their election win faded. Duterte publicly expressed her preference to be defence secretary but she was instead handed the education portfolio.

The House of Representatives soon after scrutinised Duterte’s request for confidential funds – millions of pesos that she could spend without stringent documentation.

Then, Rodrigo Duterte spoke at a late night rally, accusing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of being a junkie and a weak leader.

Soon after, First Lady Liza Marcos snubbed Sara Duterte at an event, in full view of news cameras. She admitted that it was intentional, saying Duterte should not have stayed silent in the background while her father accused the president of drug use.

After Duterte resigned from the cabinet in July last year, her language became increasingly inflammatory.

She said she had “talked to someone” to “go kill” Marcos, his wife and his cousin, who is also the speaker of the House. She also told reporters her relationship with Marcos had become toxic and she dreamed of cutting off his head.

Such remarks are shocking for someone who is not acquainted with Philippine politics. But Duterte’s strong personality has only endeared her to the public and she remains popular in the south, as well as among the millions of overseas Filipino workers.

But in February this year, lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted to impeach Duterte, accusing her of misusing public funds and threatening to have President Marcos assassinated.

She will be tried by the Senate and, if found guilty, removed from office and banned from running in future elections.

Duterte has denied the charges and alleges she is the victim of a political vendetta.

But whether or not she will be impeached hinges a lot on the upcoming election – and the composition of the Senate thereafter.

For her to be impeached, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote for this. The make-up of the upcoming Senate will be determined in Monday’s election, with both Marcos and Duterte backing competing candidates.

For Durterte, the election will also be a barometer of support for her family, and whether she can capitalise on this for her presidential run in 2028.

But for now, her fate hangs in the balance.

Mexico is suing Google for ignoring repeated requests not to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps for US users, President Claudia Sheinbaum says.

She did not say where the lawsuit had been filed. Google did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

On Thursday, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to officially rename the Gulf for federal agencies.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in January.

He argued the change was justified because the US “do most of the work there, and it’s ours”.

However Sheinbaum’s government contends that Trump’s order applies only to the US portion of the continental shelf.

“All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with,” she said, asserting that the US lacks the authority to rename the entire gulf.

In January, Sheinbaum wrote a letter to Google asking the firm to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico for US users. The following month, she threatened legal action.

At the time, Google said it made the change as part of “a longstanding practice” of following name changes when updated by official government sources.

It said the Gulf – which is bordered by the US, Cuba and Mexico – would not be changed for people using the app in Mexico, and users elsewhere in the world will see the label: “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency’s refusal to start referring to the Gulf of America led to a months-long conflict with the White House, which restricted AP’s access to certain events.

A federal judge ordered the White House in April to stop sidelining the outlet.

Trump hinted Wednesday that he may recommend changing the way the US refers to another body of water.

During an upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, he plans to announce that the US will henceforth refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia, AP reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has responded by saying he hopes the “absurd rumours” are “no more than a disinformation campaign” and such a move would “bring the wrath of all Iranians”.

The world’s first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbours has erupted in South Asia.

On Thursday, India accused Pakistan of launching waves of drones and missiles at three military bases in Indian territory and Indian-administered Kashmir – an allegation Islamabad swiftly denied.

Pakistan claimed it had shot down 25 Indian drones in recent hours. Delhi remained publicly silent. Experts say the tit-for-tat attacks mark a dangerous new phase in the decades-old rivalry, as both sides exchange not just artillery but unmanned weapons across a volatile border.

As Washington and other global powers urge restraint, the region is teetering on the edge of escalation, with drones – silent, remote and deniable – opening a new chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict.

“The Indo-Pak conflict is moving into a new drone era – one where ‘invisible eyes’ and unmanned precision may determine escalation or restraint. Thus, in South Asia’s contested skies, the side that masters drone warfare won’t just see the battlefield – they’ll shape it,” Jahara Matisek, a professor at the US Naval War College, told the BBC.

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Since Wednesday morning, Pakistan says Indian air strikes and cross-border fire have killed 36 people and injured 57 more in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. On the other side, India’s army reports at least 16 civilians dead from Pakistani shelling. India insists its missile barrage was retaliation for a deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month – an attack Islamabad denies any role in.

Pakistan’s military announced on Thursday that it had shot down 25 Indian drones across various cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. The drones – reportedly Israeli-made Harop drones – were reportedly intercepted using both technical and weapon-based countermeasures. India claimed to have neutralised several Pakistani air defence radars and systems, including one in Lahore, which Islamabad denied.

Laser-guided missiles and bombs, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become pivotal in modern warfare, significantly enhancing the precision and efficiency of military operations. These can relay co-ordinates for airstrikes or, if equipped, directly laser-designate targets, and help immediate engagement.

Drones can be used as decoys or suppression of enemy air defences, flying into contested airspace to trigger enemy radar emissions, which can then be targeted by other munitions like loitering drones or anti-radiation missiles. “This is how Ukraine and Russia both do it in their war. This dual role – targeting and triggering – makes drones a force multiplier in degrading enemy air defences without risking manned aircraft,” says Prof Matisek.

Experts say India’s drone fleet is largely built around Israeli-made reconnaissance UAVs like the IAI Searcher and Heron, along with Harpy and Harop loitering munitions – drones that double as missiles, capable of autonomous reconnaissance and precision strikes. The Harop, in particular, signals a shift toward high-value, precision-targeted warfare, reflecting the growing importance of loitering munitions in modern conflict, experts say.

The Heron, say experts, is India’s “high-altitude eyes in the sky” for both peacetime monitoring and combat operations. The IAI Searcher Mk II is designed for frontline operations, offering up to 18 hours of endurance, a range of 300km (186 miles), and a service ceiling of 7,000m (23,000ft).

While many believe India’s combat drone numbers remain “modest”, a recent $4bn deal to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator drones – which can can fly for 40 hours and up to an altitude of 40,000ft – from the US marks a major leap in its strike capabilities.

India is also developing swarm drone tactics – deploying large numbers of smaller UAVs to overwhelm and saturate air defences, allowing higher-value assets to penetrate, say experts.

Pakistan’s drone fleet is “extensive and diverse”, comprising both indigenous and imported systems, Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst told the BBC.

He said the inventory includes “over a thousand drones”, featuring models from China, Turkey and domestic manufacturers. Notable platforms include the Chinese CH-4, the Turkish Bayraktar Akinci, and Pakistan’s own Burraq and Shahpar drones. Additionally, Pakistan has developed loitering munitions, enhancing its strike capabilities.

Mr Haider said the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has been actively integrating unmanned systems into its operations for nearly a decade. A key focus is the development of “loyal wingman” drones – unmanned aerial vehicles designed to operate in co-ordination with manned aircraft, he added.

Prof Matisek believes “Israel’s technical assistance, supplying Harop and Heron drones, has been pivotal for India, while Pakistan’s reliance on Turkish and Chinese platforms highlights an ongoing arms race”.

While the recent drone exchanges between India and Pakistan mark a significant escalation in their rivalry, they differ markedly from the drone-centric warfare observed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, experts say. There, drones become central to military operations, with both sides deploying thousands of UAVs for surveillance, targeting and direct attacks.

“Deploying drones [in the ongoing conflict] instead of fighter jets or heavy missiles represents a lower-level military option. Drones are less heavily armed than manned aircraft, so in one sense, this is a restrained move. However, if this is merely a prelude to a broader aerial campaign, the calculus changes entirely,” Manoj Joshi, an Indian defence analyst, told the BBC.

Ejaz Haider believes the recent drone activity in Jammu “appears to be a tactical response to immediate provocations, not a full-scale retaliation [by Pakistan]”.

“A true retaliatory strike against India would involve shock and awe. It would likely be more comprehensive, involving multiple platforms – both manned and unmanned – and targeting a broader range of objectives. Such an operation would aim to deliver a decisive impact, signalling a significant escalation beyond the current tit-for-tat exchanges,” Mr Haider says.

While drones have fundamentally reshaped the battlefield in Ukraine, their role in the India-Pakistan conflict remains more limited and symbolic, say experts. Both countries are using their manned air forces to fire missiles at one another as well.

“The drone warfare we’re witnessing may not last long; it could be just the beginning of a larger conflict,” says Mr Joshi.

“This could either signal a de-escalation or an escalation – both possibilities are on the table. We’re at an inflection point; the direction we take from here is uncertain.”

Clearly India is integrating drones into its precision-strike doctrine, enabling stand-off targeting without crossing borders with manned aircraft. However, this evolution also raises critical questions.

“Drones lower the political and operational threshold for action, providing options to surveil and strike while trying to reduce escalation risks,” says Prof Matisek.

“But they also create new escalation dynamics: every drone shot down, every radar blinded, becomes a potential flashpoint in this tense environment between two nuclear powers.”

Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk has been released from an immigration detention facility in Louisiana hours after a federal judge ordered her to be freed.

“Thank you so much. I am a little bit tired, so I will take some time to rest,” she told reporters and supporters who were crowded outside the facility.

US District Judge William Sessions said the student met all the conditions needed for release and lambasted the government’s case against her.

Ms Otzurk, a doctoral student from Turkey, co-authored an opinion piece in her campus newspaper that was critical of Israel’s war. Her arrest follows the White House’s crackdown on what it has classified as antisemitism on US campuses.

“Her continued detention chills the speech of millions in this country who are not citizens,” the judge said on Friday as he ordered her release.

Ms Ozturk walked out the detention facility after six weeks greeted by cheers and with her hands on her heart.

She had been detained since March, when US immigration officials arrested her on the streets in Massachusetts. Videos of the arrest showed masked plain-clothes officers surrounding her after a Ramadan celebration, handcuffing her and then taking her into an unmarked car. Her detention sparked nationwide protests.

The US Department of Homeland Security had accused Ms Ozturk of “engag[ing] in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans”.

After the judge’s ruling, a DHS spokesperson responded: “Visas provided to foreign students to live and study in the United States are a privilege not a right. The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”

Earlier this week, the judge ordered that Ms Ozturk be transferred by 14 May to immigration authorities in Vermont, where she was last held before she was moved to Louisiana.

On Friday, Judge Sessions said that she should be released immediately without travel restrictions, so she can go to Vermont or Massachusetts, where Tufts is located, as needed.

He heard from a number of witnesses in the case, including Ms Ozturk, her doctor and a Tufts University professor. The government did not call any witnesses during Friday’s hearing.

During her testimony, which she offered virtually, Ms Ozturk told the court about her Fulbright scholarship and her PhD work. She said her asthma condition had worsened during her detention, and at one point she had to take a short break after suffering an asthma attack on camera.

Judge Sessions said Ms Ozturk had raised “very substantial” claims that her First Amendment right to free speech and her due process rights were violated. He said the only evidence the administration had against Ms Ozturk was her op-ed.

“That literally is the case,” he said, according to court reporters. “There is no evidence that she has engaged in violence or advocated violence.”

In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Ms Ozturk, said they were “delighted” by her release.

“Rümeysa can now return to her beloved Tufts community, resume her studies, and begin teaching again,” said Noor Zafar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU. “Today’s ruling underscores a vital First Amendment principle: No one should be imprisoned by the government for expressing their beliefs.”

A spokesman for Tufts said the university is “pleased” with the judge’s ruling, adding: “We look forward to welcoming her back to campus to resume her doctoral studies”.

The Trump administration has detained several international students – some legal residents – who have organised in support of the Palestinians.

Last week, a judge ordered the government to release Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi after immigration officials detained him during a naturalisation interview.

The 34-year-old permanent resident was raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank and had been held at a facility in Vermont.

One of the highest profile cases thus far involves Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent pro-Palestinian activist, who remains in a Louisiana detention facility without charges.

A diver has died during preliminary operations to recover British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s superyacht from the waters off the coast of northern Sicily, local police said.

The accident happened on Friday while the diver was underwater in Porticello, police said, adding the precise cause of death was still unknown.

According to local Italian media, the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for a specialist salvage company.

It comes as salvage ships arrived earlier this month to waters off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, where the Bayesian vessel sank during freak weather last August.

Seven of the 22 people onboard the Bayesian last summer were killed, including Mr Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy, 71, US lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the yacht’s chef Recaldo Thomas, who was originally from Antigua, also died in the sinking on 19 August.

Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat including a one-year-old and Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares.

The cause of the sinking is still under investigation with naval experts saying a yacht of Bayesian’s calibre should have been able to withstand the storm and certainly should not have sunk as rapidly as it did.

The salvage operation is being overseen by British marine consultancy TMC Marine and led by Dutch-based companies Hebo, a maritime services company from Rotterdam, and SMIT Salvage, with support from Italian specialists.

About 70 specialist personnel have been deployed to Sicily from across Europe to work on the recovery operation.

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On Thursday, the team said on-site preparations were on schedule and “significant progress” had been made over the past five days.

Analysis of the yacht and the surrounding seabed confirmed there had been no change to its condition since the last inspection, meaning plans to raise the vessel can now go ahead.

Work to move the Bayesian into an upright position and lift it to the surface was scheduled to begin later this month – subject to suitable weather and sea conditions.

Before the vessel is transported to port, sea water will be pumped out of it.

Before the Bayesian is raised it will be held in position by steel slings, as salvage workers detach the vessel’s extensive rigging and 72m (236ft) mast, thought to be one of the tallest in the world.

These will then be stored on the seabed and recovered after the team has recovered the ship’s hull, which investigators say is a primary source of evidence.

There has not been any pollution from the yacht reported, with conditions being monitored and efforts made to secure its tank vents and openings.

Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as Mr and Mrs Bloomer, who were all British nationals.

Mr Lynch and his daughter were said to have lived in the vicinity of London, and the Bloomers lived in Sevenoaks in Kent.

The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was cleared in June last year of carrying out a massive fraud over the sale of the firm to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.

