Russian President Vladimir Putin will not travel to Turkey for peace talks on the war in Ukraine, despite calls from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for him to attend.

Russia’s delegation at Thursday’s talks in Istanbul will instead be headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinksy, according to a Kremlin statement.

Zelensky had previously said he would attend the talks and meet Putin in person if the Russian president agreed, and said he would do everything he could to ensure the face-to-face meeting took place.

The Ukrainian president will be in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Putin and Zelensky have not met in person since December 2019. Russia and Ukraine last held direct negotiations in March 2022 in Istanbul, shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Fighting has raged in Ukraine since then. Russian forces have slowly expanded the amount of territory they control over the past year, mostly in the east of Ukraine.

Putin had initially called for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey’s largest city “without pre-conditions”, before Zelensky announced that he would go in person and expected the Russian president to travel as well.

Earlier on Wednesday, Donald Trump floated the possibility of joining the meeting himself if Putin did.

The US president, who is currently in Qatar, told reporters he did not know if his Russian counterpart would attend “if I’m not there”.

“I know he would like me to be there, and that’s a possibility. If we could end the war, I’d be thinking about that,” Trump said.

The US is expected to send a high-level delegation to the talks, including the country’s top diplomat Marco Rubio.

Since returning to the White House, President Trump has sought to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

There’s a vast empty space in the middle of the factory floor in Foshan in southern China where workers should be welding high-end air fryers for the US market.

Derek Wang says his American customers were wowed by his air fryer models – which are controlled via smartphones and can also bake, roast and grill.

But then on 2 April, Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs hit all Chinese goods entering the US, eventually reaching 145% – and his clients asked him to pause production.

“I tried to keep smiling through my anxiety for the sake of my 40 workers,” he told the BBC.

On Wednesday, as a deal to ease the trade war came into effect, Mr Wang said his US buyers were back on the phone.

Both countries still face some tariffs. There is at least a 30% tax on all Chinese goods entering the US and Beijing has kept a 10% levy on American goods coming into the country, down from 125%.

But this surprise agreement after a weekend of negotiations in Switzerland has given factories and businesses some breathing room.

“At this time, our US client is willing to pay for the tariffs. Of course, we had to bargain with them as they asked us to lower some of our costs,” he said.

Mr Wang, who studied engineering in Delaware in the US, spent three years helping develop the air fryer model. It cost him $500,000 to set up his company and he said the tariffs came as a shock.

“It felt like my parents were getting a divorce. China and US are the most important economic and cultural powers in the world. Their sudden separation would lead to a world that we cannot imagine. Tariffs as high as 145% would mean we have to say goodbye to one another.

But he adds, “there’s a saying in Chinese: good fortune comes out of bad”.

Mr Wang believes his “good fortune” is that this trade war has accelerated his plan to diversify away from doing business with America.

This is one of the reasons why Beijing believes it has the upper hand in its negotiations with Washington. China has choices and officials have been actively encouraging the country’s firms to do more business in places like Africa, South America and South East Asia.

Many other Chinese businesses have also told the BBC that they are looking to diversify away from the US to reduce their reliance on the market – suggesting in the long-term there could be more of a separation between the US and China, rather than a divorce.

Donald Trump has suggested that he may speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping by the end of this week. The world’s two largest economies will now enter talks after agreeing to a ceasefire in their economic war for 90 days.

Beijing has framed this deal as a win – not just for China but for all countries facing US tariffs.

But it has come at a cost.

A short walk through Shunde district – known as the “capital of home appliances” – presents a sobering assessment of a struggling manufacturing sector.

Factory workers use the cooler evenings in Foshan to let off a little steam. They spill out into every corner of the local park.

During the day they pack, mould and assemble nearly everything that you would find in your kitchen – from gas stoves and washing machines to kettles and fridges.

At night, after leaving work, one group line dances in one corner of the small park, while a heated basketball match takes place in another part.

Posters lining the walls of the streets tout “stable work and easy” jobs involving packing and screwing products for 30 days in a home appliance factory for 16 yuan an hour, to assembling air conditioning units for 20 yuan an hour.

But agents told us that several factories had stopped hiring, especially those linked to the US – some had even shut down parts of their production line.

The BBC was told that several of these workers will sleep in the park to save money. Many of them travel to Foshan from their home towns, which can be hundreds of kilometres away.

Several nearby hostels offer rooms for 20 yuan a night, which can be at least an hour’s pay. Many will want to pocket whatever they earn to send it back to their families.

This is the picture of China that President Trump’s team have tried to present – one of sluggish growth, rising unemployment and a chronic housing crisis.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Mr Trump said after the trade agreement was announced, while adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

“They were closing up factories. They were having a lot of unrest, and they were very happy to be able to do something with us.”

This may be overstating Beijing’s economic woes. This country is still leading the world when it comes to the production of electric vehicles and solar panels, and it is making significant headway in artificial intelligence technology.

Officials in China have also continued to stress this country can take the pain of an economic war. But it is being keenly felt by some on the frontline and that may be part of why Beijing has started talking to the US.

This latest “ceasefire” has prompted a rush of orders between the two countries as businesses wonder if it can last.

He Ke, or HK to his American clients, has called his workers back from their home towns to restart his sofa business, Gongyuan Furniture.

It ground to a halt even before Mr Trump’s tariffs hit 145%.

“We had a day off straightaway,” said Mr He. “Once the tariffs hit 50%, we had already come to a standstill. When they hit 145%, we certainly could not do business. It was just not possible.”

His production line with around 200 workers once took up all four floors of the building.

Since the Covid pandemic, he has only needed one floor and around 40 staff. But he still has the odd high-profile client – he claims Elon Musk sits on one of his sofas.

Some workers have already returned and are lifting a soft chair onto a compressor machine to get it ready to box and ship.

Sewing machines hum in the background as workers stitch fabric into the right shape to cover memory foam cushions.

Mr He says he has seen many changes in Foshan since he started making sofas in 2013.

“We feel that the global economy is not good. The domestic economy has also been hit and this affects the life of people here. In the past, when we went out to spend money, we spent a lot of money. We did not think about whether the price was high or cheap. We will buy it as long as we like it. Now, when we want to buy a relatively expensive things, we have to think twice, because the money is not easy to earn.”

Like Mr Wang and his air fryers, Mr He also says he is looking at diversifying his sales away from the US, but he has hope that the world’s two biggest economies can come to an agreement in the next 90 days.

“I am just a small businessman. But I do understand that the game between these two countries is temporary. I think if they want to survive with each other for a long time, they will definitely sit down and talk things over.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called a group of 59 white South Africans who have moved to the US to resettle “cowards”, saying “they’ll be back soon”.

The group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after President Donald Trump granted them refugee status, saying they faced racial discrimination.

But Ramaphosa said those who wanted to leave were not happy with efforts to address the inequities of the apartheid past, terming their relocation a “sad moment for them”.

“As South Africans, we are resilient. We don’t run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems. When you run away you are a coward, and that’s a real cowardly act,” he added.

Trump and his close ally, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have said there was a “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa – a claim that has been widely discredited.

The US has also accused the South African government of seizing land from white farmers without paying compensation.

More than 30 years after the end of decades of rule by South Africa’s white minority, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country’s best farmland, with the majority still in white hands, leading to anger over the slow pace of change.

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

But the government says no land has yet been seized under the act.

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Trump has offered to resettle the white Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch settlers, saying they were fleeing a “terrible situation” in South Africa.

Speaking on Monday at an agricultural exhibition in the Free State province, Ramaphosa said the Afrikaners were moving to the US because they were not “favourably disposed” to efforts aimed at addressing the country’s challenges.

“If you look at all national groups in our country, black and white, they’ve stayed in this country because it’s our country and we must not run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems,” Ramaphosa said.

“I can bet you that they will be back soon because there is no country like South Africa,” he added.

His “coward” remark angered some social media users, who condemned it as an insult to aggrieved white South Africans.

The group of Afrikaners were welcomed by top US officials who claimed they had been “living under a shadow of violence and terror” in South Africa.

“Welcome to the land of the free,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said as he received the South Africans who landed at Dulles airport near Washington DC on Monday.

Some held young children and waved small American flags in the arrival area adorned with red, white and blue balloons on the walls.

Earlier on Monday, President Ramaphosa told an Africa CEO forum in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, that he had recently told Trump during a phone call the US assessment of the situation was “not true”.

“We’re the only country on the continent where the colonisers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country,” he added, dismissing claims Afrikaners were being persecuted.

Ramaphosa said dozens of white South Africans who arrived in the US on Monday “don’t fit the bill” for refugees.

According to the US embassy in South Africa, to be considered eligible for the refugee resettlement scheme, someone must be:

• Of South African nationality
• Afrikaner or from a racial minority
• Able to cite an incident of past persecution or fear of persecution in the future.

The South African leader said he was due to meet his US counterpart soon regarding the issue.

Trump has threatened to boycott the forthcoming G20 summit in South Africa unless the “situation is taken care of”.

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Some families of those killed in a Jeju Air plane crash last December have filed a criminal complaint against 15 people, including South Korea’s transport minister and the airline’s CEO, for professional negligence.

The 72 bereaved relatives are calling for a more thorough investigation into the crash, which killed 179 of the 181 people on board – making it the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil.

The crash was “not a simple accident”, they allege, but a “major civic disaster caused by negligent management of preventable risks”.

Nearly five months on, authorities are still studying what may have caused the plane to crash-land at Muan International Airport and then burst into flames.

The police had already opened a criminal investigation before this latest complaint, and barred Jeju Air CEO Kim E-bae from leaving the country, but no one has been indicted over the incident.

One of the relatives, Kim Da-hye, denounced the “lack of progress” in investigations.

“We are filled with deep anger and despair. Having taken this extraordinary measure of filing a criminal complaint, we will not give up and will continue to pursue the truth,” Mr Kim said in a statement to the media.

Among the 15 people named in the complaint were government officials, airline officials and airport staff responsible for construction, supervision, facility management and bird control.

The complaint filed on Tuesday raises questions around the circumstances of the crash, including whether air traffic control responded appropriately and whether the reinforcement of a mound at the end of the runway violated regulations.

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, took off from the Thai capital of Bangkok on the morning of 29 December, and was flying to Muan in South Korea.

Five minutes after the pilots made contact with Muan International Airport, they reported striking a bird and declared a mayday signal.

The pilots then tried to land from the opposite direction, during which the aircraft belly-landed without its landing gear deployed. It later overran the runway, slammed into a concrete structure and exploded.

Earlier this year, investigators said they found bird feathers in both engines of the jet, but did not conclude the extent to which the bird strike was a contributing factor.

Since the incident, some bereaved families have also been targeted by a torrent of conspiracies and malicious jokes online.

These included suggestions that families were “thrilled” to receive compensation from authorities, or that they were “fake victims”. As of March this year, eight people have been apprehended for making such derogatory and defamatory online posts.

Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria – his comments coming shortly after he met Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family.

The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant.

“I think he has got the potential,” Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to Al-Qaeda.

The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December.

Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed some initial awkwardness as they spoke through a translator.

A beaming Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, sat next to them. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined them by telephone.

Trump acknowledged it was these two leaders who had convinced him to also lift the US’s punishing Syria sanctions.

His sudden announcement on Tuesday night at a major US-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh won him a standing ovation. It was a volte-face after his many previous posts on social media that the US had “no interest in Syria”.

“Tough guy, very strong past,” is how Trump later described Sharaa to journalists travelling with his high-powered American delegation on his first official four-day tour.

It was a very Trump gloss about Sharaa’s old links to al-Qaeda. His Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria until he severed ties in 2016. HTS is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US and UK.

Since assuming power in December, Sharaa has been wearing Western business suits and trying to present himself as a president for all Syrians.

“It’s a new light at the end of this tunnel,” exclaimed Hind Kabawat, minister of social affairs and labour, in the interim government.

She told the BBC’s Newshour programme they had been calling for sanctions relief ever since their “Liberation Day”.

The US decision sparked celebrations across a county where 90% of Syrians are said to be living in poverty, after more than a decade of civil war and profound suffering.

Removing restrictions which cut Syria off from the international financial system will enable greater engagement by aid agencies and encourage foreign investment and trade.

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“We are the North Korea of the Middle East,” a hotel receptionist in Damascus told me last December when I asked for another electronic hotel key.

He tearfully lamented that “we don’t have enough cards, we have shortages of everything”.

It may also help convince some of the millions of Syrians living in exile to think more seriously about returning home. And it could help a fledgling government to pay salaries, begin to rebuild, and address the growing discontent over the privations of daily life.

But dismantling the vast web of sanctions now strangling Syria will take time.

“Some sanctions can be removed immediately using presidential waivers,” commented Dina Esfandiary of Bloomberg Economics.

“But lifting the multi-layered sanctions won’t be easy and will require real commitment by the Trump administration.”

I remember travelling to Tehran in the wake of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the Obama administration’s commitment to ease sanctions there.

At the news conference with the visiting EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Iranian journalists kept asking, with palpable anguish, why it was still impossible for them even to open a bank account.

Syria’s new friends, including regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, now positioning themselves to shape the new Syria, will need to ensure Trump and his team stay interested.

But he’s made it clear he expects something in return if there is to be a full normalisation of relations. The first item on his list is “join the Abraham Accords”.

The US president regards this process of normalisation with Israel, which several Arab states including the United Arab Emirates has joined, as one of his foreign policy achievements in his first term.

Sharaa, praised by his friends as pragmatic, has already signalled that he understand the importance of building a working relationship with his neighbour, even though Israel continues to bomb what it calls “terrorist targets” – air bases, military installations and weapons depots – insisting they could “fall into the wrong hands”.

Last month, the Syrian leader reportedly told a visiting US congressman, Cory Mills, that Syria was prepared to normalise ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords under “the right conditions”.

Israeli media have reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged President Trump not to lift sanctions. He remains suspicious of Sharaa and his HTS forces, as well other groups which include foreign fighters in their ranks.

Removing foreign fighters is another of Washington’s demands; it’s one of the very many challenges now facing Syria’s leader.

President Trump hailed this moment as “a chance at greatness”. Millions of Syrians just welcome a greater chance that their lives will finally start changing for the better.

In the latest India-Pakistan stand-off, there were no ultimatums, no red buttons.

