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.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not among the names listed by the Kremlin as being due to attend peace talks on the war in Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday, despite calls from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for him to attend.

Russia’s delegation will instead be headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, according to the 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.

US President Donald Trump will also not be attending, according to media reports, despite previously hinting he would if Putin were there.

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

He said he would attend direct talks in Istanbul with Russia, but only if Putin also attended.

“I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing,” he said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.

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.

• Beginning of the end? Ukraine’s front-line soldiers eye Russia talks with hope

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

Putin’s suggestion of direct talks in Istanbul followed Western powers’ call for a 30-day ceasefire, after European leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday.

After Trump called for Ukraine to accept the offer on Sunday, Zelensky said he would travel there himself.

“There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally,” Zelensky wrote in a social media post.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump had 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.

The country’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, where he will meet Nato foreign ministers on Thursday.

Ahead of that meeting, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he met Rubio on Wednesday evening. Sybiha said he had reaffirmed Ukraine’s commitment to US peace efforts, and called on Russia to “reciprocate Ukraine’s constructive steps”.

Rubio plans to travel onwards to Istanbul on Friday, where the State Department says he will attend talks with European counterparts to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Arriving at his hotel in Antalya on Wednesday, Rubio did not answer when the BBC asked him if Putin would be coming to Turkey.

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

He ended a years-long Western boycott of Russia’s leader by speaking to Putin over the phone in February, and his envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow.

Trump has previously said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal”.

On Sunday, when Putin proposed the direct talks, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!”

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.

• Trump touts ‘record’ Boeing-Qatar Airways deal
• Trump pledges to lift Syria sanctions as he seals $142bn arms deal on Saudi visit

“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.

At least 21 people have been killed in a road accident in central Mexico, according to a local official.

The three-vehicle crash happened on the highway between Cuacnopalan and Oaxaca in Puebla state on Wednesday morning, said Samuel Aguilar Pala, a local government official.

Mr Pala said 18 people died at the scene and another three died later in hospital.

Several others were injured and are receiving medical attention, he wrote on X.

According to local media, the crash involved a tanker truck, a bus and a van.

Mexican newspaper La Jornada reports that the crash took place when a cement truck attempted to overtake a van.

When crossing into the opposite lane, the truck hit a bus and then collided with a transport van head-on before tumbling into the ravine below and bursting into flames, La Jornada said.

Video shared by a local journalist on social media shows a large cloud of dark smoke rising from the ravine and a long portion of road railing torn away. This video has not been verified by the BBC.

There have been several severe accidents on highways in Mexico in recent years.

In February, dozens of people died in a bus crash in Tabasco in southern Mexico.

Big plumes of smoke are visible on a screen that’s providing a live feed from Ukrainian drones hovering over the outskirts of the eastern city of Pokrovsk, one of the most intense front lines in Ukraine.

A few seconds earlier, Ukrainian artillery strikes Russian positions, places where we’d seen Russian soldiers moving about as they try to advance towards a key road going into Pokrovsk.

At least one Russian soldier is injured, possibly dead after the strike.

It’s chilling to watch the live footage. It drives home the bloody consequences of the war that Russia started, in which hundreds of thousands have so far been killed, a “never-ending bloodbath” as US President Donald Trump calls it.

We are in a rural house converted into a command centre for the 155th mechanised brigade of the Ukrainian army. It’s a few miles from front-line artillery positions.

The scale of the devastation that we see on the screens, homes and buildings completely flattened, is far greater than what we saw six months ago.

It is evidence of the fierce battle that has been fought over the past several months to defend Pokrovsk, a crucial transport hub in the Donetsk region.

This week, there’s cautious optimism, even among sceptical soldiers who have witnessed hopes of a ceasefire being dashed over and over again, as diplomatic efforts from the US, Europe, Turkey and others have pushed Russia and Ukraine to direct talks for the first time in three years.

“I think something should happen since Russia was the first one to push for these talks. I mean since 2022, they have refused to go into any contact,” says an officer who wants to be referred to with his call sign “Kozak”.

“I want to believe this would be the beginning of the end of the war.

“But now I see, we have been successful in destroying their rear positions and their supply lines. Russia does not have the same strength and power it had at the beginning. So I think that something will happen.”

Yurii, 37, used to work in a technology company before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “They (Russia and Ukraine) have to start talking. Us soldiers, we wish this war would end. But it’s important to remember that we cannot stop it because we did not start it,” he says.

He looks up at the screen and spots Russian soldiers moving again. He and his colleagues calculate the co-ordinates of their positions and pass them on to their artillery unit.

We drive from the command centre to the artillery position, on mud tracks running through a wide expanse of open fields. Clumps of mud fly in the air, our car slips and slides, as we move as fast as possible. The speed is a mitigation against strikes from drones, which have sharply increased fatalities for both Russia and Ukraine since they were deployed in large numbers in 2023.

And war technology keeps evolving. Now there’s a new threat – drones equipped with a real fibre optic cable which unrolls as they fly. “We cannot detect them or neutralise them, so there are probably a lot more drones in the area right now than we know,” says Yurii.

As we drive into the artillery position hidden under trees and bushes, soldiers are already loading the gun. It’s a French made self-propelled artillery gun called the “Caesar”. Scores have been deployed in Ukraine since the start of the war, and France has been trying to ramp up production.

“I’m very impressed by its accuracy, and we can use a large range of ammunition. The most important thing is that bringing it into combat is very fast. It is much more effective than the old Soviet equipment I’ve used,” says Kozak.

Ukrainian soldiers fire four rounds, each one emitting a deafening sound. From around us, we also hear the sound of incoming shells. The battle rages on.

“As you can hear, there is a wave of assaults from the enemy and we need a lot of ammunition to suppress that. We hope our international partners can give us as much ammunition as possible, because if we have to start choosing priority and non-priority targets then the enemy will be successful,” says Kozak.

We ask the soldiers how they feel about suggestions that Ukraine will have to make concessions, that it might have to give up land to secure peace.

“It’s painful to hear that. Even I want to go home to my family. My daughter is eight and I miss her so much. But we need to be strong. I don’t believe that if we give up some territory, they will stop. In a couple of years, they will return and start over,” says Yurii.

“A person who has not come here, who hasn’t felt the consequences of Russian aggression, those armchair commentators say you can give up land and everything will be over. They will never understand how many brothers and friends we have lost. We shouldn’t give up a single metre of our land,” says Kozak.

The cost Ukraine has paid to defend its land is visible everywhere, most acutely in the photos of smiling, young soldiers posted by the side of highways, on memorial walls in central city squares, and on rows and rows of freshly dug graves in the country.

Yana Stepanenko lovingly buys her son’s favourite treats – a cup of steaming hot chocolate and a chocolate roll.

Then she drives out to a cemetery in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, and places them neatly by 22-year-old Vladislav’s grave. She and her daughter, 13-year-old Nicole, wipe the grave with wet tissues. Before long, they break down inconsolably into each other’s arms.

Vladislav was a drone operator with the Ukrainian military. He was killed in combat in a Russian strike on 21 February this year.

For Yana, news of direct talks resuming bring no hope.

“It seems to me that this war is eternal. Of course, I hope they will find a solution. Because people are dying here and there (in Russia). But Putin is greedy. His hunger for our land is insatiable,” says Yana.

Parts of the Zaporizhzhia region are currently occupied by Russia, the front line less than 40 miles from the city. But Russia has on more than one occasion demanded control of the full regions of Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson as part of any peace deal.

“No way. I want to live in Ukraine, not Russia. We have seen what they do under occupation, what they did in places like Bucha – their cruelty and torture,” says Yana. “Can you imagine, they’ve not even spared this graveyard,” she adds, pointing to a big crater nearby where a bomb exploded some months ago.

Tears rolling down her eyes, she adds.

“I hope my child did not die for nothing. That there will still be a victory and all of Ukraine will become free.”

Last week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $1bn (£756m) bailout to Pakistan – a move that drew sharp disapproval from India as military hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours flared, before a US-led ceasefire was unexpectedly declared.

Despite India’s protests, the IMF board approved the second instalment of a $7bn loan, saying Islamabad had demonstrated strong programme implementation leading to a continuing economic recovery in Pakistan.

It also said the fund would continue to support Pakistan’s efforts in building economic resilience to “climate vulnerabilities and natural disasters”, providing further access of around $1.4bn in funding in the future.

In a strongly worded statement India raised concerns over the decision, citing two reasons.

Delhi questioned the “efficacy” of such bailouts or the lack thereof, given Pakistan’s “poor track record” in implementing reform measures. But more importantly it flagged the possibility of these funds being used for “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism” – a charge Islamabad has repeatedly denied – and said the IMF was exposing itself and its donors to “reputational risks” and making a “mockery of global values”.

The IMF did not respond to the BBC’s request for a comment on the Indian stance.

Even Pakistani experts argue that there’s some merit to Delhi’s first argument. Pakistan has been prone to persistently seeking the IMF’s help – getting bailed out 24 times since 1958 – without undertaking meaningful reforms to improve public governance.

“Going to the IMF is like going to the ICU [intensive care unit]. If a patient goes 24 or 25 times to the ICU then there are structural challenges and concerns that need to be dealt with,” Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the US, told the BBC.

But addressing Delhi’s other concerns – that the IMF was “rewarding continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism” thereby sending a “dangerous message to the global community” – is far more complex, and perhaps explains why India wasn’t able to exert pressure to stall the bailout.

India’s decision to try to prevent the next tranche of the bailout to Islamabad was more about optics then, rather than a desire for any tangible outcome, say experts. As per the country’s own observations, the fund had limited ability to do something about the loan, and was “circumscribed by procedural and technical formalities”.

