Hamas has proposed releasing more hostages under a new Gaza ceasefire deal, after new negotiations were held on Saturday. The talks began hours after Israel’s military launched a major new offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has agreed to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day truce and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, a Palestinian official told the BBC.

The official said the new proposed deal would also allow the entry of 400 aid trucks a day, and the evacuation of medical patients from Gaza. Israel, in turn, has demanded proof of life and detailed information about all remaining hostages.

The new round of ceasefire talks is being held through Qatari and US mediators in Doha, and began on Saturday afternoon local time.

Israel is yet to respond publicly to the proposed deal, but said prior to the talks that it would not withdraw troops from Gaza or commit to an end to the war.

The proposal would not include these elements, the BBC understands.

Israel’s military announced the launch of a new offensive named “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” earlier on Saturday, amid the deadliest wave of strikes in Gaza in months.

At least 300 people have been killed since Thursday, rescuers say, including at hospitals and refugee camps in the north and south of the Strip.

Thousands have died since Israel resumed strikes on 18 March, following the collapse of a fragile ceasefire which lasted two months.

Aid agencies say Gaza’s grievous humanitarian situation has also worsened, as Israel has been blocking supplies of food and other aid from entering the territory for 10 weeks.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month promised a major military escalation in the war to occupy and control swathes of Gaza, force the Palestinian population to the south of the territory, and “destroy” Hamas.

Speaking from inside Gaza, journalist Ghada Al Qurd told the BBC’s Newshour programme there had been lots of “airstrikes, shellings, drones, shooting and even exploding, in the north and east.”

“It’s terrifying and horrible,” she said.

She said her family had only been having one meal a day, due to the scarcity and spiralling cost, and accused Israel of “using food as a weapon” – an allegation UN officials have also made in recent weeks.

Aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among Gaza’s 2.1 million population, as footage and accounts emerge of emaciated children suffering malnutrition under the Israeli blockade.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people were starving” in Gaza. The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.

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Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her team were “exhausted” and staff had lost a “considerable amount of weight”.

“The children are really thin,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out.

“A lot of them have quite significant burn injuries and with this level of malnutrition they’re so much more prone to infection and they’ve got so much less capacity to heal.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said on 5 May that Israel was preparing an “intense entry into Gaza” to capture and hold territory, but that it would not commence until Trump completed his tour of the Middle East. He left the region on Friday.

That day, residents across northern and central Gaza were told to leave their homes or places of shelter – an order aid workers say is almost impossible because many have already been repeatedly made homeless during the war.

The IDF said on Saturday it wouldn’t stop operating “until Hamas is no longer a threat and all our hostages are home” and that it had “struck over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the preceding 24 hours.

Strikes on Saturday hit towns in the north of Gaza, including Beit Lahiya and the Jabalia refugee camp, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Hamas-run health ministry and civil defence forces said.

Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, could enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days. Israeli tanks have also been seen at the border, Reuters news agency reported.

The intensified offensive has been condemned by the UN and some European leaders.

Commissioner-General of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) Philippe Lazzarini expressed shock at Israel’s military operation, saying: “How many more Palestinian lives will be wiped off from their homeland by bombardments, hunger or lack of medical care?”

“Atrocities are becoming a new norm, under our watch, making the unbearable bearable with indifference,” he said.

Following the new strikes, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani all called for a permanent ceasefire, while Germany’s Foreign Ministry said the new offensive risked “worsening the catastrophic humanitarian situation for Gaza’s population and the remaining hostages”.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Hamas still holds 58 hostages.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, including more than 3,000 people since March.

Sixteen-year-old Nimra stood outside, rooted to the spot, as the Indian missiles that had woken her a moment ago rained down on the mosque a few metres from her house in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. She watched one tear the minaret off the top of the building. But she failed to realise she, too, had been struck – in the chest.

When the family reached the relative safety of her aunt’s house nearby, someone turned on a phone torch. “My aunt gasped. There was blood on my frock. It was pink and white but now soaked in red. I hadn’t seen it before.” Again they ran. “I was running but my hand was pressed on my chest the whole time. I didn’t want to take it off. I thought if I let go, everything inside me would come out.” A piece of shrapnel was lodged near her heart, she later discovered.