Yet the cycle of military retaliation, veiled signals and swift international mediation quietly evoked the region’s most dangerous shadow. The crisis didn’t spiral towards nuclear war, but it was a reminder of how quickly tensions here can summon that spectre.

Even scientists have modelled how easily things could unravel. A 2019 study by a global team of scientists opened with a nightmare scenario where a terrorist attack on India’s parliament in 2025 triggers a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.

Six years later, a real-world stand-off – though contained by a US-brokered ceasefire on Saturday – stoked fears of a full-blown conflict. It also revived uneasy memories of how fragile stability in the region can be.

As the crisis escalated, Pakistan sent “dual signals” – retaliating militarily while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting, a calculated reminder of its nuclear capability. The NCA oversees control and potential use of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Whether this move was symbolic, strategic or a genuine alert, we may never know. It also came just as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly stepped in to defuse the spiral.

President Trump said the US didn’t just broker a ceasefire – it averted a “nuclear conflict”. On Monday, in an address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “[There] is no tolerance for nuclear blackmail; India will not be intimidated by nuclear threats.

“Any terrorist safe haven operating under this pretext will face precise and decisive strikes,” Modi added.

India and Pakistan each possess about 170 nuclear weapons, according to the think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). As of January 2024, Sipri estimated there were 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of these, about 9,585 were held in military stockpiles, with 3,904 actively deployed – 60 more than the previous year. The US and Russia together account for more than 8,000 nuclear weapons.

The bulk of both India’s and Pakistan’s deployed arsenals lies in their land-based missile forces, though both are developing nuclear triads capable of delivering warheads by land, air and sea, according to Christopher Clary, a security affairs expert at the University at Albany in the US.

“India likely has a larger air leg (aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons) than Pakistan. While we know the least of Pakistan’s naval leg, it is reasonable to assess that India’s naval leg is more advanced and more capable than Pakistan’s sea-based nuclear force,” he told the BBC.

One reason, Mr Clary said, is that Pakistan has invested nowhere near the “time or money” that India has in building a nuclear-powered submarine, giving India a “clear qualitative” edge in naval nuclear capability.

Since testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Pakistan has never formally declared an official nuclear doctrine.

India, by contrast, adopted a no-first-use policy following its own 1998 tests. But this stance has shown signs of softening. In 2003, India reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks – effectively allowing for first use under certain conditions.

Further ambiguity emerged in 2016, when then–defence minister Manohar Parrikar suggested India shouldn’t feel “bound” by the policy, raising questions about its long-term credibility. (Parrikar clarified that this was his own opinion.)

The absence of a formal doctrine doesn’t mean Pakistan lacks one – official statements, interviews and nuclear developments offer clear clues to its operational posture, according to Sadia Tasleem of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Pakistan’s nuclear threshold remains vague, but in 2001, Khalid Kidwai – then head of the Strategic Plans Division of the NCA – outlined four red lines: major territorial loss, destruction of key military assets, economic strangulation or political destabilisation.

In 2002, then-president Pervez Musharraf clarified that “nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India”, and would only be used if “the very existence of Pakistan as a state” was at stake.

In his memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that he was jolted awake at night to speak with an unnamed “Indian counterpart” who feared Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear weapons during the 2019 stand-off with India.

Around the same time, Pakistani media quoted a senior official issuing a stark warning to India: “I hope you know what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I said that we will surprise you. Wait for that surprise… You have chosen a path of war without knowing the consequences for the peace and security of the region.”

During the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed warned that the country would not “hesitate to use any weapon” to defend its territory. Years later, US official Bruce Riedel revealed that intelligence indicated Pakistan was preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible deployment.

But there is scepticism on both sides over such claims.

Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria wrote in his memoir that Pompeo overstated both the risk of nuclear escalation and the US role in calming the conflict in 2019. And during Kargil, Pakistan “knew the Indian Air Force wouldn’t cross into its territory” – so there was no real trigger for even an implicit nuclear threat, insist Pakistani analysts.

“Strategic signalling reminds the world that any conflict can spiral – and with India and Pakistan, the stakes are higher due to the nuclear overhang. But that doesn’t mean either side is actively threatening nuclear use,” Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, told the BBC.

But nuclear escalation can happen by accident too. “This could happen by human error, hackers, terrorists, computer failures, bad data from satellites and unstable leaders,” Prof Alan Robock of Rutgers University, lead author of the landmark 2019 paper by a global team of scientists, told the BBC.

In March 2022, India accidentally fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile which travelled 124km (77 miles) into Pakistani territory before crashing, reportedly damaging civilian property. Pakistan said India failed to use the military hotline or issue a public statement for two days. Had this occurred during heightened tensions, the incident could have spiralled into serious conflict, experts say. (Months later, India’s government sacked three air force officers for the “accidental firing of a missile”.)

Yet, the danger of nuclear war remains “relatively small” between India and Pakistan, according to Mr Clary.

“So long as there is not major ground combat along the border, the dangers of nuclear use remain relatively small and manageable,” he said.

“In ground combat, the ‘use it or lose it’ problem is propelled by the possibility that your ground positions will be overrun by the enemy.” (‘Use it or lose it‘ refers to the pressure a nuclear-armed country may feel to launch its weapons before they are destroyed in a first strike by an adversary.)

Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, believes that “neither India nor Pakistan wants to be labelled as the first violator of the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo”.

“Furthermore, any side that resorts to the use of nuclear weapons would face substantial retaliation and suffer unacceptable casualties,” Mr Ganguly told the BBC.

At the same time, both India and Pakistan appear to be beefing up their nuclear arsenal.

With new delivery systems in development, four plutonium reactors and expanding uranium enrichment, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could reach around 200 warheads by the late 2020s, according to The Nuclear Notebook, researched by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

And as of early 2023, India was estimated to have about 680kg of weapons-grade plutonium – enough for roughly 130-210 nuclear warheads, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Despite repeated crises and close calls, both sides have so far managed to avoid a catastrophic slide into nuclear conflict. “The deterrent is still holding. All Pakistanis did was to respond to conventional strikes with counter-conventional strikes of their own,” writes Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst.

Yet, the presence of nuclear weapons injects a constant undercurrent of risk – one that can never be entirely ruled out, no matter how experienced the leadership or how restrained the intentions.

“When nuclear weapons can be involved, there is always an unacceptable level of danger,”John Erath, senior policy director at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told the BBC.

“The Indian and Pakistani governments have navigated these situations in the past, so the risk is small. But with nuclear weapons, even a small risk is too large.”

Gary Lineker has “apologised unreservedly” after being criticised for sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat.

“On Instagram I reposted material which I have since learned contained offensive references,” he said in a statement. “I very much regret these references.

“I would never knowingly share anything antisemitic. It goes against everything I believe in.” The Match of the Day presenter said he deleted the post “as soon as I became aware of the issue”.

A rat has historically been used as an antisemitic insult, referring to language used by Nazi Germany to characterise Jews.

“Whilst I strongly believe in the importance of speaking out on humanitarian issues, including the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, I also know that how we do so matters,” Lineker continued.

“I take full responsibility for this mistake. That image does not reflect my views.

“It was an error on my part for which I apologise unreservedly.”

On Tuesday, the Match of the Day host deleted an Instagram story post he shared from the group Palestine Lobby, which said: “Zionism explained in two minutes” and featured a rat.

Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel, and thus support for the modern state of Israel.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has called for Lineker to be sacked, saying: “The BBC has turned a blind eye for too long, it is long past time for him to go, and he must go now.”

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the presenter’s “empty and belated apology is the first after years of baiting the Jewish community, just as levels of antisemitism soar”.

“His use of social media has been unacceptable for too long,” he added.

“It is high time that the licence-fee payer ceases to be obliged to subsidise and amplify his bile.”

Lineker’s apology came hours after the BBC’s director general reminded stars to follow the corporation’s social media rules and avoid damaging “mistakes”, after the criticism of Lineker’s post.

Asked whether the post had broken BBC guidelines, Tim Davie said: “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone, and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us.

“I think we absolutely need people to be exemplars of the BBC values and follow our social media policy. It’s as simple as that.”

The former England striker has attracted criticism before for his posts on social media in the past.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over a post in which he said language used to promote a government asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC’s social media rules were then rewritten to say presenters of flagship programmes outside news and current affairs – including Match of the Day – have “a particular responsibility to respect the BBC’s impartiality, because of their profile on the BBC”.

In November 2024, Lineker announced his departure from Match of the Day, but he will remain with the BBC to front FA Cup and World Cup coverage.

Virat Kohli’s retirement from Tests has left Indian cricket beleaguered and the sporting world gasping in surprise.

Coming on the heels of captain Rohit Sharma quitting a few days earlier, it adds up to a double whammy for India who embark on a tough tour of England for a five-Test series come June without their two most experienced batters.

Like Sharma, Kohli took to Instagram, where he commands more than 270 million followers, to make his retirement public.

“As I step away from this format, it’s not easy – but it feels right…” he explained to his disconsolate fans.

Tributes for Kohli have come in a deluge since: from fellow cricketers, past and present, old and young, and also legends from other disciplines like tennis ace Novak Djokovic and football star Harry Kane, which highlights the sweep and heft of Kohli’s global appeal.

Leading India to victory in the Under-19 World Cup in 2008, Kohli was fast tracked into international cricket by the then-chairman of selectors, former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar, against the judgement of others in the cricket establishment.

“Many in the Indian cricket board felt he was too young but he was scoring heavily in domestic cricket, and the hunger to succeed was palpable in him,” recalls Vengsarkar.

An example of Kohli’s obsessive passion for the sport comes imbued with poignancy. Kohli was playing his second Ranji Trophy match for Delhi. His father passed away suddenly with his team in a crisis. After the funeral, he went back and scored a battling 90.

Vengsarkar’s approving eye earned Kohli an ODI debut in 2009. At 23, he was the youngest member of India’s 2011 ODI World Cup winning team under MS Dhoni. A few weeks later, he made his Test debut in the West Indies. Some months on, during the disastrous tour of Australia with his place under threat, Kohli made a gritty maiden century and never looked back. Within a couple of years he established himself as the pre-eminent batter of his generation.

Brash and provocative, without a benign muscle in his body, he was as volatile as potassium on water in his early years. He was unafraid to take on the most reputed opponents, often indulging in on-field fracases that sometimes earned him criticism.

Happily, this was not to become his defining identity in cricket. Prolific run-getting in dashing style across formats provided another more compelling dimension and was to take him to the pinnacle.

When his idol Sachin Tendulkar retired in 2013, Kohli, allying unbridled ambition with his abundant skills, grabbed the baton hungrily and went on to sketch one of the most stellar careers in cricket history.

He wielded the bat like a Jedi, with great skill and telling thrust to slay opponents, as it were. Coupled with his high-octane persona, his scintillating batting made him a cult hero whose very presence ensured blockbuster box-office returns everywhere he played.

Kohli always wore his passion on his sleeve. He was always demonstrative and dramatic on the field but over a period of time, misplaced angst was sublimated into a raging inner pursuit of excellence that took him to dizzying heights.

Marriage to film star Anushka Sharma made them the country’s foremost power couple, putting both under the glare of even more intense spotlight.

Metaphorically, Kohli’s outstanding exploits, especially in the first decade of his career, epitomised the emerging India of the 21st century: unabashedly, unrelentingly ambitious, discarding all past demons, willing to take on the best in the world.

His achievements across formats are monumental.

In ODIs, he is third in run aggregate behind Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakarra, but boasts the best average (57.88) among batters who have played more than 100 games. His ability to win ODI matches in the most daunting run chases is the stuff of folklore, many of his record 51 centuries coming in such pursuit.

In T20s, his run aggregate and centuries don’t put him in the top five, but he’s immortalised himself with incredible knocks, notably 82 not out in an emotion-charged, pulsating match against arch-rivals Pakistan in the 2022 World Cup and a vital 76 in the 2024 final against South Africa, which helped India win the title.

He is also the highest run scorer in the history of the Indian Premier League.

At one point, Kohli averaged 50-plus in all three formats, making him the most productive and versatile batter of his era – way ahead of contemporaries Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith. The four were locked in a fascinating, long-running race for batting supremacy.

When it appeared he would break all batting records, Kohli’s career took an inexplicable downturn. From the start of the pandemic, the flow of runs began to ebb and centuries became a trickle. In his pomp – between 2014 and 2019 – he had been unstoppable, at one time scoring six double centuries in just 18 months.

The drought of runs hit him most adversely in Test cricket where his average, from a high of 55-plus in 2019 slumped to the current 46.75. In this period, Kohli also lost the captaincy, though his stellar standing in international cricket remained untouched.

Kohli finishes his Test career with 9,230 runs, which puts him 19th overall in aggregate, and fourth among Indians behind Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar, all of whom finished with a 50-plus average and more centuries. But to judge him only on this yardstick would diminish the massive impact he has had on this format .

As captain, Kohli easily hurdles over Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid. In Test cricket, winning 40 of the 68 matches he led in, making him the fourth most successful in the format. In the Indian context, this assumes Himalayan proportions.

Former Australia captain Greg Chappell says that Kohli’s energy, grit, sense of purpose and aura was “transformative” for Indian cricket. Chappell marks him out as the most influential Indian captain, ahead of even Sourav Ganguly and M S Dhoni.

Former India captain and chief coach Ravi Shastri, who collaborated with Kohli for years, gives first-hand perspective.

“Kohli made India into a fighting unit, especially when playing overseas,” says Shastri.

The lack of ICC and IPL titles according to Shastri, is misleading as an index to his captaincy ability.

“He always played to win, sought and nurtured fast bowlers to win overseas, demanded high intent and supreme fitness from all players, putting himself in the forefront, not as a backseat driver.”

For seven years when Kohli and Shastri collaborated, India were in the top three in ICC rankings in all formats almost continuously which is unprecedented.

The most cherished and significant triumph of this period came in 2018 when India beat Australia in its own backyard in a Test series for the first time ever.

Australia is where Kohli had launched himself into batting greatness, scoring 692 runs in four Tests in 2014-15. In 2018, he contributed as captain and batter to break an hitherto unassailable psychological barrier. In 2020 touring Australia, Kohli played only one match (which was lost) returning home for the birth of his child. But India, having overcome the mental barrier two years earlier, went on to win the rubber in a melodramatic see-saw series.