As one of the 25 members of the IMF board, India’s influence at the fund is limited. It represents a four-country group including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Pakistan is part of the Central Asia group, represented by Iran.

Unlike the United Nations’ one-country-one-vote system, the voting rights of IMF board members are based on a country’s economic size and its contributions – a system which has increasingly faced criticism for favouring richer Western countries over developing economies.

For example, the US has the biggest voting share – at 16.49% – while India holds just 2.6%. Besides, IMF rules do not allow for a vote against a proposal – board members can either vote in favour or abstain – and the decisions are made by consensus on the board.

“This shows how vested interests of powerful countries can influence decisions,” an economist who didn’t want to speak on the record told the BBC.

Addressing this imbalance was a key proposal in the reforms mooted for the IMF and other multilateral lenders during India’s G20 presidency in 2023.

In their report, former Indian bureaucrat NK Singh and former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers recommended breaking the link between IMF voting rights and financial contributions to ensure fairer representation for both the “Global North” and the “Global South”. But there has been no progress so far on implementing these recommendations.

Furthermore, recent changes in the IMF’s own rules about funding countries in conflict add more complexity to the issue. A $15.6bn loan by the fund to Ukraine in 2023 was the first of its kind by the IMF to a country at war.

“It bent its own rules to give an enormous lending package to Ukraine – which means it cannot use that excuse to shut down an already-arranged loan to Pakistan,” Mihir Sharma of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank in Delhi told the BBC.

If India really wants to address its grievances, the right forum to present them would be the United Nations FATF (Financial Action Task Force), says Mr Haqqani.

The FATF looks at issues of combating terror finance and decides whether countries need to be placed on grey or black lists that prevent them from accessing funds from bodies like the IMF or the World Bank.

“Grandstanding at the IMF cannot and did not work,” said Mr Haqqani. “If a country is on that [FATF] list it will then face challenges in getting a loan from the IMF – as has happened with Pakistan earlier.”

As things stand though, Pakistan was officially removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in 2022.

Separately, experts also caution that India’s calls to overhaul the IMF’s funding processes and veto powers could be a double-edged sword.

Such reforms “would inevitably give Beijing [rather than Delhi] more power”, said Mr Sharma.

Mr Haqqani agrees. India should be wary of using “bilateral disputes at multilateral fora”, he said, adding that India has historically been at the receiving end of being vetoed out by China in such places.

He points to instances of Beijing blocking ADB (Asian Development Bank) loans sought by India for the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, citing border disputes between the two countries in the region.

Israel is preparing a series of sites in Gaza that could be used as distribution centres for humanitarian aid in a controversial new plan, satellite images show.

The Israeli government suspended food and medicine deliveries into Gaza in March.

Ministers said the move, which has been condemned by UN, European and Middle Eastern leaders, was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. Israel also accused Hamas of stealing aid – an allegation the group has denied.

The UN has said the blockade has caused severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel, and an assessment on Monday warned that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million people was at “critical risk” of famine.

The US confirmed last week that it was preparing a new system for providing aid from a series of hubs inside Gaza, which would be run by private companies and protected by security contractors and Israeli forces.

Images analysed by BBC Verify show that land has already been cleared, with new roads and staging areas constructed at a number of locations in southern and central Gaza in recent weeks.

Israel has not publicly said where the hubs will be, but humanitarian sources – briefed previously by Israeli officials – told BBC Verify that at least four centres will be built in the southern section of Gaza and one further north near the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the military that effectively divides the territory.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – an organisation set up to support the plan – initially said food, water and hygiene kits would be supplied to 1.2 million people, less than 60% of the population.

On Wednesday it announced it would start operations before the end of May, and appeared to call for Israel to allow aid through normal channels until its distribution centres were fully operational. It also called for aid hubs to be built in northern Gaza, something not envisaged under the original plan.

UN agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with the plan – which is in line with one previously approved by Israel’s government – saying it contradicted fundamental humanitarian principles.

A spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of seeking to use “food and fuel as leverage, as part of a military strategy”.

“All aid would be channelled through a handful of militarised hubs,” Olga Cherevko told BBC Verify.

“That kind of arrangement would cut off vast areas of Gaza – particularly the most vulnerable, who can’t move easily, or are otherwise marginalised – from any help at all.”

Meanwhile, Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam described the new plan as a “farce”.

“No logistical solution is going to address Israel’s strategy of forcible displacement and using starvation as a weapon of war. Lift the siege, open the crossings and let us do our job.”

It is understood that the proposed new system has not yet had final sign-off from the Israeli government.

BBC Verify used satellite imagery to identify four potential sites based on the limited available information about their locations.

The sites are similar in size, shape and design to existing open-air distribution sites inside Gaza, such as at Erez, Erez West and Kisufim. The largest site we’ve looked at is bigger – more comparable to the area inside Gaza at Kerem Shalom crossing.

Our analysis of the imagery shows significant development at one of the sites in south-west Gaza, close to the ruins of a village that is now an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base.

Satellite photos since early April show the construction of a road there and a large staging area, surrounded by berms – large defensive barriers made of piled sand – about 650m (2,130ft) from the border with Egypt.

A high-resolution image captured on 8 May shows bulldozers and excavators working on a section of land spanning about 20 acres (8 hectares). IDF armoured vehicles are at a fortified building nearby.

A photo taken on site, geolocated by BBC Verify, also shows lighting being installed on the perimeter.

Further imagery from 11 and 12 May shows this, along with three other sites, continuing to expand. One site is about half a kilometre from a collection of eight UN warehouses, and 280m from another large warehouse.

Stu Ray – a senior imagery analyst with McKenzie Intelligence – agreed the sites were likely to be secure distribution centres. He noted that some of the facilities are in “close proximity to IDF Forward Operating Bases which ties in with the IDF wishing to have some control over the sites”.

Analysts with another intelligence firm, Maiar, said the facilities appeared to be designed with separate entrances for trucks to move in and out, and with other gaps in the berms that would be suitable for pedestrian entrances.

The IDF did not comment on the potential aid centres when approached by BBC Verify, but said that its operations in Gaza were carried out “in accordance with international law”. Cogat – the Israeli body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza – did not respond to a request for comment.

Three of the four sites located by BBC Verify are south of the IDF’s newly created Morag Corridor.

This is an Israeli military zone that runs across the Gaza Strip and separates the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

Since the IDF established a security zone there in early April, a six-mile (10km) road has been built covering two thirds of the width of Gaza, bordered by defensive berms and dotted with IDF outposts.

This new road leads directly to one of the development sites visible in satellite imagery, and a pre-existing road connects it to two more.

This entire area has been subjected to extensive land clearance by the IDF. BBC Verify has geolocated video and images of areas throughout the Morag Corridor, and south of it, filmed by Israeli forces, which show controlled demolitions using explosives and heavy machinery, and extensive destruction of buildings.

Humanitarian sources said Israeli briefings indicated that aid would enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing.

Satellite imagery shows ongoing construction work happening there too over the past few months, with the apparent expansion of its storage areas, and new roads added.

Since Israel stopped new aid supplies in March, the UN has reiterated that it has an obligation under international law to ensure that the basic needs of the population under its control are met.

Israel has insisted that it is complying with international law and that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.

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Paramilitary fighters appear to have opened a new phase in Sudan’s civil war after being driven from the capital, in a move which some experts have described as a “shock and awe campaign”.

Just weeks after the army celebrated the recapture of Khartoum, its foe the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a series of unprecedented drone strikes on Port Sudan in the east of the country.

The attacks have led to worsening power blackouts, as well as city residents facing water shortages.

“It’s a level of power projection within this region that we haven’t seen yet,” says Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa expert for the International Crisis Group.

“I think it raises the stakes quite a bit,” he added.

The barrage of attacks on the war-time capital and humanitarian hub signals that the RSF is determined and able to carry on the fight despite significant territorial losses.

And it has showcased the growth of advanced drone warfare in Africa.

Drones have played an increasing role in the conflict, which has entered its third year.

The war began as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF and has drawn in other Sudanese armed groups and foreign backers, plunging the country into what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) helped the army advance earlier this year. And the RSF escalated its own use of drones as it was pushed out of central Sudan, especially Khartoum, back towards its traditional stronghold in the west of the country.

In recent months the paramilitaries had stepped up drone strikes on critical civilian infrastructure in army-controlled areas, such as dams and power stations.

But their sustained attacks on Port Sudan, until now seen as a safe haven home to government officials, diplomats and humanitarian organisations, underlined a shift in strategy to a greater emphasis on remote warfare, and aimed to demonstrate strength.

“The RSF is trying to show that they don’t need to reach Port Sudan by land in order to be able to have an impact there,” says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair.

The group is trying to achieve a “narrative shift” away from “the triumphant SAF that took over Khartoum,” she says.

“It is saying to the Sudanese Armed Forces: ‘You can take Khartoum back, but you’ll never be able to govern it. You can have Port Sudan, but you won’t be able to govern it, because we will cause a security crisis for you so large that it will be ungovernable’… They want to unequivocally show that the war is not over until they say so.”

The paramilitary group has not directly addressed the Port Sudan drone attacks. Rather, it has repeated its assertion that the SAF is supported by Iran and accused the armed forces of targeting civilian infrastructure and state institutions, calling the military strikes on Khartoum and RSF-held areas in the west and south of the country war crimes.

Both sides stand accused of war crimes which they have denied, but the RSF has been singled out over allegations of mass rape and genocide.

The change in its tactics may have been triggered by battlefield necessity, but is possible because of technological advancement.