Former British Army officer and mercenary Simon Mann, who was part of a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea in 2004, has died of a heart attack while exercising, friends confirmed.

The 72-year-old made millions of pounds from protecting businesses in conflict zones before he took part in the failed attempt to overthrow the west African nation’s ruler.

Mann was sentenced to 34 years in prison on arms charges and later said he had been the “manager, not the architect” of the scheme.

In 2009, the ex-SAS commando was pardoned, released and given 48 hours to leave the country.

The plot had been an attempt to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema – at the time Mann and co-conspirators said the aim was to install exiled opposition leader Severo Moto.

It was uncovered after police in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare impounded a plane which had flown in from South Africa.

Mann and more than 60 others were arrested, amid claims they were mercenaries.

They said they were providing security for a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Mann attended private boys’ school Eton before studying at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy and then joining the Scots Guards.

He became a member of the SAS – the army’s special forces unit – and rose through the ranks to become a commander.

In 2011, he said the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea – which saw him arrested with fellow mercenaries after trying to load weapons onto a plane in Zimbabwe – was foiled by the CIA.

After serving three years of his 34-year sentence in Zimbabwe, he was moved to Black Beach Prison in Equatorial Guinea.

Speaking in 2011 about that move, he said “friends, family, and enemies” had told him “if that happens, you have had it, you’re a dead man”.

After being pardoned and released, he expressed regret for what he had done, saying that “however good the money is”, the moral case “has to stack up”.

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

The 69-year-old is the first American to become a pontiff and will lead members of the Catholic Church’s global community of 1.4bn people.

Born in Chicago, he is seen as a reformer and worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there.

He also has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges in the local Church.

One of the first acts of a new pope is to choose a new name, changing their baptismal one.

The decision is part of a longstanding tradition but it has not always been like that.

For more than 500 years, popes used their own names.

This then changed to symbolic names in order to simplify their given names or to refer to previous pontiffs.

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Over the years, popes have often chosen the names of their immediate or distant predecessors out of respect or admiration and to signal the desire to follow in their footsteps and continue the most relevant pontificates.

For example, Pope Francis said his name honoured St Francis of Assisi, and that he was inspired by his Brazilian friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes.

The new Pope has not yet specified why he has decided to be known as Pope Leo XIV.

There could be many reasons for it, but the name Leo has been used by many popes over the years.

Pope Leo I, also known as St Leo the Great, was pontiff between 440 and 461 AD.

He was the 45th pope in history and became known for his commitment to peace.

According to legend, the miraculous apparition of Saints Peter and Paul during the meeting between Pope Leo I and Attila the king of the Huns in 452 AD made the latter desist from invading Italy.

The scene was then depicted by Raphael in a fresco.

The last pope to choose the name Leo was Pope Leo XIII, an Italian whose baptismal name was Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci.

Elected in 1878, he was the 256th occupant of the throne of St Peter and led the Catholic Church until his death in 1903.

He is remembered as a pope who was dedicated to social policies and social justice.

He is particularly known for issuing an encyclical – a letter sent to bishops of the Church – called “Rerum Novarum”, a Latin expression which means “Of New Things”.

The encyclical included topics such as workers’ rights and social justice.

Leo is among some of the most popular papal names.

The most commonly used name has been John, first chosen in 523 by Saint John I, Pope and martyr.

The last pope to choose this name was Italian Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, who was proclaimed Saint by Pope Francis in 2014.

The fact that the conclave was over quickly suggests that from the outset, a significant number of the voting cardinals felt Robert Prevost was the one amongst them best equipped to take on the challenges a pope faces.

In the lead up to the election – during the formal meetings of cardinals, and the informal dinners and coffees they had to discuss the type of person they were looking for – it was apparent that two words kept coming up, “continuity” and “unity”.

There was a recognition among many that Pope Francis had started something hugely impactful, through reaching out to those living on the margins of society, to those on the peripheries of the Catholic world and also to those outside the faith.

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There was appreciation for his endeavour to become a voice for the voiceless and focus on the poor and those whose destinies were not in their own hands.

But there was also a sense that work had to be done to resolve the (sometimes very public) splits between those of different schools of thought within the Church hierarchy, often characterised as traditionalist and progressive.

It was in that context that Robert Prevost’s name started to be talked of as a serious contender. As someone who supported Pope Francis behind the scenes, but who different factions could still think of as one of their own.

But the voting cardinals had been tasked by the Church with considering not just what the institution and Catholic believers needed, but also what humanity needed at a difficult juncture, with war and division the backdrop.

Again, Cardinal Prevost – the US-Peruvian dual national, who was talked of as feeling as at home with his North American peers as he was with Latin American colleagues – was seen as someone who, as pope, could connect different worlds.

Pope Francis was sometimes criticised for lacking an ability to win more allies in the US on the big issues of migration, climate change and inequality, because of a disconnect in understanding the most effective ways of communicating his arguments to them.

For those who had in their minds that the primary requirement being sought of a new pope was an ability to bring “continuity” and “unity”, during his speech on St Peter’s balcony, Leo XIV gave strong clues as to why the cardinals chose him.

In his talk of “building bridges” and people globally being “one people” he evoked echoes of Pope Francis and also talked of unity at its fullest.

In these early days, his past will be heavily scrutinised. His political views examined, his track record on dealing with abuse dissected, and his comments over the years on social issues charted.

Much of this is already in the public domain so it can only be assumed that the cardinal electors felt there was nothing of enough consequence to impair his ability to lead the Catholic Church and be the global moral voice they were looking for.

Huge challenges lie ahead. But with resolution after just four conclave votes, he starts out with a strong mandate from the men he will need the most through his papacy.

Even before his name was announced from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, the crowds below were chanting “Viva il Papa” – Long live the Pope.

Robert Francis Prevost, 69, has become the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV.

He is the first American to fill the role of pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru.

Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Leo served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.

Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city.

He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges.

He spent 10 years as a local parish pastor and as a teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in north-western Peru.

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In his first words as Pope, Leo spoke fondly of his predecessor Francis.

“We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us,” he said.

“United and hand-in-hand with God, let us advance together,” he told cheering crowds.

The Pope also spoke of his role in the Augustinian Order.

In 2014, Francis made him Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru.

He is well known to cardinals because of his high-profile role as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Latin America which has the important task of selecting and supervising bishops.

He became archbishop in January 2023 and within a few months, Francis made him a cardinal.

The new pontiff was born in Chicago in 1955, and served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.

Before becoming the new leader of the Catholic Church, Leo told Italian network Rai that he grew up in a family of immigrants.

“I was born in the United States… But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish… I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish,” he said.

Although Leo was born in the US, the Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas (Francis was from Argentina).

Jari Honora, a genealogist and historian in the US state of Louisiana, said Leo has strong ties to New Orleans’ black community.

He told the BBC that the new pontiff’s maternal grandparents lived in a now-demolished home in the city’s seventh ward, and she also rented a place in the iconic Pontalba building in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Mr Honora said Pope Leo’s grandparents are described as black or mulatto in historical records, but that the family’s identity was listed as white when they moved to Chicago – a common practice among black families looking to escape racial segregation.

The Pope’s background “indicates that [American] stories, the experiences of our ancestors are more tightly woven than we could have ever imagined,” he said.

“It shrinks that gap between Rome and New Orleans or New Orleans and Chicago.”

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Early attention will focus on Leo XIV’s pronouncements to see whether he will continue his predecessor’s reforms in the Roman Catholic Church.

In choosing his papal name, Leo has signified a commitment to dynamic social issues, according to experts.

The first pontiff to use the name Leo, whose papacy ended in 461, met Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to attack Rome.

The last Pope Leo led the Church from 1878 to 1903 and wrote an influential treatise on workers’ rights.

Former Archbishop of Boston Seán Patrick O’Malley wrote on his blog that the new pontiff “has chosen a name widely associated with the social justice legacy of Pope Leo XIII, who was pontiff at a time of epic upheaval in the world, the time of the industrial revolution, the beginning of Marxism, and widespread immigration”.

The new Pope’s LGBT views are unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less supportive than Francis.

Leo XIV has shown support for a declaration from Francis to permit blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular situations”, although he has added that bishops must interpret such directives in accordance with local contexts and cultures.

Speaking last year about climate change, Cardinal Prevost said that it was time to move “from words to action”.

He called on mankind to build a “relationship of reciprocity” with the environment.

And he has spoken about concrete measures at the Vatican, including the installation of solar panels and the adoption of electric vehicles.

Pope Leo XIV has supported Pope Francis’ decision to allow women for the first time to join the Dicastery for Bishops, an administrative body that identifies and recommends future bishops to the Holy See.

“On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment,” he told Vatican News in 2023.

In 2024, he told the Catholic News Service that women’s presence “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry”.

The new pontiff is believed to have shared Francis’ views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

A former roommate of his, Reverend John Lydon, described Leo to the BBC as “outgoing”, “down to earth” and “very concerned with the poor”.

In recent months, he appears to have challenged the views of US Vice-President JD Vance.

A social media account in his name shared a social media post on X that was critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of a US resident to El Salvador.

The account also shared a critical comment piece written about a TV interview by Vance.

“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” read the post, repeating the headline from the commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website.

Shortly after, the account shared another article, published by The Jesuit Review, and commented that Catholics “cannot support a rhetoric that demonizes immigrants as dangerously criminal simply because they have crossed the border in search of a better life for themselves and their families”.

The BBC has contacted the Vatican but has not independently confirmed the account, which was created in 2011, belongs to the new pontiff.

Leo moved to Peru as a missionary in 1985 to work in various rural communities.

He was known for working with marginalised people, and immersed himself in learning Spanish.

After a stint back in the United States, he returned to Peru again in 1988 to the city of Trujillo on the north coast where he trained young men to be priests and taught canon law.

In late 2014, when he was back in the US, he was put forward by Pope Francis to return to Peru as the Apostolic Administrator of Chiclayo, a diocese on Peru’s north coast and the following year he was appointed the Bishop of Chiclayo. He served in this role for nearly a decade.

In 2015, he obtained Peruvian citizenship. He reportedly often referred to Peru as “mi segunda patria”, my second homeland.

He championed various charities such as supporting soup kitchens and childcare for struggling families, and advocated for better housing on the north coast, which is prone to floods.

But not all in the country are proud of his record.

Accusations have been made about his handling of sexual abuse cases during his time as Bishop of Chiclayo. Three Peruvian women are among those who went public with claims that – as bishop – he failed to investigate and punish a priest accused of sexually abusing them, with claims dating back to 2007.

They said that when they raised their allegations with the diocese in 2022, no substantial or serious inquiry was opened.

Church officials denied this and said an investigation was opened, but was closed in 2023 by the ecclesiastical district and the Vatican after a local prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to support the civil claim.

An investigation by the prosecutor was reopened after media reports about the case and the BBC understands it is ongoing.

The BBC spoke in Chiclayo to Jesus Leon Angeles, who supports the parish where the accused priest works.

She said while the parish was “in defence of women”, it was also “in defence of the truth” and claimed the allegations were part of a “campaign” against Leo when he became a cardinal in Rome.

These allegations and the continued fallout from sexual abuse scandals within the Church are one of the challenges he will face as he now leads Catholics worldwide.

The church where Pope Leo XIV attended mass as a child and served as an altar boy is now an empty shell.

Only the stained glass windows remain intact inside the sturdy facade of St Mary’s of the Assumption on the far edge of Chicago’s South Side.

The disrepair is one indication of how the Catholic Church’s power and influence has been ebbing away in America’s big cities.

And yet, around this city there’s palpable excitement, particularly among Catholics, that the new pontiff is not only American – he’s a South Side Chicagoan.

“When they said the new Pope was an American, I flipped out, I said ‘no way’!” said Mary Simons, a French teacher and nearby resident who brought her mother to see St Mary’s.

“The Church seems like it’s getting smaller and smaller in this country,” said Ms Simons. “I’m hoping that this will rejuvenate the church and make it bigger and better.”

A small trickle of Catholics, along with a few non-Catholics, made their way to St Mary’s on Thursday afternoon as the news spread that Pope Leo XIV – until recently, Cardinal Robert Prevost – had been elected by his fellow cardinals in Rome.

While some lamented over the poor state of the neighbourhood church – “It’s shocking to see this” remarked one visitor – several were close to tears as they considered the humble roots of their new leader.

Natalie Payne attended the church and the school associated with it. She hadn’t heard the news but just happened to be driving by when she saw the small crowd outside and stopped to take in the moment.

“We loved this school. It was a very family oriented place and very accepting of difference,” she said. “I was one of the very few black people who attended this school, but I always felt part of the community. It was just a beautiful place.”

Catholics make up about 20% of the US population, according to Pew Research, a number that dropped from 24% at the start of the century. Attendance has fallen and the decline is noticeable in the big industrial cities of the Midwest, in closed schools and shuttered houses of worship like St Mary’s.

Leo XIV grew up in a modest home just a few streets away from here. The Chicago Sun-Times reported his parents – his father was a school administrator and his mother a librarian – bought their home in 1949, paying a mortgage of $42 a month.

His father was of French and Italian decent and his mother had Spanish heritage, according to a Vatican news release.

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Charleen Burnette, one of the Pope’s former classmates, told the BBC she remembers him as a “quiet, kind, gentle, wicked-smart kid”.

“He was always the top of our class, all the time,” she said, recalling how he always knew he wanted to be a priest and would stay late to sweep and dust St Mary’s as a boy.

“He vocalised it. He lived it. He exemplified it,” she said.

In recent years, the Catholic Church has not only weathered declining attendance but also child abuse scandals that continue to resonate today.

The Midwest Augustinians, a religious order in Chicago which Pope Leo once led, only published a list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse in 2024, after years of public pressure.

