China’s defiance as it faced down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been a defining image of this trade war.

It has prompted viral memes of Trump waiting for the Chinese leader to call.

“We will not back down,” has been an almost daily message from Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the tariffs and the rhetoric from Washington escalated, China dug its heels in.

Even as Chinese officials headed to Switzerland for talks, a state-run social media account published a cartoon of the US Treasury secretary pushing an empty shopping trolley.

There were even conflicting versions of who initiated the talks in Geneva.

But after two days of “robust” talks, the situation appears to have changed.

So, is this a major turning point for Washington and Beijing? The answer is yes and no.

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“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a press conference in Geneva.

“And what had occurred with these very high tariffs… was the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

Economists admit that this agreement is better than expected.

“I thought tariffs would be cut to somewhere around 50%,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management in Hong Kong, told Reuters news agency.

But in fact, US tariffs on Chinese imports will now fall to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on US goods will drop to 10%.

“Obviously, this is very positive news for economies in both countries and for the global economy, and makes investors much less concerned about the damage to global supply chains in the short term,” he added.

Trump hailed the progress on Sunday on his Truth Social site: “Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”

Beijing has also softened its tone considerably– and perhaps for good reason.

China can take the pain of an economic war with America – to an extent. It is the lead trade partner for more than 100 other countries.

But officials have become increasingly concerned about the impact the tariffs could have on an economy that is already struggling to deal with a property crisis, stubbornly high youth unemployment and low consumer confidence.

Factory output has slowed and there are reports that some companies are having to lay off workers as production lines of US-bound goods grind to a halt, bringing trade to a standstill.

Data on Saturday showed China’s consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent in April, the third month in a row of decline as consumers hold back from spending and businesses drop prices to compete for customers.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the agreement reached with the US was an important step to “resolve differences” and “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen cooperation”.

Such a positive statement from Beijing would have seemed inconceivable just a month ago.

The two sides have also agreed to more talks, or an “economic and trade consultation mechanism”, as Beijing puts it.

But Trump’s characterisation of a “total reset” in relations may be overly optimistic as there is a slight sting in the tail in Beijing’s statement.

The Commerce Ministry ended with a reminder of who it sees as being in the wrong.

“We hope that the US will continue to work with China to meet each other halfway based on this meeting, thoroughly correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff increases,” said the spokesperson.

Chinese state media also had a warning for Washington. Xinhua News Agency’s commentary claimed China’s “goodwill and patience has its limits, and it will never be used on those who repress and blackmail us without pause or have no qualms about going back on their word”.

Leaders in Beijing will want to portray an image of strength both to its own people and to the international community. They will want to appear as if they have not budged an inch. The message from China is that it is being responsible and rational and doing what it can to avoid a global recession.

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“This is a victory for conscience and rationality,” said Zhang Yun from the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.

“The talks also established the necessary framework for continued dialogue and negotiations in the future.”

This “victory” is only for 90 days. The tariffs are only paused temporarily to allow for negotiations.

It will allow some trade to flow, and it will soothe worried markets.

But the root of the problem still exists. China still sells far more to the United States than it buys. And there are other, far thornier differences to unpick, from Chinese government subsidies, to key industries, to geopolitical tensions in the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

The fight for a more balanced trade relationship is far from over – it has simply moved.

The frontline has shifted from China’s factory floors and American supermarkets to negotiating tables in both Beijing and Washington.

The US and China have agreed a truce to lower import taxes on goods being traded between the two countries.

The agreement marks a major de-escalation of the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, which has sent shockwaves impacting countless other countries, including the UK.

Here’s what it all means.

Both the US and China have confirmed a reduction in the tariffs they imposed on each other following the initial escalation by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

The deal involves both nations cancelling some tariffs altogether and suspending others for 90 days, by 14 May.

The result is that US tariffs on Chinese imports will fall to from 145% to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on some US imports will fall from 125% to 10%.

China has also halted and scrapped other non-tariff countermeasures, such as the export of critical minerals to the US, which it put in place in response to the initial escalation.

The US measures still include an extra 20% component aimed at putting pressure on Beijing to do more to curb the illegal trade in fentanyl, a powerful opioid drug.

The announcement came after the two countries held talks in Switzerland, the first between the two countries since Trump sparked the latest tariff war.

Trying to predict the next steps in this ongoing trade war between the US and China these past few months has been difficult to say the least.

But this is a major agreement between the world’s two powerhouse economies and has been broadly welcomed.

Even if the suspended tariffs are reinstated after 90 days, because the vast majority of the tariffs that were announced after Liberation Day have been cancelled, US tariffs on China would only rise to 54% and Chinese tariffs on the US would rise to 34%.

However, talks between both governments are set to continue, so a further deal might be struck.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the consensus from both countries was that “neither side wants a decoupling”, while China’s commerce ministry said the agreement was a step to “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen co-operation”.

So relations between the US and China are sounding more friendly, but as we’ve seen so far during this Trump presidency, things can change quickly.

In a word – lots.

In 2024, the biggest category of goods exported from the US to China were soybeans – primarily used to feed China’s estimated 440 million pigs. The US also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum.

Meanwhile, China exported large volumes of electronics, computers and toys.

The biggest category of US imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. A large proportion of these smartphones Apple iPhones made in China.

However, the US buys much more from China ($440bn) than it sells to it ($145bn), which is something Trump has long been unhappy with.

His reasoning in part for introducing tariffs, and higher ones on countries which sell more to the US than they buy, is to encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised and boost manufacturing jobs.

The escalating trade war in recent months has led to a collapse in the amount of goods being shipped across the Pacific Ocean, but investors believe the truce will lead to a rebound, with shares up for some of the world’s biggest shipping firms.

Politicians on both sides have started and will no doubt continue to claim victory over this truce.

Despite the US and China calling this a joint agreement, people in Beijing will interpret it as the Trump administration walking back from the tariffs, according to Janka Oertel, director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“We are back to square one, now negotiating can begin. The outcome is uncertain but China is in a psychologically stronger position now than before,” she said.

The US will argue its tariff rate on Chinese imports, although lower, is still hefty at 30%.

“This trade deal is a win for the United States, demonstrating President Trump’s unparalleled expertise in securing deals that benefit the American people,” a White House statement said.

Economists at Deutsche Bank have suggested the lowering of tariffs, and last week’s UK-US deal on them, means there’s both “a likely cap and floor” to Trump’s rates.

“The UK has one of the least imbalanced relationships with the US and now has a universal tariff rate of 10%. China has one of the most imbalanced relationships and now has a tariff rate of 30%,” said George Saravelos, head of FX research at the investment bank.

“It is reasonable that these two numbers now set the bounds of where American tariffs will end up this year.”

Outlawed Kurdish group the PKK, which has waged a 40-year insurgency against Turkey, has announced it is laying down its arms and disbanding.

The move followed a call in February by the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, for it to disband.

The PKK insurgency initially aimed to create an independent homeland for Kurds, who account for about 20% of Turkey’s population. But it has since moved away from its separatist goals, focusing instead on more autonomy and greater Kurdish rights.

More than 40,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began.

The PKK – which is banned as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US – said it has “completed its historical mission” and would “end the method of armed struggle.”

From now on, the Kurdish issue “can be resolved through democratic politics”, the group said in a statement published on the PKK-affiliated news agency ANF.

In February, Ocalan, 76, called on his movement to lay down its arms and dissolve itself. The PKK leader has been in solitary confinement in prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara, south-west of Istanbul, since 1999.

Ocalan wrote a letter from prison in February saying “there is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realisation of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way.”

It is unclear what Ocalan and his supporters will get in return for disbanding but there is speculation that he may be paroled.

Kurdish politicians will be hoping for a new political dialogue, and a pathway towards greater Kurdish rights.

Both sides had reasons to do a deal now.

The PKK has been hit hard by the Turkish military in recent years, and regional changes have made it harder for them and their affiliates to operate in Iraq and Syria.

President Erdogan needs the support of pro Kurdish political parties if he is to be able to run again in Turkey’s next presidential election, due in 2028.

The decision to disband was an important step towards a “terror-free Turkey”, and the process would be monitored by state institutions, a spokesperson for President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party said, according to Reuters news agency.

Winthrop Rodgers, from the international affairs think tank Chatham House, said it would take “a major democratic transition by Turkey” to accommodate demands from Kurdish political parties.

There has been “some goodwill” from some Turkish leaders in recent months, Mr Rodgers said, which allowed the PKK disbandment to play out.

He added: “But whether that extends to the major changes needed to ensure full Kurdish participation in politics and society is far less clear.

“In a lot of ways, the ball is in Turkey’s court.”

For Maria Khan, the ceasefire this weekend between India and Pakistan came too late.

Maria, who lives in Indian-administered Kashmir, lost her nephew and niece – 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima – to cross-border shelling on 7 May. Their parents, her sister Urusa and brother-in-law Rameez Khan, were also injured and are still in hospital.

Hours earlier that day, India had launched a series of strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation for an earlier militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

The strikes were followed by a series of military actions from Islamabad and Delhi that went on till Saturday, including heavy cross-border shelling and drone strikes.

People living along the Line of Control (LoC), the de-factor border between India and Pakistan, were the most vulnerable as shells fell near their homes.

Maria, who lives in Poonch, a town in Indian-administered Kashmir near the LoC, is among dozens of people who lost family members in the conflict.

India has said that 16 people were killed on the morning of 7 May in the shelling by Pakistan. Pakistan has said that at least 30 civilians have died since India launched its retaliatory strikes in the early hours of 7 May.

On 6 May, like every other day, Zain and Urwa came back from school, did their homework, played a bit, had dinner and then went to sleep.

It wasn’t yet dawn when the Khan family heard the sound of gunfire just a few kilometres away from their home.

Terrified, they hunkered down at home and waited for a relative to come pick them up, Maria says.

“My sister was holding Urwa’s hand and my brother-in-law was holding Zain’s hand. They had just left the house when suddenly a shell exploded [nearby]. The splinters hit them – Urva died right there and Zain was flung somewhere in the force of the explosion,” Maria says.

She adds that her sister kept calling out to Zain. When she finally spotted him, a stranger was performing CPR on the boy, trying to revive him. But he was unsuccessful.

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Meanwhile, Rameez, who lay bleeding and unconscious, was rushed to hospital – first a local one in Poonch and later to a bigger hospital in Rajouri, about four hours away.

Since his injuries were serious, he was shifted again to a hospital in Jammu city, another four-hour journey.

Maria says that Urwa and Zain were the centre of their parents’ lives. Rameez, a teacher, wanted to give them the best education they could get and hence, they shifted to a house that was closer to the children’s school, called Christ School.

On 9 May, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing that during heavy shelling along the LoC, a Pakistani shell had fallen behind Christ School in Poonch town and exploded.

Rameez, Maria says, still doesn’t know about the deaths of his children as the family doesn’t want to upset him.

After the shelling on 7 May, hundreds of people left Poonch and other border towns to escape to safer areas. They are slowly returning after the ceasefire.

“The government should have informed people living near border areas earlier, so that they could leave from there and go to a safe place. Perhaps then our children would have been with us today,” she says.

“If war is necessary for the country’s security, we support it,” says Maria.

“We are also saddened by the Pahalgam attack, but we should also think about the lives of those living near the border. Are we not humans?” she asks.

“Now, whether there is a war or ceasefire, our children will not come back.”

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Top military officials from India and Pakistan have spoken on Monday to discuss finer details of the ceasefire agreed between them over the weekend.

The US-brokered ceasefire between the nuclear-armed neighbours appears to have held overnight after nearly four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions from both sides.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, saying “it was time to stop the current aggression that could have led to the death and destruction of so many, and so much”.

Both nations have ceased hostilities since then but say they remain vigilant, warning each other of the consequences of violating the ceasefire.

India announced on Monday that it was reopening 32 airports for civilians that it had earlier said would remain closed until Thursday due to safety concerns.

The tensions were the latest in the decades-long rivalry between the neighbours who have fought two wars over Kashmir, a Himayalan region which they claim in full but administer in part.

The recent hostilities threatened to turn into a full-fledged war as both countries appeared unwilling to back down for days.

Both countries have said that dozens of people from both sides died over the four days of fighting last week, partly due to heavy shelling near the de facto border.

After the ceasefire, however, both the rivals have declared military victory.

On 7 May, India reported striking nine targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir – this was in response to a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.

The attack took place in a meadow in the picturesque Pahalgam valley on 22 April.