A few hours later, in Poonch, Indian-administered Kashmir, a different family was dodging shelling which Pakistan had launched in response to India’s missile strikes.

“When the firing began, everyone ran for their lives – children clinging to their parents in fear,” said MN Sudhan, 72. “Some families managed to leave for Jammu in their vehicles. We also decided to escape. But barely 10 minutes into our journey, a shell landed near our vehicle. The shrapnel tore through the car. My grandson died on the spot.”

“Our future was shattered at that [very] moment,” Mr Sudhan said of 13-year-old Vihaan’s death. “Now we’re left with nothing but grief. I have witnessed two wars between India and Pakistan, but never in my life have I seen shelling as intense as this.”

Nimra and Vihaan were among many of the villagers caught up in the deadliest attacks for several years in a decades-long conflict between two of the world’s nuclear powers – India and Pakistan. Both sides administer the Himalayan region in part but claim it in full. Both governments deny targeting civilians, but BBC journalists in the region have spoken to families caught up in the violence.

The strike that injured Nimra was part of India’s armed response after a militant attack killed 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – last month at a beauty spot in India-administered Kashmir. Police there claimed militants included at least two Pakistan nationals. Pakistan has asked India for evidence of this, and has called for an independent inquiry into who was behind the attack.

What followed was four days of tit-for-tat shelling and drone attacks, intensifying each day and culminating in missile strikes on military bases, which threatened to tip over into full-blown conflict. Then, suddenly, a ceasefire brokered by the US and other international players on 10 May brought the two nuclear powers back from the brink.

Families on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border in Kashmir – told us they had had loved ones killed and property destroyed. At least 16 people are reported to have been killed on the Indian side, while Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, though it remains unclear how many were directly caused by the shelling. We also heard from Indian and Pakistani government insiders about the mood in their respective administrations as the conflict escalated.

In Delhi’s corridors of power, the atmosphere was initially jubilant, an Indian government source told the BBC. Its missile attacks on targets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Pakistan itself – including the Bilal Mosque in Muzaff arabad, which India claims is a militant camp, though Pakistan denies this – were deemed a success.

“The strikes… were not limited to Pakistani-administered Kashmir or along the Line of Control,” an Indian government source told the BBC. “We went deep – even into the Pakistani side of Punjab, which has always been Pakistan’s red line.”

But the Pakistani military had been prepared, a source from the Pakistan Air Force told the BBC. Days earlier, the Pakistani government said it was expecting an attack.

“We knew something was coming, and we were absolutely ready,” one officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said Indian fighter jets approached Pakistani territory and the air force was under instructions to shoot down any that crossed into its airspace or dropped a payload.

Pakistan claims to have shot down five Indian jets that night, something India has remained silent on.

“We were well prepared, and honestly, we were also lucky,” the source said – his account repeated by two other sources.

But Mr Sudhan, Vihaan’s grandfather, said there had been no warning to stay indoors or evacuate. “Why didn’t they inform us? We, the people, are caught in the middle.”

It is likely that no evacuation orders had been issued because the Indian government needed to keep the military strikes confidential, though the local administration had, following the April militant attack, directed locals to clean out community bunkers as a precautionary measure.

A day after the initial missile strikes, Thursday, both sides launched drone attacks, though they each accused the other of making the first move.

India began to evacuate thousands of villagers along the Indian side of the LoC. Just after 21:00 that evening, the Khan family in India-administered Kashmir decided they must flee their home in Uri, 270km (168 miles) to the north of Poonch. Most of their neighbours had already left.

But after travelling for just 10 minutes, their vehicle was struck by shrapnel from a shell, fatally injuring 47-year-old Nargis. Her sister-in-law Hafeeza was seriously injured. They headed to the nearest hospital, only to find the gates locked.

“I somehow climbed the hospital wall and called out for help, telling them we had injured people with us. Only then did the staff come out and open the gate. As soon as they did, I collapsed. The doctors were terrified by the ongoing shelling and had closed everything out of fear,” Hafeeza said.

Hafeeza’s sister-in-law Nargis is survived by six children. The youngest daughter Sanam, 20, said the first hospital they went to was not equipped to help, and as they headed to another, her mother died of her injuries.