As a cardinal, Prevost was criticised after being accused of allowing a priest facing sex abuse allegations to live in an Augustinian building near an elementary school. The priest was later moved and the religious order says it has tried to be transparent.

There is a common feeling here that the church has not fully reckoned with the past but despite that, many Catholics here expressed hope for the new Pope’s reign.

Outside Holy Name Cathedral, the centre of the Catholic Church in downtown Chicago, workers were hanging bunting to prepare for a special mass on Friday morning.

Father Gregory Sakowicz, rector of Holy Name, said he was just about to preside over mass at the cathedral when the news broke.

“When I saw the white smoke on TV, I looked out the window and the sun came out here in Chicago,” he said.

“Later, during holy communion someone told me, ‘Father, the new Pope is Father Robert Prevost from Chicago.’ I was shocked.”

Fr Sakowicz said Pope Leo XIV “will be his own man” but added that he was confident that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and be “a voice for human rights, a voice for the voiceless, concerned with the poor, and concerned for our mother Earth”.

And in this sport-mad city, there’s one question that might nearly match the importance of the new Pope’s theological direction – which of the city’s baseball teams does he root for?

Although there were some reports that he backs the Chicago Cubs, in interviews the new pope’s brother has said he cheers for the White Sox – the team with a passionate South Side fan base. Both teams on X, however, have claimed the new Pope’s support.

“Go White Sox – and go Cubs,” said Fr Sakowicz. “There’s just a lot of enthusiasm and joy around here.

“He might be from Chicago, but he will be a pope for the whole world, not just Chicago, not just the US, not just North America – but the entire world.”

The world’s first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbours has erupted in South Asia.

On Thursday, India accused Pakistan of launching waves of drones and missiles at three military bases in Indian territory and Indian-administered Kashmir – an allegation Islamabad swiftly denied.

Pakistan claimed it had shot down 25 Indian drones in recent hours. Delhi remained publicly silent. Experts say the tit-for-tat attacks mark a dangerous new phase in the decades-old rivalry, as both sides exchange not just artillery but unmanned weapons across a volatile border.

As Washington and other global powers urge restraint, the region is teetering on the edge of escalation, with drones – silent, remote and deniable – opening a new chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict.

“The Indo-Pak conflict is moving into a new drone era – one where ‘invisible eyes’ and unmanned precision may determine escalation or restraint. Thus, in South Asia’s contested skies, the side that masters drone warfare won’t just see the battlefield – they’ll shape it,” Jahara Matisek, a professor at the US Naval War College, told the BBC.

• Follow our live updates

Since Wednesday morning, Pakistan says Indian air strikes and cross-border fire have killed 36 people and injured 57 more in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. On the other side, India’s army reports at least 16 civilians dead from Pakistani shelling. India insists its missile barrage was retaliation for a deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month – an attack Islamabad denies any role in.

Pakistan’s military announced on Thursday that it had shot down 25 Indian drones across various cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. The drones – reportedly Israeli-made Harop drones – were reportedly intercepted using both technical and weapon-based countermeasures. India claimed to have neutralised several Pakistani air defence radars and systems, including one in Lahore, which Islamabad denied.

Laser-guided missiles and bombs, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become pivotal in modern warfare, significantly enhancing the precision and efficiency of military operations. These can relay co-ordinates for airstrikes or, if equipped, directly laser-designate targets, and help immediate engagement.

Drones can be used as decoys or suppression of enemy air defences, flying into contested airspace to trigger enemy radar emissions, which can then be targeted by other munitions like loitering drones or anti-radiation missiles. “This is how Ukraine and Russia both do it in their war. This dual role – targeting and triggering – makes drones a force multiplier in degrading enemy air defences without risking manned aircraft,” says Prof Matisek.

Experts say India’s drone fleet is largely built around Israeli-made reconnaissance UAVs like the IAI Searcher and Heron, along with Harpy and Harop loitering munitions – drones that double as missiles, capable of autonomous reconnaissance and precision strikes. The Harop, in particular, signals a shift toward high-value, precision-targeted warfare, reflecting the growing importance of loitering munitions in modern conflict, experts say.

The Heron, say experts, is India’s “high-altitude eyes in the sky” for both peacetime monitoring and combat operations. The IAI Searcher Mk II is designed for frontline operations, offering up to 18 hours of endurance, a range of 300km (186 miles), and a service ceiling of 7,000m (23,000ft).

While many believe India’s combat drone numbers remain “modest”, a recent $4bn deal to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator drones – which can can fly for 40 hours and up to an altitude of 40,000ft – from the US marks a major leap in its strike capabilities.

India is also developing swarm drone tactics – deploying large numbers of smaller UAVs to overwhelm and saturate air defences, allowing higher-value assets to penetrate, say experts.

Pakistan’s drone fleet is “extensive and diverse”, comprising both indigenous and imported systems, Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst told the BBC.

He said the inventory includes “over a thousand drones”, featuring models from China, Turkey and domestic manufacturers. Notable platforms include the Chinese CH-4, the Turkish Bayraktar Akinci, and Pakistan’s own Burraq and Shahpar drones. Additionally, Pakistan has developed loitering munitions, enhancing its strike capabilities.

Mr Haider said the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has been actively integrating unmanned systems into its operations for nearly a decade. A key focus is the development of “loyal wingman” drones – unmanned aerial vehicles designed to operate in co-ordination with manned aircraft, he added.

Prof Matisek believes “Israel’s technical assistance, supplying Harop and Heron drones, has been pivotal for India, while Pakistan’s reliance on Turkish and Chinese platforms highlights an ongoing arms race”.

While the recent drone exchanges between India and Pakistan mark a significant escalation in their rivalry, they differ markedly from the drone-centric warfare observed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, experts say. There, drones become central to military operations, with both sides deploying thousands of UAVs for surveillance, targeting and direct attacks.

“Deploying drones [in the ongoing conflict] instead of fighter jets or heavy missiles represents a lower-level military option. Drones are less heavily armed than manned aircraft, so in one sense, this is a restrained move. However, if this is merely a prelude to a broader aerial campaign, the calculus changes entirely,” Manoj Joshi, an Indian defence analyst, told the BBC.

Ejaz Haider believes the recent drone activity in Jammu “appears to be a tactical response to immediate provocations, not a full-scale retaliation [by Pakistan]”.

“A true retaliatory strike against India would involve shock and awe. It would likely be more comprehensive, involving multiple platforms – both manned and unmanned – and targeting a broader range of objectives. Such an operation would aim to deliver a decisive impact, signalling a significant escalation beyond the current tit-for-tat exchanges,” Mr Haider says.

While drones have fundamentally reshaped the battlefield in Ukraine, their role in the India-Pakistan conflict remains more limited and symbolic, say experts. Both countries are using their manned air forces to fire missiles at one another as well.

“The drone warfare we’re witnessing may not last long; it could be just the beginning of a larger conflict,” says Mr Joshi.

“This could either signal a de-escalation or an escalation – both possibilities are on the table. We’re at an inflection point; the direction we take from here is uncertain.”

Clearly India is integrating drones into its precision-strike doctrine, enabling stand-off targeting without crossing borders with manned aircraft. However, this evolution also raises critical questions.

“Drones lower the political and operational threshold for action, providing options to surveil and strike while trying to reduce escalation risks,” says Prof Matisek.

“But they also create new escalation dynamics: every drone shot down, every radar blinded, becomes a potential flashpoint in this tense environment between two nuclear powers.”

Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers have been found guilty of cutting down the iconic Sycamore Gap tree. The deliberate felling of the tree on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland angered people around the world. For the man who was first on the scene, it was a moment that changed his life forever.

Park ranger Gary Pickles was in shock.

Where once had stood arguably England’s favourite tree, there was now just air.

When the call had come through earlier that morning, Gary had thought it was a prank.

His working day on 28 September 2023 had barely started when a farmer called his office to report the tree was down.

“I doubted a farmer would be telling us a silly story so I thought ‘oh my god, I think this might be true’.”

The team of park rangers were alerted by email and Gary got in his van to drive to the tree.

With every passing minute of the short journey, his anxiety levels increased.

“As I got nearer and nearer, I just thought ‘it’s gone, it’s gone’.”

He’d arrived at the road adjacent to the tree and had to “double take” as he saw it for the first time lying on its side.

“It was shock,” said Gary, who was met with a gaping hole in the landscape.

At this stage, he presumed the tree had been damaged in Storm Agnes, which had brought strong winds overnight.

“When you look and it’s gone, it’s just….oh my god,” he said.

“It’s a landmark. It’s a piece of the landscape.”

Gary needed to investigate further. He parked his van in a nearby car park and rushed on foot to the fallen tree.

The sadness he was feeling soon turned to anger and panic.

“When I got there I realised it had been chopped down and not blown down.

“There was a clean cut so that escalated it up.

“Once you realise it’s been chopped down, then it’s going to become a massive worldwide story.”

The seriousness of the developing situation quickly became apparent.

Gary hastily reported back to Northumberland National Park’s headquarters that it appeared that the tree had been cut down deliberately. At this stage there was no time to consider who by or why.

Just after 09:00 BST, the National Park alerted colleagues at the National Trust, including general manager Andrew Poad.

“My personal phone started lighting up. Messages were coming through on my laptop.

“Once I realised it was a deliberate act, crisis mode kicked in,” said Andrew, whose priority was to personally inform people before they saw it on social media.

“It was like ringing people up to tell them that someone had passed away.

“On the day I was using the expression ‘it’s like losing a loved one’. We all went through that grief.

“There were numerous members of staff in tears.”

Viral photographs shared on social media showed the tree on its side, as the PR teams at the National Park and the National Trust frantically collaborated on an official response.

“Within the hour it was global, effectively,” Andrew said.

Shortly before 11:00, a statement from the organisations confirmed the tree had been cut down.

At around midday, Northumbria Police announced it was being treated as “a deliberate act of vandalism”.

Local journalists were already carrying out interviews at the scene, before reporters from around the world turned the grassy mound opposite the stump into a “sea of camera tripods”.

“It is the largest press story that the National Trust has ever dealt with,” Andrew said.

“It was one of the things that surprised us. The sheer scale of the global reach of the interest really took us back a bit.”

The usual calming sound of the vast countryside was drowned out by the clicks of cameras and the engines of broadcast trucks.

“We knew it was popular, but we didn’t know how popular,” Andrew said.

The international interest also surprised Gary.

“My sister lives in France, my brother is in America, and by dinner time they’d both rung me, so it was global news at such a fast rate.”

Senior management from the National Park and the National Trust spent the afternoon at the fallen tree, speaking to the crowds of emotional walkers and journalists.

Reporters gathered shocking footage of the trunk draped over a now damaged Hadrian’s Wall.

This idyllic, tranquil spot that had brought peace to so many was now a crime scene wrapped in blue and white police tape. Forensic officers in white suits also gathered DNA from the stump.

Eighteen months on from its felling, Andrew and Gary regularly reflect on the day that north-east England lost “a massive local landmark.”

“It’s just senseless. Who or what were they trying to get at?” said Andrew.

“It’s still a huge part of my life dealing with this. It’s a big gap in all our lives, never mind the landscape.”

It’s going to be a very sexy summer, a touch of romantic, cowboy and rock and roll.

That’s according to Mehdi Sousanne, at least. And he should know. He’s a designer for Zara who helps create the clothes for a brand that’s one of the most successful stories in High Street fashion.

Zara is owned by Inditex, the world’s biggest fashion retailer, which runs a string of store chains including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear.

It relies on 1,800 suppliers across the world, but nearly all the clothes are brought to Spain where the company is based, to be despatched to stores in 97 countries.

Zara doesn’t advertise and rarely gives interviews. But as it marks 50 years since the opening of its first store, I’ve come to its vast campus in Galicia to meet the boss and workers for a rare glimpse into how the secretive brand operates.

It’s a time when the company finds itself having to navigate fast-changing markets, with growing competition from ultra-cheap online players Shein and Temu, who ship their goods direct from China, as well as uncertainty surrounding US tariffs.

But Oscar Garcia Maceiras, Inditex’s CEO, says US President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t disrupt its supply chains or change Zara’s plans to expand further in the US, now its second biggest market.

“Bear in mind that for us, diversification is key. We are producing in almost 50 different markets with non-exclusive suppliers so we are more than used to adapt ourselves to change,” he tells me.

The business has certainly adapted and grown since its first store opened a short drive away in the town of A Coruna.

It now has 350 designers, with the staff coming from some 40 different countries.

“There are no rules in general. It’s all about feelings,” says Mehdi, who works on delivering the key pieces for the season.

He says inspiration can come from anyone ranging from the “street” to the cinema  as well as the catwalks. He likes to sketch his ideas once an all-important mood board has been created.

• Listen as the BBC goes behind the scenes at Zara’s headquarters

In the pattern cutting room, the designs are turned into paper samples, and are pinned on to mannequins. Dozens of seamstresses then run up the first fabric samples on the spot for a first fitting.

Pattern maker Mar Marcote has been with the business 42 years and still uses a magnifying glass to examine each item of clothing before it finally goes into production.

“When you finish the item and see that it looks good, and then sometimes sells out, it’s marvellous,” she says.

Zara is a business that has changed the way we shop.

In the old days, retailers released just two main collections a year, Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. For decades, most chains have outsourced manufacturing to lower-cost factories in the far east with the clothes arriving up to six months later.

Zara went against conventional wisdom by sourcing a lot of its clothes closer to home and changing products much more frequently. That meant it could respond much faster to the latest trends and drop new items into stores every week.

Just over half of its clothes are made in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey. There’s a factory doing small production runs on site at HQ, with another seven nearby, which it also owns.

As a result, it can turn around products in a matter of weeks.

More basic fashion staples are produced with longer lead times in countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Logistics and data are other factors behind its success. Every piece of clothing is packaged and despatched from its distribution centres in Spain, as well as one in the Netherlands.