India blamed a Pakistan-based group for the attack but Islamabad denies any involvement.

In the days since the first strike, India and Pakistan accused each other of cross-border shelling and claimed to have shot down rival drones and aircraft in their airspace.

As the conflict escalated, both nations said they struck the rival’s military bases.

Indian officials reported striking 11 Pakistan Air Force bases, including one in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad. India also claimed Pakistan lost 35-40 men at the Line of Control – the de facto border – during the conflict and that its air force lost a few aircraft.

Pakistan has accepted that some Indian projectiles landed at its air force bases.

Indian defence forces have also said that they struck nine armed group training facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing more than 100 militants.

The Pakistan military, in turn, claims it targeted about 26 military facilities in India and that its drones hovered over capital Delhi.

India has confirmed that some Pakistani projectiles landed up at its air force bases, though it did not comment on the claim about Delhi.

Pakistan also claims to have shot down five Indian aircraft, including three French Rafales – India has not acknowledged this or commented on the number, though it said on Sunday that that “losses are a part of combat”.

Pakistan denied the claims that an Indian pilot was in its custody after she ejected following an aircraft crash. India has also said that “all our pilots are back home”.

The first group of 49 white South Africans to be granted refugee status by the US is due to arrive shortly, after leaving Johannesburg on Sunday.

Relations between South Africa and the US have been tense for months, after President Donald Trump said that members of the country’s Afrikaner minority were victims of “racial discrimination”.

This was dismissed by South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, who said on Monday “there is no persecution of white Afrikaner South Africans”, adding that police reports debunk President Trump’s assertion.

South Africa says that any allegations of persecution would not meet the threshold “required under domestic and international refugee law”.

The BBC has contacted the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which confirmed it was not involved in this resettlement scheme, nor was it asked to take part in any of the screening.

Given the Trump’s administration’s hardline position on refugees, it is notable the process did not involve the UNHCR – showing how much the white Afrikaners have been fast-tracked and in a way that has not been done for others.

The US has criticised domestic South African policy, accusing the government of seizing land from white farmers without any compensation – something which the southern African nation says has not happened.

President Trump has also highlighted what he has described as the “large-scale killing of farmers” in South Africa.

One of his closest advisers, South African-born Elon Musk, has previously said there was a “genocide of white people” in South Africa and accused the government of passing “racist ownership laws”.

The claims of a genocide of white people have been widely discredited.

Figures from the South African police show that in 2024, 44 murders were recorded on farms and smaller plots of agricultural land, with eight of those killed being farmers.

South Africa does not report on crime statistics broken down by race but a majority of the country’s farmers are white, while other people living on farms, such as workers, are mostly black.

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Afrikaner author Max du Preez told the BBC’s Newsday radio programme that claims of persecution of white South Africans were a “total absurdity” and “based on nothing”.

He added that South Africans were “stunned” by the resettlement scheme and that it had more to do with “internal politics” in the US than South Africa.

Bilateral tensions between the US and South Africa have been strained for some time as President Trump tasked his administration with formulating plans to potentially resettle Afrikaners, a group with mostly Dutch ancestry, in the US.

In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing President Trump of using “white victimhood as a dog whistle”, leading to the US accusing Mr Rasool of “race-baiting”.

The US has also criticised South Africa for taking an “aggressive” position against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Pretoria has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of genocide against people in Gaza – a claim which the Israelis strongly reject.

The current group of white South African refugees comprises 49 people, who are expected to land in Washington DC later on Monday, before continuing to Texas.

White South Africans make up just 7.3% of the population, but own the vast majority of privately held farmland, according to a 2017 government report.

In January President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a controversial law which allows the government to seize privately owned land without compensation in certain circumstances, when it is deemed “equitable and in the public interest”.

There had been anger in South Africa over the slow pace of land reform in the three decades since the end of the racist apartheid system.

President Trump’s openness to accepting Afrikaner refugees comes as the US has engaged in a wider crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers from other countries.

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Former members of UK Special Forces have broken years of silence to give BBC Panorama eyewitness accounts of alleged war crimes committed by colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Giving their accounts publicly for the first time, the veterans described seeing members of the SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, including children.

“They handcuffed a young boy and shot him,” recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. ”He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age.”

Killing of detainees “became routine”, the veteran said. “They’d search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them”, before cutting off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain people and “planting a pistol” by the body, he said.

The new testimony includes allegations of war crimes stretching over more than a decade, far longer than the three years currently being examined by a judge-led public inquiry in the UK.

The SBS, the Royal Navy’s elite special forces regiment, is also implicated for the first time in the most serious allegations – executions of unarmed and wounded people.

A veteran who served with the SBS said some troops had a “mob mentality”, describing their behaviour on operations as “barbaric”.

“I saw the quietest guys switch, show serious psychopathic traits,” he said. “They were lawless. They felt untouchable.”

Special Forces were deployed to Afghanistan to protect British troops from Taliban fighters and bombmakers. The conflict was a deadly one for members of the UK’s armed forces – 457 lost their lives and thousands more were wounded.

Asked by the BBC about the new eyewitness testimony, the Ministry of Defence said that it was “fully committed” to supporting the ongoing public inquiry into the alleged war crimes and that it urged all veterans with relevant information to come forward. It said that it was “not appropriate for the MoD to comment on allegations” which may be in the inquiry’s scope.

The eyewitness testimony offers the most detailed public account of the killings to date from former members of UK Special Forces (UKSF), the umbrella group which contains the SAS, SBS and several supporting regiments.

The testimony, from more than 30 people who served with or alongside UK Special Forces, builds on years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of extrajudicial killings by the SAS.

Panorama can also reveal for the first time that then Prime Minister David Cameron was repeatedly warned during his tenure that UK Special Forces were killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of a de facto code of silence around special forces operations, the eyewitnesses told the BBC that the laws of war were being regularly and intentionally broken by the country’s most elite regiments during operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those laws state that on such operations people can be deliberately killed only when they pose a direct threat to the lives of British troops or others. But members of the SAS and SBS were making their own rules, the eyewitnesses said.

“If a target had popped up on the list two or three times before, then we’d go in with the intention of killing them, there was no attempt to capture them,” said one veteran who served with the SAS, referring to people who had been previously captured, questioned and then released.

“Sometimes we’d check we’d identified the target, confirm their ID, then shoot them,” he said. “Often the squadron would just go and kill all the men they found there.”

One witness who served with the SAS said that killing could become “an addictive thing to do” and that some members of the elite regiment were “intoxicated by that feeling” in Afghanistan. There were “lots of psychotic murderers”, he said.

“On some operations, the troop would go into guesthouse-type buildings and kill everyone there,” he said. “They’d go in and shoot everyone sleeping there, on entry. It’s not justified, killing people in their sleep.”

A veteran who served with the SBS told the BBC that after bringing an area under control, assault teams would sweep through the area shooting anyone on the ground, checking the bodies and killing anyone left alive. “It was expected, not hidden. Everyone knew,” he said.

Intentionally killing wounded people who do not pose a threat would be a clear breach of international law. But the SBS veteran told Panorama that wounded people were routinely killed. He described one operation during which a medic was treating someone who had been shot but was still breathing. “Then one of our blokes came up to him. There was a bang. He’d been shot in the head at point-blank range,” he said.

The killings were “completely unnecessary,” he added. “These are not mercy killings. It’s murder.”

More junior members of assault teams were told by more senior SAS operators to kill male detainees, according to the testimony, using instructions such as “he’s not coming back to base with us” or “this detainee, you make sure he doesn’t come off target”.

Detainees were people who had surrendered, been searched by special forces, and were typically handcuffed. British and international law forbid troops from deliberately killing unarmed civilians or prisoners of war.

A former SAS operator also described learning of an operation in Iraq during which someone was executed.

“It was pretty clear from what I could glean that he posed no threat, he wasn’t armed. It’s disgraceful. There’s no professionalism in that,” the former operator said. The killing was never properly investigated, he added. According to the SAS veteran, the problem started long before the regiment moved across to Afghanistan and “senior commanders were aware of that”.

The testimony, as well as new video evidence obtained by the BBC from SAS operations in Iraq in 2006, also supports previous reporting by Panorama that SAS squadrons kept count of their kills to compete with one another.

Sources told the BBC that some members of the SAS kept their own individual counts, and that one operator personally killed dozens of people on one six-month tour of Afghanistan.

“It seemed like he was trying to get a kill on every operation, every night someone got killed,” a former colleague said. The operator was “notorious in the squadron, he genuinely seemed like a psychopath,” the former colleague added.

In one incident that sources say became infamous inside the SAS, the operator allegedly slit the throat of an injured Afghan man after telling an officer not to shoot the man again. It was “because he wanted to go and finish the wounded guy off with his knife,” another former colleague said. “He wanted to, you know, blood his knife.”

Knowledge of the alleged crimes was not confined to small teams or individual squadrons, according to the testimony. Within the UK Special Forces command structure, “everyone knew” what was happening, said one veteran.

“I’m not taking away from personal responsibility, but everyone knew,” he said. “There was implicit approval for what was happening.”

To avoid scrutiny of the killings, eyewitnesses said, members of the SAS and SBS would plant so-called “drop weapons” on the bodies of the dead, to make it look as though they had been armed in the photographs routinely taken by special forces teams at the scene.

“There was a fake grenade they’d take with them onto target, it couldn’t detonate,” said a former SAS operator. Another veteran said operators would carry AK-47 rifles which had a folding stock because they were easier to fit into their rucksacks and “easier to bring onto a target and plant by a body”.

Officers would then help to falsify post-operational reports in order to avoid scrutiny for the actions of assault teams on the ground, according to the testimony.

“We understood how to write up serious incident reviews so they wouldn’t trigger a referral to the military police,” one of the veterans said.

“If it looked like a shooting could represent a breach of the rules of conflict, you’d get a phone call from the legal adviser or one of the staff officers in HQ. They’d pick you up on it and help you to clarify the language. ‘Do you remember someone making a sudden move?’ ‘Oh yeah, I do now.’ That sort of thing. It was built into the way we operated.”

The reports were “a fiction”, another UKSF veteran said.

An intelligence officer who worked with the SBS described reports which said they had been caught in a firefight, while the photos showed bodies with “multiple clean headshots”.

Falsified paperwork could help prevent an investigation by the Royal Military Police, but British special forces operations generated deep concern from Afghan commanders and Afghan government officials.

David Cameron – who made seven visits to Afghanistan as prime minister between June 2010 and November 2013, the period now under scrutiny by the SAS public inquiry, was repeatedly made aware of the concerns by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to multiple people who attended the meetings.

Mr Karzai “consistently, repeatedly mentioned this issue”, former Afghan national security adviser Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta told Panorama. He said Lord Cameron could have been left in no doubt that there were allegations of civilians, including children, being killed during operations carried out by UK Special Forces.

The Afghan president was “so consistent with his complaints about night raids, civilian casualties and detentions that there was no senior Western diplomat or military leader who would have missed the fact that this was a major irritant for him,” said Gen Douglas Lute, a former US ambassador to Nato.

Gen Lute said it would have been “extraordinarily unusual if there were a claim against British forces that the British chain of command was not aware of”.

A spokesperson for Lord Cameron told Panorama that “to the best of Lord Cameron’s recollection” the issues raised by President Karzai were about Nato forces in general and that “specific incidents with respect to UK Special Forces were not raised”.

The spokesperson also said that it was “right that we await the official findings of the Inquiry”, adding that “any suggestion that Lord Cameron colluded in covering up allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing is total nonsense.”

Unlike many other countries, including the US and France, the UK has no parliamentary oversight of its elite special forces regiments. Strategic responsibility for their actions falls ultimately to the prime minister, along with the defence secretary and head of special forces.

Bruce Houlder KC – a former director of service prosecutions, responsible for bringing charges and prosecuting those serving in the Armed Forces – told Panorama that he hoped the public inquiry would examine the extent of Lord Cameron’s knowledge of alleged civilian casualties on British special forces operations.

“You need to know how far the rot went up,” Mr Houlder said.

A UN-backed assessment has said that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million Palestinians is at “critical risk” of famine and faces “extreme levels of food insecurity” as an Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid continues.

The latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said there had been a “major deterioration” since October 2024, but concluded famine was not currently occurring.

The two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “led to a temporary reprieve” in Gaza, the report said, but renewed hostilities and an Israeli blockade on aid – ongoing since early March – had “reversed” any improvements.

Some 244,000 people were currently experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, it said, and called for urgent action to prevent the “increasingly likely” risk of famine.