“A piece of shrapnel had torn through her face. My clothes were soaked in her blood… We kept talking to her, urging her to stay with us. But she passed away on the way.”

Since a ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in 2021 there had been relative peace in the region, locals told the BBC. For the first time in years, they had been able to live normal lives, they said, and now this sense of security was destroyed.

Sanam, who lost her mother, said: “I appeal to both governments – if you’re heading into war, at least secure your civilians. Prepare… Those who sit in comfort and demand war – they should be sent to the borders. Let them witness what it really means. Let them lose someone before their eyes.”

Sajjad Shafi, the representative for Uri in the regional government, said he had acted as promptly as possible.

“The moment I got the news that India has attacked, I got in touch with people and started moving them out.”

After two days of attacks and counter attacks, the Indian government source said there was now a “clear sense in… power corridors that things were escalating but we were ready.

“We were ready because India had spent the last 10 years acquiring and building strategic military assets – missiles, warheads and defence systems.”

On the international stage, there had been consternation that the tensions would not be de-escalated by the US, despite its diplomatic overtures during India and Pakistan’s previous Kashmir clashes.

US Vice President JD Vance said a potential war would be “none of our business”.

This statement came as no surprise, the Indian government source told the BBC. At that stage, “it was clear the US didn’t want to get involved”.

By the following day, Friday, shelling had become more intense.

Muhammed Shafi was at home with his wife in Shahkot village in the Neelum Valley, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on the LoC.

The 30-year-old was standing in the doorway, just a few steps away from where his son was playing; his wife standing in their courtyard.

“I remember looking up and seeing a mortar shell coming from a distance. In the blink of an eye, it struck her. She didn’t even have time to scream. One second she was there, and the next, she was gone. Her face… her head… there was nothing left. Just a cloud of smoke and dust. My ears went numb. Everything went silent. I didn’t even realise I was screaming.

“That night, her body lay there, right in our home. The entire village was hiding in bunkers. The shelling continued all night, and I stayed beside her, weeping. I held her hand for as long as I could.”

One of those in a bunker was his niece, 18-year-old Umaima. She and her family were holed up in the shelter for four days, on and off, in brutal conditions.

“There were six or seven of us packed into it,” she said. “The other bunker was already full. There’s no place to lie down in there – some people stood, others sat. There was no drinking water, no food,” with people shouting, crying and reciting prayers in the pitch black.

Also in a bunker, in the Leepa Valley, Pakistan-Administered Kashmir – one of the most militarised and vulnerable valleys in the region – was Shams Ur Rehman and family. It is Shams’s own bunker, but that night he shared it with 36 other people, he said.

Leepa is surrounded on three sides by the LoC and Indian-administered territory, so Shams was used to living with cross-border tensions. But he was not prepared for the complete destruction of his house.

He left the bunker at three in the morning to survey the scene.

“Everything was gone. Wooden beams and debris from the house were scattered everywhere. The blast was so powerful, the shockwave pushed in the main wall. The metal sheets on the roof were shredded. The entire structure shifted – by at least two inches.

“A house is a person’s life’s work. You’re always trying to improve it – but in the end, it’s all gone in seconds.”

Four hours later, back in the Neelum Valley, Umaima and her family also emerged on Saturday 10 May to a transformed landscape.

“We came out of the bunker at seven in the morning. That’s when we saw – nothing was left.”

As Umaima surveyed the ruins of her village, India and Pakistan’s forces that day were trading ever more destructive blows – firing missiles at each other’s military installations, which both sides accused the other of instigating.

India had targeted three Pakistani air bases, including one in Rawalpindi – the garrison city that houses the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters.

“This was a red line crossed,” said one Pakistani officer. “The prime minister gave the go-ahead to the army chief. We already had a plan, and our forces were desperately ready to execute it… For anyone in uniform, it was one of those unforgettable days.”

Pakistan hit back at Indian military installations. On the diplomatic front, this was seen as a moment to highlight the issue of Kashmir on the international stage, an official in the Pakistan foreign office told the BBC.

“It was non-stop. Endless meetings, coordination, and back-to-back calls to and from other countries for both foreign minister and then the prime minister. We welcomed mediation offers from the US, the Saudis, the Iranians, or anyone who could help de-escalate.”