“What is absolutely critical is the level of accuracy,” says CEO Mr Maceiras.

“It’s something that allows us to make the right decision in the last possible minute, in order to assess properly the appetite from our customers, in order to adapt our fashion proposition to the profile of our customers in different locations.”

In other words, getting the right products to the right shops.

At HQ, product managers then receive real-time data on how clothes are selling in stores worldwide, and – crucially – feedback from customers, which is then shared with designers and buyers, who can adjust the ranges along the season according to demand.

Unlike some other High Street rivals, it only discounts when it stages its twice-yearly sales.

But is Zara starting to lose its shine after posting slower sales growth at the start of this year?

“The key challenge for Inditex is continuing to be relevant in a fashion world that continues to get faster and cheaper,” says William Woods, European retail analyst for Bernstein.

Not only are mainstream rivals like H&M, Mango and Uniqlo trying to catch up, the market has been disrupted by Shein and Temu.

Shein racked up $38bn in global sales last year, just a whisker behind Inditex.

Asked how much of a threat Shein and Temu’s success poses to Zara, Mr Maceiras stresses that its business model doesn’t rely on price.

“Of course, we are looking at providing our customers our products at an affordable price. But for us, it’s critical to provide customers fashion that should be inspirational, with quality, creativity and sustainable.”

Zara has come a long way since its founder Amancio Ortega started the business.

The company is still majority-owned by his family and his daughter Marta is now chairwoman of the group.

Now aged 89, Mr Ortega remains famously reclusive but still pops in, according to Mr Maceiras.

“He’s a presence, a physical or moral presence, absolutely every day.”

From a woman waving a colonial-era flag in a shopping mall, to bakery staff selling cakes with protest symbols on them – dozens of Hongkongers have been reported to the police by one man for what he believes were national security violations.

“We’re in every corner of society, watching, to see if there is anything suspicious which could infringe on the national security law,” former banker Innes Tang tells the BBC World Service.

“If we find these things, we go and report it to the police.”

When the UK returned Hong Kong to China 28 years ago, internationally binding treaties guaranteed the city’s rights and freedoms for 50 years. But the national security law (NSL), imposed by Beijing a year after Hong Kong’s 2019 mass pro-democracy protests, has been criticised for scuttling free speech and press, and for ushering in a new culture of informing.

The law criminalises activities considered to be calls for “secession” (breaking away from China), “subversion” (undermining the power or authority of the government), and collusion with foreign forces.

An additional security law called Article 23, voted in last year, has further tightened restrictions.

With new laws and arrests, there has been limited reporting on Hong Kong’s pro-China “patriots” – the people who are now running and policing the city, as well as the ordinary citizens who openly support them. But the BBC has spent weeks interviewing Innes Tang, 60, a prominent self-described patriot.

He and his volunteers have taken screen grabs from social media of any activities or comments they believe could be in breach of the NSL.

He also established a hotline for tip-offs from the public and encouraged his online followers to share information on the people around them.

Nearly 100 individuals and organisations have been reported to the authorities by him and his followers, he says.

“Does reporting work? We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t,” Mr Tang says. “Many had cases opened by the police… with some resulting in jail terms.”

Mr Tang says he hasn’t investigated alleged law breakers himself, but simply reported incidents he thinks warrant scrutiny – describing it as “proper community-police co-operation”.

Mr Tang is not the only so-called patriot to engage in this kind of surveillance.

Hong Kong’s authorities have set up their own national security hotline, receiving 890,000 tip-offs from November 2020 to February this year – the city’s security bureau told the BBC.

For those who are reported to the authorities, pressure can be relentless.

Since the NSL was enacted in 2020, up until February this year, more than 300 people had been arrested for national security offences. And an estimated 300,000 or more Hongkongers have permanently left the city in recent years.

Pong Yat-ming, the owner of an independent bookshop that hosts public talks, says he often receives inspections from government departments which cite “anonymous complaints”.

He received 10 visits in one 15-day period, he says.

Kenneth Chan, political scientist and university lecturer, who has been involved in the city’s pro-democracy movement since the 1990s, jokes he has “become a bit radioactive these days”.

Some friends, students and colleagues now keep their distance because of his outspoken views, he says. “But I would be the last person to blame the victims. It’s the system.”

In response, Hong Kong’s government said it “attaches great importance to upholding academic freedom and institutional autonomy”. But it adds that academic institutions “have the responsibility to ensure their operations are in compliance with the law and meet the interests of the community at large”.

Innes Tang says he is motivated to report people by a love of Hong Kong, and that his views on China were cultivated when he was young, when the city was still a British colony.

“The colonial policies weren’t really that great,” he says. “The best opportunities were always given to the British and we [the locals] did not really have access.”

Like many of his generation, he nursed a longing to be united with China and taken out of colonial governance. But he says many other Hongkongers at the time were more concerned with their livelihoods than their rights.

“Democracy or freedom. These were all very abstract ideas which we didn’t really understand,” he says.

An average citizen should not become too involved in politics, he says, explaining he only became politically active to restore what he calls “balance” to Hong Kong society following the turbulence of 2019.

He is giving a voice, he says, to what he calls “the silent majority” of Hongkongers who do not support independence from China, nor the disruption created by the protests.

But other Hongkongers consider rallies and demonstrations a longstanding tradition, and one of the only ways to voice public opinion in a city that now does not have a fully democratically elected leadership.

“We are no longer a city of protests,” says Kenneth Chan, who specialises in Eastern European politics. “So what are we? I don’t have the answer yet.”

And patriotism isn’t inherently a negative thing, he says.

It is “a value, maybe even a virtue”, he argues, although it needs to allow citizens to keep “a critical distance” – something that is not happening in Hong Kong.

Electoral reform was pushed through in 2021 – stating that only “patriots” who “swore loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party” could hold important positions in government or the Legislative Council [LegCo] – Hong Kong’s parliament.

As a result, the council struggles to function, believes Hong Kong-based China commentator Lew Mon-hung, a former member of the Chinese government advisory body, the CPPCC.

“The public think a lot of these patriots are ‘verbal revolutionaries’ or political opportunists – they don’t really represent the people,” he says.

“That’s why ridiculous policies still pass with a huge majority. There is no-one to constrain or oppose, no-one to scrutinise.”

Even patriot Innes Tang says he wants to see the current system challenged.

“I don’t want to see every policy passing with 90% of the vote,” he tells the BBC.

There is a danger the National Security Law will be weaponised, he says, with people saying: “If you don’t agree with me, I accuse you of infringement of the national security law.”

“I don’t agree with this type of stuff,” says Mr Tang.

Hong Kong’s government said: “The improved LegCo is now rid of extremists who wish to obstruct and even paralyse the operation of the government without any intention of entering into constructive dialogue to represent the interests of all Hong Kong people.”

For now, says Mr Tang, he has stopped reporting on people. Balance and stability, he believes, has returned to Hong Kong.

The number of large-scale protests has dwindled to none at all.

In academia, fear of surveillance – and how life might change for someone who infringes the laws – means self-censorship and censorship have become the “order of the day”, says Kenneth Chan.

Pro-democracy parties are no longer represented in the Legislative Council and many have disbanded – including the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, once the most powerful party.

Innes Tang has now set his sights overseas.

“There aren’t any particular issues in Hong Kong now, so I asked myself – shouldn’t I have a look at how I can continue to serve my community and my country?” he says.

“For a non-politician and civilian like me, this is an invaluable opportunity.”

He now works as a representative for one of several pro-Beijing non-profit groups, regularly visiting the UN in Geneva to speak at conventions giving China’s perspective on Hong Kong, human rights and other issues.

Mr Tang is also in the process of establishing a media company in Switzerland, and registering as a member of the press.

For Kenneth Chan in Hong Kong, his future hangs in the balance.

“One third of my friends and students are now in exile, another third of my friends and students are in jail, and I’m sort of… in limbo,” he says.

“Today I’m speaking freely with you… no-one would promise me that I would continue doing it for the rest of my life.”

In a written reply to the BBC, a Hong Kong government spokesperson said that national security is a top priority and inherent right for any country. It “only targets an extremely small minority of people and organisations that pose a threat to national security, while protecting the lives and property of the general public”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin make it look like they’re the best of friends.

Xi took his place at the right-hand side of Putin, the position of a steadfast ally, as their troops marched together on Red Square as part of Moscow’s Victory Day parade.

Hours earlier, Xi described the bond between the two countries as “unbreakable” and added that Russia and China should be “friends of steel”.

This is Xi’s 11th visit to Russia since becoming president in 2013 and the two leaders have met on more than 40 occasions.

Putin has already announced plans to visit China in the autumn and the two leaders have even, in the past, shared a rare public hug.

But there is more to this relationship than meets the eye.

“We see a lot of exchanges between the two men and patriotic displays of togetherness,” said Mathieu Boulegue, from the Center for European Policy Analysis.

“They can be friends on one end or co-operating on one end and then ripping each other apart on others, and actually be competitors in certain aspects of their relationship.

“We get wowed by the symbolism. There’s a lot of performance around this relationship. But it’s interesting to look at the real substance.”

• Putin and Xi no longer have a partnership of equals
• China is the true power in Putin and Kim Jong Un’s budding friendship

In truth, President Xi is walking a very fine line. Russia is an important partner for China but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made him an international pariah in much of the world.

Beijing needs to be careful that its friendship with Moscow doesn’t isolate other prospective partners, especially as it is fighting an economic war with the United States.

China has been courting Europe for several months and stepped up its campaign after Donald Trump became US president.

Beijing has been keen to portray itself as a stable alternative global partner in contrast to an unpredictable White House in Washington.

• A defiant China looks beyond Trump’s America
• Xi’s real test is not Trump’s trade war
• Five cards China holds in a trade war with the US

There were some signs earlier this week that these diplomatic overtures were working.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and António Costa, the president of the European Council, exchanged messages on Tuesday with President Xi and Chinese Premier Li Qiang to celebrate the 50th anniversary of bilateral relations.

The stumbling block of any prospective partnership has been Beijing’s close-knit relationship with Moscow and its economic support for Russia. China has not condemned its “old friend” for the invasion and instead calls for an end to the “crisis”.

If President Xi appears to stand too close to Putin, it could cause friction with Europe at a time when it is looking for friendship.

But the Chinese leader has another key message to send.

Trump’s initial attempts to end the war in Ukraine had him touting his close personal relationship with Putin. It prompted analysts to ask if Washington was trying to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing.

Xi will want to make it clear to Trump this is not possible.

“Together, we must foil all schemes to disrupt or undermine our bonds of amity and trust,” Xi wrote in a signed article for Russian media.

The Russian and Chinese leaders also described Trump’s plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defence shield over the US as “deeply destabilising”, and argued that it would weaponise space.

Both leaders are keen to present their vision of an alternative world order in the face of what they believe is US hegemony.

But Xi will be aware that while China is a superpower – Russia’s power is now limited. This is no longer a partnership of equals.

The war in Ukraine has weakened Russia’s economy and depleted its arsenal and army.

Western sanctions have also left Moscow far more reliant on Beijing for economic survival. They have severely weakened the Kremlin on the world stage.

“Russia needs China much more than the opposite is true,” Boulegue said.

Moscow will need to “suck it up”, he added.

Putin may lean into his friend as they watch the tanks roll through Red Square and they can team up when they need each other.

But behind the bold statements, the smiles, handshakes and the occasional hug, there are potential sources of discord and disharmony which could surface in the years to come.

“I’m pretty sure we hung out in Brixton. Hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself.”

Luke Pritchard, the eternally youthful lead singer of The Kooks, is reintroducing himself to fellow indie survivor and Hard-Fi frontman, Richard Archer.

Both admit the 2000s, when they each sold millions of records, are a bit of a blur.

“But I think I’d remember if you’d done something odd,” reassures Archer, all chiselled good looks and friendly bonhomie.

“It’s weird, because we were all part of the same scene but, when you’re on tour, everyone’s like planets, orbiting around but missing each other.”

The Kooks and The ‘Fi were at the epicentre of the last great indie boom – a scene that kicked off in 2002 when The Libertines jolted British guitar music out of its post-Britpop slump.

Over the next half-decade, they joined acts like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight as they surfed a wave to the top of the charts.

Angular riffs, clever-clever lyrics and big, hooky choruses were the order of the day.

By 2006, seven of the UK’s 10 best-selling new albums were by guitar bands, including the Arctic Monkeys’ incendiary debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, and The Kooks’ Inside In/Inside Out.

But the party couldn’t last forever.

In 2008, The Word magazine coined the phrase “indie landfill” to describe a seemingly endless parade of identikit bloke-bands cluttering the airwaves.

Where were they all coming from? Why couldn’t you tell them apart? Why where they all called “The Something”?

Almost overnight, radio stations ditched indie for a new generation of forward-thinking pop (Lady Gaga, Florence + The Machine) and club-centric hip-hop (Black Eyed Peas, Dizzee Rascal).

“It did suddenly seem that four boys in a band became very un-hip,” says Archer.

“The opportunities dried up in England,” agrees Pritchard. “We were playing smaller venues and the vibe just wasn’t exciting any more.”

“It got to a point where we were just exhausted,” Archer continues. “It felt like we were screaming into the void. So we stopped and tried other things.”

In the 2010s, Hard-Fi’s guitarist Ross Phillips retrained as a tiler, while Archer formed the short-lived blues band OffWorld.

But when he streamed an acoustic set of Hard-Fi songs during Covid, the response was big enough to tempt the band back on stage. A one-off gig at London’s Forum sold out in minutes.

“The response was just so warm. I was quite taken aback by it,” says Archer.

The show led to a full reunion. This summer, the band will release a 20th anniversary edition of their class-conscious, Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Stars of CCTV, while preparing a long-delayed fourth album.