Australia was Kohli’s happy hunting ground and his last visit Down Under in late 2024 grabbed worldwide attention. He began with a roar, hitting a century in the first test at Perth. But his form fizzled out alarmingly and made only 190 runs in the five Tests.

How much this contributed to his decision to retire is moot. Advancing years, the dislike of being constantly under harsh scrutiny, wanting to be close to his young family and behind the scene shenanigans that abound in Indian cricket have doubtless played a part too.

Kohli ends his retirement post on Instagram enigmatically.

“I’ll always look back at my Test career with a smile. #269 signing off,” he wrote.

The greatest ambassador for the five-day format in the last decade and a half had moved into the sunset.

At least 80 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, hospitals and first responders say.

The Indonesian hospital said 22 children and 15 women were among 50 people who died when several homes in the northern Jabalia area were hit overnight. Nearby al-Awda hospital said it had received the bodies of another nine people, seven of them children.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in the north. It had warned residents of Jabalia and neighbouring areas to evacuate on Tuesday after rockets were launched into Israel.

It came as the UN’s humanitarian chief urged members of the UN Security Council to take action to “prevent genocide” in Gaza.

Speaking at a meeting in New York on Tuesday, Tom Fletcher accused Israel of “deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians”.

He also called on Israel to lift its 10-week blockade on Gaza and criticised the Israeli-US plan to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid by using private companies, saying it was a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians.

Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, said the accusations were “baseless and outrageous”.

He insisted the existing system for aid was “broken” because it was being used to help Hamas’s war effort – an allegation both the UN and the armed group have denied.

Residents of Jabalia town and its refugee camp reported hearing multiple explosions overnight, and videos shared by activists showed flames lighting up the sky.

One video shared online showed at least 14 bodies wrapped in blankets and white shrouds on the floor of the Indonesian hospital.

Hadi Moqbel, 42, said several members of his family were killed.

“They fired two rockets, they told us the house of Moqbel [had been hit],” he told Reuters news agency as he clambered over the destroyed building.

“We came running, we saw body parts on the ground, children killed, [a] woman killed and a baby killed… He was two months old.”

The director of al-Awda hospital said in an audio message that it was struggling to deal with the 52 injured people brought there for treatment after the strikes because of the shortages of medical supplies and fuel for its electricity generators, with the latter forcing the closure of several departments.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency reported that 80 people had been killed in Israeli strikes across the territory since dawn, including 59 in the north.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it “struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists” in northern Gaza overnight. It added that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

On Tuesday night, the military had issued what it described as a “final warning” to residents of Jabalia and neighbouring areas. It ordered them to evacuate immediately to Gaza City, saying Israeli forces would “attack with great force any area from which rockets are launched”.

The military said three rockets launched from Gaza crossed into Israeli territory, triggering sirens in Israeli border communities and the town of Sderot. Two of the rockets were intercepted by the Israeli air force and the third fell in an open area, it added.

PIJ – an armed group that like its ally Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, UK and other countries – said it launched the rockets in response to what it called “Zionist massacres”.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for six parts of the northern Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, warning that there would be strikes “due to Hamas’s exploitation of civilian areas for terrorist activities”.

An infographic identified the affected areas as al-Shifa hospital, the Islamic University, and the al-Shati, Carmel, Mustafa Hafez and al-Furqan school complexes, and alleged that they contained Hamas command centres, structures and meeting points.

The areas are packed with tents housing thousands of displaced people.

Al-Shifa is also one of only 22 partially functional hospitals in Gaza. It was largely destroyed in a two-week raid by Israeli forces last year but has since reopened its emergency department.

Israel cut off all deliveries of aid and other supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive against Hamas on 18 March after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

The UN says 20% of the 2.1 million population has been displaced again, and that 70% of Gaza is now either within Israeli military “no-go” zones or under evacuation orders.

Severe shortages of food and fuel have forced all UN-supported bakeries and more than 60% of the 180 community kitchens providing hot meals to shut down.

A UN-backed assessment released on Monday warned that the entire population was facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people facing starvation.

The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for Gaza’s population. Israel has said it is complying with international law and there is no shortage of aid because thousands of lorry loads entered during the ceasefire.

Palestinians are hoping Hamas’s decision on Monday to release the last living Israeli-American hostage in Gaza, Edan Alexander, could pave the way for a possible new ceasefire deal with Israel and the end of the blockade.

Hamas said it freed Mr Alexander as a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump, who is visiting the Middle East this week.

On Wednesday morning, Trump told a summit of Gulf leaders in Riyadh that he was hopeful that more of the 58 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza would be freed.

“All hostages must be released as a stepping stone to peace,” he said. “I think that’s going to be happening.”

At the same time, his special envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler participated in a new round of indirect talks in Doha along with officials from regional mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also said he had a “lengthy” discussion with Witkoff by telephone “on the issue of the hostages”.

More than 65 former hostages meanwhile signed a letter urging the Israeli government to seize a “genuine opportunity to return to the negotiating table” and secure the release of all the hostages. “Please do not walk away until a comprehensive deal is signed,” they said.

Netanyahu has said Israel is planning to expand its military offensive in Gaza and that nothing will stop the war.

He told injured reservist soldiers on Monday that Israeli forces would go into the territory in the coming days “with full force to complete the operation” to destroy Hamas.

“There will be no situation where we stop the war. A temporary ceasefire might happen, but we are going all the way,” he added.

Hamas has refused to release the remaining hostages unless Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire and withdraws from Gaza.

On Tuesday, a massive Israeli air strike on the European hospital’s compound in Khan Younis killed at least 28 people, according to local officials.

The Israeli military described it as “a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating in a command-and-control centre” underneath the hospital.

Israeli media reports said the target was Mohammed Sinwar, who is believed to have become the top Hamas leader in Gaza after his brother Yahya was killed by Israeli forces last October.

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

At least 52,928 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 2,799 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canadians were not “impressed” by the UK government’s invitation to US President Donald Trump for a second state visit.

The newly elected Carney told Sky News that the UK’s invitation earlier this year did not help Canadians, who were facing repeat comments from Trump about making Canada the 51st US state.

“To be frank, [Canadians] weren’t impressed by that gesture… given the circumstance,” he said. “It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer invited Trump to come to the UK for a visit during a meeting at the White House in February.

Asked whether the invitation was “appropriate”, Carney said that was a decision for the government of the UK and Buckingham Palace.

“I leave the diplomacy to the UK government,” he said.

The BBC has contacted the Carney’s office and No 10 for comment.

Buckingham Palace declined to respond.

The criticism from Carney comes as the Canadians prepare to welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the end of this month for a royal visit.

During the Sky News interview, Carney said his invitation for the King – Canada’s head of state – to attend the opening of Canada’s Parliament “is not coincidental”.

“It is also a reaffirming moment, will be a reaffirming,” Carney said, saying issues around Canada’s sovereignty “have been accentuated by the president”.

During his visit, the King will also read the Speech from the Throne – a function usually carried out by the governor general.

The last time this happened was in October 1977 when Queen Elizabeth II read the speech for the second time in Canada’s history. The first was in 1957.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has made repeated comments undermining Canada’s sovereignty, including that the Canadian border is an “artificially drawn line”.

Meanwhile, Carney has firmly said Canada is “not for sale, ever”.

Carney – who said he would only meet the US president “until we get the respect we deserve” – sat down with Trump in Washington DC last week to begin negotiations on a new trade and security relationship.

During the visit, Trump repeated his 51st state comments.

Pressed on that, Carney told Sky News that Trump has shifted his tone from “expectation to a desire for that to happen”.

“He also came from a place where he recognised that was not going to happen.”

Svitlana says her daughter loved her school in Poland.

“Even when we moved to another area, she didn’t want to change schools,” says the 31-year-old Ukrainian mother. “She liked it so much. There was no bullying.”

Now she says the atmosphere at the school – and in Poland overall – has changed.

“Two weeks ago, she came home and said “One boy said to me today, ‘Go back to Ukraine’.” Svitlana was astonished.

She is one of dozens of Ukrainians living in Poland who have told the BBC that anti-Ukrainian sentiment has risen considerably in recent months.

Many described experiencing abuse on public transport, bullying in schools and xenophobic material online.

A polarising presidential election campaign has added to the tension, with the first round of voting taking place on Sunday.

The day after Svitlana’s daughter was told to go back to Ukraine, the abuse became even worse.

“Girls from the class above started complaining about her speaking Ukrainian. Then they pretended to fall to the ground shouting ‘Missile! Get down!’ and laughing,” Svitlana says. “She came home crying.”

A Russian missile had slammed into Svitlana’s hometown in Ukraine days before, killing scores of civilians, including children. Her daughter was traumatised.

Svitlana – not her real name did not want to be identified as she fears reprisals. She showed us screenshots of messages with school staff where she complains about her daughter’s treatment.

She said she had noticed attitudes changing towards Ukrainians in other places, too: “At work, many people have been saying Ukrainians come here and behave badly. And my Ukrainian friends say they want to go home because Polish people don’t accept us. It’s frightening to live here now.”

According to government statistics, at least 2.5 million Ukrainians live in Poland, comprising almost 7% of the total population of Poland.

When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, there was an outpouring of compassion from Poles. “It was amazing. Every day people were calling, asking, ‘How can we help?'” says activist Natalia Panchenko, head of the Warsaw-based ‘Stand with Ukraine’ Foundation.

“Some of them organised humanitarian convoys or brought refugees here. They gave their houses, food, everything they have – and their hearts, too.”

Three years later, Natalia says she believes the majority of Poles still support Ukraine. But some don’t – and her organisation has noticed an upsurge of anti-Ukrainian online abuse that began several months ago.

“Then it started to come to real life,” she says. “Recently, we have more and more of these kinds of situations… xenophobic [abuse] of people working in shops or hotels just because they speak with a Ukrainian accent.”

Natalia says that many Ukrainian refugees are traumatised. “These groups of women and children are in Poland because of the war, very often their relatives are on the front line, in captivity or dead… and this is the group of people being targeted.”

Research suggests that Poland’s public opinion of Ukrainians is indeed worsening. According to a March 2025 poll by the respected CBOS Centre, just 50% of Poles are in favour of accepting Ukrainian refugees, a fall of seven percentage points in four months. Two years ago, the figure was 81%.

Around a million Ukrainians are officially registered as having arrived after the start of the full-scale invasion. Poland spends 4.2% of its GDP on Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine has become a hot-button political issue in Poland’s crucial presidential election campaign.

Far-right populist Slawomir Mentzen, currently polling third, is virulently anti-Ukrainian and supports an “agreement” with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In second place is conservative Karol Nawrocki, who opposes EU and Nato membership for Ukraine and financial assistance for refugees, but supports the war effort.

The most pro-Ukraine candidate is front-runner Rafal Trzaskowski from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, although even he has promised a reduction in social welfare for Ukrainians.

Trzaskowski has refrained from espousing his pro-Ukrainian credentials in order to attract the centrist vote in the elections, says political analyst Marcin Zaborowski.

“He’s responding to the change in public attitudes. The initial enthusiasm for supporting war victims is disappearing, negative sentiments are taking over and it’s not an entirely comfortable issue for him.”

Another far-right candidate, Grzegorz Braun, is under investigation by police for tearing down a Ukrainian flag from a city hall building during an election rally in April. Braun, who is polling at just 3%, regularly fulminates against what he calls the “Ukrainisation of Poland”.

Last week, the Polish government warned of an “unprecedented attempt” by Russia to interfere in the Polish elections by spreading “false information among Polish citizens online”. Moscow denies all allegations of election interference.

Michal Marek, who runs an NGO that monitors disinformation and propaganda in Poland, offers some examples of the anti-Ukraine material being circulated on social media.

“The main narratives are that Ukrainians are stealing money from the Polish budget, that Ukrainians do not respect us, that they want to rob and kill us and are responsible for the war,” he says.

“This information starts in Russian-speaking Telegram channels, and, after that, we see the same photos and the same text just translated by Google Translate. And they are pushing [the material] into the Polish infosphere.”

Mr Marek links such disinformation directly with the increase in anti-Ukraine sentiment in Poland, and says an increasing number of Poles are becoming influenced by propaganda.

“But we will only see the effect after the election – what percentage of Poles want to vote for openly pro-Russian candidates.”

US President Donald Trump has said his administration wants to accept a plane worth an estimated $400m (£303m) as a gift from Qatar, calling it “a great gesture” that he would be “stupid” to turn down.

The potential move has been labelled “wildly illegal” by some members of the rival Democratic Party – something the White House denies – and it has attracted criticism from some of Trump’s supporters.

Qatar itself earlier said the reports about the plane were “inaccurate”, and that negotiations were continuing.

The news comes as Trump visits several countries in the Middle East, including Qatar.

BBC Verify has been looking into the legality of presidents accepting gifts.

On Sunday, US media reported that the Trump administration was preparing to accept a Boeing jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family – saying that the plane would be refitted and used temporarily as Air Force One, the name for the plane used by presidents.

Trump later posted on Truth Social: “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.”

When questioned by reporters, Trump said: “It’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

In February, Trump said he was “not happy with Boeing” about delays to two new Air Force One jets that he is expecting to receive directly from the firm. He added that the White House could instead “buy a plane or get a plane, or something”.

The Qatari plane was pictured in Palm Beach, Florida, in February where Trump inspected it. It is currently fitted with three bedrooms, a private lounge and an office, according to its specification summary document from 2015.

A Qatari official has told CNN the plane is being given from the Qatari defence ministry to the Pentagon, and that it will be modified to meet Air Force One’s safety and security standards.

Experts say this is likely to take years, which means the plane may not be ready for use until near the end of Trump’s term.

Trump has said the plane will go directly to his presidential library after he leaves office, and that he “wouldn’t be using it” after his presidency.

Nonetheless, the move has led to criticism from Democrats as well as some long-time Trump supporters, including Laura Loomer who said: “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true.”

Several senior Democrats have claimed that accepting the gift would be illegal.

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

Frank Cogliano, a professor of American history at the University of Edinburgh, says this clause “was intended to prevent bribery to influence the government”.

“It is certainly stretching the Constitution and we have not seen a gift on this scale, or of this nature”, says Professor Andrew Moran, a constitutional law expert at London Metropolitan University.