On the Indian side, the Pahalgam attack on 22 April had already prompted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to speak to at least 17 world leaders or diplomats, including UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In most of these conversations, he has tweeted, the emphasis had been on the “cross-border terrorist attack” and focused on building a case to hold the perpetrators accountable for the attack.

Then, on Saturday afternoon local time, in the aftermath of the latest missile exchanges, came a diplomatic breakthrough out of nowhere. US President Donald Trump took to social media to reveal that a ceasefire had been agreed.

“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.

“Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” he wrote on social media platform Truth Social.

India has since downplayed Washington’s role in the ceasefire and it has rejected that trade was used as a lever to achieve this.

Behind the scenes, US mediators, diplomatic backchannels and regional players, including the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia, had proved critical in negotiating the climbdown, experts say.

“We hit Pakistani strategic bases deep inside their territory and that must have worried the US,” the Indian government source believes.

In Pahalgam, the site of the militant gun attack that sparked the crisis, the search is still on for the perpetrators.

Vinay Narwal, a 26-year-old Indian Navy officer, was on his honeymoon in Pahalgam when he was killed. He had got married just a week before the attack.

A photo of Vinay’s wife Himanshi, sitting near her husband’s body following the attack, has been widely shared on social media.

His grandfather Hawa Singh Narwal wants “exemplary punishment” for the killers.

“This terrorism should end. Today, I lost my grandson. Tomorrow, someone else will lose their loved one,” he said.

A witness to the attack’s aftermath, Rayees Ahmad Bhat, who used to lead pony treks to the beauty spot where the shootings took place, said his industry was now in ruins.

“The attackers may have killed tourists that day, but we – the people of Pahalgam – are dying every day since. They’ve stained the name of this peaceful town… Pahalgam is terrorised, and its people broken.”

The attack was a huge shock for a government which had begun to actively promote tourism in stunningly picturesque Kashmir, famed for its lush valleys, lakes and snow-capped mountains.

The source in the Indian administration said this might have lulled Delhi into a false sense of security.

“Perhaps we got carried away by the response to tourism in Kashmir. We thought we were over a hump but we were not.”

The four-day conflict has once again shown how fragile peace can be between the two nations.

Austrian singer JJ has won the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, after a nail-biting finish that saw him topple Israel from pole position at the very last minute.

The 24-year-old, who is a counter-tenor at the Vienna State Opera, took the title with the song Wasted Love, an tempestuous electro-ballad about unrequited love.

“Thank you so much for making my dreams come true,” he said as he accepted the coveted glass microphone trophy. “Love is the strongest force in the world, let’s spread more love.”

The singer scored 436 points, with Israel in second place on 357 and Estonia third on 356. The UK’s act, Remember Monday, placed 19th with 88 points.

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For the second year in a row, the UK received zero from the public.

1. Austria: JJ – Wasted Love
2. Israel: Yuval Raphael: New Day Will Rise
3. Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
4. Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
5. Italy: Lucio Corsi – Volevo Essere Un Duro

JJ’s younger sister broke through security guards to hug him after his victory was announced.

The Austrian said his whole family had arrived to support him at the contest, including his 85-year-old grandfather, and a four-month-old niece, who watched outside with his brother.

It is the third time Austria has won the contest, with previous victories going to Udo Jürgens’ Merci, Cherie in 1966; and Conchita Wurst with Rise Like a Phoenix in 2014. JJ was inspired to take part in Eurovision by Conchita.

The singer had always been one of the favourites to win, but the most hotly-tipped contestants were Sweden’s KAJ – whose tongue-in-cheek ode to sauna culture, Bara Bada Bastu, ultimately took fourth place.

Speaking after the show, JJ said he was “so pleased” that viewers had connected with his story of heartache.

“I wanted to let them have an insight on my deepest soul [and] how I felt when we wrote the song.”

“What I’m trying to commit [to] is that there’s no wasted love. There’s so much love that we can spread around. It’s the strongest force on planet earth.”

Asked how he would celebrate, he replied: “Honestly, I need to sleep now. I’m tired.”