The Kooks, meanwhile, never went away, recording a clutch of more experimental albums that blended drum loops, pastoral pop and even Ethiopian jazz influences.

But today, the band are bigger than ever after hits like Naïve and Ooh La found a new audience on TikTok.

Later this year, they will headline the O2 Arena for the first time, with18 to 24-year-olds making up 45% of the audience.

How do they explain this sudden revival?

“We’re at that point where teenagers start going back to listen to the music their parents grew up with,” Pritchard observes.

“In the 90s, we did it too, going back and discovering Nick Drake, so there’s a circular nature to it. The scene, and even the fashion, has come around again.”

But there’s something else, too. Songs like The Kooks’ She Moves In Her Own Way and Hard-Fi’s Hard To Beat have something that went missing in the 2010s – choruses you can sing until you’re hoarse.

“Yeah, that anthemic thing was removed from guitar music,” agrees Pritchard. “People started consuming music on earbuds, so they connected with the introspective stuff.

“But when we were gathering a little fanbase in Brighton, we’d play all these small clubs and you’d filter the setlist by whether people could sing along to the hook.”

Archer recalls the grind of those early tours. In their first year, he reckons, Hard-Fi were on the road for “almost 365 days”.

But with one grassroots venue closing every fortnight in the UK, it’s getting harder to book tours and road-test songs.

“What worries me is, if you’re a new artist now, do you have the opportunity to go out there and make mistakes and fix them?” says Archer.

A shrinking live scene isn’t the only upheaval in the industry.

The Kooks’ debut album sold 1.5 million copies in 2006 – making it the fifth biggest record of the year. Compare that with 2024, when the best-selling album in the UK (Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department) only sold 600,000 copies.

Streams have cannibalised sales, turning every artist into a cult act. It doesn’t help that opportunities for promoting music have dried up.

The only music TV show left standing is Later… With Jools Holland, while weekly music magazines like the NME are no more – not that everyone laments its demise.

“We were never the best friends with the NME,” laughs Archer.

“Who was?” asks Pritchard. “There were two or three anointed bands and the rest of us were cast out.”

Are there any reviews seared into their memories?

“No, I’ve done a lot of work on that,” Pritchard jokes. “But I definitely was more sensitive than I should have been.”

“How can you not be, though?” asks Archer. “They’re criticising something you’ve sweated blood and tears over.”

While compiling the anniversary edition of Stars of CCTV, he found an old clipping where a critic said the band’s fans didn’t understand real music.

“I kept it,” he says, “so I could get revenge later.”

“You should frame it and put it in the loo,” Pritchard suggests.

“Then I’d just be angry every time I have a dump.”

But the music press was powerful in the 2000s. Both frontmen recall feeling pressure to live up to the NME’s ideal of a gobby frontman.

Archer, a thoughtful and introspective character, was even provoked into saying he wanted to be the biggest star in the world.

“I don’t see the point in being just another indie band,” he boasted in one interview. “What’s the point of being parochial and small-time? I’m in competition with Eminem.”

“You had to be super-confident and say provocative things,” Pritchard reflects now.

“But what I learned is that a lot of songwriters are introspective, insular people – and when you throw them in front of a camera, it’s quite challenging.”

With hindsight, both men emerged from the 2000s relatively unscathed, and share a newfound appreciation for their early records.

Pritchard, in particular, is revisiting the breathless pop of The Kooks’ first two albums on their new record Never/Know, released this week.

“I felt like I slightly lost my identity [because] I’d been collaborating with outside producers so much,” he says.

“So I went back and played all the records we were listening to when we started – not to repeat ourselves, but to get a firm hand on the identity again.”

The result is an album that’s perfectly timed for summer road trips and sun-soaked festival sets, replete with buoyant melodies and timeless guitar grooves.

Archer is in a similar place, with a new album inspired by a CD-Rom of old demos an ex-girlfriend sent to him last year.

So, have the bands got a five-year plan?

“Definitely – but it’s locked up in my safe,” laughs Pritchard. “I think it’s good to have goals!”

“Do you really?” asks Archer, with a concerned frown.

“I literally don’t know what I’m going to have for lunch.”

US President Donald Trump has appointed Fox News host and former New York prosecutor Jeanine Pirro as interim US attorney for Washington DC.

The announcement comes after Trump withdrew his first pick for the job after he lost key Republican support in the Senate, which votes on such positions.

After Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden, Pirro made false statements about the election that were part of a lawsuit against Fox News by a company that makes voting machines. The case was settled for more than $787m (£594m).

Trump called Pirro “a powerful crusader for victims of crime” in a social media post announcing his selection. Meanwhile, critics described her as unqualified.

The president did not indicate whether Pirro, 73, would serve permanently in the job, which requires Senate confirmation, or how long her term would last.

In the Truth Social post on Thursday night, Trump noted that she previously served as a Republican district attorney in Westchester, New York, as well as a judge. He also touted her roles on various shows on Fox News, including on The Five, which he called “one of the Highest Rated Shows on Television”.

Pirro has been a close ally of Trump for decades. In one of his last actions during his first term, he issued a pardon to her husband, who had been convicted of tax evasion decades earlier.

Democrats were quick to criticise the appointment of Pirro, the second Fox News host with to receive a high-profile federal job after Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, raising questions about her credentials for the role and about her career outside of broadcasting.

“Which Fox News host will get the next federal appointment,” Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat representative from California, wrote on X.

The Democratic National Committee wrote in a statement: “Jeanine Pirro is yet another unqualified TV personality with a history of putting Trump and violent insurrectionists above the rule of law.”

Republicans, like South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, celebrated the news on social media. He called Pirro a “grand slam, home run” choice.

“She is exactly the right person at the right time to take on this responsibility,” Graham said on X.

Pirro replaces current interim US attorney Ed Martin, a former conservative podcaster that Trump appointed this January.

He was let go after North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a key swing vote, said he would refuse to confirm Martin for the role on a permanent basis, citing “friction” over how Martin viewed those involved in the 6 January 2021 riots at the US Capitol.

Tillis told reporters this week that he had “no tolerance for anybody who entered the building on January 6”.

Martin has been a staunch critic of the investigation into the Capitol riot. While serving in the role on an interim basis, he fired prosecutors who oversaw prosecutions of alleged and convicted rioters.

Trump said Martin will remain at the US Justice Department and serve as director of the “weaponization working group”, which looks into officials who investigated Trump, the president said in another post on social media.

Since taking office, Trump has issued pardons and ended prosecutions against 6 January rioters who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to block Biden’s election win over Trump in the 2020 election.

A rose has been named after Catherine, Princess of Wales to highlight the healing power of nature.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) said it called the flower ‘Catherine’s Rose’ to raise awareness of the role that spending time outdoors plays in supporting people’s mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

The floribunda rose has coral-pink blooms with a scent of Turkish Delight and mango.

Proceeds from every sale will go to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. The princess was treated at the hospital, in west London, for cancer last year.

The Princess of Wales revealed she was in remission after making a surprise visit to the hospital in January, where she thanked staff and reassured cancer patients that there was “light at the end of the tunnel”.

She first revealed her diagnosis in March last year and underwent a course of preventative chemotherapy, announcing in September that it had been completed.

Catherine’s Rose will have flowers that attract pollinators and will thrive in a mixed border, as a hedge, in a large container or in a rose bed, according to the RHS.

Clusters can have up to 15 blooms, each flower measuring between 8 and 12cm, while the plant that supports it can grow to about 1.2m tall by 90cm wide.

Clare Matterson, RHS director general, said the flower would “raise awareness of how nature and gardening can help to heal”.  

“We know how important this message is as every day we see how accessing nature and being outside is vital for our health and happiness,” she added.

There will be 15,000 Catherine’s Rose available this autumn, with further roses becoming available next year.

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Wasp mothers have stunning brainpower when it comes to feeding their young, according to new research.

Digger wasps make a short burrow for each egg, stocking it with food and returning a few days later to provide more.

The study by scientists at the University of Exeter revealed mother wasps can remember the locations of up to nine separate nests among hundreds belonging to other females.

Experts said they did not yet know how the wasps achieved such “remarkable mental feats.”

Researchers discovered the insects feed their young in age order, adjusting the order if one dies, and they can even delay feeding offspring that had more food at the first visit.

“Our findings suggest that the miniature brain of an insect is capable of remarkably sophisticated scheduling decisions,” said Professor Jeremy Field, from the University of Exeter.

“We tend to think that something so small couldn’t do something so complex.

“In fact, they can remember where and when they have fed their young and what they fed them in a way that would be taxing even to human brains.”

The digger wasps in the study live on heathland in Surrey where they hunt caterpillars on heather plants.

“Despite nesting in relatively featureless bare sand, often among hundreds of intermingled nests of other females, mothers rarely make errors in revisiting their nests,” Mr Field said.

“Only 1.5% of the 1,293 food deliveries in the study went to other females’ nests.”

X

The prime suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance faces a new unrelated charge, the BBC has been told.

Christian Brückner is due in court next week accused of insulting a member of prison staff.

The precise details of the allegation have not been made public.

If found guilty, it could potentially extend his current jail term that is due to end in September, according to a court official.

Brückner, 48, is behind bars in Germany for raping a 72-year-old American tourist in Portugal in 2005. He has never been charged in the McCann case and denies involvement.

Three-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, in 2007.

It has become one of the highest-profile, unsolved missing person cases in the world.

Brückner was not identified as a suspect in her disappearance until 2020.

German investigators classed the case as a murder inquiry.

However, no charges have ever been brought against Brückner, in the McCann case, and the full details of the alleged evidence have never been released.

A convicted child sex offender, Brückner is a German national who has a history of sex, forgery, drug, and theft offences.

A drifter, he lived in Portugal’s Algarve region, on and off, for years.

Now prosecutors are working against the clock as Brückner is scheduled to walk free in September 2025.

Investigators fear that Brückner, as a free man, will skip Germany and disappear.

A ruling, last year, paved the way for his release when he was acquitted of five other sex offence allegations.

In October 2024, judges cleared Brückner of three counts of rape and two counts of child sex abuse – charges dating back to between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal.

Prosecutors have launched an appeal, but a decision on any potential retrial may yet take months.

Brückner is due in court on Thursday morning in Lehrte, Lower Saxony, to face the charge of insulting a prison staff member, a court official told the BBC.

If found guilty, Brückner could face either a fine or up to an additional year in jail.

Interest in Brückner’s legal battles continues to be high due to his name being linked, by the authorities, to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters told the BBC he was aware of the upcoming, unrelated trial at Lehrte District Court, but that it is being handled by a different office.

He also reiterated there are still no plans to charge Brückner over the McCann case.

In 2020, Mr Wolters told the BBC the public would reach the same conclusion as his team had, about Brückner’s alleged involvement, if they “knew the evidence we had”.

The BBC has approached Christian Brückner’s legal team for comment.

The head of Liberia’s doctors’ association has been banned from practising medicine after a regulatory body said it did not have evidence of his initial medical degree.

As part of a qualifications audit, the Liberia Medical and Dental Council (LMDC) asked Peter Matthew George to provide his professional certificates.

In April, the LMDC told Dr George that it had revoked his licence as he had not given satisfactory proof he had graduated in medicine from the UK’s University of Hertfordshire as, it said, he had been claiming.

Dr George has disputed the LMDC’s findings. He told the BBC there was a “bias” against him because of his advocacy in a row between doctors and the government.

In a letter to Dr George explaining its decision, the LMDC said he had not provided an actual certificate of his qualification from the University of Hertfordshire but instead sent an “award verification letter” which said he had “obtained an MD”.

The LMDC pointed out that “MD” is a qualification acquired in the US and not the UK.

Furthermore, the LMDC said “of utmost concern is that investigation showed that the only University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom does not currently offer a medical degree”.

The university told the BBC that “following a thorough review of our academic records, we can confirm that there is no evidence that this individual was ever awarded any degree by the University nor studied here. Any claim to the contrary is therefore false and constitutes a misrepresentation of our institution.

“We are cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities in Liberia and will continue to support any investigations as required.”

In his education record on LinkedIn, Dr George said he had studied for a “professional doctorate in medicine MD, general medicine” at Hertfordshire between 2010 and 2014. His LinkedIn page has since been taken down.

But in an email to the BBC, Dr George said his primary medical degree was not from the British university. “I never told anyone so. Those are make-up stories,” he wrote.

Asked why he had mentioned the University of Hertfordshire, he said: “Maybe I made an error when writing because am under pressure.”

Instead, he said his initial medical degree was from the University of Central Nicaragua.

He said that since starting practising medicine in Liberia in 2014, and providing his qualifications to the authorities at the time, no-one had raised an issue with his work.

In fact, he said, he had been promoted and praised for improving the medical facilities at the Chief Jallah Lone Government Hospital in Gbarpolu county.

“I have served the Liberian health sector diligently for over a decade with no record of misconduct,” he said.

Dr George argued that problems started to arise once he became the president of the Liberia Medical and Dental Association (LMDA) in December last year.

He said he was continuing “the long-standing advocacy for the rights and welfare of doctors and dentists in the country” and said hostility against him began after the LMDA raised issues with the “reclassification of all government-employed specialists and consultants”.

The news that he had been barred from the profession has only just emerged as Dr George was given 15 working days to respond. The medical council said it did not receive a response.

In a statement, the LMDA said it had now “nullified” his presidency and that he was no longer a member of the association.

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Catholicism has rarely been more prominent in US politics as the Trump administration openly embraces its advisers and officials who proudly say faith has shaped their politics.

But any jubilation on the American Make America Great Again right about the new Pope this week quickly dissipated as key voices from Donald Trump’s Maga movement came to a disappointed conclusion: The first American Pope does not appear to be “America first”.