There have been a number of other laws passed by Congress relating to the acceptance of foreign gifts, such as the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966, which means that congressional consent is required for the acceptance of foreign gifts above a certain value.

Currently US officials can accept gifts valued at less than $480 (£363).

Although Trump has referred to the plane ultimately going to his “library”, experts have suggested he really means his museum foundation.

Ex-presidents typically have a library housing their archive of documents, and a museum – typically funded by private donations – full of memorabilia and open to the public.

Experts who BBC Verify spoke to said the fact that the plane could be given to the administration – and not to the president directly – before being transferred to his museum, may not get around the potential violation of the constitution.

Jordan Libowitz – from the organisation Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – said any use of the plane by Trump after leaving office would cross a line: “Reagan’s Air Force One ended up in his presidential library, but there’s a difference there. The plane was decommissioned, Reagan never flew on it again, and it sits inside as a museum piece.”

The US Justice Department has reportedly drafted a memo explaining why it thinks accepting the jet would be permissible, although this has not been made public.

When the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt was asked about the legality of the deal, she said: “The legal details of that are still being worked out, but of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law.”

President Trump is on a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE, hoping to drum up investment for the US.

His visit follows a series of business deals announced by the Trump Organization, which is run by the president’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

These include plans to build golf courses and luxury villas in Qatar and the UAE.

President Trump is not currently affiliated with the Trump Organization, having handed over management responsibilities to his children after entering the White House on 20 January.

A deal was announced by the Trump Organization at the beginning of May to develop a Trump-branded luxury 18-hole golf course and a collection of luxury villas north of Qatar’s capital, Doha.

At the time, Eric Trump said: “We are incredibly proud to expand the Trump brand into Qatar through this exceptional collaboration with Qatari Diar and Dar Global.”

Dar Global is a publicly owned Saudi construction company; Qatari Diar is a Qatari state-owned company.

Separately, on 30 April, the Trump Organization announced it would build “the region’s first Trump International Hotel & Tower” in the “heart of Dubai” consisting of 80 floors of “luxury living and world-class hospitality”.

Eric Trump also visited the UAE recently, speaking at Token 2049, a cryptocurrency conference, on 1 May.

Asked if Trump was likely to meet anyone involved in the family business during his trip, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “ridiculous” to suggest the president was doing anything for his own benefit.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Chimpanzees in Uganda have been observed using medicinal plants – in multiple ways – to treat open wounds and other injuries.

University of Oxford scientists, working with a local team in the Budongo Forest, filmed and recorded incidents of the animals using plants for first aid, both on themselves and occasionally on each other.

Their research builds on the discovery last year that chimps seek out and eat certain plants to self-medicate.

The scientists also compiled decades of scientific observations to create a catalogue of the different ways in which chimpanzees use “forest first aid”.

Researchers say the study, which is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, adds to a growing body of evidence that primates, including chimps, orangutans and gorillas, use natural medicines in a number of ways to stay healthy in the wild.

• Chimpanzees ‘self-medicate’ with healing plants
• Wounded orangutan seen using plant as medicine

Lead researcher Elodie Freymann explained there was “a whole behavioural repertoire that chimpanzees use when they’re sick or injured in the wild – to treat themselves and to maintain hygiene”.

“Some of these include the use of plants that can be found here,” she explained. “The chimpanzees dab them on their wounds or chew the plants up, and then apply the chewed material to the open injury.”

The researchers studied footage of a very young, female chimpanzee chewing plant material and applying it to an injury on its mother’s body.

They also found records of chimpanzees tending to the wounds of other animals they weren’t related to. This is particularly exciting, explained Dr Freymann, “because it adds to the evidence that wild chimpanzees have the capacity for empathy”.

Some of the hundreds of written observations that Dr Freymann and her colleagues studied came from a log book at the field station in the forest site, which is northwest of the capital, Kampala.

This record of anecdotal evidence dates back to the 1990s – local field staff, researchers and visitors have written in, describing any interesting behaviour they have observed.

There are stories in that book of leaf-dabbing on injuries and chimps helping other chimps to remove snares from their limbs.

There are some surprisingly human-like hygiene habits: One note describes a chimpanzee using leaves to wipe itself after defecating.

This team of researchers has previously identified some of the plants that chimpanzees sought out and ate when they were injured. The scientists took samples of those plants, tested them and discovered most had antibacterial properties.

Chimpanzees are not the only non-human apes with apparent knowledge of plant-based medicine. A recent study showed a wild oranguatan using chewed leaf material to heal a facial wound.

Scientists think studying this wild ape behaviour – and understanding more about the plants the chimps use when they are sick or injured – could help in the search for new medicines.

“The more we learn about chimpanzee behaviour and intelligence, the more I think we come to understand how little we as humans actually know about the natural world,” Dr Freymann told BBC News.

“If I were plopped down here in this forest with no food and no medicine, I doubt that I’d be able to survive very long, especially if I were injured or sick.”

“But chimpanzees thrive here because they know how to access the secrets of this place, and how to find all they need to survive from their surroundings.”

Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, has died at the age of 89.

The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world’s “poorest president” because of his modest lifestyle.

Current President Yamandú Orsi announced his predecessor’s death on X, writing: “thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.”

The politician’s cause of death is not known but he had been suffering from oesophageal cancer.

Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which, among other things, meant Uruguay became the first country to legalise the recreational use of marijuana – Mujica became a well-known political figure in Latin America and beyond.

His global popularity is unusual for a president of Uruguay, a country with just 3.4 million inhabitants where his legacy has also generated some controversy.

In fact, even though many tended to see Mujica as someone outside the political class, that was not the case.

He said his passion for politics, as well as for books and working the land, was passed on to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle-class home in Montevideo, the capital city.

As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay’s traditional political forces, which later became the centre-right opposition to his government.

In the 1960s, he helped set up the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T), a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, although he always maintained that he did not commit any murder.

Influenced by the Cuban revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which at the time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused it of being increasingly authoritarian.

During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly died.

He escaped from prison twice, on one occasion through a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the largest escapes in Uruguayan prison history.

When the Uruguayan military staged a coup in 1973, they included him in a group of “nine hostages” who they threatened to kill if the guerrillas continued their attacks.

During the more than 14 years he spent in prison during the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent most of that time in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He used to say that during his time in prison, he experienced madness first hand, suffering from delusions and even talking to ants.

The day he was freed was his happiest memory, he says: “Becoming president was insignificant compared to that.”

A few years after his release, he served as a lawmaker, both in the Chamber of Representatives and in the Senate, the country’s lower and upper houses respectively.

In 2005, he became minister in the first government of the Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan leftist coalition, before becoming Uruguay’s president in 2010.

He was 74 years old at the time, and, to the rest of the world, still unknown.

His election marked an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at that time. Mujica became leader alongside other left-wing presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

However, Mujica governed in his own way, demonstrating pragmatism and audacity on several occasions, political commentators say.

During his administration, amid a fairly favourable international context, the Uruguayan economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.4%, poverty was reduced, and unemployment remained low.

Uruguay also drew global attention for the social laws passed by parliament during those years, such as the legalisation of abortion, the recognition of same-sex marriage, and state regulation of the marijuana market.

While in office, Mujica rejected moving into the presidential residence (a mansion), as heads of state around the world usually do.

Instead, he remained with his wife – politician and former guerrilla Lucía Topolansky – in their modest home on the outskirts of Montevideo, with no domestic help and little security.

This combined with the fact that he always dressed casually, that he was often seen driving his light blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle and gave away a large portion of his salary, led some media outlets to call him “the world’s poorest president”.

But Mujica always rejected that title: “They say I’m the poorest president. No, I’m not,” he told me in a 2012 interview at his home. “Poor are those who want more […] because they’re in an endless race.”

Despite Mujica preaching austerity, his government did significantly increase public spending, widening the fiscal deficit and leading his opponents to accuse him of waste.

Mujica was also criticised for failing to reverse the growing problems in Uruguayan education, despite having promised that education would be a top priority for his administration.

However, unlike other leaders in the region, he was never accused of corruption or of undermining his country’s democracy.

By the end of his administration, Mujica had a high domestic popularity rating (close to 70%) and was elected senator, but also spent part of his time travelling the world after he stepped down as president.

“So what it is that catches the world’s attention? That I live with very little, a simple house, that I drive around in an old car? Then this world is crazy because it’s surprised by [what is] normal,” he reflected before leaving office.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020 though he remained a central figure in Uruguay.

His political heir, Yamandú Orsi, was elected president of Uruguay in November 2024 and his group within the Frente Amplio obtained the largest number of parliamentary seats since the country’s return to democracy.

Last year, Mujica announced he had cancer and references to his age and the inexorable proximity of death became more frequent – but he always accepted the final outcome as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview he gave the BBC in November last year, he said: “One knows that death is inevitable. And perhaps it’s like the salt of life.”

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.

• Faisal Islam: US and China step back from beyond brink
• ‘We don’t care’: A defiant China looks beyond Trump’s America

“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.

• Xi’s real test is not Trump’s trade war

“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 is a country of 340 million people, 71 interstate highways, more than 5,000 public airports, and currently no high-speed railways.

Yet with two high-speed rail (HSR) projects now under construction, and others planned, is the US finally on track to start catching up with the fast trains seen in China, Japan and Europe?

Rick Harnish, of US campaign group High Speed Rail Alliance, says it is at least good to see the first two schemes being built.

“The first is the San Francisco to Los Angeles route,” he explains. “That’s an incredibly challenging route to build because of the mountains in California.

“Then there’s Las Vegas to Los Angeles, a relatively easy project to build, as it is flat land.”

In addition, there are plans for a HSR line from Portland in Oregon to Seattle in Washington State, and onto Vancouver in Canada. And another between Dallas and Houston.

Yet Mr Harnish warns that planning efforts for the former are “moving slowly”, while the Texas line is now more doubtful after President Trump’s government cancelled a $63.9m (£48m) grant.

By marked contrast, the total length of China’s HSR network will reportedly exceed 50,000 km (31,000 miles) this year.

Meanwhile, the European Union has 8,556 km of HSR lines, led by Spain’s 3,190 km.

In the UK, the only current HSR line is High Speed 1, the 68 miles link between the Channel Tunnel and London St Pancras. But High Speed 2 continues to be constructed from London Euston to Birmingham, despite well-publicised funding issues.

While there is no universally agreed definition on what constitutes HSR, global railways trade group International Union of Railways says that trains generally need to be moving at more than 250 km/h (155 mph).

So why does US lag behind Europe and especially China?

“We’re a very car-addicted nation,” says American rail industry journalist and author Will Doig. “There’s lots of people who just don’t think we need it, or don’t really want it coming through their area.

“And the US government has really shown a willingness to shut down investment in a lot of projects, especially rail.”

Further complicating the situation in the US is that the boss of the government-owned passenger train service Amtrak, Stephen Gardner, resigned last month. It was widely reported that he stood down after pressure from the White House.

Amtrak currently does not operate any HSR trains. Later this year it is due to enter 28 new 160mph NextGen Acela trains into service on its Northeast Corridor route between Boston and Washington DC. However, only around 50 miles of the 457-mile line can presently allow trains to travel at more than 150mph.

Amtrak is not involved in the high-speed lines being built in California and Nevada. The LA to San Francisco project, called California High-Speed Rail, is being led by the state of California, and due to be completed by 2033.

The line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Brightline West, is a privately-run project. It is expected to open in 2028.

Globally, there are 23 nations with HSR, according to Mr Harnish. His non-profit organisation has the sole mission of bringing it to the US.

Allowing HSR trains to run safely is far from straightforward, he adds. “You can’t have any crossings with highways, it needs to be very straight and a sealed corridor.”

In China the country is still building more and more HSR lines, with the total distance expected to reach around 60,000km by 2030.

Chinese cities that get HSR links see their economies increase by 14.2%, according to data from Denmark-based think tank 21st Europe.

Chinese firms are also helping to build HSR systems in other Asian countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

Will Doig, who wrote a book called High-Speed Empire, Chinese Expansion, and the Future of Southeast Asia, says that China is not just interested in helping its neighbours improve their rail networks.

“It is a way of China spreading its influence across a region that it felt was geopolitically strategic,” he says.

“In some of these cases, countries have taken out loans from China so that China can then build the railways.” He warns that this may put them “in a position where they’re beholden to China”.

Europe’s growing HSR network is testament to the continent’s history of investing in its public infrastructure, says Kaave Pour from 21st Europe.

His think tank is now calling for further expansion of HSR, so that it connects most capitals and main cities in the EU, and those in the UK.

Mr Pour says that if the US wants to develop HSR it needs to start with a cultural shift, a move towards more public transport, and asking itself “what type of future does it want?”.

Mr Harnish from the High Speed Rail Alliance says that in order for HSR to work in the US, “the federal government is an essential component”.

Yet as already flagged, the White House has pulled the plug on giving the planned high-speed line between Houston and Dallas a federal grant. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the project as a “waste of taxpayers’ money”.

Scott Sherin is an executive at French train manufacturer Alstom. His firm is suppling Amtrak’s new high-speed trains, but he questions whether the US has the political will “to spend the public purse on rail versus other modes of transportation”.

He also notes that any future HSR lines would struggle to get into city centres such as Dallas and Houston, because there are too many buildings. “The issue is that the cities are so densely built [in their centres]”.

Will Doig says that going forward he would love to see China helping to build more HSR in the US, but that he is not holding his breath.

“It’s politically very difficult,” he says. “Which is too bad because without the animosity between the US and China, you could see how a partnership between them could really create great things for America, that America is not so good at building itself.”

Days after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, questions remain over what lies ahead for the two South Asian neighbours.

Early on 7 May, India launched air strikes into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir (Islamabad has denied involvement in the attack).

What followed were four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions between the two nuclear-armed countries, until the surprise ceasefire announcement on Saturday.

But – even accounting for the usually tense relationship between India and Pakistan – things are nowhere close to normal yet.

The fragile ceasefire, now in its fourth day, is still holding as life slowly begins to return to normal in towns along the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, days before launching the military operation, India had announced a flurry of diplomatic measures against Pakistan, including suspending a key water-sharing treaty, halting most visas and stopping all trade.

In response, Islamabad announced its own set of tit-for-tat actions, including the suspension of visas for Indians, a trade ban and the closure of its airspace to Indian flights.