For the second year in a row, there was controversy over Israel’s participation, with protestors arguing for the country’s dismissal over its military action in Gaza.

Pro-Palestinian protests took place on the streets of Basel in the hours before the contest.

Later, a man and a woman people were prevented from invading the stage during Israel’s performance.

“One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit,” said Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR in a statement to the BBC.

“The crew member is fine and nobody was injured.

“The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.”

The performance, by young singer Yuval Raphael, was unaffected.

The 25-year-old is a survivor of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, 2023, an experience which coloured her delicate ballad, New Day Will Rise.

The Israeli delegation said Raphael was left “shaken and upset” by the incident, but that it was “extremely proud” of her performance “which represented Israel in a respectful manner”.

Elsewhere, Eurovision was its usual explosion of high camp, sexual innuendo and dresses being removed to reveal smaller, tighter dresses.

Malta’s Mariana Conte was forced to rewrite her disco anthem Serving Kant to remove what sounded like a swear word – but performed the censored version with a knowing wink, safe in the knowledge the audience would fill in the blanks.

Although it was a fan favourite, Conte could only manage 17th.

Estonia’s Tommy Cash, who came third, also kept the innuendo train running, with Espresso Macchiato, a caffeinated disco anthem featuring the unforgettable phrase: “Life is like spaghetti, it’s hard until you make it.”

Another highlight was Finland’s Erika Vikman, who dispensed with double entendres entirely on Ich Komme, a vibrant hymn to sexual pleasure.

The singer ended her performance by taking flight on a giant phallic microphone that shot sparks into the air.

It thrust her into 11th position, and a permanent place in the Eurovision pantheon.

The contest also dealt with more weighty subjects like economic migration (Portuguese rock band Napa) and environmental catastrophe (Latvia’s Tautumeitas, who scored 12 points from the UK jury).

Dutch singer Claude delivered a heartfelt tribute to his mother in C’est La Vie – an upbeat anthem that reflected on her positivity as she uprooted the family from their home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child.

In a touching climax, the 21-year-old danced with an image of his childhood self in a mirror on the stage.

Also reflecting on their childhood was French singer Louane, whose tearjerking ballad was dedicated to her mother, who died of cancer when she was 17.

In one of the night’s most striking performances, she was surrounded by a whirlwind of sand as she hollered the word “mother” over and over again.

One of the favourites to win, it ended the night in seventh place, after receiving a disappointing 50 points from the public.

JJ’s performance was similarly dramatic. Shot entirely in black and white, it saw him being tossed around on a rickety boat, as waves (of emotion) threatened to consume him.

An honourable mention also goes to Italy’s Lucio Corsi, whose harmonica solo in Volevo Essere Un Duro marked the first time a live instrument has been played at Eurovision since 1998.

The UK spent a third year in the bottom half of the leaderboard, despite a spirited performance from girl group Remember Monday.

A group of friends who met at high school, their inventive pop song What The Hell Just Happened? drew on their many years of experience in West End theatre.

The girls pulled off their tricky three-part harmonies while dancing around a fallen chandelier, but the performance didn’t connect with voters.

Despite earning a healthy 88 points from juries – including 12 from Italy – it bombed with viewers.

They ended in 19th place, one below last year’s entrant Olly Alexander.

The group laughed off their “nul points” score from the public, holding up peace signs and hugging each other as the score was announced.

The voting was chaotic overall.

Thirteen of the 26 finalists received the maximum of 12 points from at least one jury, leaving the competition completely open before the public vote was counted.

Israel, who had been languishing in the bottom half of the table, then received 297 points from the public (out of a possible maximum of 444). Twelve of those points came from the UK.

For a while, it looked like Yuval Raphael’s lead might be unassailable – but Austria’s tally of 178 was the last to be announced, leaving the singer empty-handed.

There was disappointment, too, for fans of Canadian singer Céline Dion, who had been rumoured to appear at the contest.

The singer won Eurovision for Switzerland in 1988, and had appeared in a video wishing the contestants good luck at Tuesday’s semi-final.

Despite hopes from Eurovision organisers that she might turn up, the moment never came to pass.

With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

“He’s posing,” the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she’s trying to achieve – that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks – or extracts the venom from – 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On three of the four walls there are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked full of the arachnids, with a black curtain pulled across to keep them calm.