Little is known about the political leanings of Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago. He has voiced concerns for the poor and immigrants, chosen a name that may reference more liberal church leadership, and he appears to have both supported the liberal-leaning Pope Francis and criticised the US president’s policies on social media.

But the president so far has said only that Leo’s election was a “great honour” for the US. Still, some of Trump’s most prominent supporters were quick to attack Pope Leo, lambasting him as a possible challenge to Trump and on the perception that he will follow Pope Francis in areas like immigration.

“I mean it’s kind of jaw-dropping,” Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon told the BBC by phone on Friday, speaking of Leo’s election.

“It is shocking to me that a guy could be selected to be the Pope that had had the Twitter feed and the statements he’s had against American senior politicians,” said Bannon, a hard-right Trump loyalist, practising Catholic and former altar boy.

And he predicted that there’s “definitely going to be friction,” between Leo and Trump.

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The Pope’s brother, John Prevost, told The New York Times that he thinks his brother would voice his disagreements with the president.

“I know he’s not happy with what’s going on with immigration,” he said. “I know that for a fact. How far he’ll go with it is only one’s guess, but he won’t just sit back. I don’t think he’ll be the silent one.”

Recent survey data shows that about 20% of Americans identify as Catholic, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

About 53% identify with or lean towards the Republican party, though there’s plenty of nuance, too: America’s two Catholic presidents, John F Kennedy and Joe Biden, were both Democrats. And nearly two-thirds of US Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances – a departure from the Church’s current stance.

US Catholics also broadly supported Pope Francis: 78% of those surveyed in February viewed him favorably, including a majority of Catholic Republicans.

A number of Catholics in the Pope’s home city of Chicago on Thursday aired disappointment with President Trump and said they hoped Pope Leo XIV would follow the path of his predecessor.

“We hope he’ll continue with Francis’s agenda going forward,” said Rick Stevens, a Catholic deacon from New Jersey who happened to be visiting Chicago when he heard the news.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which leads and coordinates US Catholic activities, celebrated Pope Leo’s election and the message it sends.

“Certainly, we rejoice that a son of this Nation has been chosen by the cardinals, but we recognize that he now belongs to all Catholics and to all people of good will,” the conference said in a statement. “His words advocating peace, unity, and missionary activity already indicate a path forward.”

Though Maga supporters represent a small subset of US Catholics, it’s one with outsized access to conservative media and Trump’s ear.

On Bannon’s War Room podcast – known for its hard-right, pro-Trump bent – one guest after another heaped criticism on the new Pope.

“This guy has been massively embraced by the liberals and the progressives,” said Ben Harnwell, a journalist who led Bannon’s efforts to establish what he calls a “gladiator school” for the “Judeo-Christian West” outside of Rome.

“He is one of their own… he has (Pope) Francis’s DNA in him,” Harnwell said.

Jack Posobiec, another Maga commentator dialing in from Rome, was blunt: “This choice of the American cardinal was done as a response, as a message to President Trump.”

The full picture of what led to Pope Leo’s selection on Thursday is still emerging and church decisions don’t map neatly onto US politics. Still, watchers around the world have pored over Pope Leo’s social media profiles in search of clues about his leanings and beliefs.

An X account under his name, with tweets going as far back as 2015, shares links to criticism of Trump’s approach to immigration and hints at other political views, such as stricter gun control.

In February, the account sharply rebuked the US vice-president by posting a link to an opinion piece titled “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others”.

The account also posted a link to a letter from Pope Francis, after he clashed with Vance over church doctrine and immigration. Vance – a Catholic convert – had given an interview in defence of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Vance has routinely invoked his faith in defense of the administration, particularly immigration policies, which the White House has said put “America first”.

“There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that,” Vance told Fox News.

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But US Democrats were not spared either on the account, which has more than a decade of posts. They appear to support Catholic employers who refuse to pay for contraceptives via employee health plans, and following the 2016 US presidential election, one post links to an article accusing Democrat Hillary Clinton of ignoring pro-life Catholic voters.

The BBC asked the Vatican to confirm the account was Leo’s, but has not received a response.

Vice-President Vance on Friday told conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt: “I try not to play the politicisation of the Pope game.”

“I’m sure he’s going to say a lot of things that I love. I’m sure he’ll say some things that I disagree with, but I’ll continue to pray for him and the Church despite it all and through it all, and that’ll be the way that I handle it.”

The new Pope’s LGBTQ views are also unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less supportive than Pope Francis.

Matt Walsh, a commentator with the conservative Daily Wire, wrote: “There are some good signs and bad signs with this new Pope. I want to see what he actually does with his papacy before I pass any kind of judgment.”

But some of the most dedicated Maga supporters already have made up their minds.

Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer who has Trump’s ear, swaying the president on top personnel decisions, called the new Pope “anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open Borders, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis”.

Bannon, who had suggested Leo as a dark horse for the papacy, predicted tensions between the White House and Vatican – and said they could even tear apart American Catholics.

“Remember, President Trump was not shy about taking a shot at Pope Francis,” he said.

“So if this Pope – which he will do – tries to come between President Trump and his implementation of the mass deportation programme, I would stand by.”

The world’s first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbours has erupted in South Asia.

On Thursday, India accused Pakistan of launching waves of drones and missiles at three military bases in Indian territory and Indian-administered Kashmir – an allegation Islamabad swiftly denied.

Pakistan claimed it had shot down 25 Indian drones in recent hours. Delhi remained publicly silent. Experts say the tit-for-tat attacks mark a dangerous new phase in the decades-old rivalry, as both sides exchange not just artillery but unmanned weapons across a volatile border.

As Washington and other global powers urge restraint, the region is teetering on the edge of escalation, with drones – silent, remote and deniable – opening a new chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict.

“The Indo-Pak conflict is moving into a new drone era – one where ‘invisible eyes’ and unmanned precision may determine escalation or restraint. Thus, in South Asia’s contested skies, the side that masters drone warfare won’t just see the battlefield – they’ll shape it,” Jahara Matisek, a professor at the US Naval War College, told the BBC.

• Follow our live updates

Since Wednesday morning, Pakistan says Indian air strikes and cross-border fire have killed 36 people and injured 57 more in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. On the other side, India’s army reports at least 16 civilians dead from Pakistani shelling. India insists its missile barrage was retaliation for a deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month – an attack Islamabad denies any role in.

Pakistan’s military announced on Thursday that it had shot down 25 Indian drones across various cities, including Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. The drones – reportedly Israeli-made Harop drones – were reportedly intercepted using both technical and weapon-based countermeasures. India claimed to have neutralised several Pakistani air defence radars and systems, including one in Lahore, which Islamabad denied.

Laser-guided missiles and bombs, drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become pivotal in modern warfare, significantly enhancing the precision and efficiency of military operations. These can relay co-ordinates for airstrikes or, if equipped, directly laser-designate targets, and help immediate engagement.

Drones can be used as decoys or suppression of enemy air defences, flying into contested airspace to trigger enemy radar emissions, which can then be targeted by other munitions like loitering drones or anti-radiation missiles. “This is how Ukraine and Russia both do it in their war. This dual role – targeting and triggering – makes drones a force multiplier in degrading enemy air defences without risking manned aircraft,” says Prof Matisek.

Experts say India’s drone fleet is largely built around Israeli-made reconnaissance UAVs like the IAI Searcher and Heron, along with Harpy and Harop loitering munitions – drones that double as missiles, capable of autonomous reconnaissance and precision strikes. The Harop, in particular, signals a shift toward high-value, precision-targeted warfare, reflecting the growing importance of loitering munitions in modern conflict, experts say.

The Heron, say experts, is India’s “high-altitude eyes in the sky” for both peacetime monitoring and combat operations. The IAI Searcher Mk II is designed for frontline operations, offering up to 18 hours of endurance, a range of 300km (186 miles), and a service ceiling of 7,000m (23,000ft).

While many believe India’s combat drone numbers remain “modest”, a recent $4bn deal to acquire 31 MQ-9B Predator drones – which can can fly for 40 hours and up to an altitude of 40,000ft – from the US marks a major leap in its strike capabilities.

India is also developing swarm drone tactics – deploying large numbers of smaller UAVs to overwhelm and saturate air defences, allowing higher-value assets to penetrate, say experts.

Pakistan’s drone fleet is “extensive and diverse”, comprising both indigenous and imported systems, Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst told the BBC.

He said the inventory includes “over a thousand drones”, featuring models from China, Turkey and domestic manufacturers. Notable platforms include the Chinese CH-4, the Turkish Bayraktar Akinci, and Pakistan’s own Burraq and Shahpar drones. Additionally, Pakistan has developed loitering munitions, enhancing its strike capabilities.

Mr Haider said the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has been actively integrating unmanned systems into its operations for nearly a decade. A key focus is the development of “loyal wingman” drones – unmanned aerial vehicles designed to operate in co-ordination with manned aircraft, he added.

Prof Matisek believes “Israel’s technical assistance, supplying Harop and Heron drones, has been pivotal for India, while Pakistan’s reliance on Turkish and Chinese platforms highlights an ongoing arms race”.

While the recent drone exchanges between India and Pakistan mark a significant escalation in their rivalry, they differ markedly from the drone-centric warfare observed in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, experts say. There, drones become central to military operations, with both sides deploying thousands of UAVs for surveillance, targeting and direct attacks.

“Deploying drones [in the ongoing conflict] instead of fighter jets or heavy missiles represents a lower-level military option. Drones are less heavily armed than manned aircraft, so in one sense, this is a restrained move. However, if this is merely a prelude to a broader aerial campaign, the calculus changes entirely,” Manoj Joshi, an Indian defence analyst, told the BBC.

Ejaz Haider believes the recent drone activity in Jammu “appears to be a tactical response to immediate provocations, not a full-scale retaliation [by Pakistan]”.

“A true retaliatory strike against India would involve shock and awe. It would likely be more comprehensive, involving multiple platforms – both manned and unmanned – and targeting a broader range of objectives. Such an operation would aim to deliver a decisive impact, signalling a significant escalation beyond the current tit-for-tat exchanges,” Mr Haider says.

While drones have fundamentally reshaped the battlefield in Ukraine, their role in the India-Pakistan conflict remains more limited and symbolic, say experts. Both countries are using their manned air forces to fire missiles at one another as well.

“The drone warfare we’re witnessing may not last long; it could be just the beginning of a larger conflict,” says Mr Joshi.

“This could either signal a de-escalation or an escalation – both possibilities are on the table. We’re at an inflection point; the direction we take from here is uncertain.”

Clearly India is integrating drones into its precision-strike doctrine, enabling stand-off targeting without crossing borders with manned aircraft. However, this evolution also raises critical questions.

“Drones lower the political and operational threshold for action, providing options to surveil and strike while trying to reduce escalation risks,” says Prof Matisek.

“But they also create new escalation dynamics: every drone shot down, every radar blinded, becomes a potential flashpoint in this tense environment between two nuclear powers.”

The US-China trade war could be letting up, with the world’s two largest economies set to begin talks in Switzerland.

Top trade officials from both sides will meet on Saturday in the first high-level meeting since US President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs in January.

Beijing retaliated immediately and a tense stand-off ensued as the two countries heaped levies on each other. Those now stand at 125%, although some Chinese imports to the US face duties as high as 245%.

There have been weeks of stern, and sometimes fiery, rhetoric where each side sought to paint the other as the more desperate party.

And yet this weekend they will face each other over the negotiating table.

So why now?

Despite multiple rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, both sides have been sending signals that they want to break the deadlock. Except it wasn’t clear who would blink first.

“Neither side wants to appear to be backing down,” said Stephen Olson, senior visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and a former US trade negotiator.

“The talks are taking place now because both countries have judged that they can move forward without appearing to have caved in to the other side.”

Still, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian emphasised on Wednesday that “the talks are being held at the request of the US”.

And the commerce ministry framed it as a favour to Washington, saying it was answering the “calls of US businesses and consumers”.

The Trump administration, however, claims it’s Chinese officials who “want to do business very much” because “their economy is collapsing”.

“They said we initiated? Well, I think they ought to go back and study their files,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.

But as the talks drew closer, the president struck a more diplomatic note: “We can all play games. Who made the first call, who didn’t make the – it doesn’t matter,” he told reporters on Thursday. “It only matters what happens in that room.”

The timing is also key for Beijing because it’s during Xi’s visit to Moscow. He was a guest of honour on Friday at Moscow’s Victory Day parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the World War Two victory over Nazi Germany.

Xi stood alongside leaders from across the Global South – a reminder to Trump’s administration that China not only has other options for trade, but it is also presenting itself as an alternative global leader.

This allows Beijing to project strength even as it heads to the negotiating table.

Trump insists that the tariffs will make America stronger, and Beijing has vowed to “fight till the end”- but the fact is the levies are hurting both countries.

Factory output in China has taken a hit, according to government data. Manufacturing activity in April dipped to the lowest level since December 2023. And a survey by news outlet Caixin this week showed that services activity has reached a seven-month low.

The BBC found that Chinese exporters have been reeling from the steep tariffs, with stock piling up in warehouses, even as they strike a defiant note and look for markets beyond the US.

“I think [China] realises that a deal is better than no deal,” says Bert Hofman, a professor at the East Asian Institute in National University Singapore.

“So they’ve taken a pragmatic view and said, ‘OK, well we need to get these talks going.'”

And so with the major May Day holiday in China over, officials in Beijing have decided the time is right to talk.

On the other side, the uncertainty caused by tariffs led to the US economy contracting for the first time in three years.

And industries that have long depended on Chinese-made goods are especially worried. A Los Angeles toy company owner told the BBC that they were “looking at the total implosion of the supply chain”.

Trump himself has acknowledged that US consumers will feel the sting.

American children may “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls”, he said at a cabinet meeting this month, “and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally”.

Trump’s approval ratings have also slid over fears of inflation and a possible recession, with more than 60% of Americans saying he was focusing too much on tariffs.