Israel renewed its military operations in Gaza in mid-March and has prevented food, medication and other aid from entering Gaza for 70 days, saying it is putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

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There has been international condemnation of the blockade, including from the UN which has said it has supplies at Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter if Israel allows. Aid agencies have said the blockade could be a war crime and amounts to a policy of starvation.

The IPC assessment, released on Monday, found half a million people – or one in five – were facing starvation in Gaza. It said nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months to April 2026.

It added: “Many households are resorting to extreme measures to find food, including begging, and collecting garbage to sell to buy something to eat.”

The report said the current situation, compared to its October 2024 analysis, represented “a major deterioration in one of the world’s most severe food and nutrition crises driven by conflict and characterised by untold human suffering”.

Its analysis found that 1.95 million people, or 93% of Gaza’s population, were living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including 244,000 experiencing “catastrophic” levels.

The IPC – a global initiative by UN agencies, aid groups and governments – is the primary mechanism the international community uses to conclude whether a famine is happening.

Israeli officials have denied there is a hunger crisis in Gaza because of the quantity of aid that entered during the ceasefire.

It comes as Hamas said it would release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander as part of efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement. The group said it was also intended to facilitate a deal for the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Israeli PM’s office said it had not committed to any ceasefire but only to a “safe corridor” for Mr Alexander’s release.

US President Donald Trump arrives in the Middle East on Tuesday, and Israel has vowed to expand its military offensive against Hamas if no deal is reached by the end of his visit.

Israeli officials have said the plans for their expanded offensive include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies despite opposition from the UN and its humanitarian partners, who say they will not co-operate because it appears to “weaponise” aid.

In its report, the IPC said the aid distribution plans were estimated to be “highly insufficient” and it was expected that large parts of the population would “face significant issues in accessing the proposed distribution sites”.

The 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 hostages remain in Gaza, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s military campaign has killed 52,862 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised the government’s new immigration measures will mean net migration falls “significantly” over the next four years.

The prime minister unveiled plans to ban recruitment of care workers from overseas, tighten access to skilled worker visas and raise the costs to employers in an effort to curb near record net migration.

He did not set a precise target, but the Home Office estimated the policies could lead to a 100,000 drop in immigration per year by 2029 – based on analysis of just eight of the core policies where “a quantitative assessment” could be made.

Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch said: “This is nowhere near the scale of the change we need to see.”

Successive governments have tried unsuccessfully to reduce net migration, which is the number of people coming to the UK minus the number leaving.

Net migration climbed to a record 906,000 in June 2023, and last year it stood at 728,000.

Sir Keir argued the proposals bring the immigration system “back into control”, denying it was a response to the electoral success of Reform UK.

The PM said the new plans, which tackle legal migration to the UK, would ensure a “selective” and “fair” system, where “we decide who comes to this country”.

“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control,” he said.

“Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”

The government will scrap a visa scheme, set up by Boris Johnson’s government, that allows firms to hire health and social care workers from overseas.

Instead, firms will be required to hire British nationals or extend the visas of overseas workers already in the country.

Home Office figures estimate this change will cut the number of workers coming to the UK by between 7,000 and 8,000 a year.

However, care companies warned some services will struggle to survive without international recruits.

Employers will also be asked to pay more to hire foreign staff.

The Immigration Skills Charge will increase by 32%, leading smaller firms to pay up to £2,400 to sponsor workers to come to the UK, while large firms will pay up to £6,600.

Universities could also be hit by higher charges. The government plans to look into a new tax on every international student enrolled in a UK university, with the proceeds redirected into skills training.

At the same time, colleges must meet stricter thresholds, with at least 95% of international students expected to start their course and 90% expected to finish.

The qualification requirements to apply for a skilled worker visa will go back up, reversing changes made under Johnson’s government.

It will mean new applicants will generally need a degree-level qualification, rather than the equivalent of A-level, which ministers say will make around 180 job roles ineligible for the visa route.

Lower qualification requirements will remain for sectors facing long-term shortages, or those considered key to the government’s industrial strategy.

However it is not yet clear what that means in practice, and the government’s migration advisory body has been asked to recommend roles for inclusion.

The government also said:

• English language requirements for all work visas would increase
• The amount of time migrants need to live in the UK before applying for settled status would double from five years to 10, while setting up a fast-track system for “high-skilled, high-contributing” people
• A “limited pool” of refugees and displaced people recognised by the United Nations’ agency responsible will be eligible to apply for jobs through existing skilled-worker routes.

The government will also explore changing the law on how the right to a family life contained in Article 8 in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is applied in immigration cases.

The government has previously said Article 8 should be interpreted “much more narrowly”, opposing its use in cases including that of a Palestinian family, who were granted the right to live in the UK on appeal after originally applying through a scheme designed for Ukrainians.

Government sources indicated a parliamentary vote on the plans was likely, to clarify Parliament’s view to the courts.

Speaking before the publication of the Immigration White Paper, Sir Keir accused industries of being “almost addicted to importing cheap labour” instead of “investing in the skills of people here”.

Asked if net migration would fall every year due to the plans, Sir Keir said: “I’m promising it will fall significantly.

“And I do want to get it down by the end of this Parliament, significantly.”

He also said there could be further restrictions saying, “if we do need to do more to release pressure on housing and public services, then mark my words we will”.

The Conservatives have announced they plan to support policies such as tightening visas, which Badenoch argued were “watered down” versions of Tory policies.

The Conservatives want a binding migration cap, set by Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats said it was right for the government to tackle immigration, but the party’s Home Affairs spokesperson Lisa Smart called for a “clear plan to make it easier to recruit British workers to fill vacancies instead”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Labour had introduced the changes because it was “obviously very panicked” about the rise of his party at the local elections.

The White Paper was “tinkering around the edges”, he argued, and “even if the numbers do reduce, they’ll still be at massive historic highs”.

The Green Party has denounced the proposals as a “panicked and misguided” attempt to “create headlines and try to win back Reform voters”.

Sir Keir dismissed claims the plans were reacting to the threat from Reform, telling broadcasters: “I’m doing this because it is right, because it is fair and because it is what I believe in.”

He repeatedly attacked the previous Conservative government’s immigration approach as an “open borders experiment”, which was now over.

The UK risks “becoming an island of strangers” without strong rules on immigration and integration, he added.

Some on the left have accused Sir Keir of going too far on immigration.

One Labour MP, Nadia Whittome, accused the prime minister of mimicking “the scaremongering of the far-right”.

In a social media post she said: “The step-up in anti-migrant rhetoric from the government is shameful and dangerous.”

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The jury in the trial of American music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is accused of running a sprawling sex trafficking operation, will be sworn in on Monday before opening statements are delivered by lawyers for both sides.

The 55-year-old was arrested last September and faces charges including racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. He could face life in prison if convicted.

Mr Combs has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations against him.

Dozens of prospective jurors were screened before being whittled down to 12 – and six alternates – ahead of Monday.

The first week of testimony will include two witnesses who are expected to speak briefly, prosecutors said, followed by a third witness who will see more time on the stand.

Mr Combs also faces dozens of civil lawsuits from individuals who accuse him of using his power to drug, assault, rape, intimidate and silence people. He has said the individual lawsuits are attempts “for a quick payday”.

The court is expected to be open to the public, but proceedings will not be televised or streamed online.

Cameras, phones and electronic devices are normally not allowed in US federal courtrooms.

The BBC will bring you live updates as the jury is seated and opening statements begin on Monday straight from the court.

The trial proceedings began with jury selection on Monday 5 May in front of US District Judge Arun Subramanian, at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse in lower Manhattan.

The judge told jurors the trial itself could last around eight weeks.

Dozens of potential jurors were vetted by the court.

The process included potential jurors looking through a long list of places and people that could be mentioned during trial, with names like Kanye West and Kid Cudi.

The “People and Places” list was so long that Judge Subramanian said she “felt like I was reading an appendix for Lord of the Rings”.

Potential jurors also had to fill out questionnaires that asked whether they had “views about hip hop artists” or “feelings concerning violence, sexual assault”.

The judge reminded the court several times of the importance of choosing a fair and impartial jury.

Nearly all the potential jurors had read news reports of the allegations in the case and many had seen footage of Mr Combs kicking his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hotel hallway.

In the federal criminal case being heard in New York, Mr Combs is charged with racketeering conspiracy, two charges of sex trafficking and two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Many of the most severe allegations relate to the racketeering conspiracy charge.

This includes accusations of kidnapping, drugging, and coercing women into sexual activities, sometimes using firearms or threats of violence.

In a raid on his Los Angeles mansion, police found supplies that they said were intended for use in orgies known as “freak offs”, including drugs and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil.

Separately, Mr Combs faces a number of lawsuits accusing him of rape and assault.

Tony Buzbee, a Texas lawyer handling some of these cases, said that more than 100 women and men from across the US had either filed lawsuits against the rap mogul or intended to do so.

In December 2023, a woman known in court papers as Jane Doe alleged that she was “gang raped” by Mr Combs and others in 2003, when she was 17. She said she was given “copious amounts of drugs and alcohol” before the attack.

Mr Combs’ legal team dismissed the flurry of lawsuits as “clear attempts to garner publicity.”

Mr Combs’ current legal issues began in late 2023 when he was sued by Ms Ventura, also known as Cassie, for violent abuse and rape.

That lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount a day after it was filed, with Mr Combs maintaining his innocence.

Since then, dozens of other people have filed lawsuits accusing Mr Combs of sexual assault, with accusations dating back to 1991. He denies all the claims.

His controversial history with Ms Ventura resurfaced in 2024, when CNN leaked CCTV footage from 2016 showing Mr Combs kicking his ex-girlfriend as she lay on a hotel hallway floor.

He apologised for his behaviour, saying: “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now.”

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In a statement to the BBC about the federal criminal charges, Mr Combs’ lawyer said: “Mr Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process.

“In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone – man or woman, adult or minor.”

Diddy’s lawyers later filed a motion to dismiss one part of the federal indictment in which he is accused of transportation to engage in prostitution. His team argued he was being unfairly targeted due to his race.

In a hearing in New York a week before the trial officially began, his attorneys told the court that the rapper led the “lifestyle” of a “swinger” and was not a criminal.

They said he thought it was “appropriate” to have multiple sex partners, including sex workers.

At the same hearing, prosecutors revealed that Mr Combs had rejected a plea deal.

Mr Combs’ lawyers have consistently denied the allegations made against him in the civil lawsuits, describing them as “sickening” and suggesting they were made by “individuals looking for a quick payday”.

If convicted on the racketeering charge, Mr Combs faces up to life in prison.

He faces another statutory minimum sentence of 15 years if he is found guilty of sex trafficking.

Transportation for purposes of prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Mr Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, since his arrest on 16 September 2024.

Critics describe the prison as overcrowded and understaffed, with a culture of violence.

His lawyers argued for his release, citing the jail’s “horrific” conditions, but a New York federal judge denied the bail request, describing Mr Combs as a “serious flight risk”.

Prosecutors previously alleged that Mr Combs had broken prison rules by contacting potential witnesses.

They accused him of “relentless efforts” to “corruptly influence witness testimony”.

A judge granted Mr Combs permission to wear non-prison clothing during his trial rather than the jumpsuits he wears in jail.

When he appeared in court for jury selection, the rapper wore a blue sweater and white shirt with glasses on his head.

Mr Combs – who has also gone by the names Puffy, Puff Daddy, P Diddy, Love, and Brother Love – emerged in the hip-hop scene in the 1990s.

His early music career success included helping launch the careers of Mary J Blige and Christopher Wallace – aka Biggie Smalls, or The Notorious B.I.G.

His music label Bad Boy Records became one of the most important labels in rap and expanded to include Faith Evans, Ma$e, 112, Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez.

Mr Combs also had a prolific business career outside of music, including a deal with British drinks company Diageo to promote the French vodka brand Cîroc.

In 2023, he released his fifth record The Love Album: Off The Grid and earned his first solo nomination at the Grammy awards. He also was named a Global Icon at the MTV Awards.

• Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs: Who is the US rapper accused of sex trafficking?

For Maria Khan, the ceasefire this weekend between India and Pakistan came too late.

Maria, who lives in Indian-administered Kashmir, lost her nephew and niece – 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima – to cross-border shelling on 7 May. Their parents, her sister Urusa and brother-in-law Rameez Khan, were also injured and are still in hospital.