The remaining wall is actually a window. Through it, a small child stares, both fascinated and horrified, as Ms Teni works. Little do they know that the palm-sized spider she’s handling could kill them in a matter of minutes.

“Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously full of such deadly animals – and this room at the Australian Reptile Park plays a critical part in a government antivenom programme, which saves lives on a continent where it’s often joked that everything wants to kill you.

While the quickest recorded death from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler at 13 minutes, the average is closer to 76 minutes – and first aid gives you an even better chance of surviving.

So successful is the antivenom programme here at the Australian Reptile Park that nobody has been killed by one since it started in 1981.

The scheme relies, however, on members of the public either catching the spiders or collecting their egg sacs.

In a van plastered with a giant crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni’s team drives all over Australia’s most famous city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that have been handed in at drop-off points such as local veterinary practices.

There are two reasons why these spiders are so dangerous, she explains: not only is their venom extremely potent, but they also live exclusively in a densely populated region where they’re more likely to encounter humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is one such person. He moved into his first home with his girlfriend a few months ago, and the keen gardener has already found two Sydney funnel-webs. He took the second spider to the vet, where Ms Teni picked it up shortly after.

“I had gloves on at the time, but realistically I should have had leather gloves on because their fangs are so big and strong,” the 26-year-old says.

“I [just thought] I had better catch it because I kept getting told you’re meant to take them back to be milked, because it’s so critical.”

“This is curing my fear of spiders,” he jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads one arachnid that was delivered to her in a Vegemite jar, she stresses her team isn’t telling Australians to go looking for the spiders and “throw themselves into danger”.

Rather, they’re asking that if someone comes across one, they safely capture it rather than kill it.

“Saying that this is the world’s most deadly spider and then [asking the public to] catch it and bring it to us does sound counter-intuitive,” she says.

“[But] that spider there now, thanks to Charlie, will… effectively save someone’s life.”

All of the spiders her team collects get brought back to the Australian Reptile Park where they are catalogued, sorted by sex and stored.

Any females that get dropped off are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the number of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to seven times more toxic than the females, are used for the antivenom programme and milked every two weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to remove the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose – crucial for collecting as much venom as possible, since each spider provides only small amounts.

While a few drops is enough to kill, scientists need to milk 200 of these spiders to have enough to fill one vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.

But now she wouldn’t have it any other way. Emma loves all things arachnid, and goes under various nicknames – spider girl, spider mama, even “weirdo”, as her daughter calls her.

Friends, family and neighbours rely on her for her knowledge of Australia’s creepy crawlies.

“Some girls arrive home to flowers on their doorstep,” jokes Emma. “For me it’s not unusual to arrive home to a spider in a jar.”

Spiders represent just one small part of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It’s also been providing snake venom to the government since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, as many as 140,000 people die across the world from snake bites every year, and three times that many are left disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are far lower: between one and four people each year, thanks to its successful antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its storage locker, Billy Collett, the park’s operations manager, brings it to the table in front of him.

With his bare hands, he secures its head and puts its jaws over a shot glass covered in cling film.

“They are very uninclined to bite but once they go, you just see it pouring out of the fangs,” Mr Collett says, as yellow venom drips to the bottom.

“That is enough to kill all of us in the room five times over – maybe more.”

Then he switches to a more reassuring tone: “They’re not looking for people to bite. We’re too big for them to eat; they don’t want to waste their venom on us. They just want to be left alone.”

“To get bitten by a venomous snake, you’ve got to really annoy it, provoke it,” he adds, noting that bites often occur when someone is trying to kill one of the reptiles.

There’s a fridge in the corner of the room where the raw venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It’s full of vials labelled “Death Adder”, “Taipan”, “Tiger Snake” and “Eastern Brown”.

The last of these is the second-most venomous snake in the world, and the one that’s most likely to bite you here, in Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a lab in Melbourne, where it’s turned into an antidote in a process that can take up to 18 months.

The first step is to produce what’s known as hyper-immune plasma. In the case of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, because they are larger animals with a strong immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with increasing doses to build up their antibodies. In some cases, that step alone can take almost a year.