“Both countries are feeling pressure to provide a bit of reassurance to increasingly nervous markets, businesses, and domestic constituencies,” Mr Olson says.

“A couple of days of meetings in Geneva will serve that purpose.”

While the talks have been met with optimism, a deal may take a while to materialise.

The talks will mostly be about “touching base”, Mr Hofman said, adding that this could look like an “exchange of positions” and, if things go well, “an agenda [will be] set for future talks”.

The negotiations on the whole are expected to take months, much like what happened during Trump’s first term.

After nearly two years of tit-for-tat tariffs, the US and China signed a “phase one” deal in early 2020 to suspend or reduce some levies. Even then, it did not include thornier issues, such as Chinese government subsidies for key industries or a timeline for scrapping the remaining tariffs.

In fact, many of them stayed in place through Joe Biden’s presidency, and Trump’s latest tariffs add to those older levies.

What could emerge this time is a “phase one deal on steroids”, Mr Olson said: that is, it would go beyond the earlier deal and try to address flashpoints. There are many, from the illegal fentanyl trade which Washington wants China to crack down harder on to Beijing’s relationship with Moscow.

But all of that is far down the line, experts warn.

“The systemic frictions that bedevil the US-China trade relationship will not be solved any time soon,” Mr Olson adds.

“Geneva will only produce anodyne statements about ‘frank dialogues’ and the desire to keep talking.”

South Africa has criticised the US as reports emerge suggesting Washington could receive white Afrikaners as refugees as early as next week.

A document seen by the BBC’s US partner CBS describes the potential resettlement as a “priority” for President Donald Trump’s government, however the timing has not been publicly confirmed by the White House.

In a statement published on Friday, South Africa’s foreign ministry described the purported move as “politically motivated” and designed to undermine South Africa’s “constitutional democracy”.

In February, Trump described Afrikaners as victims of “racial discrimination” in an executive order, opening up the prospect for them to resettle in the US.

The South African authorities said they would not block the departures of those chosen for resettlement, but said they had sought assurances from the US that those selected had been fully vetted and did not have pending criminal charges.

The statement added that allegations of discrimination against the country’s white minority were unfounded, and that crime statistics did not indicate that any racial group had been targeted in violent crimes on farms.

Some groups representing the rights of white farmers have said they are being deliberately killed because of their race.

A spokesperson for the US state department told the BBC they were interviewing individuals interested in resettling in the US and prioritising “Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

They did not confirm when the resettlement would begin.

The Trump administration has also accused South Africa of seizing land from white farmers without compensation, something Pretoria has repeatedly denied.

Elon Musk, a top adviser in the Trump administration who grew up in South Africa during apartheid, has been critical of Pretoria, claiming that it is leading a “genocide” against white farmers.

US officials have planned a press event on Monday at Dulles airport in Virginia to welcome the group, the documents seen by CBS show.

According to US media, 54 Afrikaners will arrive as part of the first group.

The decision to accept South Africans as refugees comes as the Trump administration has halted nearly all migrant asylum claims.

In February, South Africa criticised Trump’s executive order opening the US up to the resettlement of white Afrikaners, saying in a statement that “it is ironic” the US is open to accepting a group “that remains amongst the most economically privileged” while denying vulnerable people from other parts of the world asylum.

• Almost 70,000 South Africans interested in US asylum
• Race policies or Israel – what’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?
• The expelled envoy at the heart of the latest US-South Africa row

Even before his name was announced from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, the crowds below were chanting “Viva il Papa” – Long live the Pope.

Robert Francis Prevost, 69, has become the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV.

He is the first American to fill the role of pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru.

Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Leo served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.

Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city.

He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges.

He spent 10 years as a local parish pastor and as a teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in north-western Peru.

• Pope Leo XIV calls Church ‘a beacon to illuminate dark nights’ in first Mass
• Pope Leo XIV’s first speech in full
• Pope Leo’s first public address from the Vatican balcony – watch in full

In his first words as Pope, Leo spoke fondly of his predecessor Francis.

“We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us,” he said.

“United and hand-in-hand with God, let us advance together,” he told cheering crowds.

The Pope also spoke of his role in the Augustinian Order.

In 2014, Francis made him Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru.

He is well known to cardinals because of his high-profile role as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Latin America which has the important task of selecting and supervising bishops.

He became archbishop in January 2023 and within a few months, Francis made him a cardinal.

The new pontiff was born in Chicago in 1955, and served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.

Before becoming the new leader of the Catholic Church, Leo told Italian network Rai that he grew up in a family of immigrants.

“I was born in the United States… But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish… I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish,” he said.

Although Leo was born in the US, the Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas (Francis was from Argentina).

Jari Honora, a genealogist and historian in the US state of Louisiana, said Leo has strong ties to New Orleans’ black community.

He told the BBC that the new pontiff’s maternal grandparents lived in a now-demolished home in the city’s seventh ward, and she also rented a place in the iconic Pontalba building in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Mr Honora said Pope Leo’s grandparents are described as black or mulatto in historical records, but that the family’s identity was listed as white when they moved to Chicago – a common practice among black families looking to escape racial segregation.

The Pope’s background “indicates that [American] stories, the experiences of our ancestors are more tightly woven than we could have ever imagined,” he said.

“It shrinks that gap between Rome and New Orleans or New Orleans and Chicago.”

• Watch: Oh my God, it’s Rob! – Pope’s brother speaks of joy
• Analysis: Continuity the key for Pope seen as unifier in the Church
• Reaction: ‘I flipped out, I said no way!’ – Chicago celebrates hometown Pope
• ‘God loves Peru’: Country celebrates new Pope as one of their own

Early attention will focus on Leo XIV’s pronouncements to see whether he will continue his predecessor’s reforms in the Roman Catholic Church.

In choosing his papal name, Leo has signified a commitment to dynamic social issues, according to experts.

The first pontiff to use the name Leo, whose papacy ended in 461, met Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to attack Rome.

The last Pope Leo led the Church from 1878 to 1903 and wrote an influential treatise on workers’ rights.

Former Archbishop of Boston Seán Patrick O’Malley wrote on his blog that the new pontiff “has chosen a name widely associated with the social justice legacy of Pope Leo XIII, who was pontiff at a time of epic upheaval in the world, the time of the industrial revolution, the beginning of Marxism, and widespread immigration”.

The new Pope’s LGBT views are unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less supportive than Francis.

Leo XIV has shown support for a declaration from Francis to permit blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular situations”, although he has added that bishops must interpret such directives in accordance with local contexts and cultures.

Speaking last year about climate change, Cardinal Prevost said that it was time to move “from words to action”.

He called on mankind to build a “relationship of reciprocity” with the environment.

And he has spoken about concrete measures at the Vatican, including the installation of solar panels and the adoption of electric vehicles.

Pope Leo XIV has supported Pope Francis’ decision to allow women for the first time to join the Dicastery for Bishops, an administrative body that identifies and recommends future bishops to the Holy See.

“On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment,” he told Vatican News in 2023.

In 2024, he told the Catholic News Service that women’s presence “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry”.

The new pontiff is believed to have shared Francis’ views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

A former roommate of his, Reverend John Lydon, described Leo to the BBC as “outgoing”, “down to earth” and “very concerned with the poor”.

In recent months, he appears to have challenged the views of US Vice-President JD Vance.

A social media account in his name shared a social media post on X that was critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of a US resident to El Salvador.

The account also shared a critical comment piece written about a TV interview by Vance.

“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” read the post, repeating the headline from the commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website.

Shortly after, the account shared another article, published by The Jesuit Review, and commented that Catholics “cannot support a rhetoric that demonizes immigrants as dangerously criminal simply because they have crossed the border in search of a better life for themselves and their families”.

The BBC has contacted the Vatican but has not independently confirmed the account, which was created in 2011, belongs to the new pontiff.

Leo moved to Peru as a missionary in 1985 to work in various rural communities.

He was known for working with marginalised people, and immersed himself in learning Spanish.

After a stint back in the United States, he returned to Peru again in 1988 to the city of Trujillo on the north coast where he trained young men to be priests and taught canon law.

In late 2014, when he was back in the US, he was put forward by Pope Francis to return to Peru as the Apostolic Administrator of Chiclayo, a diocese on Peru’s north coast and the following year he was appointed the Bishop of Chiclayo. He served in this role for nearly a decade.

In 2015, he obtained Peruvian citizenship. He reportedly often referred to Peru as “mi segunda patria”, my second homeland.

He championed various charities such as supporting soup kitchens and childcare for struggling families, and advocated for better housing on the north coast, which is prone to floods.

But not all in the country are proud of his record.

Accusations have been made about his handling of sexual abuse cases during his time as Bishop of Chiclayo. Three Peruvian women are among those who went public with claims that – as bishop – he failed to investigate and punish a priest accused of sexually abusing them, with claims dating back to 2007.

They said that when they raised their allegations with the diocese in 2022, no substantial or serious inquiry was opened.

Church officials denied this and said an investigation was opened, but was closed in 2023 by the ecclesiastical district and the Vatican after a local prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to support the civil claim.

An investigation by the prosecutor was reopened after media reports about the case and the BBC understands it is ongoing.

The BBC spoke in Chiclayo to Jesus Leon Angeles, who supports the parish where the accused priest works.

She said while the parish was “in defence of women”, it was also “in defence of the truth” and claimed the allegations were part of a “campaign” against Leo when he became a cardinal in Rome.

These allegations and the continued fallout from sexual abuse scandals within the Church are one of the challenges he will face as he now leads Catholics worldwide.

As the continuing India-Pakistan crisis takes a dangerous turn, nations around the world are urging calm.

The initial thinking was that after India launched air strikes, and with Pakistan claiming to have shot down several Indian jets – a claim Delhi has not confirmed – both sides could claim “victory” and de-escalate.

But there’s a danger that any protracted tit-for-tat attacks could lead them to a far more damaging prospect.

During past conflicts, such as in 2019 and 2016, it was the United States and a few other global powers that put pressure on Delhi and Islamabad to bring the situation under control and de-escalate.

Now passions are running high and the nationalist rhetoric has reached a crescendo on both sides. The neighbours are closer to war than in recent decades.

• Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it
• What we know about India’s strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir

“The World community is keeping quiet; that’s dangerous,” Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani academic who is a senior fellow at King’s College London.

“Though the flare up has been happening for decades, this is the first time the two countries find themselves in a conflict without anyone monitoring them or forcefully telling them to stop,” she said.

Unless Washington gets more involved, Islamabad and Delhi may continue with their accusations and counter-accusations.

Although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been telling the senior leaders of India and Pakistan to de-escalate, the message from other American leaders is different.

US Vice-President JD Vance has said that a potential war between India and Pakistan would be “none of our business” during an interview with Fox News.

“We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can’t control these countries, though,” Vance said.

Vance was on a visit to India when the militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians, took place.

US President Donald Trump had earlier called rising tension between India and Pakistan a “shame”.

During previous India-Pakistan skirmishes, for example in 2019, tension was defused quickly after India carried out what it called “surgical strikes” on what it called terrorist camps inside Pakistan.

One Indian military jet was shot down in the aftermath of the crisis and the pilot was captured by Pakistan. He was released two days later after reported intervention from Washington and other world powers.

But the intensity of the current conflict is different and passions are running high on both sides.

While the Trump administration’s priorities are more about tariffs, China and Ukraine-Russia, it may require a concerted attempt by the international community to lower tension between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

The other world power which has a stake in South Asia is China. Beijing has close economic and military ties with Islamabad. It has invested more than $50bn (£37.5bn) in Pakistan as parts of its China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to boost trade.

China also has unresolved border issues with India and the two countries recently had a border clash in the Himalayan region 2020. Despite the tension, China is the second largest trading partner of India.

“If the US is uninterested [in resolving India-Pakistan tension] then other permanent members of the UN Security Council – P5 – should get involved. It is their responsibility as well,” Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international affairs expert tells the BBC.

As India accuses Pakistan of supporting the Kashmiri separatist rebels, who carried out the deadly attack on tourists last month, the Chinese academic says “the P-5 members can launch a credible investigation into the incident”, to address India’s concerns.

Gulf states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have close ties to both the countries, could step up their mediation efforts.

Saudi Arabian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir arrived in Delhi on 7 May in what was seen as a surprise visit amid the backdrop of a spike in tensions between India and Pakistan.

“A good meeting with Adel Al-Jubeir,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said, adding that his counterpart “shared India’s perspective on firmly countering terrorism”.

The Saudi minister arrived in Islamabad on Friday for talks with Pakistan’s leaders.

There are an estimated 2.6 million Pakistanis living and working in the Gulf Kingdom. Riyadh has considerable influence in Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia has loaned billions of dollars to Pakistan to bail out the country during economic crises over the years.

One way out of the current crisis could be a situation where both sides can claim victory to satisfy their audience.

Delhi says the missile strikes on suspected militant hideouts inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir were part of a commitment to hold “accountable” those responsible for the last month’s attack in Pahalgam.

“India has already said it has achieved its objectives. Now, the ball is in Pakistan’s court. If they wish to retaliate then that would elicit a strong response from India,” retired Indian Lt Gen D S Hooda said.

For Pakistan, especially for its powerful military, it would want to show its people that it can stand up against India and teach it a lesson once again by downing five of the Indian air force jets during a dog fight.

India has not acknowledged the loss of any of its fighter jets in the current skirmish.

But according to Pakistani academic Siddiqa, how the current crisis ends depends on what India’s stated objectives are.

“India’s goal posts keep changing day by day – from punishing Pakistan to attaining something more,” she said.

The US has confirmed that a new system for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza through private companies is being prepared, as Israel’s blockade continues for a third month.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said “distribution centres” protected by security contractors would provide food and other supplies to over a million people initially, as part of an effort to prevent Hamas stealing aid.