Hours earlier that day, India had launched a series of strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation for an earlier militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

The strikes were followed by a series of military actions from Islamabad and Delhi that went on till Saturday, including heavy cross-border shelling and drone strikes.

People living along the Line of Control (LoC), the de-factor border between India and Pakistan, were the most vulnerable as shells fell near their homes.

Maria, who lives in Poonch, a town in Indian-administered Kashmir near the LoC, is among dozens of people who lost family members in the conflict.

India has said that 16 people were killed on the morning of 7 May in the shelling by Pakistan. Pakistan has said that at least 30 civilians have died since India launched its retaliatory strikes in the early hours of 7 May.

On 6 May, like every other day, Zain and Urwa came back from school, did their homework, played a bit, had dinner and then went to sleep.

It wasn’t yet dawn when the Khan family heard the sound of gunfire just a few kilometres away from their home.

Terrified, they hunkered down at home and waited for a relative to come pick them up, Maria says.

“My sister was holding Urwa’s hand and my brother-in-law was holding Zain’s hand. They had just left the house when suddenly a shell exploded [nearby]. The splinters hit them – Urva died right there and Zain was flung somewhere in the force of the explosion,” Maria says.

She adds that her sister kept calling out to Zain. When she finally spotted him, a stranger was performing CPR on the boy, trying to revive him. But he was unsuccessful.

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Meanwhile, Rameez, who lay bleeding and unconscious, was rushed to hospital – first a local one in Poonch and later to a bigger hospital in Rajouri, about four hours away.

Since his injuries were serious, he was shifted again to a hospital in Jammu city, another four-hour journey.

Maria says that Urwa and Zain were the centre of their parents’ lives. Rameez, a teacher, wanted to give them the best education they could get and hence, they shifted to a house that was closer to the children’s school, called Christ School.

On 9 May, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing that during heavy shelling along the LoC, a Pakistani shell had fallen behind Christ School in Poonch town and exploded.

Rameez, Maria says, still doesn’t know about the deaths of his children as the family doesn’t want to upset him.

After the shelling on 7 May, hundreds of people left Poonch and other border towns to escape to safer areas. They are slowly returning after the ceasefire.

“The government should have informed people living near border areas earlier, so that they could leave from there and go to a safe place. Perhaps then our children would have been with us today,” she says.

“If war is necessary for the country’s security, we support it,” says Maria.

“We are also saddened by the Pahalgam attack, but we should also think about the lives of those living near the border. Are we not humans?” she asks.

“Now, whether there is a war or ceasefire, our children will not come back.”

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“High-protein” versions of snacks and food staples are all over our supermarket shelves – from pancakes and pasta, to rice pudding and oven pizza.

Celebrities are getting in on the act too. Khloe Kardashian unveiled Khloud Protein Popcorn a fortnight ago, which she described as “the perfect combination of a tasty snack and a boost of protein to fuel your day”, while Zac Efron promoted a protein-rich porridge in January.

But is this increased advertising of protein just a marketing gimmick or are these products actually useful if you’re trying to build muscle or live a healthy life? And is it worth the extra cost?

Sales of them are rising; figures shared with BBC News by the research agency Mintel show that, excluding sports nutrition items, 8.3% of food product launches made claims about being a source of protein, or having high levels of it, in the first three months of 2025.

That was up from 6.1% in 2024 and 4.6% the year before.

Kiti Soininen, a research director at Mintel, says protein claims are being added to food with naturally high levels of the nutrient, like chicken breasts and pulses, but also on products you wouldn’t expect.

“Mousses, desserts, granola, pancakes, even the odd pizza, are coming through with a high-protein claim,” she says. “Protein is enjoying a bit of a ‘health halo’ at the moment.”

Ethan Smith, a personal trainer in Liverpool, says high-protein diets are necessary for building muscle but that it ought to be done without the high protein snacks and drinks you see in shops.

“I’m a huge believer that there is nothing better than whole foods,” he says. “You can get the protein that you need from vegetables and lean meats.”

He believes the convenience of high-protein snacks, combined with the positive perception of the nutrient among customers, has led to manufacturers using protein as a marketing tool.

For manufacturers to claim their product is a source of protein, they must show regulators at least 12% of its energy value is provided by protein. To make a claim that a product is high in protein, the figure is 20%.

To help reach these scores they can add protein-rich ingredients to their products, like nuts and pulses, or make them more dense by removing water.

“When someone in a rush is getting a meal deal for lunch, you can see why they would reach for a protein bar or drink instead of two boiled eggs,” he says. “In my 12 years as a personal trainer, I’ve never seen as much hype around the benefits of protein as I am now.”

The benefits of protein range from muscle building and sports performance to helping with weight loss by suppressing appetite and helping women during pregnancy.

If you’re trying to build muscle you need to consume around 1.6g of protein per kilogram of your body weight each day, says Dr Paul Morgan, a university lecturer in human nutrition.

He says for the average person trying to ensure their general health, this figure should be around 1.2g.

He thinks many of the supermarket products advertising their protein content are “gimmicky” and warns they might not be as good for you as advertised.

“I think they do have a benefit but we are wary that a lot of them are ultra processed foods and that’s a really topical area [in our field] that we don’t know enough about,” he says.

Ultra-processed foods have come under scrutiny recently with one study published last month linking them to early death.

He explains that researchers in his field are trying to understand the differing impact on muscles that two similar protein sources might have when one of them is ultra-processed.

Another issue is calories because putting on weight is the most common problem people have when they are trying to consume more protein, Dr Morgan explains, as any excess is stored in the body as fat.

Some protein advertised snacks and drinks can have as many calories as regular products using similar ingredients.

Nature Valley’s protein peanut and chocolate bars have 489kcal per 100g, while Cadbury’s peanut brunch bars, which also contain chocolate, have 485kcal at the same weight.

Dr Morgan dismisses theories that eating too much protein can damage your bones or harm your kidneys, though there are exceptions if you have a pre-existing health condition.

Despite his concerns over ultra-processed protein products, Dr Morgan sees the benefit of increased protein in staple foods.

These might be particularly useful to elderly people who need more protein than the average person to maintain strength in their muscles and bones.

Tesco’s high-protein penne pasta contains 8.8g of protein per 100g, while their normal penne contains 5.8g of protein for the same weight. However, customers pay more for this as the high protein-penne costs £4.80 per kg. The normal penne costs £1.29 per kg.

So is it worth buying these protein advertised products?

It might be if you’re someone who needs more protein to maintain your health or if you’re trying to build muscle and need just a little bit extra to meet your daily protein goal, says Ethan.

“If the majority of your diet is whole foods and you need that extra 20g of protein to hit your goal and want something sweet – then go for that pudding or snack,” he tells us. “Having balance is important – but you shouldn’t be relying on them.”

He adds: “When I started my career, people used to talk about whey protein just as a supplement to your diet. Now the number of companies putting protein on anything and everything is insane.”

Before Silvana Santos arrived in the little town of Serrinha dos Pintos more than 20 years ago, residents had no idea why so many local children had lost the ability to walk.

The remote town in north-eastern Brazil is home to fewer than 5,000 people, and is where biologist and geneticist Santos identified and named a previously unknown condition: Spoan syndrome.

Caused by a genetic mutation, the syndrome affects the nervous system, gradually weakening the body. It only appears when the altered gene is inherited from both parents.

Santos’s research marked the first time the disease had been described anywhere in the world. For this and later work, she was named one of the BBC’s 100 most influential women in 2024.

Before Santos arrived, families had no explanation for the illness affecting their children. Today, residents talk confidently about Spoan and genetics.

“She gave us a diagnosis we never had. After the research, help came: people, funding, wheelchairs,” says Marquinhos, one of the patients.

Where Santos is from in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest and wealthiest city, many of her neighbours were members of the same extended family originally from Serrinha. Many of them were cousins of varying degrees, married to each other.

They told Santos that many of people in their hometown couldn’t walk, but that no-one knew why.

One of the neighbours’ daughters, Zirlândia, suffered from a debilitating condition: as a child, her eyes moved involuntarily and over time, she lost strength in her limbs and needed to use a wheelchair, requiring help with even the simplest tasks.

Years of investigation would lead Santos and a research team to identify these as symptoms of Spoan syndrome.

They would go on to find 82 other cases worldwide.

At the invitation of her neighbours, Santos visited Serrinha on holiday. She describes her arrival as stepping into “a world of its own” – not just because of the lush scenery and mountain views, but also due to what seemed to be a notable social coincidence.

The more she walked and spoke with locals, the more surprised she was at how common marriages between cousins were.

Serrinha’s geographical isolation and little inward migration mean that many of the population are related, making marriage between cousins far more likely and more socially acceptable.

Worldwide, marriages between relatives were estimated at around 10% in the early 2010s. More recent data shows the rate varies widely, from over 50% in countries like Pakistan, to 1-4% in Brazil and less than 1% in the US and Russia. Most children born to pairs of cousins are healthy, experts say.

But these marriages do face a higher risk of a harmful genetic mutation being passed down through the family.

“If a couple is unrelated, the chance of having a child with a rare genetic disorder or disability is about 2–3%. For cousins, the risk rises to 5–6% per pregnancy,” explains geneticist Luzivan Costa Reis from Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

A 2010 study led by Santos showed that more than 30% of couples in Serrinha were related, and a third of them had at least one child with a disability.

Santos set out to find a diagnosis for the people of Serrinha and she began planning a detailed genetic study, requiring multiple trips and eventually leading to her relocating to the region.

She drove the 1,250 miles (2,000km) to and from São Paulo many times in the early years of her research. She collected DNA samples door-to-door, chatting to locals over coffee and gathering family stories, all the while trying to locate the mutation causing the disease.

What was supposed to be three months of fieldwork turned into years of dedication.

It all led to the publication in 2005 of the team’s study revealing the existence of Spoan in the Brazilian hinterland.

Santos’s team found that the mutation involves the loss of a small fragment of a chromosome, which causes a gene to overproduce a key protein in brain cells.

“They said it came from Maximiano, a womaniser in our family,” recalls farmer Lolô, whose daughter Rejane has Spoan.

Lolô, now 83, married his cousin and never left Serrinha. He still tends cattle and relies on family to care for Rejane, who struggles with daily tasks.

But the genetic mutation behind Spoan is far older than the legend of Old Maximiano: it likely arrived more than 500 years ago with early European settlers in the north-east of Brazil.

“Sequencing studies show strong European ancestry in patients, supporting records of Portuguese, Dutch, and Sephardic Jewish presence in the region,” says Santos.

The theory gained strength after two Spoan cases were found in Egypt, and further studies showed that the Egyptian cases also shared European ancestry, pointing to a common origin in the Iberian Peninsula.

“It likely came with related Sephardic Jews or Moors fleeing the Inquisition,” says Santos. She believes more cases may exist globally, especially in Portugal.

Although there’s been little progress toward a cure, tracking patients has brought some change. Rejane recalls how people used to be called “cripples”. Now, they’re simply said to have Spoan.

Wheelchairs brought not just independence, but also helped prevent deformities – in the past, many with the condition had been left simply lying in bed or on the floor.

As Spoan progresses, physical limitations worsen with age and by 50, nearly all patients become fully dependent on carers.

This is the case for Inés’s children, who are among the oldest in Serrinha. Chiquinho, 59, can no longer speak, and Marquinhos, 46, has limited communication abilities.

“It’s hard to have a ‘special’ child. We love them the same, but we suffer for them,” says Inés, who is married to a second cousin.

Larissa Queiroz, 25, the niece of Chiquinho and Marquinho, also married a distant relative. She and her husband, Saulo, only discovered their common ancestor after several months of dating.

“In Serrinha dos Pintos, deep down, we’re all cousins. We’re related to everyone,” she says.

Couples like Larissa and Saulo are the focus of a new research project which Santos is also involved in. Backed by Brazil’s Ministry of Health, it will screen 5,000 couples for genes linked to serious recessive diseases.

The goal is not to stop cousin marriages, but to help couples understand their genetic risks, says Santos. Now a university professor, she also leads a genetics education centre and works to expand testing in the north-east of Brazil.

Though she no longer lives in Serrinha dos Pintos, every visit feels like coming home.

“It’s as if Santos is family,” says Inés.

When the Philippines voted on Monday, Sara Duterte’s name was not on the ballot.

But the results of the election, which includes 12 senate races, impacts her political future.

It affects 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 filmed in 2011 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 passion for riding big motorbikes. Sara is said to be her father’s favourite child, though she has also said they share a “love-hate relationship”.