None of these punitive measures have been reversed by both countries so far. Here’s where things currently stand between the two neighbours in terms of the measures announced since the Pahalgam attack:

On Monday, in his first public comments on the strike, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India’s stand is absolutely clear – terror and talks cannot go hand in hand.”

“Water and blood cannot flow together,” he added.

His comments align with media reports citing sources that say that the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), remains suspended.

The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries.

The IWT has survived two wars between the countries and was held up as an example of trans-boundary water management, until the suspension late last month.

• READ: Can India really stop river water from flowing into Pakistan?

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had earlier said that he believed the water issue with India would be resolved through peaceful negotiations.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty marks a significant diplomatic shift. Pakistan depends heavily on these rivers for agriculture and civilian water supply.

“Water cannot be weaponised,” Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters news agency on Monday, adding that “unilateral withdrawal has no legal basis”.

But experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes. However, if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season.

Soon after India suspended the IWT, Pakistan threatened to suspend a 1972 peace treaty called the Simla Agreement, which established the Line of Control, or de facto border between the countries. It hasn’t suspended this so far.

India scaled down its diplomatic relations with Pakistan as part of its retaliatory measures.

It expelled all Pakistani defence attachés, declaring them “persona non grata” (unwelcome) and announced it would withdraw its own defence advisers from its high commission in Islamabad.

Pakistan responded with similar steps. Both countries reduced the staff at their respective high commissions.

Both India and Pakistan also suspended almost all visas given to people from the other country.

As part of their retaliatory measures, both India and Pakistan shut down the Attari-Wagah border, the only land crossing between the two countries.

The border, which is heavily guarded and requires special permits to cross, has long been used by people visiting family members, attending weddings or reconnecting with loved ones across the border.

Both countries initially gave their citizens nearly a week to return, but the deadline was later extended.

For days, emotional scenes unfolded at the border, as families were separated, with some people staying behind.

• ‘What is our fault?’: Families separated at India-Pakistan border

After the 7 May strikes, India also announced that it would be closing entry from its side to the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, which allows Indian pilgrims to visit one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines in Pakistan without a visa.

Almost 200,000 Indians visited the Kartarpur shrine between 2021 and 2023, Indian officials said last year. The latest figures have not yet been released.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters last week that the suspension would remain in place until further notice.

As part of its retaliatory measures, Pakistan also announced the closure of its airspace to all Indian flights.

In the following days, India responded with similar restrictions, closing its airspace to all Pakistani flights, both military and commercial.

International flights are now being forced to take longer, costlier detours, increasing both travel time and fuel expenses.

The two countries have also suspended all direct and indirect trade.

Experts say the impact on India would be minimal because it does not import much from Pakistan. However, it creates bigger problems for Pakistan.

Already struggling with high inflation and a weak economy, Pakistan could face more pressure as it loses access to trade routes and crucial goods from India, such as raw materials and medicines.

In 1989, brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents by shooting them multiple times at close range at their mansion in Beverly Hills.

They were found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in 1996, and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge reduced their sentence, making them eligible for parole.

There has been renewed public interest in the case after a new Netflix drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, was released in September.

Last year, the previous district attorney of Los Angeles, George Gascón, requested a change to the brothers’ sentence from life without the possibility of parole to 50 years to life.

The hearing was put to Los Angeles County superior court Judge Michael Jesic on Tuesday who resentenced the brothers.

“I do believe they’ve done enough in the past 35 years that they should get that chance,” he said, concluding a day-long hearing.

• Menendez sentences reduced, given them chance of freedom

The brothers are eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law which allows individuals who committed crimes before the age of 26 to seek a reduced sentence.

The siblings were aged 18 and 21 at the time. They are now aged 54 and 57.

During the hearing, family members and a former fellow inmate were among those who testified in support of the resentencing.

People who worked with the brothers in prison spoke about the educational courses they had completed and how they created a hospice initiative for the elderly and sick.

The district attorney’s office, which fiercely opposes a lower sentence, said the brothers have continued to “make excuses” for their conduct instead of taking full responsibility and were not rehabilitated.

The brothers spoke to the court via video and apologised for their actions.

They also spoke about their hopes of working with sex abuse victims and helping those incarcerated if they were given a second chance outside prison.

The California parole board will now decide whether to release the brothers from prison.

Separately, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is considering a request from the brothers for clemency. If approved, it could lead to a reduced sentence or a pardon.

Governor Newsom requested that the parole board conduct a risk assessment that examines whether the brothers pose a risk to the general public if released.

The full report has not been released, but the district attorney said it indicated a “moderate risk of violence”.

The parole board hearing on the clemency petition is set to take place on 13 June.

It is unclear whether the board will also consider the possibility of parole based on Judge Jesic’s resentencing at the same hearing.

Lyle and Erik Menendez killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, on 20 August 1989 at their home in Beverly Hills.

Their father, a 45-year-old Hollywood executive, was shot six times with a shotgun the brothers had purchased days before the attack.

Their mother died after suffering 10 shotgun blasts to several parts of her body.

The brothers initially told police they found their parents dead when they arrived home.

They were arrested after the girlfriend of a psychologist that had been treating Erik Menendez went to police to say that he had physically threatened the doctor.

The brothers claimed they committed the murders in self defence after years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse, although no molestation was ever proven in court.

They said they feared their father would kill them after they threatened to expose him.

However, prosecutors argued that the young men had killed their successful parents to inherit their multi-million-dollar estate.

The brothers were taken into custody in 1990 and in 1993 they were tried for the murders, first individually, with one jury for each brother.

However, both juries were deadlocked in 1994, resulting in a mistrial, and the pair were later tried again together in 1995.

During their joint trial the judge excluded apparent evidence of abuse from their defence case. Taped sessions with a doctor, in which the killings were discussed, were ruled admissible in court by the judge.

A jury found them guilty and the pair were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in 1996.

The brothers, who were separated during their detention after a detective who investigated the slayings said they may conspire to escape if housed together, reunited in jail in 2018.

The case was thrust back into the spotlight after Netflix released a drama series about the brothers in September.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, shot to the top of the platform’s streaming chart and was reported to have had 12.3 million views in its first weekend of release.

It explores what might have led the siblings to kill their parents and it presents the murders from different perspectives.

Its creators said the series was based on extensive research and it follows the events surrounding the murders.

It includes the brothers’ claims of abuse as well as showing things from the parents’ point of view.

The show introduced the case to a new generation and garnered attention from celebrities – including Kim Kardashian and Rosie O’Donnell – who called for the brothers to be released.

The series was a follow-up to the controversial first Monsters series about US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

Following its release, Erik Menendez shared a statement, released on X by his wife.

He said the show was “disheartening slander” and he “believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle”.

“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” he added.

Members of the family also spoke out and said the brothers had been “victimised by this grotesque shockadrama,” and the show was “riddled with mistruths”.

Ryan Murphy, who created the show, told Variety that the comments were “predictable at best”.

He added that the family’s response was “interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It’s not like we’re making any of this stuff up. It’s all been presented before”.

A masked gang have tried to abduct the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a violent struggle they drove off empty-handed.

The botched kidnap bid was captured on video by an onlooker in Paris’s 11th district, in the east of the French capital.

Police sources said the woman was the daughter of a cryptocurrency company boss. She and her husband fought off three attackers until passers-by rushed to their aid and the men fled in a van.

A Paris police brigade that tackles armed robbery is expected to investigate the attack, which is the latest in a series of abductions targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.

The attack unfolded at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, according to local media, when three men leapt from a white van and tried to kidnap the mother and her child.

The pair are described as relatives of the co-founder of French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, the AFP news agency said.

The woman’s husband who was with his family at the time tried to protect them and was beaten repeatedly over the head. The couple shouted for help as the masked men tried to pull them apart.

At one point she was seen to grab a firearm off the attacker and throw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a replica air gun.

The street was relatively busy at the time and a group of children were on their way to a local primary school.

Initially, passers-by appeared too afraid to intervene, but as locals began to react the three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. One man hurled a fire extinguisher at the van as it sped off.

The family were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

The botched kidnapping in the Rue Pache came little more than a week after French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped in another area of the capital while walking his dog and held for ransom.

In an indication of the brutality of the gangs involved, the victim was freed three days later after his kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers.

Several people were arrested.

Last January, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet firm Ledger, was abducted with his wife at their home in central France.

French media say the victim had one finger missing when he was rescued from a house in Palaiseau, south of Paris.

Qatar Airways has agreed to buy up to 210 jets from American manufacturing giant Boeing, according to US President Donald Trump, who announced the $96bn order as part of his tour of the Middle East.

The White House said the deal would support 154,000 jobs in the US each year of production and marked the largest-ever order of 787 Dreamliners, a wide-body jet used for longer flights.

Qatar Airways and Boeing later confirmed the agreement.

It is the second deal involving Boeing to be announced as part of Trump’s trip, marking a win for the company as it tries to rebuild its business after a series of manufacturing and safety issues.

The blow-out of a panel on one of its planes in January 2024 forced a dramatic slowdown in its manufacturing operations and sparked a more than $10bn loss last year.

But shares in the company, which was also hurt by a seven-week strike by some of its workers, have climbed roughly 20% since January, an indication of increased optimism about the firm’s prospects.

Boss Kelly Ortberg told investors in April that the firm’s recovery plan was in “full swing” after the firm delivered a greater-than-expected 130 aircraft in the first three months of the year.

Executives said the firm still had a backlog of 5,600 planes, amounting to more than seven years of production.

The Qatar Airways deal, which includes 130 Dreamliners, 30 777-9s and the option for 50 other planes, was part of more than $240bn in “economic deals” between the US and Qatar that the White House announced as part of the trip.

It would deepen a longstanding relationship between Boeing and the state-owned airline, which already had 150 Boeing airplanes in its fleet and more than 130 jets on order, according to Boeing’s website.

“It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing, that’s good,” Trump said at the signing “So that’s a record, Kelly, and congratulations to Boeing. Get those planes out there, get them out there.”

As part of Trump’s trip, Boeing had previously announced it had won a commitment from Saudia Arabia’s Avilease, which leases planes to airlines, to buy 20 737 MAX planes, with options for 10 more.

British Airways owner IAG also said earlier this month that it had placed an order for 32 787-10 aircraft worth $13bn, a deal Trump previewed as part of his US-UK trade announcement. Those are set to start being delivered in 2028.

The trade truce between the US and China has also helped to ease a challenge for the firm, whose customers in China had stopped accepting planes as tariffs escalated.

Richard Aboulafia, managing director of US-based consultancy firm Aerodynamic Advisory, said the timing of the Qatar Airways order was “politically savvy” and a “nice win” for Boeing.

However, he added: “It doesn’t indicate an accelerated need for aircraft or that Boeing has won any battle,” noting that airlines often make orders for delivery dates far into the future.

Boeing’s problems in recent years have stemmed from the difficulty it has had meeting delivery deadlines – not a fall in demand.

“You can add more jets to the backlog – thank you Qatar Airways – but the problem for some time now, and it will continue to be a problem, is on the production side,” he said. “They need to build more planes.”

John Grant of aviation analytics firm OAG said the Qatar Airways deal was “an important statement for Boeing in terms of re-establishing” itself in the market, but that it was not a surprising development, given the relationship between the two firms.

The war’s horrors multiply. The dead, the pieces of the dead. The dying. The starving. More and more of them now – all the weight of human suffering witnessed by my brave colleagues in Gaza.

The urge to avert our gaze can be overpowering. But the cameramen who work for the BBC cannot turn away, and on Tuesday one of them became a casualty himself. For their safety we do not reveal the names of our colleagues in Gaza.

Our cameraman was not seriously wounded, but that was a matter of luck. The Israeli bombs launched into the car park of the European Hospital in Khan Younis killed and wounded dozens.

The Israelis say the leader of Hamas was hiding in a command-and-control compound under the hospital. The army said it conducted a “precise strike” – and blamed Hamas for”cynically and cruelly exploiting the civilian population in and around the hospital”. Hamas denies such charges.

At the time of the attack, families whose sick children are to be evacuated from Gaza were gathering in the hospital. There were also families waiting to meet children returning from treatment abroad.

One of the fathers was with our BBC colleague and was wounded by the bombs. He has now been discharged from hospital. Harrowing images show our journalist trying to console the man’s terrified children.

Much of my colleague’s work in recent days has focused on the plight of malnourished children.

A short time before the blast, I messaged to thank him for his work filming, with immense sensitivity, the story of Siwar Ashour. This was his response:

“Siwar’s story broke something in all of us, and working on it was one of the most painful things I’ve ever had to do. But I knew her face, her name, and her story had to be seen – had to be heard.”

Siwar is five months old and acutely malnourished, a child whose large, brown eyes dominate her shrunken frame. They follow her mother Najwa’s every move. On Tuesday Najwa sent us a video message from her room at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

She wanted the world to know how much she loves her child. “I wish she could receive the treatment she needs, to recover fully, and return as she was before – to play like other children, to grow and gain weight like other children. She is my first child, and as her mother, I’m deeply heartbroken for her.”

In the past few days Siwar has developed a skin infection. Sores have appeared on her hands. She also has a severe gastrointestinal condition. The battle is to keep nourishment inside her. Her immune system is fighting the deprivation caused by the Israeli blockade.

The baby’s cry is weak, yet it is full of urgency, the sound of a life struggling for its survival. Siwar can only drink a special milk formula due to severe allergies.

On Tuesday there was some better news. Medics at the nearby Jordanian Field Hospital managed to find some of the formula she needs. It is a small amount but they plan to send more.

In the coming days there are plans to bring sick children to the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Here in Amman there are already several Gaza families who have children being treated for illness or war injuries in local hospitals. These evacuations are co-ordinated with the Israelis who do background checks on the parents travelling with their children.

In January we filmed the arrival of Abdelrahman al-Nashash and his mum Asma. Abdelrahman lost his leg in an Israeli bombing.

For four months they’ve lived in a place with food and shelter. A safe place.

When we visited them on Tuesday Asma called her children and their grandmother in Gaza.

Grandmother Najwa spoke of the war all around them. “The rockets are everywhere, firing over our heads. The food. Life is very bad. There is no flour. The prices are very high.”

The children waved and blew kisses to their mother.

Afterwards, Asma told us: “I don’t know what to say. I am very grateful for my mum for all she is doing for me. I wish I can return back to find them safe and in good health.” She broke down and was silent.