He denied Israel would take part in aid delivery or distribution, but said its forces would secure the centres’ perimeters.

It comes as details emerged about the controversial plan, which UN agencies have reiterated they will not co-operate with because it appears to “weaponize” aid.

“We will not participate,” the spokesman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told the BBC in Geneva, “only in efforts that are in line with our principles”.

He added: “There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organisation.”

Since early March, Israel has cut off all supplies from reaching Gaza – including food, shelters, medicines and fuel – leading to a humanitarian crisis for its 2.1 million residents.

A third of the community kitchens in Gaza – one of the territory’s last remaining lifelines – have been forced to shut down over the past two weeks due to shortages of food and fuel, according to OCHA.

Among them were the last two field kitchens of World Central Kitchen, a US-based charity which had been providing 133,000 meals daily before it ran out of ingredients on Tuesday.

Prices of basic foodstuffs have also skyrocketed at local markets, with a 25kg (55lb) bag of flour now selling for $415 (£313) in Gaza City – a 30-fold increase compared to the end of February, OCHA says.

Huckabee told journalists in Jerusalem that US President Donald Trump saw aid for Gaza as an urgent matter and that his team was tasked “to do everything possible to accelerate that and to as expeditiously as possible get humanitarian aid into the people”.

Israel and the US accuse Hamas of diverting aid. “Previous actions have often been met with Hamas stealing the food that was intended for hungry people,” the ambassador said.

The UN and other agencies say they have strong supervisory mechanisms and that when aid has surged into Gaza, incidents of looting have largely halted. The World Health Organization says none of its medical supplies have been looted during the war.

The Trump administration is trying to build momentum behind the new aid initiative ahead of the president’s trip next week to wealthy Arab Gulf countries that could help to fund it.

It says that a non-governmental organisation has been set up and that aid delivery will not be under Israeli military control.

Huckabee said: “The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary security because this is a war zone. But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food, or even the bringing of food into Gaza.”

The newly registered Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) appears to have been set up for this purpose.

A 14-page document from GHF, seen by the BBC, promises to set up four distribution sites, giving out food, water and hygiene kits initially for 1.2 million people – less than 60% of the population. It says the project aims to reach all Gazans eventually.

Aimed at potential donors, the paper states that “months of conflict have collapsed traditional relief channels in Gaza”.

It goes on: “GHF was established to restore that vital lifeline through an independent, rigorously-audited model that gets assistance directly – and only – to those in need.”

The document maintains that GHF is “guided by the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence”.

Its boards of directors and advisors are said to include a former chief executive of World Central Kitchen, along with the American former head of the UN’s World Food Programme, David Beasley – though his participation is not yet confirmed.

Full details of how the aid mechanism will work on the ground are not given.

The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which saw about 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Some 59 are still held captive, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 52,700 people in Gaza, mostly women, children and the elderly, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Last Sunday, Israel’s security cabinet approved an intensified military offensive against Hamas in Gaza which could involve forcibly displacing the population to the south, seizing the entire territory indefinitely, and controlling aid.

This was quickly met with widespread international condemnation. Many of Israel’s allies pointed out that it was bound under international law to allow the unhindered passage of humanitarian aid.

The UK’s Minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, told Parliament on Monday that the British government was gravely concerned that the Israeli announcements could lead to the 19-month-long war in Gaza entering “a dangerous new phase”.

On the subject of aid, he said: “As the UN has said, it is hard to see how, if implemented, the new Israeli plan to deliver aid through private companies would be consistent with humanitarian principles and meet the scale of the need. We need urgent clarity from the Israeli government on their intentions.

“We must remember what is at stake. These humanitarian principles matter for every conflict around the world. They should be applied consistently in every war zone.”

This week, the US Special Envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, briefed members of the UN Security Council – which includes the UK – behind closed doors about the new plan to resume the delivery of aid.

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported that Israeli forces were already setting up distribution hubs in Rafah, in southern Gaza, in “a sterile zone” designed to be free of any Hamas presence.

According to reports, Israel expects that aid will be distributed to security-screened representatives from each Gazan family who would be allowed to take supplies for his or her relatives only. They would be allowed into the hubs only on foot.

The Israeli defence establishment was said to have assessed that the average quantity of aid that would have to be distributed as 70kg (154lb) per family per week.

The Israeli military would ultimately be stationed outside the distribution hubs, allowing aid workers to hand out food without soldiers being directly involved, the reports say.

Israel and the US argue that the new system would prevent Hamas from being able to steal food for its own benefit. By preventing its access to aid and involvement in security for convoys, they hope to reduce the group’s influence over the Gazan population.

However, there are major questions over the plan’s feasibility. The current UN system uses some 400 points of aid distribution, while the situation in Gaza is now at a crisis point, with warnings that mass starvation is imminent.

At a UN briefing in Geneva, aid officials said they had carried out “careful analysis” before deciding they could not participate in the US-Israeli scheme. They said they had not been formally presented with the GHF document that is currently circulating.

James Elder, spokesman for the UN’s children’s agency Unicef, said the plan that had been laid out would lead to more children suffering, not fewer. He noted that civilians would have to travel to militarised zones to receive aid, meaning the most vulnerable – children and the elderly – would struggle to get there.

He said the decision to locate all the distribution points in the south appeared designed to use aid as “a bait” to forcibly displace Gazans once again. The UN says 90% of the population has been displaced during the war, often many times.

The plan that has been discussed with UN agencies envisages just 60 lorry loads of aid entering each day – far less than they say is needed to meet growing needs, and a tenth of the number that went in daily during the recent two-month ceasefire.

OCHA’s Jens Laerke said that in short, the proposals from Israel “do not meet the minimum bar for principled humanitarian support”.

Analysts say that the current impasse over aid for Gaza is not only an existential threat to the UN’s vast humanitarian operation in the Palestinian territory but could also have implications for its future work.

If it was to agree to a scheme accommodating the demands of the military on one side in a conflict, it could dent perceptions of the UN’s neutrality and impartiality, and set a dangerous precedent leading to similar demands in other war zones where it operates.

The UN and other aid agencies also point out that they currently have tonnes of supplies piled up near Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter, if Israel would allow it.

Without an end to the blockade, the risk of famine is expected to grow.

In Jabalia, in northern Gaza, which has already been the focus of Israeli military operations against Hamas, Palestinian families told the BBC of their growing despair as they waited for a food handout at a takia, or community kitchen, which turned into a chaotic scramble.

“Every day I come here and wait with my cooking pot to feed my children,” Umm Ahmed said. “The pot doesn’t fill us up. We have been suffering for two months. There’s no flour or anything. Open the borders so we can eat properly.”

She said she would not comply with Israeli efforts to force her to move south to Rafah to receive aid.

“We don’t have money for transport, we don’t have money to eat!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to evacuate from here, I’d rather die than leave.”

“The takia is our last source of food,” said Mohammed, who had been waiting for five hours in line. “My wife is pregnant and sick and I’m unable to get her to the hospital. How am I supposed to get to Rafah?”

A diver has died during preliminary operations to recover British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s superyacht from the waters off the coast of northern Sicily, local police said.

The accident happened on Friday while the diver was underwater in Porticello, police said, adding the precise cause of death was still unknown.

According to local Italian media, the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for a specialist salvage company.

It comes as salvage ships arrived earlier this month to waters off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, where the Bayesian vessel sank during freak weather last August.

Seven of the 22 people onboard the Bayesian last summer were killed, including Mr Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife, Judy, 71, US lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo and the yacht’s chef Recaldo Thomas, who was originally from Antigua, also died in the sinking on 19 August.

Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat including a one-year-old and Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares.

The cause of the sinking is still under investigation with naval experts saying a yacht of Bayesian’s calibre should have been able to withstand the storm and certainly should not have sunk as rapidly as it did.

The salvage operation is being overseen by British marine consultancy TMC Marine and led by Dutch-based companies Hebo, a maritime services company from Rotterdam, and SMIT Salvage, with support from Italian specialists.

About 70 specialist personnel have been deployed to Sicily from across Europe to work on the recovery operation.

• The 16 minutes that plunged the Bayesian yacht into a deadly spiral
• Bayesian sinking: The key questions for investigators
• Tributes to ‘brilliant’ Mike and Hannah Lynch as family speak of shock
• ‘For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea’ – Sicily yacht survivor

On Thursday, the team said on-site preparations were on schedule and “significant progress” had been made over the past five days.

Analysis of the yacht and the surrounding seabed confirmed there had been no change to its condition since the last inspection, meaning plans to raise the vessel can now go ahead.

Work to move the Bayesian into an upright position and lift it to the surface was scheduled to begin later this month – subject to suitable weather and sea conditions.

Before the vessel is transported to port, sea water will be pumped out of it.

Before the Bayesian is raised it will be held in position by steel slings, as salvage workers detach the vessel’s extensive rigging and 72m (236ft) mast, thought to be one of the tallest in the world.

These will then be stored on the seabed and recovered after the team has recovered the ship’s hull, which investigators say is a primary source of evidence.

There has not been any pollution from the yacht reported, with conditions being monitored and efforts made to secure its tank vents and openings.

Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as Mr and Mrs Bloomer, who were all British nationals.

Mr Lynch and his daughter were said to have lived in the vicinity of London, and the Bloomers lived in Sevenoaks in Kent.

The tycoon founded software giant Autonomy in 1996 and was cleared in June last year of carrying out a massive fraud over the sale of the firm to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.

When 68 million Filipinos head to the polls on Monday, Sara Duterte’s name will not be on the ballot.

But the results of the election, which includes 12 senate races, will have a huge impact on her political future.

They will affect both her role as the Philippines’ current vice-president and any hopes she might have of running for the country’s presidency one day, as she faces the prospect of a ban from politics – decided by lawmakers in the Senate.

The 46-year-old is the eldest daughter of the Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte. She trained as a lawyer before entering politics in 2007, when she was elected as her father’s vice-mayor in their family’s hometown Davao.

Rodrigo Duterte has described her as the “alpha” character of the family, who always gets her way.

The younger Duterte was previously filmed punching a court official in the face after he refused her request, leading one local news outlet to bestow the nickname of “the slugger” upon her.

She and her father are known to share similar traits, as well as a shared passion for riding big motorbikes.

As one cable from the US embassy in Manila in 2009, leaked by Wikileaks, described her: “A tough-minded individual who, like her father, is difficult to engage.”

In 2010, she succeeded her father to become the first female mayor of Davao. But it was only in 2021 that she decided to make her way to national politics.

The next year she ran on a joint ticket with the scion of another political dynasty – Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He was going for the top job, with Duterte as his deputy.

The assumption was that she would then be in a prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028, as presidents are limited only to one six-year term in the Philippines.

The strategy proved effective and the duo won by a landslide.

But then it quickly started to unravel.

Cracks started to emerge in their alliance even before the euphoria of their election win faded. Duterte publicly expressed her preference to be defence secretary but she was instead handed the education portfolio.

The House of Representatives soon after scrutinised Duterte’s request for confidential funds – millions of pesos that she could spend without stringent documentation.

Then, Rodrigo Duterte spoke at a late night rally, accusing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of being a junkie and a weak leader.

Soon after, First Lady Liza Marcos snubbed Sara Duterte at an event, in full view of news cameras. She admitted that it was intentional, saying Duterte should not have stayed silent in the background while her father accused the president of drug use.

After Duterte resigned from the cabinet in July last year, her language became increasingly inflammatory.

She said she had “talked to someone” to “go kill” Marcos, his wife and his cousin, who is also the speaker of the House. She also told reporters her relationship with Marcos had become toxic and she dreamed of cutting off his head.

Such remarks are shocking for someone who is not acquainted with Philippine politics. But Duterte’s strong personality has only endeared her to the public and she remains popular in the south, as well as among the millions of overseas Filipino workers.

But in February this year, lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted to impeach Duterte, accusing her of misusing public funds and threatening to have President Marcos assassinated.

She will be tried by the Senate and, if found guilty, removed from office and banned from running in future elections.

Duterte has denied the charges and alleges she is the victim of a political vendetta.

But whether or not she will be impeached hinges a lot on the upcoming election – and the composition of the Senate thereafter.

For her to be impeached, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote for this. The make-up of the upcoming Senate will be determined in Monday’s election, with both Marcos and Duterte backing competing candidates.

For Durterte, the election will also be a barometer of support for her family, and whether she can capitalise on this for her presidential run in 2028.

But for now, her fate hangs in the balance.

Mexico is suing Google for ignoring repeated requests not to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps for US users, President Claudia Sheinbaum says.

She did not say where the lawsuit had been filed. Google did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

On Thursday, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to officially rename the Gulf for federal agencies.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in January.

He argued the change was justified because the US “do most of the work there, and it’s ours”.

However Sheinbaum’s government contends that Trump’s order applies only to the US portion of the continental shelf.

“All we want is for the decree issued by the US government to be complied with,” she said, asserting that the US lacks the authority to rename the entire gulf.

In January, Sheinbaum wrote a letter to Google asking the firm to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico for US users. The following month, she threatened legal action.

At the time, Google said it made the change as part of “a longstanding practice” of following name changes when updated by official government sources.

It said the Gulf – which is bordered by the US, Cuba and Mexico – would not be changed for people using the app in Mexico, and users elsewhere in the world will see the label: “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”.

The Associated Press (AP) news agency’s refusal to start referring to the Gulf of America led to a months-long conflict with the White House, which restricted AP’s access to certain events.

A federal judge ordered the White House in April to stop sidelining the outlet.

Trump hinted Wednesday that he may recommend changing the way the US refers to another body of water.

During an upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia, he plans to announce that the US will henceforth refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia, AP reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has responded by saying he hopes the “absurd rumours” are “no more than a disinformation campaign” and such a move would “bring the wrath of all Iranians”.