The RSF had previously used what are known as suicide or loitering drones, small UAVs with explosive payloads that are designed to crash into targets and can carry out coordinated attacks.

It seems to have deployed this method in Port Sudan, with the commander of the Red Sea Military Zone Mahjoub Bushra describing a swarm of 11 Kamikaze drones in the first strike on a military airbase.

He said the army shot them down, but they turned out to be a tactical distraction to divert attention from a single strategic drone that successfully struck the base.

The make of this drone is not clear. But satellite images reported by Yale researchers and the Reuters news agency have shown advanced UAVs at an airport in South Darfur since the beginning of the year.

The defence intelligence company Janes has determined them to most likely be sophisticated Chinese manufactured CH-95s, capable of long-range strikes.

Jeremy Binnie, an Africa and Middle East analyst at Jane’s, told the BBC that photos of what appear to be the remnants of the smaller kamikaze drones suggest they are probably a different version than the RSF had used before, and might be better at penetrating air defences because of their shape.

One regional observer suggested the RSF had been able to breach the SAF’s anti-drone technology with signal jammers attached to the drones, but cautioned this was still unproven.

The South Darfur airport in Nyala, the presumptive capital and military base of the Rapid Support Forces, has been repeatedly bombed by the SAF, which destroyed an aircraft there earlier this month.

Some experts see the RSF’s bombardment of Port Sudan at least partly as retaliation.

• Inside Khartoum, a city left in ruins
• Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening

The escalating drone warfare has again highlighted the role of foreign actors in Sudan’s civil conflict.

“This is a war of technology,” says Justin Lynch, managing director at Conflict Insights Group, a data analytics and research organisation.

“That’s why the foreign supporters are so important, because it’s not like the RSF is making the weapons themselves. They’re being given this stuff.”

The army has accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of supplying the paramilitary fighters with the drones, and cut diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi because of the attacks.

The UAE has strongly rejected the charges. It has long denied reports from UN experts, US politicians and international organisations that it is providing weaponry to the RSF.

But Mr Lynch says the evidence is overwhelming.

He was the lead author of a US State Department-funded report late last year that concluded with “near certainty” the the UAE was facilitating weapons to the RSF by monitoring imagery and flight patterns of airlines previously implicated in violating a UN arms embargo.

He told the BBC it would be surprising if the Emiratis were not helping deliver the drones used in the Port Sudan attacks.

He also determined with similar near-certainty that the Iranians were supplying weapons to the SAF, and he helped authenticate documents provided to the Washington Post that detail the sale of drones and warheads to the army by a Turkish defence firm.

Iran has not responded to the allegations. Turkish officials have denied involvement.

The increasing use of drones by both sides may be redefining the war, but it is the ability of the RSF to strike strategic targets hundreds of kilometres from its positions that has rattled the region.

Over a week of daily attacks on Port Sudan, the paramilitaries hit the country’s only working international airport, a power station, several fuel depots, and the air base, apparently trying to disrupt the army’s supply lines.

The city is also the main entry port for relief supplies and the UN has warned that this “major escalation” could further complicate aid operations in the country and lead to large-scale civilian casualties.

“This was such a shock and awe campaign that it has not only stunned SAF, I think it’s also stunned Egypt, Saudi Arabia, others who were behind SAF, and remakes the entire war,” says Mr Boswell, adding that it closing the gap in air power between the RSF and the army.

“The RSF is widely viewed as a non-state actor,” he says “and normally, groups like that can muster quite a bit of an insurgent force. But the government with the air force is the one that always has the aerial capacity, and this just turns all those old adages on its head.”

The development has triggered comparisons to the long-range drone warfare between Russia and Ukraine.

“These weapons have more precision, you don’t need a manned aircraft any more, and they are much more affordable than operating sophisticated jets,” says Mr Binnie.

“This is part of a broader trend in technological proliferation where you can see what used to be really high-end capabilities being used in a civil war in sub-Saharan Africa.”

The Sudanese foreign ministry has warned that the attacks threaten regional security and the safety of navigation in the Red Sea, calling on international actors to take “effective action against the regional sponsor of the militia,” a reference to the UAE.

Mr Lynch believes that only an agreement between the UAE and the Sudanese army will end the war.

“This war is always evolving, always changing,” he says, “but you’ll see it will continue for years and decades unless there is serious diplomatic action to stop it.”

• WATCH: ‘They ransacked my home, and left my town in ruins’
• The children living between starvation and death
• BBC reporter: My heartbreaking decision to leave Sudan

A luxury superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily, killing the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch along with six others, was knocked over by “extreme wind” and could not recover, according to an interim report into the disaster.

The UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), which has led the international investigation, said winds of over 80mph “violently” hit the vessel, causing it to flood within seconds.

The Bayesian sank near the town of Portofino on 19 August of last year during freak weather, with reports of water spouts.

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

Investigators say the yacht was knocked to a 90-degree angle within 15 seconds at 04:06 am local time, causing people, furniture and loose items to fall across the deck.

“There was no indication of flooding inside Bayesian until water came in over the starboard rails and, within seconds, entered the internal spaces down the stairwells,” the report says.

The MAIB’s chief inspector of marine accidents Andrew Moll said the situation was “irrecoverable” once the yacht tilted beyond 70 degrees.

The Bayesian was also “vulnerable” to lighter winds, according to the report, with speeds of 73mph able to tip it over.

The owner and crew of the yacht were unaware of this, as it was not included in the onboard stability information book, it adds.

The MAIB is investigating the incident as the Bayesian was registered in the UK. No date has been set for when its final report will be published.

It said its report was based on “a limited amount of verified evidence” as a criminal investigation by Italian authorities has restricted access to the wreck.

An operation to raise the 56-metre vessel from the seabed was paused over the weekend after a diver died while working on the wreck. Work is set to resume on Thursday.

The report lays out more detail as to how the sinking unfolded.

Investigators say the yacht sailed to the site where it sank on the previous day, in order to “shelter” from forecast thunderstorms. The sails were furled at the time.

Wind speed was “no more than eight knots (9mph)” at 03:00 – about an hour before the incident. Some 55 minutes later it had increased to 30 knots (34.5mph), and it had accelerated to 70 knots (80.6mph) by 04:06 when the yacht capsized.

As the storm intensified, several crew members were working in response to the conditions. The deck hand went onto the deck to close the yacht’s windows.

Five people were injured “either by falling or from things falling on them” and the deck hand was “thrown into the sea”, the report says.

Two of the yacht’s guests used furniture drawers “as an improvised ladder” to escape their cabin, it adds.

Dr Simon Boxall, Oceanographer at the University of Southampton, said the Bayesian was in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.

“The priorities for the crew would have been to shut the hatches and the doors, which they did,” he told the BBC.

This means speculation about water flooding in because everything was open is “obviously not the case”.

“The next priority would have been to start the engines – so they would have some manoeuvrability to position themselves within a storm – and to then lift anchor, which the crew did, but this takes time,” he added.

“It’s not like a car where you jump in and turn the key. It would take 5 or 10 minutes before you can start the engines with a vessel of this size.”

Survivors escaped on the Bayesian’s life raft and were rescued by a small boat dispatched from another nearby yacht, the report says.

Mike Lynch was a prominent figure in the UK tech industry, where his backing of successful companies led to him being dubbed the British equivalent of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

But the latter years of his life were consumed by a long-running legal dispute which resulted in him being controversially extradited to the US.

Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo also died in the sinking, along with Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as the yacht’s chef.

Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.

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Israel has issued one of the most sweeping evacuation orders for civilians in Gaza yet seen in this war.

Large swathes of Gaza City, an area already partially destroyed by bombing, have been declared unsafe, the residents taking shelter there told to leave for their own safety ahead of “intense strikes” by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Among the buildings highlighted by Israel are the Islamic University, Al-Shifa Hospital and three former schools.

While Israel alleges that the buildings are being used by Hamas as “command and control centres”, local authorities and aid agencies say there are thousands of civilians sheltering there.

Evacuating these areas would require time, they say, and there could be huge numbers of casualties.

It’s an ominous sign of Israel’s threat to significantly expand its military campaign in Gaza.

The former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has been one of very few senior Israelis so far to speak out against expanding the military campaign in Gaza.

In an interview with the BBC, Olmert said: “Most Israelis are against what is happening, large numbers of the [army’s] commanders are against expanding the military operation and want to end the war right now.”

Olmert is a frequent and increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his views reflect growing concern about the impact of the 20-month-long war on the country’s morale, economy and international standing.

Olmert was also outspoken on the humanitarian impact of the war on the residents of Gaza.

“It’s totally intolerable, unacceptable and unforgivable, it needs to be stopped right away,” said the former top official, who has been accused by pro-government outlets of “lobbying for Palestinians”.

He added: “We have to provide all of the humanitarian needs of the population. We can’t allow morally the beginning of famine in Gaza. That has to stop.”

Such opinions are rarely reflected in the Israeli media or in public opinion polls but they’ve been urgently repeated in passionate speeches in recent days by UN organisations, aid agencies and by some of Israel’s allies abroad – French President Emmanuel Macron called Israel’s actions in Gaza “shameful”. Netanyahu accused him of “standing with Hamas”.

There’s growing evidence of profound suffering across Gaza after a 10-week blockade, during which Israel has prevented the entry of any food, medicines or fuel into the Palestinian enclave.

A UN-backed assessment has said that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million Palestinians is at “critical risk” of famine and faces “extreme levels of food insecurity”. The World Health Organisation says without enough nutritious food, clean water and access to health care, an entire generation will be permanently affected.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer insisted to the BBC that “Israel is certainly not starving Gaza”.

“I don’t dispute that there is hunger in Gaza, but we believe that it is hunger caused by Hamas. There is food in Gaza, that’s our information. There is no famine,” he said.