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

• Follow live updates: Millions vote in Philippines midterms as Marcos-Duterte feud heats up

Born in 1978, Sara is Rodrigo Duterte’s second child with his first wife, flight attendant Elizabeth Zimmerman.

In 1999 she graduated with a major in BS Respiratory Therapy. During her inauguration as vice-president in 2022, she said that in her youth she was “consumed by a dream to become a doctor” but was “directed toward another way”.

In 2005 she graduated with a law degree and passed the Philippine Bar Examination. But it wasn’t long before her father expressed his wish for her to enter politics as his running mate in mayoral elections – hoping that if and when he ran for president, Sara would help protect his mayoral legacy.

Rodrigo would only go ahead with his presidential bid once Sara had agreed to succeed him as mayor of Davao – and in 2010, at 32, she succeeded her father to become the city’s first female mayor.

In response to many people’s apparent confusion as to how they should address her, Sara Duterte ended her inaugural address with a specific appeal: “call me Inday Sara”.

“Inday”, an honorific in the south, means a respected elder woman. It also played into the Duterte’s optics: of a family from the regional south facing off against imperial Manila.

In Manila, “inday” was previously used to refer to house help from the south – but Sara reclaimed the term. Now even her father calls her by that name.

It was in 2021 that Sara 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.

Another blow came in March when her father was arrested and extradited to the Hague over the thousands of killings during his war on drugs. She then flew to the Netherlands to meet him while he was in custody.

He is still in jail, awaiting trial, but has been elected mayor of Davao in one of several local races that also took place on Monday.

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest was a big part of his daughter’s campaign for her senate picks, with Sara and the candidates often chanting “bring him home”.

Those candidates included two key family loyalists who look set to win their seats, according to early, partial results.

This would be an important victory for Sara, because the composition of the house determines whether or not she will be impeached.

For her to be impeached, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote for it.

But Monday’s results, which include some surprise wins, make it harder to predict the outcome of the trial.

For now, Sara Duterte’s fate hangs in the balance.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has been dealt an unexpected blow in the midterms, with his Senate candidates set to pick up fewer seats than expected, according to early results.

The election was a showdown between Marcos and his Vice-President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The pair, who represent the country’s most powerful families, won the 2022 election together – but their alliance has since collapsed.

Monday’s election, which included multiple races from the council to the Congress, was an important test for 67-year-old Marcos, the son of an ousted dictator who rebranded his father’s reign to make a comeback in the 2022 election.

Born in 1957 to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Bongbong was just eight years old when his father became president. He was the second of three children, and the only son. The couple later adopted another girl.

Bongbong’s father, a former lawyer, served in the Congress and Senate, while his mother was a singer and former beauty pageant winner. Both would achieve notoriety – as the family amassed enormous wealth under a brutal regime, they became synonymous with excess and corruption.

During his first term between 1965 and 1969, Ferdinand Marcos Sr was fairly popular, and was re-elected by a landslide. But in 1972, a year before his second term was due to end, he declared martial law.

What followed was more than a decade of dictatorship, during which the country’s foreign debt grew, prices soared and ordinary Filipinos struggled to make ends meet. It was also a period of repression as opposition figures and critics were jailed, disappeared or killed.

Through it all, Marcos Sr was grooming his son for leadership.

Bongbong’s childhood bedroom in llocos Norte, the family’s stronghold in the north, which is now a museum, has a portrait of him wearing a golden crown and riding a white stallion.

But the elder Marcos was also worried about whether his son would step up to the role. A diary entry from 1972 read: “Bongbong is our principal worry. He is too carefree and lazy”.

Marcos enrolled in Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but it was later revealed that he did not graduate with a bachelor’s degree as he claimed.

Oxford said in 2021 that he was awarded a special diploma in social studies in 1978. That too, local media reports alleged, was the result of lobbying by Philippine diplomats in the UK after Marcos Jr failed his exams.

He returned home and joined politics, becoming the vice-governor and then governor of Ilocos Norte.

But the political career his parents had envisioned for him would be cut short by a revolution in 1986.

An economic crisis had already triggered unrest – but the assassination of a prominent opposition leader brought tens of thousands onto the streets.

A sustained campaign eventually convinced a significant faction of the army to withdraw its support for the Marcos regime, and hastened its downfall.

The family fled to Hawaii with whatever valuables they could bring, but left behind enough proof of the lavish lives they had led.

Protesters who stormed the presidential palace found fanciful oil portraits of the family, a jacuzzi with gold-plated fixtures and the now-infamous 3,000 pairs of designer shoes owned by Imelda Marcos.

The family is accused of plundering an estimated $10bn of public money while in power. By the time Marcos Sr died in exile in 1989, his was a tarnished name.

And yet, some three decades later, his son was able to whitewash that past enough to win the presidential election.

After they returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, Marcos became a provincial governor, congressman and senator, before running – and winning – the presidential race in 2022.

Social media was a big part of this rebranding, winning Marcos new supporters – especially among the younger generation in a country where the median age is around 25.

On Facebook, the Marcos family legacy has been rewritten, with propaganda posts claiming that Marcos Sr’s regime was actually a “golden period” for the country.

On TikTok, a martial law anthem from the Marcos Sr era became the soundtrack to a cute challenge for Gen Z users, who would record older family members marching to the beat.

As his popularity grew, Marcos launched his presidential bid with Sara Duterte running for vice-president. She vowed to work with Bongbong to unify the country and make it “rise again”.

They called themselves the “uniTeam”, and combined the two families’ powerful bases: the Dutertes in the south, and the Marcos’s in the north.

It paid off. Marcos won with a thumping 31 million votes, more than double the total of his closest rival.

“Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos said as victory became apparent, vowing to “be a president for all Filipinos”.

Three years into his presidency, Marcos has brought Manila closer to the US and increasingly confronted an assertive China in the South China Sea – a key departure from Duterte’s presidency.

That wasn’t the only thing that caused a crack in his alliance with Sara Duterte, which eventually descended into a public spat.

He gave her the Education portfolio, when she had openly sought the more powerful Defence portfolio. His allies in Congress then initiated impeachment proceedings against her over alleged misuse of state funds.

And Marcos cleared the way for her father to be arrested and taken to the Hague for his role in a deadly war on drugs that killed thousands.

Marcos, experts say, took a big risk by picking a fight with the Dutertes – for it to pay off, control of the senate was crucial.

But the midterm results complicate his chances – and his political future.

The Swiss city of Basel is going into party mode this weekend, as it prepares to welcome the Eurovision Song Contest.

It’s been 36 years since Switzerland last hosted the contest, after Celine Dion won in 1988, so the wait to roll out Eurovision’s famous turquoise carpet has been long.

Switzerland hosted the first ever Eurovision at Lugano in 1956, but its record since Dion’s victory in Dublin has been mixed.

Between 2007 and 2010, and again between 2015 and 2018, its entries failed to even qualify for the final. Swiss singer Nemo finally won last year with The Code.

Perhaps because of that, Basel is determined to make this contest memorable for all the right reasons. At 1.3km (0.8 miles), its turquoise carpet will be Eurovision’s longest ever, stretching from Basel town hall, across the river Rhine all the way to the Eurovision village.

The head of Basel’s government, Conradin Cramer, believes his city of just 175,000 residents is the natural home for Eurovision’s estimated half a million visitors.

Because of its borders with both France and Germany, Basel is “the heart of Europe”, he says. What’s more, he points out, the city has a long humanist tradition; when other cities in medieval Europe were cracking down on free thinkers, Basel welcomed them.

So Basel, with its geographic location and its history of tolerance, and Eurovision with its tradition of inclusivity and diversity are, he says “the perfect match”.

Last year’s contest in Malmo attracted thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators and further protests against the war in Gaza are expected in Basel too.

Police have not yet released their plans to manage this, but have said that everyone should have the right to express their opinion, as long they stay within the law, and do not risk the safety of others.

Throughout the contest they say 1,300 officers will be on duty. Basel has also unveiled a security operation to ensure visitors can enjoy the song contest safely. They are promising “mobile awareness teams”, safe retreats for victims of violence or hostility and a 24-hour hotline. The concept, which Basel officials describe as unique, aims to prevent violence, sexual assault or harassment, and racist aggression and insults.

The awareness teams, recognisable by their pink jackets, will be available 24 hours a day across the city. Basel’s security director Stephanie Eymann said the teams were a “low-threshold” measure to give visitors a chance to report harassment or assaults, and seek protection, even if some might not want to approach the police.

The entire town appears to have embraced the event, with turquoise welcome flags now waving from every lamp post. Tickets for the contest itself sold out in minutes, but Basel is promising that there will be “something for everyone”, ticket or no ticket, and most of it will be free.

“There will be concerts all over the city, there will be art projects,” says tourism director Letizia Elia. Basel has 40 museums and galleries in a space of just 37 square kilometres, a record for a European city, and they are all getting involved.

An exhibition featuring works by Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Wassily Kandinsky, and Pablo Picasso has opened at the Beyeler Foundation, where Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s We are Poems rainbow sculpture sits on the roof. There’s also a Glitz and Glam exhibition at Basel’s museum of natural history.

The celebrations have spread across Switzerland, with competitions across the country for the best school band – the top four will get a spot on stage in Basel.

But hosting an event like Eurovision is never hitch-free, and this one is no exception. The final choice of Basel as a venue was only made at the end of August last year, allowing just over seven months to organise everything.

Then came objections from evangelical Christian groups, who claimed Eurovision undermined traditional family values and that performers regularly sang about satanism and the occult. They gathered enough signatures to force a referendum aimed at banning public money for the event.

But on 24 November voters gave a huge yes to the song contest; with 66.6% approving Basel’s budget of almost $40m. Conradin Cramer had expected a referendum, because “that’s how Switzerland works, it’s perfectly fine.” But he was still delighted at the size of the vote in favour: “It shows this is a city where people really want to do this.”

He is very conscious that the global debate around diversity and inclusion has changed in the year since Swiss singer Nemo became the first non-binary person to win Eurovision.

The overriding message of Basel, Mr Cramer says, is “everyone is welcome”.

On-stage and in the dressing rooms though, things are stricter. EBU, which runs the contest itself, has stuck to its rules saying performers can only bring their own national flags onstage or into the green rooms. This means that they will not be able to fly the Pride flag or that of any other gender identity or sexuality.

Fans, however, will be able to bring whatever flags they like into the arena.

Last year Swiss winner Nemo did wave a non-binary flag during the performance, but said they had to ‘smuggle’ the flag in. This year LGBTQ+ groups say they are disappointed the EBU has not relaxed the rules.

“Banning our symbols is a slap in the face for the LGBTIQ community’, said Swiss group Pink Cross. “It sends the wrong message at a time when queer communities across Europe are facing increasing hostility.”

EBU has said that the guidelines were designed to create clarity and balance explaining: “Eurovision needs no flag to demonstrate its alliance and celebration of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump’s administration is actively removing government support for diversity and inclusion measures, and he is asking partnered European institutions (including some Swiss universities) to do the same.

That’s why Basel, says Mr Cramer, should take a stand, even if the EBU will not.

“These are our European values. People and nations are coming together in a friendly championship. Whoever you are, if you are young, if you are not that young, if you are straight, if you are gay, if you are female, male, or if you are non-binary, this is all perfectly fine. And I think this is not just what Basel stands for, this is what Europe should stand for.”

So if everyone is welcome, how do they get there? The host country being Switzerland, punctual transport is catered for. Swiss railways is laying on hundreds of extra trains. In Basel, the trams will run 24 hours a day.

And, for those who are really in Eurovision mode, there is even a karaoke tram, where passengers can take a free 90-minute journey right across town, all the while singing their hearts out.

At least 130 civilians were killed by Burkina Faso government forces and allied militia in March near the western town of Solenzo, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says in a new report.

It says the “massacre”, following an operation led by Burkinabè special forces, resulted in widespread civilian deaths and displacement of ethnic Fulanis.

The Fulani are a pastoralist, largely Muslim community who the government has often accused of backing Islamist militants – an allegation denied by community leaders.

About 40% of Burkina Faso is under the control of groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State operating in West Africa’s Sahel region.

The attacks, in which thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced, have continued despite promises by the country’s military leaders to deal with the insurgency.

Ahead of the release of the HRW findings on Monday, there were reports of more militant attacks over the weekend with dozens of military and civilian casualties.

The BBC has not been able to confirm these reports and the authorities do not routinely comment on reported jihadist attacks.

The BBC has approached the Burkina Faso government for comment on the HRW report.