It is only through the eyes of a mother who sees her children trapped, frightened and hungry from a safe distance, that it is possible to imagine why anyone would want to go back to Gaza.

Human rights groups are warning of a “surge” of deaths of migrant construction workers in Saudi Arabia, as it prepares to host the World Cup in 2034.

Labourers are already dying from preventable workplace accidents in the country, according to Human Rights Watch and FairSquare which have both published reports today.

Many such deaths are wrongly classified as having occurred due to natural causes and the families of workers are not compensated, the reports say.

Both groups have called on the Saudi Authorities to ensure basic safety protections for the country’s huge migrant work-force.

“The 2034 Saudi World Cup will be the largest and most expensive ever, but it could also have the highest cost in human lives, as millions of migrant workers build infrastructure, including 11 new stadiums, a rail and transit network, and 185,000 hotel rooms,” Minky Worden, director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said.

The warnings come a day after the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, visited the country along with Donald Trump – attending a US-Saudi investment forum.

FIFA – football’s global governing body – says it has a “steadfast commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights in the context of its operations.”

But Human Rights Watch has accused FIFA of failing to learn lessons from migrant worker deaths in the lead-up to the World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

Data on migrant deaths is hard to come by in a country where human rights groups have very limited access and labour unions are banned.

But Human Rights Watch interviewed the families of 31 workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal who fell from heights, were crushed or decapitated by heavy machinery or were electrocuted.

Heat is another major concern, as Saudi Arabia ramps up construction work in preparation for hosting the 2034 tournament.

In March, a Pakistani foreman, Muhammad Arshad, was reported to have fallen from a construction site at a stadium being built in the eastern city of Al Khobar – the first death related to the World Cup.

Last year, the Saudi government said that there had been “tangible achievements” in occupational health and safety, with rates of deaths and injuries decreasing.

FIFA also praised “significant steps” taken by Saudi Arabia to reform its labour laws since 2018.

But the global construction worker’s union, BWI, said there had been an “alarming rise” in accidents that could have been prevented.

“These are the result of systematic negligence, corruption and inadequate oversight and accountability,” said BWI General Secretary, Ambet Yuson.

And Saudi medical authorities rarely conduct autopsies to establish the exact cause of migrant workers’ deaths, according to FairSquare.

“Hundreds of thousands of young men, many of whom have young families, are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives, a medical system that doesn’t have the capacity to determine the cause of their deaths, and a political system that doesn’t appear to either protect them or find out how they died, let alone compensate the families shattered by Saudi Arabia’s negligence,” FairSquare co-director James Lynch said.

He described FIFA’s human rights policies as a “sham.”

“While FIFA praises Saudi Arabia to the rafters and highly-paid western law firms generate vast profits for curating Saudi’s reputation, children in places like Nepal grow up without their fathers and never even learn how they died, he said.”

FIFA told Human Rights Watch that it plans to establish a workers’ welfare system dedicated to mandatory standards and enforcement mechanisms for World Cup-related construction and service delivery in Saudi Arabia.

In a letter it said: “We are convinced that the measures implemented to ensure construction companies respect the rights of their workers on FIFA World Cup sites can set a new standard for worker protection in the country and contribute to the wider labour reform process, helping to enhance protections for workers on World Cup sites and beyond.”

But Human Rights Watch said no further details were provided on how the welfare system would work.

“Saudi authorities, FIFA, and other employers should ensure that all migrant worker deaths, regardless of perceived cause, time, and place are properly investigated and that families of deceased workers are treated with dignity and receive fair and timely compensation,” the group said.

The BBC has approached the Saudi authorities for comment.

A British teenager has been arrested in Tbilisi, Georgia, on suspicion of drug offences.

Bella Culley, 18, from Billingham on Teesside, who had gone missing in Thailand, has been charged with illegally buying, possessing and importing large quantities of narcotics including marijuana.

Georgian Police have said, if found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in jail or life imprisonment.

Miss Culley did not speak during an initial hearing before she was sent to an all-female pre-trial detention facility in the city of Rustavi, her lawyer said.

Ia Todua, who has been appointed by the state to represent Miss Culley, confirmed she arrived in Georgia from Thailand on Saturday and had been held in temporary detention until the hearing on Tuesday.

She said other lawyers had been in touch to represent Miss Culley and the British consular service planned a meeting.

Ms Todua said: “She was so clenched, she is a child, in my personal opinion.

“When she was explained the essence of the accusation she was worried to speak.

“When we asked her to testify at that moment she decided to choose silence.”

The Foreign Office has confirmed that it is “supporting the family of a British woman who is detained in Georgia”.

Georgian Police said officers had seized up to 12kg (26lbs) of marijuana and just over 2kg (4.4lbs) of the narcotic drug hashish in a travel bag at Tbilisi International Airport.

A spokesperson said the arrest was the result of a joint operation between multiple departments.

Ms Culley had been charged on Monday with “the illegal purchase and possession of a particularly large amount of narcotics, the illegal purchase and possession of the narcotic drug marijuana, and the illegal importation of the drug into Georgia”, the force said.

Cleveland Police has confirmed an 18-year-old woman from Billingham has been arrested in Georgia “on suspicion of drugs offences” and remains in custody.

The European Commission was wrong to refuse to release text messages sent by Ursula von der Leyen to the head of Pfizer during negotiations to secure Covid-19 vaccines, the EU’s top court has ruled.

The General Court said the commission had not given a plausible explanation as to why the exchanges between its president and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla could not be made public when an investigative journalist requested them in 2021.

That year, Pfizer signed billions of euros in vaccine contracts with the EU, including a deal for 1.8bn extra doses.

The content of the messages between von der Leyen and Mr Bourla remains secret, in a simmering case that has become known in Brussels as Pfizergate.

Anti-corruption group Transparency International has hailed the European Court’s ruling as a “landmark victory for transparency in the EU”, adding that it should serve as a catalyst to put an end to a “restrictive attitude to freedom of information”.

Von der Leyen became Commission president in 2019, and within a year faced the task of leading the EU’s response to the Covid pandemic.

She won a second five-year term late last year. Wednesday’s ruling threatens to damage her reputation, because of the apparent lack of transparency surrounding the Pfizer vaccine deal, in which she played such a significant role.

The Commission said it would closely study the ruling and consider its next steps, but it insisted that transparency had “always been of paramount importance“.

The controversy erupted in April 2021, when New York Times journalist Matina Stevis revealed how Ursula von der Leyen had negotiated privately with the Pfizer boss after his German partner BioNTech won regulatory approval for its Covid drug.

The article spurred investigative journalist Alexander Fanta, who worked for a German publication, to use a Freedom of Information request to see the exchange of messages between January 2021 and May 2022. But the European Commission turned him down, saying it did not have the documents.

Under the Commission’s transparency rules, all staff including the president, have to archive their documents.

However, mobile text messages are a grey area, and the case has largely hinged on whether or not they should be considered as important records.

One EU official argued this week that SMS messages were not “systematically considered public documents” and not recorded as such.

Fanta took the case to the European Ombudsman in 2021, where an inquiry found that the Commission’s failure to look for the text messages beyond its usual record-keeping amounted to maladministration.

Stevis and the New York Times followed up, and when the messages were still not released, they took the European Commission to court.

Ruling on Stevis’s challenge, the court said on Wednesday that the EU’s executive had relied “either on assumptions or on changing or imprecise information”, while the journalist and the New York Times had succeeded in rebutting their claims.

The court said that if a presumption was rebutted then it was up to the Commission to prove that documents either did not exist or it did not possess them.

The Commission had not clarified whether or not the text messages had been deleted, the court ruled, and if they had been deleted, whether that was done deliberately or whether von der Leyen had since changed her mobile phone.

Dominated by a fiery feud between two political dynasties, the Philippine mid-term elections have thrown up unexpected results that may shake President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s hold on the senate.

According to the latest count of 80% of the votes, Marcos allies appear to have captured fewer senate seats than expected.

Meanwhile his rival, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte who is detained in The Hague over his drug war that killed thousands, has been elected mayor of his family’s stronghold.

The fate of his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing an impeachment trial, remains in the balance.

The mid-terms held on Monday saw 18,000 seats contested, from local officials to governors and senators. It served as a proxy war between Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte, who were one-time allies.

The senate race, where 12 seats were up for grabs, was closely watched as it affects Sara Duterte’s trial, which she has called “political persecution”.

The popular vice-president, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, is facing the prospect of a ban from politics, should a jury made up of senators vote to impeach her.

Many people had expected Marcos Jr’s picks to win most of the 12 seats. But according to the latest count of 80% of the votes, only six from his camp appear to have won seats, and one of them has also been endorsed by the Dutertes.

In the top five ranking – a barometer of public popularity – only one Marcos-backed candidate, broadcaster Erwin Tulfo, made it.

Meanwhile, at the very top of the list is a Duterte loyalist – long-time aide Christopher “Bong” Go – while at number three is another Duterte ally, former police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

The Duterte camp appears to have won at least four seats. They include Marcos Jr’s older sister Imee, who recently bolted from her brother’s alliance to side with the Dutertes.

What complicates things is that it is still unclear how Marcos’ allies in the senate will move on Sara Duterte’s impeachment. Their loyalty can shift, as senators also balance their own interests and ambitions with their political allegiances.

Meanwhile, two people who are not affiliated with either camp appear to have also won senate seats.

They are Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, and an Aquino ally, Francis Pangilinan.

Bam Aquino, the cousin of a former president, has in fact clinched second place in the rankings, in what he called a “very, very surprising” result.

It marks the first time in years that voters had chosen outside the Marcos and Duterte dynasties.

The Aquino family was the Marcoses’ main political nemesis in the 1980s and early 1990s before the rise of the Dutertes.

It was the assassination of opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr in 1983 that galvanised protests against Ferdinand Marcos Sr – the current president’s father – culminating in the Marcos family’s ouster and exile in 1986.

Monday’s result signals their comeback after being wiped out of national politics in recent years.

Results so far also show the Dutertes have managed to retain their power base in the south of the country, just two months after the 80-year-old populist leader Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila Airport and flown to the Netherlands on the same day to face the International Criminal Court.

It was his arrest – approved by Marcos Jr – which pushed the rivalry between his daughter and the current president to boiling point, a few weeks after the president’s allies in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice-President Duterte.

Rodrigo Duterte was always expected to win as mayor, given the family has held the post since the mid-1980s.

Duterte himself led Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for two decades before he was elected president in 2016. There, he showcased his drug war that he credited for the city’s success, and won him the support of millions far beyond its borders.

His youngest son, Sebastian, the incumbent mayor, was elected vice-mayor, meaning he can discharge his father’s duties in his absence. Another Duterte son, Paolo, was re-elected as congressman. His grandchildren won local posts.

Duterte’s name remained on the ballot as he has not been convicted of any crime. He beat the scion of a smaller rival political family.

Maintaining a political base in Davao city in the south is crucial for the Dutertes – it is where they get the most voter support.

The election was not just a battle between the two families, however.

Monday’s vote saw long queues under temperatures of 33C (91F) and sporadic reports of violence and vote machines malfunctioning.

Like past elections, song-and-dance, showbusiness-style campaigns played out on stage and on social media, underscoring the country’s personality and celebrity politics that sometimes overshadow more pressing issues such as corruption, high cost of living and creaking infrastructure.

Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria – his comments coming shortly after he met Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family.

The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant.

“I think he has got the potential,” Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to al-Qaeda.

The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December.

Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed some initial awkwardness as they spoke through a translator.

A beaming Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, sat next to them. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined them by telephone.

Trump acknowledged it was these two leaders who had convinced him to also lift the US’s punishing Syria sanctions.

His sudden announcement on Tuesday night at a major US-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh won him a standing ovation. It was a volte-face after his many previous posts on social media that the US had “no interest in Syria”.

“Tough guy, very strong past,” is how Trump later described Sharaa to journalists travelling with his high-powered American delegation on his first official four-day tour.

It was a very Trump gloss about Sharaa’s old links to al-Qaeda. His Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria until he severed ties in 2016. HTS is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US and UK.

Since assuming power in December, Sharaa has been wearing Western business suits and trying to present himself as a president for all Syrians.

“It’s a new light at the end of this tunnel,” exclaimed Hind Kabawat, minister of social affairs and labour, in the interim government.

She told the BBC’s Newshour programme they had been calling for sanctions relief ever since their “Liberation Day”.

The US decision sparked celebrations across a county where 90% of Syrians are said to be living in poverty, after more than a decade of civil war and profound suffering.

Removing restrictions which cut Syria off from the international financial system will enable greater engagement by aid agencies and encourage foreign investment and trade.

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“We are the North Korea of the Middle East,” a hotel receptionist in Damascus told me last December when I asked for another electronic hotel key.

He tearfully lamented that “we don’t have enough cards, we have shortages of everything”.

It may also help convince some of the millions of Syrians living in exile to think more seriously about returning home. And it could help a fledgling government to pay salaries, begin to rebuild, and address the growing discontent over the privations of daily life.

But dismantling the vast web of sanctions now strangling Syria will take time.

“Some sanctions can be removed immediately using presidential waivers,” commented Dina Esfandiary of Bloomberg Economics.

“But lifting the multi-layered sanctions won’t be easy and will require real commitment by the Trump administration.”

I remember travelling to Tehran in the wake of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the Obama administration’s commitment to ease sanctions there.

At the news conference with the visiting EU’s high representative for foreign policy, Iranian journalists kept asking, with palpable anguish, why it was still impossible for them even to open a bank account.

Syria’s new friends, including regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, now positioning themselves to shape the new Syria, will need to ensure Trump and his team stay interested.

But he’s made it clear he expects something in return if there is to be a full normalisation of relations. The first item on his list is “join the Abraham Accords”.

The US president regards this process of normalisation with Israel, which several Arab states including the United Arab Emirates has joined, as one of his foreign policy achievements in his first term.

Sharaa, praised by his friends as pragmatic, has already signalled that he understands the importance of building a working relationship with his neighbour, even though Israel continues to bomb what it calls “terrorist targets” – air bases, military installations and weapons depots – insisting they could “fall into the wrong hands”.

Last month, the Syrian leader reportedly told a visiting US congressman, Cory Mills, that Syria was prepared to normalise ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords under “the right conditions”.