Israel also resumed its aerial bombardment of Gaza on 18 March and its attacks have killed 2,799 since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, including 80 people on Wednesday.

There are faint hopes that an updated US-sponsored ceasefire proposal could still be accepted by Israel and Hamas. It reportedly would see the release of some remaining hostages in exchange for an unspecified period of calm.

However Netanyahu has said Israel will expand its military offensive in Gaza and that nothing will stop the war. Hamas meanwhile has refused to release the remaining hostages unless Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire and withdraws from Gaza.

On Wednesday evening 67 former hostages signed a letter urging Netanyahu to reach a “comprehensive deal” for the return of all captives still being held by Hamas.

“The majority of Israeli society wants the hostages home – even at the cost of halting military operations,” the letter said.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the letter was written to build on the “historic momentum” after Edan Alexander’s release. Hamas said it freed the 21-year-old as a goodwill gesture to Donald Trump, who is visiting the region.

The ex-hostages’ letter appealed to Trump not to “let this historic momentum stop”.

A poll for Israel’s Channel 12 at the end of April suggested that 68% of respondents supported signing a hostage deal with Hamas even if it meant ending the war, while just 22% supported continued fighting in Gaza.

So far Netanyahu remains unmoved.

“Despite American determination, there is no change in the PM’s position – we will not allow an end to the war,” an official in Mr Netanyahu’s entourage said, according to diplomatic sources.

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, the health ministry says.

In his eagerness to accept a plane from Qatar, Donald Trump has achieved a remarkable feat, uniting many partisans across America’s bitter political divide.

The problem for the White House is that unity is happening in opposition to it.

Predictably, Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party slammed the president after he indicated he would accept a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family.

More noteworthy – and potentially more troubling for the president – is that some of his strongest supporters also have serious reservations about the deal, even as it’s yet to be finalised.

Maga influencers have described the move as a “bribe”, grift, or an example of the high-level corruption that Trump himself has consistently promised root out.

The Qatari royal family plans to give the luxury Boeing 747-8, estimated to be worth $400m (£300m), to the US Department of Defence to be used as part of a fleet of planes dubbed Air Force One – the president’s official mode of air travel.

The current fleet includes two 747-200 jets which have been in use since 1990, along with several smaller and somewhat secretive 757s.

The White House says that the new plane – which could require years and millions of dollars to refit and upgrade – will be transferred to Trump’s presidential library at the end of his term.

After the news broke on Sunday, the backlash was fierce and immediate.

“I think the technical term is ‘skeezy’,” deadpanned conservative Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro on his podcast.

“Qatar is not allegedly giving President Trump a $400m jet out of the goodness of their sweet little hearts,” he said. “They try to stuff money into pockets in totally bipartisan fashion.”

He and others pointed to allegations that Qatar has funnelled money into terrorist groups – allegations the country has denied – and called Qataris “the world’s largest proponents of terrorism on an international scale.”

Laura Loomer, the conspiracy-spreading social media influencer who agitates for sackings of top White House officials deemed insufficiently loyal, interrupted her steady stream of pro-Trump messaging to criticise the move.

Although she said she still supports the president, she called the plane deal “a stain” and posted a cartoon of the Trojan Horse, redrawn as a plane and filled with armed Islamist militants.

Trump found little support for the plan in more mainstream outlets as well.

The New York Post, which usually can be counted on to back much of the populist Maga agenda, ran a blunt editorial: “Qatar’s ‘Palace in the Sky’ jet is NOT a ‘free gift’ – and Trump shouldn’t accept it as one.”

And Mark Levin, a consistent cheerleader of the president on Fox News and his radio talk show, posted on X accusing Qatar of being a “terror state” and wrote: “Their jet and all the other things they are buying in our country does not provide them with the cover they seek”.

During his first term, Trump himself accused Qatar of funding terror groups.

When contacted by the BBC, the Qatari embassy in Washington pointed to an interview Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani gave CNN about the plane.

“It is a government-to-government transaction. It has nothing to do with personal relationships – neither on the US side, nor the Qatari side. It’s between the two defence ministries,” he said.

“Why would we buy influence in the United States?” he added, arguing Qatar has “always been a reliable and trusted partner. This is not a one-way relationship.”

• Is Trump allowed to accept a $400m luxury plane as a gift?

In response to criticism of the deal, the White House has doubled down. Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration was “committed to full transparency”.

“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” she said.

Although there has been nothing offered in exchange for the plane, many commentators said it would be naïve to expect that that Qatari royal family would hand out such a large item with no strings attached.

“They very obviously see that if you reward Donald Trump with gifts, that may pay off down the road,” Doug Heye, a political strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, told the BBC. “Flattery gets you somewhere with Donald Trump, and we’ve seen that time and time again.”

The US Constitution includes a clause preventing officials from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

But the White House has pointed out that, at least to begin with, the plane is being gifted to the US government.

Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly investigated the legality of the deal and determined that because there are no explicit conditions attached, it would not amount to a bribe.

Conservatives and others were quick to point out that Bondi was registered as a lobbyist for Qatar prior to joining Trump’s cabinet, at some points earning up to $115,0000 (£87,000) a month from her work for the Qatari government.

The Trump Organisation also continues to maintain links to Qatar and last month announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in the country.

During a news conference at the White House on Tuesday the president berated a reporter who raised questions about the ethics of the transaction.

“What do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you?” asked ABC reporter Rachel Scott.

“You should be embarrassed asking that question,” Trump replied, after using his standard “fake news” jibe.

“They’re giving us a free jet,” the president said. “I could say ‘No, no, no, don’t give us, I want to pay you a billion or 400 million’… or I could say ‘thank you very much’.”

On Truth Social, the president later reposted several messages pointing out that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, and wrote late Tuesday: “The Boeing 747 is being given to the United States Air Force/Department of Defense, NOT TO ME!”

“Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country,” he wrote.

However even some within Trump’s Republican Party were expressing concern.

“I think it’s not worth the appearance of impropriety, whether it’s improper or not,” Rand Paul, Republican senator from Kentucky, told Fox News.

“I wonder if our ability to judge [Qatar’s] human rights record will be clouded by the fact of this large gift,” Paul said.

Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, said accepting the gift would pose “significant espionage and surveillance problems”.

Trump did find some support within his party. “Free is good. You know, we don’t have a lot of money right now to buy things like that,” Sen Tommy Tuberville told CNN.

Doug Heye, the Republican strategist, suggested that the deal might not hurt Trump’s popularity with his base in the long term.

“Trump has been able for years now to turn scandals that would otherwise be debilitating for other politicians into things that we forget,” he said. “He’s very skilled at that.”

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.

Thirty-five seconds. That’s all the time you get to change the set at Eurovision.

Thirty-five seconds to get one set of performers off the stage and put the next ones in the right place.

Thirty-five seconds to make sure everyone has the right microphones and earpieces.

Thirty-five seconds to make sure the props are in place and tightly secured.

While you’re at home watching the introductory videos known as postcards, dozens of people swarm the stage, setting the scene for whatever comes next.

“We call it the Formula 1 tyre change,” says Richard van Rouwendaal, the affable Dutch stage manager who makes it all work.

“Each person in the crew can only do one thing. You run on stage with one light bulb or one prop. You always walk on the same line. If you go off course, you will hit somebody.

“It’s a bit like ice skating.”

The stage crew start rehearsing their “F1 tyre change” weeks before the contestants even arrive.

Every country sends detailed plans of their staging, and Eurovision hires stand-ins to play the acts (in Liverpool 2023, it was pupils from the local performing arts school), while stagehands start shaving precious seconds off the changeovers.

“We have about two weeks,” says Van Rouwendaal, who’s normally based in Utrecht but is in Basel for this year’s contest.

“My company is around 13 Dutchies and 30 local guys and girls, who rock it in Switzerland.

“In those two weeks, I have to figure out who’s right for each job. Someone’s good at running, someone’s good at lifting, someone’s good at organising the backstage area. It is a bit like being good at Tetris because you have to line everything up in a small space, in the perfect way.”

As soon as a song finishes, the team are ready to roll.

As well as the stagehands, there are people responsible for positioning lights and setting pyrotechnics; and 10 cleaners who sweep the stage with mops and vacuum cleaners between every performance.

“My cleaners are just as important as the stage crew. You need a clean stage for the dancers – but also, if there’s an overhead shot of somebody lying down, you don’t want to see shoeprints on the floor.”

The attention to detail is clinical. Backstage, every performer has their own microphone stand, set to the correct height and angle, to make sure every performance is camera perfect.

“Sometimes the delegation will say the artist wants to wear a different shoe for the grand final,” says Van Rouwendaal. “But if that happens, the mic stand is at the wrong height, so we’ve got a problem!”

Spontaneously changing footwear isn’t the worst problem he’s faced, though. At the 2022 contest in Turin, the stage was 10m (33ft) higher than the backstage area.

As a result, they were pushing heavy stage props – including a mechanical bull – up a steep ramp between every act.

“We were exhausted every night,” he recalls. “This year is better. We’ve even got an extra backstage tent where we prepare the props.”

Props are a huge part of Eurovision. The tradition started at the second ever contest in 1957, when Germany’s Margot Hielscher sang part of her song Telefon, Telefon into (you guessed it) a telephone.

Over the intervening decades, the staging has become ever more elaborate. In 2014, Ukraine’s Mariya Yaremchuk trapped one of her dancers in a giant hamster wheel, while Romania brought a literal cannon to their performance in 2017.

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This year, we’ve got disco balls, space hoppers, a magical food blender, a Swedish sauna and, for the UK, a fallen chandelier.