Last year, the government described as “baseless” another HRW report that had accused soldiers of a “massacre” in which 223 villagers were killed.

It also said that any allegations of human rights abuses committed “in the fight against terrorism” were systematically investigated.

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The rights group says it interviewed witnesses, militia members, journalists and the civil society and analysed videos shared on social media to make the findings regarding the army’s involvement in the March killings.

HRW previously said the army was “implicated” in the killings, based on videos that were being shared online showing dozens of dead and injured people, although the findings were not definitive.

It now says further research has “uncovered that Burkina Faso’s military was responsible for these mass killings of Fulani civilians”.

It adds that least 100 more civilians were killed last month in reprisal attacks by jihadist groups against those seen as helping the military.

“Mass killings of civilians by government security forces, militias, and Islamist armed groups amount to war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes,” it says.

The rights group has urged the government to investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the crimes.

This came as junta leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré returned from Moscow after a Friday meeting with Vladimir Putin on cooperation and security in the Sahel.

Since the military seized power, Burkina Faso has turned away from colonial power France and towards Russia for help in tacking the Islamist insurgency.

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Police are investigating after a fire at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s house in north London in the early hours of the morning.

Damage was caused to the property’s entrance in Kentish Town, but nobody was hurt. A cordon is in place outside the house.

The London Fire Brigade said it had been called to a “small fire” at 01:11 BST and it was under control about 20 minutes later.

Sir Keir thanked the emergency services for their work, his official spokesman said. The prime minister – who now lives at his official residence in Downing Street – is understood to still own the property.

Crates containing documents from Nazi Germany have been rediscovered in the basement of Argentina’s Supreme Court.

The unusual find was made as workers were clearing the building’s basement ahead of its archives being moved to a newly created museum.

The documents were sent by the German embassy in Tokyo and arrived in Argentina on 20 June 1941 inside 83 diplomatic pouches aboard a Japanese steamship, according to information gathered by court officials.

They ended up in the Supreme Court that same year after they were confiscated by Argentine customs officials who had opened five pouches at random and found Nazi propaganda material inside.

They were rediscovered last week by workers who were intrigued by a number of wooden champagne crates they stumbled upon while moving archival material from the Supreme Court’s basement.

“Upon opening one of the boxes, we identified material intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler’s ideology in Argentina during [World War Two],” the court said about the find.

The crates were quickly moved to a secure office in the building and court officials alerted the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum to their existence and asked for its help in creating an inventory of all their contents.

Photos published by the court show the experts sifting through black-and-white photos and membership booklets bearing swastikas on their covers.

Historians hope the documents will yield clues to the Nazis’ financial networks and their international ties.

In a statement, Argentina’s Supreme Court revealed the information it had managed to piece together so far.

It said the documents, which arrived in Argentina on board the Nan-a-Maru steamship from Tokyo in June 1941, had been declared as “personal effects” by the German embassy in Buenos Aires at the time.

However, Argentine custom officials were suspicious because of the size of the shipment and alerted the Argentine foreign minister, fearing it could contain material which could endanger Argentina’s neutral stance in World War Two at the time.

Five of the pouches were opened at random and found to contain postcards, photographs and Nazi propaganda material.

The German embassy in Buenos Aires requested that the pouches be sent back to its embassy in Tokyo – from where they had been sent in the first place – but an Argentine judge ordered in September 1941 that all of the 83 pouches be seized.

Argentina’s Supreme Court was tasked with the decision as to what to do with them next but it appears no decision was made before 1944 – when Argentina broke relations with the Axis powers – explaining how the crates ended up gathering dust in the court’s basement for decades.

After the end of World War Two, Argentina – under the leadership of Juan Perón – became a place of refuge for a number of high-ranking Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.

In 2000, President Fernando de la Rúa officially apologised for his country’s role in harbouring Nazi war criminals.

Top military officials from India and Pakistan have spoken on Monday to discuss finer details of the ceasefire agreed between them over the weekend.

The US-brokered ceasefire between the nuclear-armed neighbours appears to have held overnight after nearly four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions from both sides.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, saying “it was time to stop the current aggression that could have led to the death and destruction of so many, and so much”.

Both nations have ceased hostilities since then but say they remain vigilant, warning each other of the consequences of violating the ceasefire.

India announced on Monday that it was reopening 32 airports for civilians that it had earlier said would remain closed until Thursday due to safety concerns.

The tensions were the latest in the decades-long rivalry between the neighbours who have fought two wars over Kashmir, a Himayalan region which they claim in full but administer in part.

The recent hostilities threatened to turn into a full-fledged war as both countries appeared unwilling to back down for days.

Both countries have said that dozens of people from both sides died over the four days of fighting last week, partly due to heavy shelling near the de facto border.

After the ceasefire, however, both the rivals have declared military victory.

On 7 May, India reported striking nine targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir – this was in response to a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.

The attack took place in a meadow in the picturesque Pahalgam valley on 22 April.

India blamed a Pakistan-based group for the attack but Islamabad denies any involvement.

In the days since the first strike, India and Pakistan accused each other of cross-border shelling and claimed to have shot down rival drones and aircraft in their airspace.

As the conflict escalated, both nations said they struck the rival’s military bases.

Indian officials reported striking 11 Pakistan Air Force bases, including one in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad. India also claimed Pakistan lost 35-40 men at the Line of Control – the de facto border – during the conflict and that its air force lost a few aircraft.

Pakistan has accepted that some Indian projectiles landed at its air force bases.

Indian defence forces have also said that they struck nine armed group training facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing more than 100 militants.

The Pakistan military, in turn, claims it targeted about 26 military facilities in India and that its drones hovered over capital Delhi.

India has confirmed that some Pakistani projectiles landed up at its air force bases, though it did not comment on the claim about Delhi.

Pakistan also claims to have shot down five Indian aircraft, including three French Rafales – India has not acknowledged this or commented on the number, though it said on Sunday that that “losses are a part of combat”.

Pakistan denied the claims that an Indian pilot was in its custody after she ejected following an aircraft crash. India has also said that “all our pilots are back home”.

For Maria Khan, the ceasefire this weekend between India and Pakistan came too late.

Maria, who lives in Indian-administered Kashmir, lost her nephew and niece – 12-year-old twins Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima – to cross-border shelling on 7 May. Their parents, her sister Urusa and brother-in-law Rameez Khan, were also injured and are still in hospital.

Hours earlier that day, India had launched a series of strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in retaliation for an earlier militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.

The strikes were followed by a series of military actions from Islamabad and Delhi that went on till Saturday, including heavy cross-border shelling and drone strikes.

People living along the Line of Control (LoC), the de-factor border between India and Pakistan, were the most vulnerable as shells fell near their homes.

Maria, who lives in Poonch, a town in Indian-administered Kashmir near the LoC, is among dozens of people who lost family members in the conflict.

India has said that 16 people were killed on the morning of 7 May in the shelling by Pakistan. Pakistan has said that at least 30 civilians have died since India launched its retaliatory strikes in the early hours of 7 May.

On 6 May, like every other day, Zain and Urwa came back from school, did their homework, played a bit, had dinner and then went to sleep.

It wasn’t yet dawn when the Khan family heard the sound of gunfire just a few kilometres away from their home.

Terrified, they hunkered down at home and waited for a relative to come pick them up, Maria says.

“My sister was holding Urwa’s hand and my brother-in-law was holding Zain’s hand. They had just left the house when suddenly a shell exploded [nearby]. The splinters hit them – Urva died right there and Zain was flung somewhere in the force of the explosion,” Maria says.

She adds that her sister kept calling out to Zain. When she finally spotted him, a stranger was performing CPR on the boy, trying to revive him. But he was unsuccessful.

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Meanwhile, Rameez, who lay bleeding and unconscious, was rushed to hospital – first a local one in Poonch and later to a bigger hospital in Rajouri, about four hours away.

Since his injuries were serious, he was shifted again to a hospital in Jammu city, another four-hour journey.

Maria says that Urwa and Zain were the centre of their parents’ lives. Rameez, a teacher, wanted to give them the best education they could get and hence, they shifted to a house that was closer to the children’s school, called Christ School.

On 9 May, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing that during heavy shelling along the LoC, a Pakistani shell had fallen behind Christ School in Poonch town and exploded.

Rameez, Maria says, still doesn’t know about the deaths of his children as the family doesn’t want to upset him.

After the shelling on 7 May, hundreds of people left Poonch and other border towns to escape to safer areas. They are slowly returning after the ceasefire.

“The government should have informed people living near border areas earlier, so that they could leave from there and go to a safe place. Perhaps then our children would have been with us today,” she says.

“If war is necessary for the country’s security, we support it,” says Maria.

“We are also saddened by the Pahalgam attack, but we should also think about the lives of those living near the border. Are we not humans?” she asks.

“Now, whether there is a war or ceasefire, our children will not come back.”

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China’s defiance as it faced down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been a defining image of this trade war.

It has prompted viral memes of Trump waiting for the Chinese leader to call.

“We will not back down,” has been an almost daily message from Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the tariffs and the rhetoric from Washington escalated, China dug its heels in.

Even as Chinese officials headed to Switzerland for talks, a state-run social media account published a cartoon of the US Treasury secretary pushing an empty shopping trolley.

There were even conflicting versions of who initiated the talks in Geneva.

But after two days of “robust” talks, the situation appears to have changed.

So, is this a major turning point for Washington and Beijing? The answer is yes and no.

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“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a press conference in Geneva.

“And what had occurred with these very high tariffs… was the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

Economists admit that this agreement is better than expected.

“I thought tariffs would be cut to somewhere around 50%,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management in Hong Kong, told Reuters news agency.

But in fact, US tariffs on Chinese imports will now fall to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on US goods will drop to 10%.

“Obviously, this is very positive news for economies in both countries and for the global economy, and makes investors much less concerned about the damage to global supply chains in the short term,” he added.

Trump hailed the progress on Sunday on his Truth Social site: “Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”

Beijing has also softened its tone considerably– and perhaps for good reason.

China can take the pain of an economic war with America – to an extent. It is the lead trade partner for more than 100 other countries.

But officials have become increasingly concerned about the impact the tariffs could have on an economy that is already struggling to deal with a property crisis, stubbornly high youth unemployment and low consumer confidence.

Factory output has slowed and there are reports that some companies are having to lay off workers as production lines of US-bound goods grind to a halt, bringing trade to a standstill.

Data on Saturday showed China’s consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent in April, the third month in a row of decline as consumers hold back from spending and businesses drop prices to compete for customers.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the agreement reached with the US was an important step to “resolve differences” and “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen cooperation”.

Such a positive statement from Beijing would have seemed inconceivable just a month ago.

The two sides have also agreed to more talks, or an “economic and trade consultation mechanism”, as Beijing puts it.

But Trump’s characterisation of a “total reset” in relations may be overly optimistic as there is a slight sting in the tail in Beijing’s statement.

The Commerce Ministry ended with a reminder of who it sees as being in the wrong.

“We hope that the US will continue to work with China to meet each other halfway based on this meeting, thoroughly correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff increases,” said the spokesperson.

Chinese state media also had a warning for Washington. Xinhua News Agency’s commentary claimed China’s “goodwill and patience has its limits, and it will never be used on those who repress and blackmail us without pause or have no qualms about going back on their word”.

Leaders in Beijing will want to portray an image of strength both to its own people and to the international community. They will want to appear as if they have not budged an inch. The message from China is that it is being responsible and rational and doing what it can to avoid a global recession.

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“This is a victory for conscience and rationality,” said Zhang Yun from the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.

“The talks also established the necessary framework for continued dialogue and negotiations in the future.”

This “victory” is only for 90 days. The tariffs are only paused temporarily to allow for negotiations.

It will allow some trade to flow, and it will soothe worried markets.

But the root of the problem still exists. China still sells far more to the United States than it buys. And there are other, far thornier differences to unpick, from Chinese government subsidies, to key industries, to geopolitical tensions in the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

The fight for a more balanced trade relationship is far from over – it has simply moved.

The frontline has shifted from China’s factory floors and American supermarkets to negotiating tables in both Beijing and Washington.

The US and China have agreed a truce to lower import taxes on goods being traded between the two countries.

The agreement marks a major de-escalation of the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, which has sent shockwaves impacting countless other countries, including the UK.

Here’s what it all means.

Both the US and China have confirmed a reduction in the tariffs they imposed on each other following the initial escalation by President Donald Trump earlier this year.

The deal involves both nations cancelling some tariffs altogether and suspending others for 90 days, by 14 May.