Israeli media have reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged President Trump not to lift sanctions. He remains suspicious of Sharaa and his HTS forces, as well other groups which include foreign fighters in their ranks.

Removing foreign fighters is another of Washington’s demands; it’s one of the very many challenges now facing Syria’s leader.

President Trump hailed this moment as “a chance at greatness”. Millions of Syrians just welcome a greater chance that their lives will finally start changing for the better.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canadians were not “impressed” by the UK government’s invitation to US President Donald Trump for a second state visit.

The newly elected Carney told Sky News that the UK’s invitation earlier this year did not help Canadians, who were facing repeat comments from Trump about making Canada the 51st US state.

“To be frank, [Canadians] weren’t impressed by that gesture… given the circumstance,” he said. “It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer invited Trump to come to the UK for a visit during a meeting at the White House in February.

Asked whether the invitation was “appropriate”, Carney said that was a decision for the government of the UK and Buckingham Palace.

“I leave the diplomacy to the UK government,” he said.

The BBC has contacted the Carney’s office and No 10 for comment.

Buckingham Palace declined to respond.

The criticism from Carney comes as the Canadians prepare to welcome King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the end of this month for a royal visit.

During the Sky News interview, Carney said his invitation for the King – Canada’s head of state – to attend the opening of Canada’s Parliament “is not coincidental”.

“It is also a reaffirming moment, will be a reaffirming,” Carney said, saying issues around Canada’s sovereignty “have been accentuated by the president”.

During his visit, the King will also read the Speech from the Throne – a function usually carried out by the governor general.

The last time this happened was in October 1977 when Queen Elizabeth II read the speech for the second time in Canada’s history. The first was in 1957.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has made repeated comments undermining Canada’s sovereignty, including that the Canadian border is an “artificially drawn line”.

Meanwhile, Carney has firmly said Canada is “not for sale, ever”.

Carney – who said he would only meet the US president “until we get the respect we deserve” – sat down with Trump in Washington DC last week to begin negotiations on a new trade and security relationship.

During the visit, Trump repeated his 51st state comments.

Pressed on that, Carney told Sky News that Trump has shifted his tone from “expectation to a desire for that to happen”.

“He also came from a place where he recognised that was not going to happen.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa has called a group of 59 white South Africans who have moved to the US to resettle “cowards”, saying “they’ll be back soon”.

The group of Afrikaners arrived in the US on Monday after President Donald Trump granted them refugee status, saying they faced racial discrimination.

But Ramaphosa said those who wanted to leave were not happy with efforts to address the inequities of the apartheid past, terming their relocation a “sad moment for them”.

“As South Africans, we are resilient. We don’t run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems. When you run away you are a coward, and that’s a real cowardly act,” he added.

Trump and his close ally, South Africa-born Elon Musk, have said there was a “genocide” of white farmers in South Africa – a claim that has been widely discredited.

The US has also accused the South African government of seizing land from white farmers without paying compensation.

More than 30 years after the end of decades of rule by South Africa’s white minority, black farmers own only a small fraction of the country’s best farmland, with the majority still in white hands, leading to anger over the slow pace of change.

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

But the government says no land has yet been seized under the act.

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Trump has offered to resettle the white Afrikaners, descendants of mostly Dutch settlers, saying they were fleeing a “terrible situation” in South Africa.

Speaking on Monday at an agricultural exhibition in the Free State province, Ramaphosa said the Afrikaners were moving to the US because they were not “favourably disposed” to efforts aimed at addressing the country’s challenges.

“If you look at all national groups in our country, black and white, they’ve stayed in this country because it’s our country and we must not run away from our problems. We must stay here and solve our problems,” Ramaphosa said.

“I can bet you that they will be back soon because there is no country like South Africa,” he added.

His “coward” remark angered some social media users, who condemned it as an insult to aggrieved white South Africans.

The group of Afrikaners were welcomed by top US officials who claimed they had been “living under a shadow of violence and terror” in South Africa.

“Welcome to the land of the free,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said as he received the South Africans who landed at Dulles airport near Washington DC on Monday.

Some held young children and waved small American flags in the arrival area adorned with red, white and blue balloons on the walls.

Earlier on Monday, President Ramaphosa told an Africa CEO forum in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, that he had recently told Trump during a phone call the US assessment of the situation was “not true”.

“We’re the only country on the continent where the colonisers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country,” he added, dismissing claims Afrikaners were being persecuted.

Ramaphosa said dozens of white South Africans who arrived in the US on Monday “don’t fit the bill” for refugees.

According to the US embassy in South Africa, to be considered eligible for the refugee resettlement scheme, someone must be:

• Of South African nationality
• Afrikaner or from a racial minority
• Able to cite an incident of past persecution or fear of persecution in the future.

The South African leader said he was due to meet his US counterpart soon regarding the issue.

Trump has threatened to boycott the forthcoming G20 summit in South Africa unless the “situation is taken care of”.

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Gary Lineker has “apologised unreservedly” after being criticised for sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat.

“On Instagram I reposted material which I have since learned contained offensive references,” he said in a statement. “I very much regret these references.

“I would never knowingly share anything antisemitic. It goes against everything I believe in.” The Match of the Day presenter said he deleted the post “as soon as I became aware of the issue”.

A rat has historically been used as an antisemitic insult, referring to language used by Nazi Germany to characterise Jews.

“Whilst I strongly believe in the importance of speaking out on humanitarian issues, including the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, I also know that how we do so matters,” Lineker continued.

“I take full responsibility for this mistake. That image does not reflect my views.

“It was an error on my part for which I apologise unreservedly.”

On Tuesday, the Match of the Day host deleted an Instagram story post he shared from the group Palestine Lobby, which said: “Zionism explained in two minutes” and featured a rat.

Zionism refers to the movement to create a Jewish state in the Middle East, roughly corresponding to the historical land of Israel, and thus support for the modern state of Israel.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has called for Lineker to be sacked, saying: “The BBC has turned a blind eye for too long, it is long past time for him to go, and he must go now.”

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the presenter’s “empty and belated apology is the first after years of baiting the Jewish community, just as levels of antisemitism soar”.

“His use of social media has been unacceptable for too long,” he added.

“It is high time that the licence-fee payer ceases to be obliged to subsidise and amplify his bile.”

Lineker’s apology came hours after the BBC’s director general reminded stars to follow the corporation’s social media rules and avoid damaging “mistakes”, after the criticism of Lineker’s post.

Asked whether the post had broken BBC guidelines, Tim Davie said: “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone, and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us.

“I think we absolutely need people to be exemplars of the BBC values and follow our social media policy. It’s as simple as that.”

The former England striker has attracted criticism before for his posts on social media in the past.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over a post in which he said language used to promote a government asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC’s social media rules were then rewritten to say presenters of flagship programmes outside news and current affairs – including Match of the Day – have “a particular responsibility to respect the BBC’s impartiality, because of their profile on the BBC”.

In November 2024, Lineker announced his departure from Match of the Day, but he will remain with the BBC to front FA Cup and World Cup coverage.

In the latest India-Pakistan stand-off, there were no ultimatums, no red buttons.

Yet the cycle of military retaliation, veiled signals and swift international mediation quietly evoked the region’s most dangerous shadow. The crisis didn’t spiral towards nuclear war, but it was a reminder of how quickly tensions here can summon that spectre.

Even scientists have modelled how easily things could unravel. A 2019 study by a global team of scientists opened with a nightmare scenario where a terrorist attack on India’s parliament in 2025 triggers a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.

Six years later, a real-world stand-off – though contained by a US-brokered ceasefire on Saturday – stoked fears of a full-blown conflict. It also revived uneasy memories of how fragile stability in the region can be.

As the crisis escalated, Pakistan sent “dual signals” – retaliating militarily while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting, a calculated reminder of its nuclear capability. The NCA oversees control and potential use of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Whether this move was symbolic, strategic or a genuine alert, we may never know. It also came just as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly stepped in to defuse the spiral.

President Trump said the US didn’t just broker a ceasefire – it averted a “nuclear conflict”. On Monday, in an address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “[There] is no tolerance for nuclear blackmail; India will not be intimidated by nuclear threats.

“Any terrorist safe haven operating under this pretext will face precise and decisive strikes,” Modi added.

India and Pakistan each possess about 170 nuclear weapons, according to the think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). As of January 2024, Sipri estimated there were 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of these, about 9,585 were held in military stockpiles, with 3,904 actively deployed – 60 more than the previous year. The US and Russia together account for more than 8,000 nuclear weapons.

The bulk of both India’s and Pakistan’s deployed arsenals lies in their land-based missile forces, though both are developing nuclear triads capable of delivering warheads by land, air and sea, according to Christopher Clary, a security affairs expert at the University at Albany in the US.

“India likely has a larger air leg (aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons) than Pakistan. While we know the least of Pakistan’s naval leg, it is reasonable to assess that India’s naval leg is more advanced and more capable than Pakistan’s sea-based nuclear force,” he told the BBC.

One reason, Mr Clary said, is that Pakistan has invested nowhere near the “time or money” that India has in building a nuclear-powered submarine, giving India a “clear qualitative” edge in naval nuclear capability.

Since testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Pakistan has never formally declared an official nuclear doctrine.

India, by contrast, adopted a no-first-use policy following its own 1998 tests. But this stance has shown signs of softening. In 2003, India reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks – effectively allowing for first use under certain conditions.

Further ambiguity emerged in 2016, when then–defence minister Manohar Parrikar suggested India shouldn’t feel “bound” by the policy, raising questions about its long-term credibility. (Parrikar clarified that this was his own opinion.)

The absence of a formal doctrine doesn’t mean Pakistan lacks one – official statements, interviews and nuclear developments offer clear clues to its operational posture, according to Sadia Tasleem of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Pakistan’s nuclear threshold remains vague, but in 2001, Khalid Kidwai – then head of the Strategic Plans Division of the NCA – outlined four red lines: major territorial loss, destruction of key military assets, economic strangulation or political destabilisation.

In 2002, then-president Pervez Musharraf clarified that “nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India”, and would only be used if “the very existence of Pakistan as a state” was at stake.

In his memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that he was jolted awake at night to speak with an unnamed “Indian counterpart” who feared Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear weapons during the 2019 stand-off with India.

Around the same time, Pakistani media quoted a senior official issuing a stark warning to India: “I hope you know what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I said that we will surprise you. Wait for that surprise… You have chosen a path of war without knowing the consequences for the peace and security of the region.”

During the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed warned that the country would not “hesitate to use any weapon” to defend its territory. Years later, US official Bruce Riedel revealed that intelligence indicated Pakistan was preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible deployment.

But there is scepticism on both sides over such claims.

Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria wrote in his memoir that Pompeo overstated both the risk of nuclear escalation and the US role in calming the conflict in 2019. And during Kargil, Pakistan “knew the Indian Air Force wouldn’t cross into its territory” – so there was no real trigger for even an implicit nuclear threat, insist Pakistani analysts.

“Strategic signalling reminds the world that any conflict can spiral – and with India and Pakistan, the stakes are higher due to the nuclear overhang. But that doesn’t mean either side is actively threatening nuclear use,” Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, told the BBC.

But nuclear escalation can happen by accident too. “This could happen by human error, hackers, terrorists, computer failures, bad data from satellites and unstable leaders,” Prof Alan Robock of Rutgers University, lead author of the landmark 2019 paper by a global team of scientists, told the BBC.

In March 2022, India accidentally fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile which travelled 124km (77 miles) into Pakistani territory before crashing, reportedly damaging civilian property. Pakistan said India failed to use the military hotline or issue a public statement for two days. Had this occurred during heightened tensions, the incident could have spiralled into serious conflict, experts say. (Months later, India’s government sacked three air force officers for the “accidental firing of a missile”.)

Yet, the danger of nuclear war remains “relatively small” between India and Pakistan, according to Mr Clary.

“So long as there is not major ground combat along the border, the dangers of nuclear use remain relatively small and manageable,” he said.

“In ground combat, the ‘use it or lose it’ problem is propelled by the possibility that your ground positions will be overrun by the enemy.” (‘Use it or lose it‘ refers to the pressure a nuclear-armed country may feel to launch its weapons before they are destroyed in a first strike by an adversary.)

Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, believes that “neither India nor Pakistan wants to be labelled as the first violator of the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo”.

“Furthermore, any side that resorts to the use of nuclear weapons would face substantial retaliation and suffer unacceptable casualties,” Mr Ganguly told the BBC.

At the same time, both India and Pakistan appear to be beefing up their nuclear arsenal.

With new delivery systems in development, four plutonium reactors and expanding uranium enrichment, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could reach around 200 warheads by the late 2020s, according to The Nuclear Notebook, researched by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

And as of early 2023, India was estimated to have about 680kg of weapons-grade plutonium – enough for roughly 130-210 nuclear warheads, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Despite repeated crises and close calls, both sides have so far managed to avoid a catastrophic slide into nuclear conflict. “The deterrent is still holding. All Pakistanis did was to respond to conventional strikes with counter-conventional strikes of their own,” writes Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst.

Yet, the presence of nuclear weapons injects a constant undercurrent of risk – one that can never be entirely ruled out, no matter how experienced the leadership or how restrained the intentions.

“When nuclear weapons can be involved, there is always an unacceptable level of danger,”John Erath, senior policy director at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told the BBC.

“The Indian and Pakistani governments have navigated these situations in the past, so the risk is small. But with nuclear weapons, even a small risk is too large.”

At least 80 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza, hospitals and first responders say.

The Indonesian hospital said 22 children and 15 women were among 50 people who died when several homes in the northern Jabalia area were hit overnight. Nearby al-Awda hospital said it had received the bodies of another nine people, seven of them children.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in the north. It had warned residents of Jabalia and neighbouring areas to evacuate on Tuesday after rockets were launched into Israel.

It came as the UN’s humanitarian chief urged members of the UN Security Council to take action to “prevent genocide” in Gaza.

Speaking at a meeting in New York on Tuesday, Tom Fletcher accused Israel of “deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians”.

He also called on Israel to lift its 10-week blockade on Gaza and criticised the Israeli-US plan to take over the distribution of humanitarian aid by using private companies, saying it was a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement” of Palestinians.

Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, said the accusations were “baseless and outrageous”.