“It’s a big logistics effort, actually, to get all the props organised,” says Damaris Reist, deputy head of production for this year’s contest.

“It’s all organised in a kind of a circle. The [props] come onto the stage from the left, and then get taken off to the right.

“Backstage, the props that have been used are pushed back to the back of the queue, and so on. It’s all in the planning.”

During the show, there are several secret passageways and “smuggling routes” to get props in and out of vision, especially when a performance requires new elements half-way through.

Cast your mind back, if you will, to Sam Ryder’s performance for the UK at the 2022 contest in Italy.

There he was, alone on the stage, belting out falsetto notes in his spangly jumpsuit, when suddenly, an electric guitar appeared out of thin air and landed in his hands.

And guess who put it there? Richard van Rouwendaal.

“I’m a magician,” he laughs. “No, no, no… That was a collaboration between the camera director, the British delegation and the stage crew.”

In other words, Richard ducked onto the stage, guitar in hand, while the director cut to a wide shot, concealing his presence from viewers at home.

“It’s choreographed to the nearest millimetre,” he says. “We’re not invisible, but we have to be invisible.”

What if it all goes wrong?

There are certain tricks the audience will never notice, Van Rouwendaal reveals.

If he announces “stage not clear” into his headset, the director can buy time by showing an extended shot of the audience.

In the event of a bigger incident – “a camera can break, a prop can fall” – they cut to a presenter in the green room, who can fill for a couple of minutes.

Up in the control room, a tape of the dress rehearsal plays in sync with the live show, allowing directors to switch to pre-recorded footage in the event of something like a stage invasion or a malfunctioning microphone.

A visual glitch isn’t enough to trigger the back-up tape, however – as Switzerland’s Zoë Më discovered at Tuesday’s first semi-final.

Her performance was briefly interrupted when the feed from an on-stage camera froze, but producers simply cut to a wide shot until it was fixed. (If it had happened in the final, she’d have been offered the chance to perform again.)

“There’s actually lots of measures that are being taken to make sure that every act can be shown in the best way,” says Reist.

“There are people who know the regulations by heart, who have been playing through what could happen and what we would do in various different situations.

“I’ll be sitting next to our head of production, and if there’s [a situation] where somebody has to run, maybe that’s going to be me!”

It’s no surprise to learn that staging a live three-hour broadcast with thousands of moving parts is incredibly stressful.

This year, organisers have introduced measures to protect the welfare of contestants and crew, including closed-door rehearsals, longer breaks between shows, and the creation of a “disconnected zone” where cameras are banned.

Even so, Reist says she has worked every weekend for the past two months, while Van Rouwendaal and his team are regularly pulling 20-hour days.

The shifts are so long that, back in 2008, Eurovision production legend Ola Melzig built a bunker under the stage, complete with a sofa, a “sadly underused” PS3 and two (yes, two) espresso machines.

“I don’t have hidden luxuries like Ola. I’m not at that level yet!” laughs Van Rouwendaal

“But backstage, I’ve got a spot with my crew. We’ve got stroopwafels there and, last week, it was King’s Day in Holland, so I baked pancakes for everyone.

“I try to make it fun. Sometimes we go out and have a drink and cheer because we had a great day.

“Yes, we have to be on top, and we have to be sharp as a knife, but having fun together is also very important.”

And if all goes to plan, you won’t see them at all this weekend.

Ulrich Janse van Vuuren has made it his passion to share and showcase some of South Africa’s best features with his legion of social media followers.

The 38-year-old white South African often takes snapshots capturing scenes such as a cold Johannesburg morning, the purple Jacaranda trees famously associated with Pretoria or Cape Town’s popular beachfronts.

“Promoting South Africa is something I am passionate about – I have no intention of taking up [US President Donald Trump’s] offer because South Africa is my home,” the proud Afrikaner tells the BBC, days after a small group of his fellow white compatriots left South Africa for their new life as refugees in the US.

The US president, and his South-Africa born ally Elon Musk, says that white Afrikaners are being persecuted in their home country, and that they are being subjected to a “genocide”.

This is a claim that has been circulating for many years even though it has been widely discredited.

Although some white farmers have been attacked and killed, South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, so this is an issue that affects all of its citizens, whatever their race.

“For me, South Africa is home. It’s a place where my roots and heritage are, where I can contribute to the story of our nation and make a meaningful impact,” said Mr Janse van Vuuren, who has more than one million followers on social media.

“I’m deeply invested in South Africa’s success and I am proud to be part of its journey.”

And while he wished those who have taken up Trump’s offer all the best in the US and urged them to “not look back”, he insisted that none of them were refugees, but rather “opportunists”.

“They’ve enjoyed more than their share of South Africa’s resources and privileges, and none are fleeing racial persecution,” he said.

Thirty years after the end of the racist system of apartheid, average living standards among South Africa’s white community remain far higher than for the black majority.

Mr Janse van Vuuren said that the debate about the status of Afrikaners in South Africa had only served to make him “more determined than ever to step up and contribute to South Africa in every way I can”.

Four centuries after the first group of Dutch settlers arrived in what is now South Africa, most Afrikaners regard themselves as fully African – as seen in the name – and no longer identify with their European roots.

But many are unhappy both with the high crime rate and the government’s policies aimed at reducing economic inequality in the country – especially a law passed earlier this year that allowed the government to seize land without compensation “when it is just and equitable and in the public interest”. White South Africans are 7% of the country’s population, but own half of its farmland.

Some Afrikaners are farmers and see the law as being aimed at them.

Trump said the legislation prompted him to offer to help resettle “Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination”.

The status of white South African farmers has long been a rallying cry on the right and far-right of American politics.

But despite numerous claims in the past of the systematic targeting of the country’s white Afrikaner minority group, local crime statistics figures paint a different picture.

South Africa does not release crime figures based on race but the latest figures revealed that 6,953 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. Of these, 12 were killed in farm attacks. Of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black.

On Monday, the first group of 59 Afrikaners granted refugee status arrived at the Dulles airport near Washington DC after choosing to leave their home country.

The arrival of the group drew dismay and outrage across South Africa, as the country’s civil society and leadership sought to dispel the claims that the white minority was being persecuted.

“They are leaving because they don’t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country and our constitution,” said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

He later labelled their move a “cowardly act” as he addressed farmers at a convention held in the Free State province.

The president’s sentiments were echoed by many South Africans, including Mr Janse van Vuuren, who is proud of his Afrikaner origins.

While he was not raised in a farming family, he has relatives and friends in agriculture who have been victims of crime.

He said that while it was undeniable that some farmers faced “genuine threats and hardships”, it was important to be cautious “when discussing claims of persecution or discrimination that portray an entire group as victims of targeted violence or systemic oppression”.

While many white South Africans echo Mr Janse van Vuuren’s sentiments, there are also those who see themselves as a persecuted minority.

Among them is Ilse Steenkamp, who along with her family, has applied for the programme but has not received feedback. She did not want us to use her real name.

Ms Steenkamp, 47, and her husband, both Afrikaners, were commercial farmers but said they had lost their land recently after it was invaded by people who “took over the whole farm” just as they were about to sell it in order to “downscale”.

She said they had bought the land two decades ago, after the end of apartheid.

The people who invaded destroyed critical infrastructure, making it impossible to sell, she said.

Despite efforts to have them removed through the courts, Ms Steenkamp said they were forced to abandon the land as it was repossessed by the bank.

Ms Steenkamp said that while she and her family were familiar with South Africa’s high crime levels and often tried to “not let it get us under”, this latest attack “was the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

Even though her family were eager to embrace Trump’s offer when it was first announced, the mother-of-three told the BBC that the decision to leave “was very difficult because you’re… leaving a whole way of life”.

Asked whether it was unfair that Afrikaners were being granted refugee status at a time when the US was cracking down on refugees and asylum seekers from everywhere else in the world, Ms Steenkamp said she “completely disagreed”.

She pointed to assaults on farmers, saying there was a “hatred that seems to go with these attacks”.

“Any farmer that has gone through that [kind of] attack and is now wanting to flee, I think should be treated as a refugee because they are fleeing from a government that will not even admit that these things are happening,” she said.

Sam Busà, 60, is another white South African who has applied for the refugee programme.

She is the founder of Amerikaners, a platform aimed at providing information to white South Africans interested in the US resettlement offer.

While Ms Busà, who is of English, not Afrikaner, descent, and her three sons have submitted their applications, they have not been interviewed yet.

While it was initially believed that the executive order, vague in its original wording, only applied to white Afrikaners, Ms Busà said it “clearly is targeting white South Africans”.

On Monday, the US embassy in South Africa released a statement clarifying the criteria for those applying for resettlement, which said applicants need to 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

Responding to the criticism that they were not genuine refugees, Ms Busà said: “When someone strips away your hope for the future, even though you’re not in a warzone… someone ripping away your dreams and hope for the future, that is very dramatic. It’s a mental anguish and emotional abuse in a sense.”

• What’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?
• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?

But Dr Piet Croucamp, an associate professor in political studies at South Africa’s North West University, disagreed, echoing the view that those taking up this offer were not refugees as “South Africa does not persecute people”.

Rather, he speculated that it may be those who have been victims of a crime and “could define their existence as an unsecure one”.

Dr Croucamp, who is an Afrikaner, said that while he did not expect a significant number of white South Africans to follow suit, there would always be “opportunistic” people taking advantage of the situation.

“This is a small group of people leaving – the vast majority of Afrikaners are going nowhere and they have expressed themselves. Even the right-wing Afrikaners… [like] AfriForum and Solidarity have said they are not going anywhere. So even within Afrikaner circles, this is a small group of people,” he said.