The result is that US tariffs on Chinese imports will fall to from 145% to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on some US imports will fall from 125% to 10%.

China has also halted and scrapped other non-tariff countermeasures, such as the export of critical minerals to the US, which it put in place in response to the initial escalation.

The US measures still include an extra 20% component aimed at putting pressure on Beijing to do more to curb the illegal trade in fentanyl, a powerful opioid drug.

The announcement came after the two countries held talks in Switzerland, the first between the two countries since Trump sparked the latest tariff war.

Trying to predict the next steps in this ongoing trade war between the US and China these past few months has been difficult to say the least.

But this is a major agreement between the world’s two powerhouse economies and has been broadly welcomed.

Even if the suspended tariffs are reinstated after 90 days, because the vast majority of the tariffs that were announced after Liberation Day have been cancelled, US tariffs on China would only rise to 54% and Chinese tariffs on the US would rise to 34%.

However, talks between both governments are set to continue, so a further deal might be struck.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the consensus from both countries was that “neither side wants a decoupling”, while China’s commerce ministry said the agreement was a step to “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen co-operation”.

So relations between the US and China are sounding more friendly, but as we’ve seen so far during this Trump presidency, things can change quickly.

In a word – lots.

In 2024, the biggest category of goods exported from the US to China were soybeans – primarily used to feed China’s estimated 440 million pigs. The US also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum.

Meanwhile, China exported large volumes of electronics, computers and toys.

The biggest category of US imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. A large proportion of these smartphones Apple iPhones made in China.

However, the US buys much more from China ($440bn) than it sells to it ($145bn), which is something Trump has long been unhappy with.

His reasoning in part for introducing tariffs, and higher ones on countries which sell more to the US than they buy, is to encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised and boost manufacturing jobs.

The escalating trade war in recent months has led to a collapse in the amount of goods being shipped across the Pacific Ocean, but investors believe the truce will lead to a rebound, with shares up for some of the world’s biggest shipping firms.

Politicians on both sides have started and will no doubt continue to claim victory over this truce.

Despite the US and China calling this a joint agreement, people in Beijing will interpret it as the Trump administration walking back from the tariffs, according to Janka Oertel, director of the Asia programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“We are back to square one, now negotiating can begin. The outcome is uncertain but China is in a psychologically stronger position now than before,” she said.

The US will argue its tariff rate on Chinese imports, although lower, is still hefty at 30%.

“This trade deal is a win for the United States, demonstrating President Trump’s unparalleled expertise in securing deals that benefit the American people,” a White House statement said.

Economists at Deutsche Bank have suggested the lowering of tariffs, and last week’s UK-US deal on them, means there’s both “a likely cap and floor” to Trump’s rates.

“The UK has one of the least imbalanced relationships with the US and now has a universal tariff rate of 10%. China has one of the most imbalanced relationships and now has a tariff rate of 30%,” said George Saravelos, head of FX research at the investment bank.

“It is reasonable that these two numbers now set the bounds of where American tariffs will end up this year.”

The first group of 49 white South Africans to be granted refugee status by the US is due to arrive shortly, after leaving Johannesburg on Sunday.

Relations between South Africa and the US have been tense for months, after President Donald Trump said that members of the country’s Afrikaner minority were victims of “racial discrimination”.

This was dismissed by South Africa’s Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola, who said on Monday “there is no persecution of white Afrikaner South Africans”, adding that police reports debunk President Trump’s assertion.

South Africa says that any allegations of persecution would not meet the threshold “required under domestic and international refugee law”.

The BBC has contacted the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which confirmed it was not involved in this resettlement scheme, nor was it asked to take part in any of the screening.

Given the Trump’s administration’s hardline position on refugees, it is notable the process did not involve the UNHCR – showing how much the white Afrikaners have been fast-tracked and in a way that has not been done for others.

The US has criticised domestic South African policy, accusing the government of seizing land from white farmers without any compensation – something which the southern African nation says has not happened.

President Trump has also highlighted what he has described as the “large-scale killing of farmers” in South Africa.

One of his closest advisers, South African-born Elon Musk, has previously said there was a “genocide of white people” in South Africa and accused the government of passing “racist ownership laws”.

The claims of a genocide of white people have been widely discredited.

Figures from the South African police show that in 2024, 44 murders were recorded on farms and smaller plots of agricultural land, with eight of those killed being farmers.

South Africa does not report on crime statistics broken down by race but a majority of the country’s farmers are white, while other people living on farms, such as workers, are mostly black.

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Afrikaner author Max du Preez told the BBC’s Newsday radio programme that claims of persecution of white South Africans were a “total absurdity” and “based on nothing”.

He added that South Africans were “stunned” by the resettlement scheme and that it had more to do with “internal politics” in the US than South Africa.

Bilateral tensions between the US and South Africa have been strained for some time as President Trump tasked his administration with formulating plans to potentially resettle Afrikaners, a group with mostly Dutch ancestry, in the US.

In March, South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled after accusing President Trump of using “white victimhood as a dog whistle”, leading to the US accusing Mr Rasool of “race-baiting”.

The US has also criticised South Africa for taking an “aggressive” position against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Pretoria has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of genocide against people in Gaza – a claim which the Israelis strongly reject.

The current group of white South African refugees comprises 49 people, who are expected to land in Washington DC later on Monday, before continuing to Texas.

White South Africans make up just 7.3% of the population, but own the vast majority of privately held farmland, according to a 2017 government report.

In January President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a controversial law which allows the government to seize privately owned land without compensation in certain circumstances, when it is deemed “equitable and in the public interest”.

There had been anger in South Africa over the slow pace of land reform in the three decades since the end of the racist apartheid system.

President Trump’s openness to accepting Afrikaner refugees comes as the US has engaged in a wider crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers from other countries.

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Former members of UK Special Forces have broken years of silence to give BBC Panorama eyewitness accounts of alleged war crimes committed by colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Giving their accounts publicly for the first time, the veterans described seeing members of the SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, including children.

“They handcuffed a young boy and shot him,” recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. ”He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age.”

Killing of detainees “became routine”, the veteran said. “They’d search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them”, before cutting off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain people and “planting a pistol” by the body, he said.

The new testimony includes allegations of war crimes stretching over more than a decade, far longer than the three years currently being examined by a judge-led public inquiry in the UK.

The SBS, the Royal Navy’s elite special forces regiment, is also implicated for the first time in the most serious allegations – executions of unarmed and wounded people.

A veteran who served with the SBS said some troops had a “mob mentality”, describing their behaviour on operations as “barbaric”.

“I saw the quietest guys switch, show serious psychopathic traits,” he said. “They were lawless. They felt untouchable.”

Special Forces were deployed to Afghanistan to protect British troops from Taliban fighters and bombmakers. The conflict was a deadly one for members of the UK’s armed forces – 457 lost their lives and thousands more were wounded.

Asked by the BBC about the new eyewitness testimony, the Ministry of Defence said that it was “fully committed” to supporting the ongoing public inquiry into the alleged war crimes and that it urged all veterans with relevant information to come forward. It said that it was “not appropriate for the MoD to comment on allegations” which may be in the inquiry’s scope.

The eyewitness testimony offers the most detailed public account of the killings to date from former members of UK Special Forces (UKSF), the umbrella group which contains the SAS, SBS and several supporting regiments.

The testimony, from more than 30 people who served with or alongside UK Special Forces, builds on years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of extrajudicial killings by the SAS.

Panorama can also reveal for the first time that then Prime Minister David Cameron was repeatedly warned during his tenure that UK Special Forces were killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because of a de facto code of silence around special forces operations, the eyewitnesses told the BBC that the laws of war were being regularly and intentionally broken by the country’s most elite regiments during operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those laws state that on such operations people can be deliberately killed only when they pose a direct threat to the lives of British troops or others. But members of the SAS and SBS were making their own rules, the eyewitnesses said.

“If a target had popped up on the list two or three times before, then we’d go in with the intention of killing them, there was no attempt to capture them,” said one veteran who served with the SAS, referring to people who had been previously captured, questioned and then released.

“Sometimes we’d check we’d identified the target, confirm their ID, then shoot them,” he said. “Often the squadron would just go and kill all the men they found there.”

One witness who served with the SAS said that killing could become “an addictive thing to do” and that some members of the elite regiment were “intoxicated by that feeling” in Afghanistan. There were “lots of psychotic murderers”, he said.

“On some operations, the troop would go into guesthouse-type buildings and kill everyone there,” he said. “They’d go in and shoot everyone sleeping there, on entry. It’s not justified, killing people in their sleep.”

A veteran who served with the SBS told the BBC that after bringing an area under control, assault teams would sweep through the area shooting anyone on the ground, checking the bodies and killing anyone left alive. “It was expected, not hidden. Everyone knew,” he said.

Intentionally killing wounded people who do not pose a threat would be a clear breach of international law. But the SBS veteran told Panorama that wounded people were routinely killed. He described one operation during which a medic was treating someone who had been shot but was still breathing. “Then one of our blokes came up to him. There was a bang. He’d been shot in the head at point-blank range,” he said.

The killings were “completely unnecessary,” he added. “These are not mercy killings. It’s murder.”

More junior members of assault teams were told by more senior SAS operators to kill male detainees, according to the testimony, using instructions such as “he’s not coming back to base with us” or “this detainee, you make sure he doesn’t come off target”.

Detainees were people who had surrendered, been searched by special forces, and were typically handcuffed. British and international law forbid troops from deliberately killing unarmed civilians or prisoners of war.

A former SAS operator also described learning of an operation in Iraq during which someone was executed.

“It was pretty clear from what I could glean that he posed no threat, he wasn’t armed. It’s disgraceful. There’s no professionalism in that,” the former operator said. The killing was never properly investigated, he added. According to the SAS veteran, the problem started long before the regiment moved across to Afghanistan and “senior commanders were aware of that”.

The testimony, as well as new video evidence obtained by the BBC from SAS operations in Iraq in 2006, also supports previous reporting by Panorama that SAS squadrons kept count of their kills to compete with one another.

Sources told the BBC that some members of the SAS kept their own individual counts, and that one operator personally killed dozens of people on one six-month tour of Afghanistan.

“It seemed like he was trying to get a kill on every operation, every night someone got killed,” a former colleague said. The operator was “notorious in the squadron, he genuinely seemed like a psychopath,” the former colleague added.

In one incident that sources say became infamous inside the SAS, the operator allegedly slit the throat of an injured Afghan man after telling an officer not to shoot the man again. It was “because he wanted to go and finish the wounded guy off with his knife,” another former colleague said. “He wanted to, you know, blood his knife.”

Knowledge of the alleged crimes was not confined to small teams or individual squadrons, according to the testimony. Within the UK Special Forces command structure, “everyone knew” what was happening, said one veteran.

“I’m not taking away from personal responsibility, but everyone knew,” he said. “There was implicit approval for what was happening.”

To avoid scrutiny of the killings, eyewitnesses said, members of the SAS and SBS would plant so-called “drop weapons” on the bodies of the dead, to make it look as though they had been armed in the photographs routinely taken by special forces teams at the scene.

“There was a fake grenade they’d take with them onto target, it couldn’t detonate,” said a former SAS operator. Another veteran said operators would carry AK-47 rifles which had a folding stock because they were easier to fit into their rucksacks and “easier to bring onto a target and plant by a body”.

Officers would then help to falsify post-operational reports in order to avoid scrutiny for the actions of assault teams on the ground, according to the testimony.

“We understood how to write up serious incident reviews so they wouldn’t trigger a referral to the military police,” one of the veterans said.

“If it looked like a shooting could represent a breach of the rules of conflict, you’d get a phone call from the legal adviser or one of the staff officers in HQ. They’d pick you up on it and help you to clarify the language. ‘Do you remember someone making a sudden move?’ ‘Oh yeah, I do now.’ That sort of thing. It was built into the way we operated.”

The reports were “a fiction”, another UKSF veteran said.

An intelligence officer who worked with the SBS described reports which said they had been caught in a firefight, while the photos showed bodies with “multiple clean headshots”.

Falsified paperwork could help prevent an investigation by the Royal Military Police, but British special forces operations generated deep concern from Afghan commanders and Afghan government officials.

David Cameron – who made seven visits to Afghanistan as prime minister between June 2010 and November 2013, the period now under scrutiny by the SAS public inquiry, was repeatedly made aware of the concerns by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to multiple people who attended the meetings.