He insisted the existing system for aid was “broken” because it was being used to help Hamas’s war effort – an allegation both the UN and the armed group have denied.

Residents of Jabalia town and its refugee camp reported hearing multiple explosions overnight, and videos shared by activists showed flames lighting up the sky.

One video shared online showed at least 14 bodies wrapped in blankets and white shrouds on the floor of the Indonesian hospital.

Hadi Moqbel, 42, said several members of his family were killed.

“They fired two rockets, they told us the house of Moqbel [had been hit],” he told Reuters news agency as he clambered over the destroyed building.

“We came running, we saw body parts on the ground, children killed, [a] woman killed and a baby killed… He was two months old.”

The director of al-Awda hospital said in an audio message that it was struggling to deal with the 52 injured people brought there for treatment after the strikes because of the shortages of medical supplies and fuel for its electricity generators, with the latter forcing the closure of several departments.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency reported that 80 people had been killed in Israeli strikes across the territory since dawn, including 59 in the north.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it “struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists” in northern Gaza overnight. It added that “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

On Tuesday night, the military had issued what it described as a “final warning” to residents of Jabalia and neighbouring areas. It ordered them to evacuate immediately to Gaza City, saying Israeli forces would “attack with great force any area from which rockets are launched”.

The military said three rockets launched from Gaza crossed into Israeli territory, triggering sirens in Israeli border communities and the town of Sderot. Two of the rockets were intercepted by the Israeli air force and the third fell in an open area, it added.

PIJ – an armed group that like its ally Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, UK and other countries – said it launched the rockets in response to what it called “Zionist massacres”.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for six parts of the northern Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, warning that there would be strikes “due to Hamas’s exploitation of civilian areas for terrorist activities”.

An infographic identified the affected areas as al-Shifa hospital, the Islamic University, and the al-Shati, Carmel, Mustafa Hafez and al-Furqan school complexes, and alleged that they contained Hamas command centres, structures and meeting points.

The areas are packed with tents housing thousands of displaced people.

Al-Shifa is also one of only 22 partially functional hospitals in Gaza. It was largely destroyed in a two-week raid by Israeli forces last year but has since reopened its emergency department.

Israel cut off all deliveries of aid and other supplies to Gaza on 2 March and resumed its offensive against Hamas on 18 March after the collapse of a two-month ceasefire.

The UN says 20% of the 2.1 million population has been displaced again, and that 70% of Gaza is now either within Israeli military “no-go” zones or under evacuation orders.

Severe shortages of food and fuel have forced all UN-supported bakeries and more than 60% of the 180 community kitchens providing hot meals to shut down.

A UN-backed assessment released on Monday warned that the entire population was facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with half a million people facing starvation.

The UN has said Israel is obliged under international law to ensure food and medical supplies for Gaza’s population. Israel has said it is complying with international law and there is no shortage of aid because thousands of lorry loads entered during the ceasefire.

Palestinians are hoping Hamas’s decision on Monday to release the last living Israeli-American hostage in Gaza, Edan Alexander, could pave the way for a possible new ceasefire deal with Israel and the end of the blockade.

Hamas said it freed Mr Alexander as a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump, who is visiting the Middle East this week.

On Wednesday morning, Trump told a summit of Gulf leaders in Riyadh that he was hopeful that more of the 58 hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza would be freed.

“All hostages must be released as a stepping stone to peace,” he said. “I think that’s going to be happening.”

At the same time, his special envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler participated in a new round of indirect talks in Doha along with officials from regional mediators Qatar and Egypt.

Later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office also said he had a “lengthy” discussion with Witkoff by telephone “on the issue of the hostages”.

More than 65 former hostages meanwhile signed a letter urging the Israeli government to seize a “genuine opportunity to return to the negotiating table” and secure the release of all the hostages. “Please do not walk away until a comprehensive deal is signed,” they said.

Netanyahu has said Israel is planning to expand its military offensive in Gaza and that nothing will stop the war.

He told injured reservist soldiers on Monday that Israeli forces would go into the territory in the coming days “with full force to complete the operation” to destroy Hamas.

“There will be no situation where we stop the war. A temporary ceasefire might happen, but we are going all the way,” he added.

Hamas has refused to release the remaining hostages unless Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire and withdraws from Gaza.

On Tuesday, a massive Israeli air strike on the European hospital’s compound in Khan Younis killed at least 28 people, according to local officials.

The Israeli military described it as “a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating in a command-and-control centre” underneath the hospital.

Israeli media reports said the target was Mohammed Sinwar, who is believed to have become the top Hamas leader in Gaza after his brother Yahya was killed by Israeli forces last October.

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

At least 52,928 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 2,799 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A British teenager has been arrested in Tbilisi, Georgia, on suspicion of drug offences.

Bella Culley, 18, from Billingham on Teesside, who had gone missing in Thailand, has been charged with illegally buying, possessing and importing large quantities of narcotics including marijuana.

Georgian Police have said, if found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in jail or life imprisonment.

Miss Culley did not speak during an initial hearing before she was sent to an all-female pre-trial detention facility in the city of Rustavi, her lawyer said.

Ia Todua, who has been appointed by the state to represent Miss Culley, confirmed she arrived in Georgia from Thailand on Saturday and had been held in temporary detention until the hearing on Tuesday.

She said other lawyers had been in touch to represent Miss Culley and the British consular service planned a meeting.

Ms Todua said: “She was so clenched, she is a child, in my personal opinion.

“When she was explained the essence of the accusation she was worried to speak.

“When we asked her to testify at that moment she decided to choose silence.”

The Foreign Office has confirmed that it is “supporting the family of a British woman who is detained in Georgia”.

Georgian Police said officers had seized up to 12kg (26lbs) of marijuana and just over 2kg (4.4lbs) of the narcotic drug hashish in a travel bag at Tbilisi International Airport.

A spokesperson said the arrest was the result of a joint operation between multiple departments.

Ms Culley had been charged on Monday with “the illegal purchase and possession of a particularly large amount of narcotics, the illegal purchase and possession of the narcotic drug marijuana, and the illegal importation of the drug into Georgia”, the force said.

Cleveland Police has confirmed an 18-year-old woman from Billingham has been arrested in Georgia “on suspicion of drugs offences” and remains in custody.

Qatar Airways has agreed to buy up to 210 jets from American manufacturing giant Boeing, according to US President Donald Trump, who announced the $96bn order as part of his tour of the Middle East.

The White House said the deal would support 154,000 jobs in the US each year of production and marked the largest-ever order of 787 Dreamliners, a wide-body jet used for longer flights.

Qatar Airways and Boeing later confirmed the agreement.

It is the second deal involving Boeing to be announced as part of Trump’s trip, marking a win for the company as it tries to rebuild its business after a series of manufacturing and safety issues.

The blow-out of a panel on one of its planes in January 2024 forced a dramatic slowdown in its manufacturing operations and sparked a more than $10bn loss last year.

But shares in the company, which was also hurt by a seven-week strike by some of its workers, have climbed roughly 20% since January, an indication of increased optimism about the firm’s prospects.

Boss Kelly Ortberg told investors in April that the firm’s recovery plan was in “full swing” after the firm delivered a greater-than-expected 130 aircraft in the first three months of the year.

Executives said the firm still had a backlog of 5,600 planes, amounting to more than seven years of production.

The Qatar Airways deal, which includes 130 Dreamliners, 30 777-9s and the option for 50 other planes, was part of more than $240bn in “economic deals” between the US and Qatar that the White House announced as part of the trip.

It would deepen a longstanding relationship between Boeing and the state-owned airline, which already had 150 Boeing airplanes in its fleet and more than 130 jets on order, according to Boeing’s website.

“It’s the largest order of jets in the history of Boeing, that’s good,” Trump said at the signing “So that’s a record, Kelly, and congratulations to Boeing. Get those planes out there, get them out there.”

As part of Trump’s trip, Boeing had previously announced it had won a commitment from Saudia Arabia’s Avilease, which leases planes to airlines, to buy 20 737 MAX planes, with options for 10 more.

British Airways owner IAG also said earlier this month that it had placed an order for 32 787-10 aircraft worth $13bn, a deal Trump previewed as part of his US-UK trade announcement. Those are set to start being delivered in 2028.

The trade truce between the US and China has also helped to ease a challenge for the firm, whose customers in China had stopped accepting planes as tariffs escalated.

Richard Aboulafia, managing director of US-based consultancy firm Aerodynamic Advisory, said the timing of the Qatar Airways order was “politically savvy” and a “nice win” for Boeing.

However, he added: “It doesn’t indicate an accelerated need for aircraft or that Boeing has won any battle,” noting that airlines often make orders for delivery dates far into the future.

Boeing’s problems in recent years have stemmed from the difficulty it has had meeting delivery deadlines – not a fall in demand.

“You can add more jets to the backlog – thank you Qatar Airways – but the problem for some time now, and it will continue to be a problem, is on the production side,” he said. “They need to build more planes.”

John Grant of aviation analytics firm OAG said the Qatar Airways deal was “an important statement for Boeing in terms of re-establishing” itself in the market, but that it was not a surprising development, given the relationship between the two firms.

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.

• What the Online Safety Act is – and how to keep children safe online

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.

There’s a vast empty space in the middle of the factory floor in Foshan in southern China where workers should be welding high-end air fryers for the US market.

Derek Wang says his American customers were wowed by his air fryer models – which are controlled via smartphones and can also bake, roast and grill.

But then on 2 April, Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs hit all Chinese goods entering the US, eventually reaching 145% – and his clients asked him to pause production.

“I tried to keep smiling through my anxiety for the sake of my 40 workers,” he told the BBC.

On Wednesday, as a deal to ease the trade war came into effect, Mr Wang said his US buyers were back on the phone.

Both countries still face some tariffs. There is at least a 30% tax on all Chinese goods entering the US and Beijing has kept a 10% levy on American goods coming into the country, down from 125%.

But this surprise agreement after a weekend of negotiations in Switzerland has given factories and businesses some breathing room.

“At this time, our US client is willing to pay for the tariffs. Of course, we had to bargain with them as they asked us to lower some of our costs,” he said.

Mr Wang, who studied engineering in Delaware in the US, spent three years helping develop the air fryer model. It cost him $500,000 to set up his company and he said the tariffs came as a shock.

“It felt like my parents were getting a divorce. China and US are the most important economic and cultural powers in the world. Their sudden separation would lead to a world that we cannot imagine. Tariffs as high as 145% would mean we have to say goodbye to one another.

But he adds, “there’s a saying in Chinese: good fortune comes out of bad”.

Mr Wang believes his “good fortune” is that this trade war has accelerated his plan to diversify away from doing business with America.

This is one of the reasons why Beijing believes it has the upper hand in its negotiations with Washington. China has choices and officials have been actively encouraging the country’s firms to do more business in places like Africa, South America and South East Asia.

Many other Chinese businesses have also told the BBC that they are looking to diversify away from the US to reduce their reliance on the market – suggesting in the long-term there could be more of a separation between the US and China, rather than a divorce.

Donald Trump has suggested that he may speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping by the end of this week. The world’s two largest economies will now enter talks after agreeing to a ceasefire in their economic war for 90 days.

Beijing has framed this deal as a win – not just for China but for all countries facing US tariffs.

But it has come at a cost.

A short walk through Shunde district – known as the “capital of home appliances” – presents a sobering assessment of a struggling manufacturing sector.

Factory workers use the cooler evenings in Foshan to let off a little steam. They spill out into every corner of the local park.

During the day they pack, mould and assemble nearly everything that you would find in your kitchen – from gas stoves and washing machines to kettles and fridges.

At night, after leaving work, one group line dances in one corner of the small park, while a heated basketball match takes place in another part.

Posters lining the walls of the streets tout “stable work and easy” jobs involving packing and screwing products for 30 days in a home appliance factory for 16 yuan an hour, to assembling air conditioning units for 20 yuan an hour.

But agents told us that several factories had stopped hiring, especially those linked to the US – some had even shut down parts of their production line.

The BBC was told that several of these workers will sleep in the park to save money. Many of them travel to Foshan from their home towns, which can be hundreds of kilometres away.

Several nearby hostels offer rooms for 20 yuan a night, which can be at least an hour’s pay. Many will want to pocket whatever they earn to send it back to their families.

This is the picture of China that President Trump’s team have tried to present – one of sluggish growth, rising unemployment and a chronic housing crisis.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Mr Trump said after the trade agreement was announced, while adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

“They were closing up factories. They were having a lot of unrest, and they were very happy to be able to do something with us.”

This may be overstating Beijing’s economic woes. This country is still leading the world when it comes to the production of electric vehicles and solar panels, and it is making significant headway in artificial intelligence technology.

Officials in China have also continued to stress this country can take the pain of an economic war. But it is being keenly felt by some on the frontline and that may be part of why Beijing has started talking to the US.

This latest “ceasefire” has prompted a rush of orders between the two countries as businesses wonder if it can last.

He Ke, or HK to his American clients, has called his workers back from their home towns to restart his sofa business, Gongyuan Furniture.

It ground to a halt even before Mr Trump’s tariffs hit 145%.

“We had a day off straightaway,” said Mr He. “Once the tariffs hit 50%, we had already come to a standstill. When they hit 145%, we certainly could not do business. It was just not possible.”

His production line with around 200 workers once took up all four floors of the building.

Since the Covid pandemic, he has only needed one floor and around 40 staff. But he still has the odd high-profile client – he claims Elon Musk sits on one of his sofas.

Some workers have already returned and are lifting a soft chair onto a compressor machine to get it ready to box and ship.

Sewing machines hum in the background as workers stitch fabric into the right shape to cover memory foam cushions.

Mr He says he has seen many changes in Foshan since he started making sofas in 2013.

“We feel that the global economy is not good. The domestic economy has also been hit and this affects the life of people here. In the past, when we went out to spend money, we spent a lot of money. We did not think about whether the price was high or cheap. We will buy it as long as we like it. Now, when we want to buy a relatively expensive things, we have to think twice, because the money is not easy to earn.”

Like Mr Wang and his air fryers, Mr He also says he is looking at diversifying his sales away from the US, but he has hope that the world’s two biggest economies can come to an agreement in the next 90 days.

“I am just a small businessman. But I do understand that the game between these two countries is temporary. I think if they want to survive with each other for a long time, they will definitely sit down and talk things over.”