Despite their criticism of the government and its race-based policies, prominent Afrikaner lobby groups AfriForum and the Solidarity Movement have both reiterated their intention to remain in South Africa.

AfriForum said that while the government was to blame for the departure of the group granted refugee status, they would stay and continue their “efforts to help create a future for Afrikaners here at the southern tip of Africa”.

This is a view with which Mr Janse van Vuuren agreed.

“While some may choose to leave as refugees, the majority of us are here to stay, working together to build a better future for all in South Africa.”

• Racially charged row between Musk and South Africa over Starlink
• The expelled envoy at the heart of the latest US-South Africa row
• South Africa in ‘uncharted waters’ as budget splits coalition government

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.”

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.

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”.

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.”

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.

When reached by the BBC, Buckingham Palace said the issue was a matter for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and did not comment further.

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.”

UK-based carmaker Jaguar Land Rover has said it does not intend to produce vehicles in the US, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs impact the motor industry.

“Following articles based on comments made by the JLR CEO in the full year earnings media call, we can confirm we have no plans to build cars in the US,” a spokesperson told the BBC.

Jaguar, which has no factories in the US, paused shipments to the country in April after Trump’s first tariff announcements, before resuming exports to the country this month.

This week, the firm joined a growing list of companies to hold back on giving profit forecasts, as Trump’s unpredictable trade policies continue to impact businesses around the world.

On Trump’s self-declared ‘Liberation Day’ in early April he announced that the UK would be subject to 10% tariffs on all the the goods it exports to the US. More stringent measures were later applied to cars, steel and aluminium.

But last week, the US agreed to allow some steel and aluminium into the country tariff-free, and reduced the levies on a set number of British cars.

A blanket 10% tariffs on imports from countries around the world still applies to most UK goods entering the US.

Rival luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz, and Chrysler-owner Stellantis have also held back on giving forecasts, while Ford said the US levies will cost it about $1.5bn (£1.13bn) this year.

Outside the motor industry, top executives at well-known firms have warned recently about the impact that tariffs are having on their companies and the wider economy.

Last month, technology giant Intel, footwear maker Skechers and consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble either cut their profit forecasts or withdrew them, citing economic uncertainty.

Meanwhile, sportswear giant Adidas warned import taxes imposed by Trump will lead to higher prices in the US for popular trainers including the Gazelle and Samba.

This month, Barbie maker Mattel said it will put up the prices of some of its toys in the US as tariffs increase its costs.

French police have charged a taxi driver with stealing luggage and cash from UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his wife Nicola Green.

The driver allegedly sped off with the couple’s luggage after a row over a fare for the 360-mile journey from Forli, in Italy, to the French ski resort of Flaine, in Haute-Savoie.

The driver insisted he was owed 700 euros (£590) in cash for part of the journey not covered by an upfront payment to a booking service.

But the Foreign Office said in a statement the fare had been paid in full before they set off on their private holiday.

The taxi driver had a row with Ms Green before driving off with their luggage to a police station, where he made a complaint.

According to French newspaper la Provence, an investigation into a “commercial dispute” was opened by the Bonneville prosecutor’s office in Haute-Savoie.

A member of the foreign secretary’s office contacted the driver to get the luggage back, and it was allegedly deposited at a police station with a “considerable” sum of money missing from Ms Green’s bag, prompting her to make a statement to officers.

Bonneville prosecutor Boris Duffau told the BBC the taxi driver was now being charged with theft.

“An investigation has been opened following a disagreement regarding the payment of a taxi ride between Italy and France,” said Mr Duffau.

“After an investigation by French police, the Bonneville prosecutor’s office has decided to prosecute the taxi driver who has been summoned to appear at the Bonneville court on 3 November 2025.

“He has been charged with theft (of luggage and cash) to the detriment of Nicola Green and David Lindon Lammy.”

The couple had decided to take a private holiday in France after spending three days on a state visit to Italy with King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Sources say they arranged their own transport, at their own expense, through booking company getTransfer.com.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told the BBC there were no sensitive documents or laptops in the car and the foreign secretary had been travelling on his own personal passport, rather than a diplomatic one.

The FCDO strongly disputes the taxi driver’s version of events.

A spokesperson said: “The fare was paid in full.

“The foreign secretary and his wife are named as victims in this matter and the driver has been charged with theft.

“As there is an ongoing legal process, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

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.

Actress and singer Halle Bailey has been granted a restraining order against rapper and YouTube star DDG, her former boyfriend and the father of their one-year-old son.

The Little Mermaid star alleges he was repeatedly violent with her and made her fear for herself and their child.

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles judge ordered DDG, whose full name is Darryl Dwayne Granberry Jr, to stay away from Bailey and their son until a hearing on 6 June.

Bailey, 25, alleged there had been “multiple acts of physical violence” from Granberry since their split in October. BBC News has asked representatives for Granberry for comment.

In documents requesting the order, reported by the Associated Press, Bailey said: “Throughout our relationship, Darryl has been and continues to be physically, verbally, emotionally, and financially abusive towards me.

“I am seeking orders to protect myself and our son Halo from his ongoing abuse.”

Bailey and Granberry, 27, were in a relationship from 2022 until last year.

In the documents, the actress claims “things got physical between us” after Granberry repeatedly insulted her as she strapped the baby into a seat in his car in January.

“We fought each other, wrestling and tussling,” she said. “At one point, Darryl was pulling my hair. He then slammed my face on the steering wheel, causing my tooth to get chipped. I then stopped fighting back as I was in a lot of pain.”

Bailey included photos of her tooth and bruises on her arms in her filing, which have since been published by some US media outlets.

Two months after the alleged altercation, Bailey alleges that Granberry entered her house when she wasn’t home and texted her a photo of her bed along with a threatening message suggesting she was having sex with other men.

A few days later, she claimed, Granberry berated her when she did not want to send their unwell baby on a visit with him, then smashed the Ring doorbell camera on her porch when he realised it was recording their confrontation.

She further alleged that, when she called a relative for help, he took her phone and slammed a car door on her as she was holding the baby. Bailey filed a police report over the incident.

As part of the restraining order, Granberry was also instructed not to possess any weapons. The judge can extend the order for up to five years at the 6 June hearing.

Bailey also requested that Granberry be ordered to stop using his social media platforms to continue “bad mouthing me to his several millions of fans”.

“He claims I am withholding our son and that I am with other men. As a result, I then receive threats and hate on social media,” she said in the documents.

Bailey shot to fame as part of Chloe x Halle, a pop duo with her sister, and later released music as a solo artist. She has been nominated for five Grammy Awards.

As an actress, she appeared in sitcom Grown-ish from 2018 to 2022. Her biggest role to date, however, was playing the titular character in Disney’s 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.

DDG rose to fame in the mid-2010s by posting videos on YouTube, and signed a record deal in 2018. He has released four studio albums.

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.

• Racially charged row between Musk and South Africa over Starlink
• What’s really driving Trump’s fury with South Africa?

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”.

• Almost 70,000 South Africans interested in US asylum
• Is it checkmate for South Africa after Trump threats?
• US cuts send South Africa’s HIV treatment ‘off a cliff’

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not among the names listed by the Kremlin as being due to attend peace talks on the war in Ukraine in Istanbul on Thursday, despite calls from Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for him to attend.

Russia’s delegation will instead be headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, according to the 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.

US President Donald Trump will also not be attending, according to media reports, despite previously hinting he would if Putin were there.

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

He said he would attend direct talks in Istanbul with Russia, but only if Putin also attended.

“I am waiting to see who will come from Russia, and then I will decide which steps Ukraine should take. So far, the signals from them in the media are unconvincing,” he said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.

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.

• Beginning of the end? Ukraine’s front-line soldiers eye Russia talks with hope

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

Putin’s suggestion of direct talks in Istanbul followed Western powers’ call for a 30-day ceasefire, after European leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday.

After Trump called for Ukraine to accept the offer on Sunday, Zelensky said he would travel there himself.

“There is no point in prolonging the killings. And I will be waiting for Putin in Türkiye on Thursday. Personally,” Zelensky wrote in a social media post.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump had 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.

The country’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, where he will meet Nato foreign ministers on Thursday.

Ahead of that meeting, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he met Rubio on Wednesday evening. Sybiha said he had reaffirmed Ukraine’s commitment to US peace efforts, and called on Russia to “reciprocate Ukraine’s constructive steps”.

Rubio plans to travel onwards to Istanbul on Friday, where the State Department says he will attend talks with European counterparts to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Arriving at his hotel in Antalya on Wednesday, Rubio did not answer when the BBC asked him if Putin would be coming to Turkey.

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

He ended a years-long Western boycott of Russia’s leader by speaking to Putin over the phone in February, and his envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Moscow.

Trump has previously said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal”.

On Sunday, when Putin proposed the direct talks, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “A potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!”

In his eagerness to accept a plane from Qatar, Donald Trump has achieved a remarkable feat, uniting many partisans across America’s bitter political divide.

The problem for the White House is that unity is happening in opposition to it.

Predictably, Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party slammed the president after he indicated he would accept a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family.

More noteworthy – and potentially more troubling for the president – is that some of his strongest supporters also have serious reservations about the deal, even as it’s yet to be finalised.

Maga influencers have described the move as a “bribe”, grift, or an example of the high-level corruption that Trump himself has consistently promised root out.

The Qatari royal family plans to give the luxury Boeing 747-8, estimated to be worth $400m (£300m), to the US Department of Defence to be used as part of a fleet of planes dubbed Air Force One – the president’s official mode of air travel.

The current fleet includes two 747-200 jets which have been in use since 1990, along with several smaller and somewhat secretive 757s.