Mr Karzai “consistently, repeatedly mentioned this issue”, former Afghan national security adviser Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta told Panorama. He said Lord Cameron could have been left in no doubt that there were allegations of civilians, including children, being killed during operations carried out by UK Special Forces.

The Afghan president was “so consistent with his complaints about night raids, civilian casualties and detentions that there was no senior Western diplomat or military leader who would have missed the fact that this was a major irritant for him,” said Gen Douglas Lute, a former US ambassador to Nato.

Gen Lute said it would have been “extraordinarily unusual if there were a claim against British forces that the British chain of command was not aware of”.

A spokesperson for Lord Cameron told Panorama that “to the best of Lord Cameron’s recollection” the issues raised by President Karzai were about Nato forces in general and that “specific incidents with respect to UK Special Forces were not raised”.

The spokesperson also said that it was “right that we await the official findings of the Inquiry”, adding that “any suggestion that Lord Cameron colluded in covering up allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing is total nonsense.”

Unlike many other countries, including the US and France, the UK has no parliamentary oversight of its elite special forces regiments. Strategic responsibility for their actions falls ultimately to the prime minister, along with the defence secretary and head of special forces.

Bruce Houlder KC – a former director of service prosecutions, responsible for bringing charges and prosecuting those serving in the Armed Forces – told Panorama that he hoped the public inquiry would examine the extent of Lord Cameron’s knowledge of alleged civilian casualties on British special forces operations.

“You need to know how far the rot went up,” Mr Houlder said.

Ofcom has launched investigations into two pornographic websites it believes may be falling foul of the UK’s newly introduced child safety rules.

The regulator said Itai Tech Ltd – which operates a so-called “nudifying” site – and Score Internet Group LLC had failed to detail how they were preventing children from accessing their platforms.

Ofcom announced in January that, in order to comply with the Online Safety Act, all websites on which pornographic material could be found must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques from July.

It said the two services it was investigating did not appear to have any effective age checking mechanisms.

Firms found to be in breach of the Act face huge fines.

The regulator said on Friday that many services publishing their own porn content had, as required, provided details of “highly effective age assurance methods” they were planning to implement.

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They added that this “reassuringly” included some of the largest services that fall under the rules.

It said a small number of services had also blocked UK users entirely to prevent children accessing them.

Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC did not respond to its request for information or show they had plans to introduce age checks, it added.

The “nudifying” technology that one of the company’s platforms features involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create the impression of having removed a person’s clothing in an image or video.

The Children’s Commissioner recently called on the government to introduce a total ban on such AI apps that could be used to create sexually explicit images of children.

Under the Online Safety Act, platforms that publish their own pornographic content were required to take steps to implement age checks from January.

These can include requiring UK users to provide photo ID or running credit card checks.

But all websites where a user might encounter pornographic material are also required to demonstrate the robustness of the measures they are taking to verify the age of users.

These could even apply to some social media platforms, Ofcom told the BBC in January.

The rules are expected to change the way many UK adults will use or encounter some digital services, such as porn sites.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, in January.

In April, Discord said it would start testing face-scanning as a way to verify some users’ ages in the UK and Australia.

Experts said it marked “the start of a bigger shift” for platforms as lawmakers worldwide look to impose strict internet safety rules.

Critics suggest such measures risk pushing young people to “darker corners” of the internet where there are smaller, less regulated sites hosting more violent or explicit material.

Sir Keir Starmer has promised the government’s new immigration measures will mean net migration falls “significantly” over the next four years.

The prime minister unveiled plans to ban recruitment of care workers from overseas, tighten access to skilled worker visas and raise the costs to employers in an effort to curb near record net migration.

He did not set a precise target, but the Home Office estimated the policies could lead to a 100,000 drop in immigration per year by 2029 – based on analysis of just eight of the core policies where “a quantitative assessment” could be made.

Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch said: “This is nowhere near the scale of the change we need to see.”

Successive governments have tried unsuccessfully to reduce net migration, which is the number of people coming to the UK minus the number leaving.

Net migration climbed to a record 906,000 in June 2023, and last year it stood at 728,000.

Sir Keir argued the proposals bring the immigration system “back into control”, denying it was a response to the electoral success of Reform UK.

The PM said the new plans, which tackle legal migration to the UK, would ensure a “selective” and “fair” system, where “we decide who comes to this country”.

“Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control,” he said.

“Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”

The government will scrap a visa scheme, set up by Boris Johnson’s government, that allows firms to hire health and social care workers from overseas.

Instead, firms will be required to hire British nationals or extend the visas of overseas workers already in the country.

Home Office figures estimate this change will cut the number of workers coming to the UK by between 7,000 and 8,000 a year.

However, care companies warned some services will struggle to survive without international recruits.

Employers will also be asked to pay more to hire foreign staff.

The Immigration Skills Charge will increase by 32%, leading smaller firms to pay up to £2,400 to sponsor workers to come to the UK, while large firms will pay up to £6,600.

Universities could also be hit by higher charges. The government plans to look into a new tax on every international student enrolled in a UK university, with the proceeds redirected into skills training.

At the same time, colleges must meet stricter thresholds, with at least 95% of international students expected to start their course and 90% expected to finish.

The qualification requirements to apply for a skilled worker visa will go back up, reversing changes made under Johnson’s government.

It will mean new applicants will generally need a degree-level qualification, rather than the equivalent of A-level, which ministers say will make around 180 job roles ineligible for the visa route.

Lower qualification requirements will remain for sectors facing long-term shortages, or those considered key to the government’s industrial strategy.

However it is not yet clear what that means in practice, and the government’s migration advisory body has been asked to recommend roles for inclusion.

The government also said:

• English language requirements for all work visas would increase
• The amount of time migrants need to live in the UK before applying for settled status would double from five years to 10, while setting up a fast-track system for “high-skilled, high-contributing” people
• A “limited pool” of refugees and displaced people recognised by the United Nations’ agency responsible will be eligible to apply for jobs through existing skilled-worker routes.

The government will also explore changing the law on how the right to a family life contained in Article 8 in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is applied in immigration cases.

The government has previously said Article 8 should be interpreted “much more narrowly”, opposing its use in cases including that of a Palestinian family, who were granted the right to live in the UK on appeal after originally applying through a scheme designed for Ukrainians.

Government sources indicated a parliamentary vote on the plans was likely, to clarify Parliament’s view to the courts.

Speaking before the publication of the Immigration White Paper, Sir Keir accused industries of being “almost addicted to importing cheap labour” instead of “investing in the skills of people here”.

Asked if net migration would fall every year due to the plans, Sir Keir said: “I’m promising it will fall significantly.

“And I do want to get it down by the end of this Parliament, significantly.”

He also said there could be further restrictions saying, “if we do need to do more to release pressure on housing and public services, then mark my words we will”.

The Conservatives have announced they plan to support policies such as tightening visas, which Badenoch argued were “watered down” versions of Tory policies.

The Conservatives want a binding migration cap, set by Parliament.

The Liberal Democrats said it was right for the government to tackle immigration, but the party’s Home Affairs spokesperson Lisa Smart called for a “clear plan to make it easier to recruit British workers to fill vacancies instead”.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said Labour had introduced the changes because it was “obviously very panicked” about the rise of his party at the local elections.

The White Paper was “tinkering around the edges”, he argued, and “even if the numbers do reduce, they’ll still be at massive historic highs”.

The Green Party has denounced the proposals as a “panicked and misguided” attempt to “create headlines and try to win back Reform voters”.

Sir Keir dismissed claims the plans were reacting to the threat from Reform, telling broadcasters: “I’m doing this because it is right, because it is fair and because it is what I believe in.”

He repeatedly attacked the previous Conservative government’s immigration approach as an “open borders experiment”, which was now over.

The UK risks “becoming an island of strangers” without strong rules on immigration and integration, he added.

Some on the left have accused Sir Keir of going too far on immigration.

One Labour MP, Nadia Whittome, accused the prime minister of mimicking “the scaremongering of the far-right”.

In a social media post she said: “The step-up in anti-migrant rhetoric from the government is shameful and dangerous.”

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The White House is in discussions with the royal family of Qatar to possibly receive a luxury jumbo jet, intended for use as an Air Force One presidential plane.

In a statement, Qatar denied that the plane would be a gift, but said the transfer of an aircraft for “temporary use” was under discussion between the two countries.

According to CBS News, the BBC’s news partner in America, the plane would be donated to Trump’s presidential library at the end of his term.

The news comes as Trump is set to visit Qatar this week as part of the first major foreign trip of his second term.

Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s Media Attaché to the US, said negotiations were ongoing between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense.

“The matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made.”

Sources told CBS News that the plane, reported to be worth about $400m, will not be ready for use right away as it will need to be retrofitted and cleared by security officials.

The potential value of the plane and its handling is likely to raise legal and ethical questions among critics.

Democrats were quick to accuse Trump of breaching ethics violations.

Senator Adam Schiff from California quoted a section of the US Constitution on social media that said no elected official could accept “any present… of any kind whatever” from the leader of a foreign state without congressional approval.

Laura Loomer, a longtime Trump ally, also criticised the move. After writing on social media that she would “take a bullet” for Trump, she said: “This is really going to be such a stain on the [administration] if this is true.”

On Sunday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws. President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency”.

Defending the negotiations with Qatar, Trump referred to the plane as a gift and said it was offered for his use at no cost in a post to his Truth Social website on Sunday.

“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane.” he wrote.

The White House’s current fleet includes two Boeing 747-200B planes customised for presidential use with special communications equipment and features like a stateroom, office and conference room, according to the US Air Force. The planes have been in use since 1990 and 1991.

Air Force One planes usually carry over to other administrations. According to the National Archives, only the Reagan presidential library has an Air Force One jet, and it flew seven presidents before being donated.

Qatar is said to be offering a version of a Boeing 747-8, a much newer model that ABC News reports has been upgraded into a “flying palace”.

Boeing had been contracted to provide the White House with newer planes, but Trump complained earlier this year that the company was behind schedule. His administration had initially negotiated with Boeing for two specialised 747-8 planes during his first administration.

The plane maker said the aircraft would not be available until 2027 or 2028.

“No, I’m not happy with Boeing. It takes them a long time to do, you know, Air Force One, we gave that contract out a long time ago,” Trump said in February.

“We may buy a plane or get a plane, or something.”

Trump had a positive diplomatic relationship with Qatar during his first term, which included an announcement in 2019 that the country would make a large purchase of American planes.

Qatar has also previously given private jets as gifts to other countries, such as a luxury plane given to Turkey in 2018.

Outlawed Kurdish group the PKK, which has waged a 40-year insurgency against Turkey, has announced it is laying down its arms and disbanding.

The move followed a call in February by the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, for it to disband.

The PKK insurgency initially aimed to create an independent homeland for Kurds, who account for about 20% of Turkey’s population. But it has since moved away from its separatist goals, focusing instead on more autonomy and greater Kurdish rights.

More than 40,000 people have been killed since the insurgency began.

The PKK – which is banned as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US – said it has “completed its historical mission” and would “end the method of armed struggle.”

From now on, the Kurdish issue “can be resolved through democratic politics”, the group said in a statement published on the PKK-affiliated news agency ANF.

In February, Ocalan, 76, called on his movement to lay down its arms and dissolve itself. The PKK leader has been in solitary confinement in prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara, south-west of Istanbul, since 1999.

Ocalan wrote a letter from prison in February saying “there is no alternative to democracy in the pursuit and realisation of a political system. Democratic consensus is the fundamental way.”

It is unclear what Ocalan and his supporters will get in return for disbanding but there is speculation that he may be paroled.

Kurdish politicians will be hoping for a new political dialogue, and a pathway towards greater Kurdish rights.

Both sides had reasons to do a deal now.

The PKK has been hit hard by the Turkish military in recent years, and regional changes have made it harder for them and their affiliates to operate in Iraq and Syria.

President Erdogan needs the support of pro Kurdish political parties if he is to be able to run again in Turkey’s next presidential election, due in 2028.

The decision to disband was an important step towards a “terror-free Turkey”, and the process would be monitored by state institutions, a spokesperson for President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party said, according to Reuters news agency.

Winthrop Rodgers, from the international affairs think tank Chatham House, said it would take “a major democratic transition by Turkey” to accommodate demands from Kurdish political parties.

There has been “some goodwill” from some Turkish leaders in recent months, Mr Rodgers said, which allowed the PKK disbandment to play out.

He added: “But whether that extends to the major changes needed to ensure full Kurdish participation in politics and society is far less clear.

“In a lot of ways, the ball is in Turkey’s court.”