The White House says that the new plane – which could require years and millions of dollars to refit and upgrade – will be transferred to Trump’s presidential library at the end of his term.

After the news broke on Sunday, the backlash was fierce and immediate.

“I think the technical term is ‘skeezy’,” deadpanned conservative Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro on his podcast.

“Qatar is not allegedly giving President Trump a $400m jet out of the goodness of their sweet little hearts,” he said. “They try to stuff money into pockets in totally bipartisan fashion.”

He and others pointed to allegations that Qatar has funnelled money into terrorist groups – allegations the country has denied – and called Qataris “the world’s largest proponents of terrorism on an international scale.”

Laura Loomer, the conspiracy-spreading social media influencer who agitates for sackings of top White House officials deemed insufficiently loyal, interrupted her steady stream of pro-Trump messaging to criticise the move.

Although she said she still supports the president, she called the plane deal “a stain” and posted a cartoon of the Trojan Horse, redrawn as a plane and filled with armed Islamist militants.

Trump found little support for the plan in more mainstream outlets as well.

The New York Post, which usually can be counted on to back much of the populist Maga agenda, ran a blunt editorial: “Qatar’s ‘Palace in the Sky’ jet is NOT a ‘free gift’ – and Trump shouldn’t accept it as one.”

And Mark Levin, a consistent cheerleader of the president on Fox News and his radio talk show, posted on X accusing Qatar of being a “terror state” and wrote: “Their jet and all the other things they are buying in our country does not provide them with the cover they seek”.

During his first term, Trump himself accused Qatar of funding terror groups.

When contacted by the BBC, the Qatari embassy in Washington pointed to an interview Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani gave CNN about the plane.

“It is a government-to-government transaction. It has nothing to do with personal relationships – neither on the US side, nor the Qatari side. It’s between the two defence ministries,” he said.

“Why would we buy influence in the United States?” he added, arguing Qatar has “always been a reliable and trusted partner. This is not a one-way relationship.”

• Is Trump allowed to accept a $400m luxury plane as a gift?

In response to criticism of the deal, the White House has doubled down. Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration was “committed to full transparency”.

“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” she said.

Although there has been nothing offered in exchange for the plane, many commentators said it would be naïve to expect that that Qatari royal family would hand out such a large item with no strings attached.

“They very obviously see that if you reward Donald Trump with gifts, that may pay off down the road,” Doug Heye, a political strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, told the BBC. “Flattery gets you somewhere with Donald Trump, and we’ve seen that time and time again.”

The US Constitution includes a clause preventing officials from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

But the White House has pointed out that, at least to begin with, the plane is being gifted to the US government.

Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly investigated the legality of the deal and determined that because there are no explicit conditions attached, it would not amount to a bribe.

Conservatives and others were quick to point out that Bondi was registered as a lobbyist for Qatar prior to joining Trump’s cabinet, at some points earning up to $115,0000 (£87,000) a month from her work for the Qatari government.

The Trump Organisation also continues to maintain links to Qatar and last month announced a deal to build a luxury golf resort in the country.

During a news conference at the White House on Tuesday the president berated a reporter who raised questions about the ethics of the transaction.

“What do you say to people who view that luxury jet as a personal gift to you?” asked ABC reporter Rachel Scott.

“You should be embarrassed asking that question,” Trump replied, after using his standard “fake news” jibe.

“They’re giving us a free jet,” the president said. “I could say ‘No, no, no, don’t give us, I want to pay you a billion or 400 million’… or I could say ‘thank you very much’.”

On Truth Social, the president later reposted several messages pointing out that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, and wrote late Tuesday: “The Boeing 747 is being given to the United States Air Force/Department of Defense, NOT TO ME!”

“Only a FOOL would not accept this gift on behalf of our Country,” he wrote.

However even some within Trump’s Republican Party were expressing concern.

“I think it’s not worth the appearance of impropriety, whether it’s improper or not,” Rand Paul, Republican senator from Kentucky, told Fox News.

“I wonder if our ability to judge [Qatar’s] human rights record will be clouded by the fact of this large gift,” Paul said.

Another Republican senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, said accepting the gift would pose “significant espionage and surveillance problems”.

Trump did find some support within his party. “Free is good. You know, we don’t have a lot of money right now to buy things like that,” Sen Tommy Tuberville told CNN.

Doug Heye, the Republican strategist, suggested that the deal might not hurt Trump’s popularity with his base in the long term.

“Trump has been able for years now to turn scandals that would otherwise be debilitating for other politicians into things that we forget,” he said. “He’s very skilled at that.”

Last week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $1bn (£756m) bailout to Pakistan – a move that drew sharp disapproval from India as military hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours flared, before a US-led ceasefire was unexpectedly declared.

Despite India’s protests, the IMF board approved the second instalment of a $7bn loan, saying Islamabad had demonstrated strong programme implementation leading to a continuing economic recovery in Pakistan.

It also said the fund would continue to support Pakistan’s efforts in building economic resilience to “climate vulnerabilities and natural disasters”, providing further access of around $1.4bn in funding in the future.

In a strongly worded statement India raised concerns over the decision, citing two reasons.

Delhi questioned the “efficacy” of such bailouts or the lack thereof, given Pakistan’s “poor track record” in implementing reform measures. But more importantly it flagged the possibility of these funds being used for “state-sponsored cross-border terrorism” – a charge Islamabad has repeatedly denied – and said the IMF was exposing itself and its donors to “reputational risks” and making a “mockery of global values”.

The IMF did not respond to the BBC’s request for a comment on the Indian stance.

Even Pakistani experts argue that there’s some merit to Delhi’s first argument. Pakistan has been prone to persistently seeking the IMF’s help – getting bailed out 24 times since 1958 – without undertaking meaningful reforms to improve public governance.

“Going to the IMF is like going to the ICU [intensive care unit]. If a patient goes 24 or 25 times to the ICU then there are structural challenges and concerns that need to be dealt with,” Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the US, told the BBC.

But addressing Delhi’s other concerns – that the IMF was “rewarding continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism” thereby sending a “dangerous message to the global community” – is far more complex, and perhaps explains why India wasn’t able to exert pressure to stall the bailout.

India’s decision to try to prevent the next tranche of the bailout to Islamabad was more about optics then, rather than a desire for any tangible outcome, say experts. As per the country’s own observations, the fund had limited ability to do something about the loan, and was “circumscribed by procedural and technical formalities”.

As one of the 25 members of the IMF board, India’s influence at the fund is limited. It represents a four-country group including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Pakistan is part of the Central Asia group, represented by Iran.

Unlike the United Nations’ one-country-one-vote system, the voting rights of IMF board members are based on a country’s economic size and its contributions – a system which has increasingly faced criticism for favouring richer Western countries over developing economies.

For example, the US has the biggest voting share – at 16.49% – while India holds just 2.6%. Besides, IMF rules do not allow for a vote against a proposal – board members can either vote in favour or abstain – and the decisions are made by consensus on the board.

“This shows how vested interests of powerful countries can influence decisions,” an economist who didn’t want to speak on the record told the BBC.

Addressing this imbalance was a key proposal in the reforms mooted for the IMF and other multilateral lenders during India’s G20 presidency in 2023.

In their report, former Indian bureaucrat NK Singh and former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers recommended breaking the link between IMF voting rights and financial contributions to ensure fairer representation for both the “Global North” and the “Global South”. But there has been no progress so far on implementing these recommendations.

Furthermore, recent changes in the IMF’s own rules about funding countries in conflict add more complexity to the issue. A $15.6bn loan by the fund to Ukraine in 2023 was the first of its kind by the IMF to a country at war.

“It bent its own rules to give an enormous lending package to Ukraine – which means it cannot use that excuse to shut down an already-arranged loan to Pakistan,” Mihir Sharma of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank in Delhi told the BBC.

If India really wants to address its grievances, the right forum to present them would be the United Nations FATF (Financial Action Task Force), says Mr Haqqani.

The FATF looks at issues of combating terror finance and decides whether countries need to be placed on grey or black lists that prevent them from accessing funds from bodies like the IMF or the World Bank.

“Grandstanding at the IMF cannot and did not work,” said Mr Haqqani. “If a country is on that [FATF] list it will then face challenges in getting a loan from the IMF – as has happened with Pakistan earlier.”

As things stand though, Pakistan was officially removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in 2022.

Separately, experts also caution that India’s calls to overhaul the IMF’s funding processes and veto powers could be a double-edged sword.

Such reforms “would inevitably give Beijing [rather than Delhi] more power”, said Mr Sharma.

Mr Haqqani agrees. India should be wary of using “bilateral disputes at multilateral fora”, he said, adding that India has historically been at the receiving end of being vetoed out by China in such places.

He points to instances of Beijing blocking ADB (Asian Development Bank) loans sought by India for the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, citing border disputes between the two countries in the region.

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.

When reached by the BBC, Buckingham Palace said the issue was a matter for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and did not comment further.

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.”

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.

Israel is preparing a series of sites in Gaza that could be used as distribution centres for humanitarian aid in a controversial new plan, satellite images show.

The Israeli government suspended food and medicine deliveries into Gaza in March.

Ministers said the move, which has been condemned by UN, European and Middle Eastern leaders, was intended to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. Israel also accused Hamas of stealing aid – an allegation the group has denied.

The UN has said the blockade has caused severe shortages of food, medicines and fuel, and an assessment on Monday warned that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million people was at “critical risk” of famine.

The US confirmed last week that it was preparing a new system for providing aid from a series of hubs inside Gaza, which would be run by private companies and protected by security contractors and Israeli forces.

Images analysed by BBC Verify show that land has already been cleared, with new roads and staging areas constructed at a number of locations in southern and central Gaza in recent weeks.

Israel has not publicly said where the hubs will be, but humanitarian sources – briefed previously by Israeli officials – told BBC Verify that at least four centres will be built in the southern section of Gaza and one further north near the Netzarim Corridor, a strip of land controlled by the military that effectively divides the territory.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – an organisation set up to support the plan – initially said food, water and hygiene kits would be supplied to 1.2 million people, less than 60% of the population.

On Wednesday it announced it would start operations before the end of May, and appeared to call for Israel to allow aid through normal channels until its distribution centres were fully operational. It also called for aid hubs to be built in northern Gaza, something not envisaged under the original plan.

UN agencies have insisted they will not co-operate with the plan – which is in line with one previously approved by Israel’s government – saying it contradicted fundamental humanitarian principles.

A spokesperson for the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel of seeking to use “food and fuel as leverage, as part of a military strategy”.

“All aid would be channelled through a handful of militarised hubs,” Olga Cherevko told BBC Verify.

“That kind of arrangement would cut off vast areas of Gaza – particularly the most vulnerable, who can’t move easily, or are otherwise marginalised – from any help at all.”

Meanwhile, Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam described the new plan as a “farce”.

“No logistical solution is going to address Israel’s strategy of forcible displacement and using starvation as a weapon of war. Lift the siege, open the crossings and let us do our job.”

It is understood that the proposed new system has not yet had final sign-off from the Israeli government.

BBC Verify used satellite imagery to identify four potential sites based on the limited available information about their locations.

The sites are similar in size, shape and design to existing open-air distribution sites inside Gaza, such as at Erez, Erez West and Kisufim. The largest site we’ve looked at is bigger – more comparable to the area inside Gaza at Kerem Shalom crossing.

Our analysis of the imagery shows significant development at one of the sites in south-west Gaza, close to the ruins of a village that is now an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) base.

Satellite photos since early April show the construction of a road there and a large staging area, surrounded by berms – large defensive barriers made of piled sand – about 650m (2,130ft) from the border with Egypt.

A high-resolution image captured on 8 May shows bulldozers and excavators working on a section of land spanning about 20 acres (8 hectares). IDF armoured vehicles are at a fortified building nearby.

A photo taken on site, geolocated by BBC Verify, also shows lighting being installed on the perimeter.

Further imagery from 11 and 12 May shows this, along with three other sites, continuing to expand. One site is about half a kilometre from a collection of eight UN warehouses, and 280m from another large warehouse.

Stu Ray – a senior imagery analyst with McKenzie Intelligence – agreed the sites were likely to be secure distribution centres. He noted that some of the facilities are in “close proximity to IDF Forward Operating Bases which ties in with the IDF wishing to have some control over the sites”.

Analysts with another intelligence firm, Maiar, said the facilities appeared to be designed with separate entrances for trucks to move in and out, and with other gaps in the berms that would be suitable for pedestrian entrances.

The IDF did not comment on the potential aid centres when approached by BBC Verify, but said that its operations in Gaza were carried out “in accordance with international law”. Cogat – the Israeli body responsible for managing crossings into Gaza – did not respond to a request for comment.

Three of the four sites located by BBC Verify are south of the IDF’s newly created Morag Corridor.

This is an Israeli military zone that runs across the Gaza Strip and separates the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

Since the IDF established a security zone there in early April, a six-mile (10km) road has been built covering two thirds of the width of Gaza, bordered by defensive berms and dotted with IDF outposts.

This new road leads directly to one of the development sites visible in satellite imagery, and a pre-existing road connects it to two more.

This entire area has been subjected to extensive land clearance by the IDF. BBC Verify has geolocated video and images of areas throughout the Morag Corridor, and south of it, filmed by Israeli forces, which show controlled demolitions using explosives and heavy machinery, and extensive destruction of buildings.

Humanitarian sources said Israeli briefings indicated that aid would enter Gaza via Kerem Shalom crossing.

Satellite imagery shows ongoing construction work happening there too over the past few months, with the apparent expansion of its storage areas, and new roads added.

Since Israel stopped new aid supplies in March, the UN has reiterated that it has an obligation under international law to ensure that the basic needs of the population under its control are met.

Israel has insisted that it is complying with international law and that there is no shortage of aid in Gaza.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

A luxury superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily, killing the tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch along with six others, was knocked over by “extreme wind” and could not recover, according to an interim report into the disaster.

The UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), which has led the international investigation, said winds of over 80mph “violently” hit the vessel, causing it to flood within seconds.

The Bayesian sank near the town of Portofino on 19 August of last year during freak weather, with reports of water spouts.

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

Investigators say the yacht was knocked to a 90-degree angle within 15 seconds at 04:06 am local time, causing people, furniture and loose items to fall across the deck.

“There was no indication of flooding inside Bayesian until water came in over the starboard rails and, within seconds, entered the internal spaces down the stairwells,” the report says.

The MAIB’s chief inspector of marine accidents Andrew Moll said the situation was “irrecoverable” once the yacht tilted beyond 70 degrees.

The Bayesian was also “vulnerable” to lighter winds, according to the report, with speeds of 73mph able to tip it over.

The owner and crew of the yacht were unaware of this, as it was not included in the onboard stability information book, it adds.

The MAIB is investigating the incident as the Bayesian was registered in the UK. No date has been set for when its final report will be published.

It said its report was based on “a limited amount of verified evidence” as a criminal investigation by Italian authorities has restricted access to the wreck.

An operation to raise the 56-metre vessel from the seabed was paused over the weekend after a diver died while working on the wreck. Work is set to resume on Thursday.

The report lays out more detail as to how the sinking unfolded.

Investigators say the yacht sailed to the site where it sank on the previous day, in order to “shelter” from forecast thunderstorms. The sails were furled at the time.

Wind speed was “no more than eight knots (9mph)” at 03:00 – about an hour before the incident. Some 55 minutes later it had increased to 30 knots (34.5mph), and it had accelerated to 70 knots (80.6mph) by 04:06 when the yacht capsized.

As the storm intensified, several crew members were working in response to the conditions. The deck hand went onto the deck to close the yacht’s windows.

Five people were injured “either by falling or from things falling on them” and the deck hand was “thrown into the sea”, the report says.

Two of the yacht’s guests used furniture drawers “as an improvised ladder” to escape their cabin, it adds.

Dr Simon Boxall, Oceanographer at the University of Southampton, said the Bayesian was in “the wrong place at the wrong time”.

“The priorities for the crew would have been to shut the hatches and the doors, which they did,” he told the BBC.

This means speculation about water flooding in because everything was open is “obviously not the case”.

“The next priority would have been to start the engines – so they would have some manoeuvrability to position themselves within a storm – and to then lift anchor, which the crew did, but this takes time,” he added.

“It’s not like a car where you jump in and turn the key. It would take 5 or 10 minutes before you can start the engines with a vessel of this size.”

Survivors escaped on the Bayesian’s life raft and were rescued by a small boat dispatched from another nearby yacht, the report says.

Mike Lynch was a prominent figure in the UK tech industry, where his backing of successful companies led to him being dubbed the British equivalent of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

But the latter years of his life were consumed by a long-running legal dispute which resulted in him being controversially extradited to the US.

Inquest proceedings in the UK are looking at the deaths of Mr Lynch and his daughter, as well as Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer, who were all British nationals.

US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo also died in the sinking, along with Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, who was working as the yacht’s chef.

Fifteen people managed to escape on a lifeboat, including Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.

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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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The UK government has hit back at suggestions the tariff agreement it reached with the US last week could be damaging to China.

It said there was “no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment” in the deal.

The UK-US agreement rowed back on big hikes in tariffs on metals and cars imposed by President Donald Trump, but it also included conditions requiring the UK to “promptly meet” US demands on the “security of the supply chains” of steel and aluminium products exported to America.

Beijing fears this could see it being excluded from supplying US-bound goods to the UK, telling the Financial Times it was a “basic principle” that bilateral trade deals should not target other countries.

At a regular press conference on Tuesday China’s foreign ministry spokesperson was asked about the UK’s trade agreements with the US and India.

Lin Jian said: “As for the trade agreement… between the UK and relevant countries, I would like to point out that cooperation between countries should not target or harm the interests of third parties.”

China is the world’s second biggest economy and the UK’s fifth biggest trading partner. In 2024 total bilateral trade hit £98.4bn.

In response to the latest comments from China, the UK government said the agreement with the US was “in the national interest to secure thousands of jobs across key sectors, protect British businesses and lay the groundwork for greater trade in the future”.

Any “external provisions” in the agreement were “not designed to undermine mutually beneficial economic relations with any third country”, it said.

“As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury clearly stated, there is no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment in this trade deal.”

It added that “trade and investment with China remain important to the UK.”

Under the UK-US deal Trump’s blanket 10% tariffs on imports from countries around the world still applies to most UK goods entering the US.

But the deal has reduced or removed tariffs on some of the UK’s exports, including steel and aluminium.

The terms of the agreement say the UK will “work to promptly meet US requirements on the security of the supply chains of steel and aluminium products intended for export to the United States and on the nature of ownership of relevant production facilities”.

The US and China have been engaged in a tariffs war since the beginning of this year.

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

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

However, on Monday, Trump said talks over the weekend between the US and China had resulted in a “total reset” in terms of trade between the two countries, with tariffs either being cut or suspended on both sides.

The result is that additional US tariffs on Chinese imports – that’s the extra tariffs imposed in this recent stand-off – will fall from 145% to 30%, while recently-hiked Chinese tariffs on some US imports will fall from 125% to 10%.

The move is seen as helping to defuse the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.