The animal’s supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and then the antibodies are isolated from the plasma before they’re bottled, ready to be administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a year – including snake, spider, stonefish and box jellyfish antivenoms – and they are valid for 36 months. The challenge then is to ensure everyone who needs it has supplies.

“It’s an enormous undertaking,” says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom development team at CSL Seqirus.

“First and foremost we want to see them in major rural and remote areas that these creatures are likely to be in.”

Vials are distributed depending on the species in each area. Taipans, for example, are in northern parts of Australia, so there’s no need for their antivenom in Tasmania.

Antivenom is also given to the Royal Flying Doctors, who access some of the nation’s most remote communities, as well as Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors at risk of sea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea also receives about 600 vials a year. The country was once connected to Australia by a land bridge, and shares many of the same snake species, so the Australian government gives the antivenom for free – snake diplomacy, if you like.

“To be honest, we probably have the most impact in Papua New Guinea, more so than Australia, because of the number of snake bites and deaths they have,” says CSL Seqirus executive Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they’ve saved 2,000 lives.

Back at the park, Mr Collett jokes about the nickname of “danger noodles” that is sometimes given to his serpentine colleagues – a classic Australian trait of making light of something that gives so many visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not put people off from visiting.

“Snakes aren’t just cruising down the streets attacking Brits – it doesn’t work like that,” he jokes.

“If you’re going to get bitten by a snake, Australia’s the best place – we’ve got the best antivenom. It’s free. The treatment is unreal.”

Sharing a dirty cell with a dozen others, constant sleep deprivation, cells with lights on 24-hours a day; poor hygiene and forced labour. These are some of what prisoners in Chinese jails are subjected to, according to Australian citizen Matthew Radalj, who spent five years at the Beijing No 2 prison – a facility used for international inmates.

Radalj, who is now living outside China, has decided to go public about his experience, and described undergoing and witnessing severe physical punishment, forced labour, food deprivation and psychological torture.

The BBC has been able to corroborate Radalj’s testimony with several former prisoners who were behind bars at the same time he was.

Many requested anonymity, because they feared retribution on loved ones still living inside the country. Others said they just wanted to try to forget the experience and move on.

The Chinese government has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

“I was in really bad shape when I arrived. They beat me for two days straight in the first police station that I was in. I hadn’t slept or eaten or had water for 48 hours and then I was forced to sign a big stack of documents,” said Radalj of his introduction to imprisonment in China, which began with his arrest on 2 January, 2020.

The former Beijing resident claims he was wrongfully convicted after a fight with shopkeepers at an electronics market, following a dispute over the agreed price to fix a mobile phone screen.

He claims he ended up signing a false confession to robbery, after being told it would be pointless to try to defend his innocence in a system with an almost 100% criminal conviction rate and in the hope that this would reduce the time of his incarceration.

Court documents indicate that this worked at least to some extent, earning him a four-year sentence.

Once in prison, he said he first had to spend many months in a separate detention centre where he was subjected to a more brutal “transition phase”.

During this time prisoners must follow extremely harsh rules in what he described as horrific conditions.

“We were banned from showering or cleaning ourselves, sometimes for months at a time. Even the toilet could be used only at specific allotted times, and they were filthy – waste from the toilets above would constantly drip down on to us.”

Eventually he was admitted to the “normal” prison where inmates had to bunk together in crowded cells and where the lights were never turned off.

You also ate in the same room, he said.

According to Radalj, African and Pakistani prisoners made up the largest groups in the facility, but there were also men being held from Afghanistan, Britain, the US, Latin America, North Korea and Taiwan. Most of them had been convicted for acting as drug mules.

Radalj said that prisoners were regularly subjected to forms of what he described as psychological torture.

One of these was the “good behaviour points system” which was a way – at least in theory – to reduce your sentence.

Prisoners could obtain a maximum of 100 good behaviour points per month for doing things like studying Communist Party literature, working in the prison factory or snitching on other prisoners. Once 4,200 points were accumulated, they could in theory be used to reduce prison time.

If you do the maths, that would mean a prisoner would have to get maximum points every single month for three-and-half years before this could start to work.

Radalj said that in reality it was used as a means of psychological torture and manipulation.

He claims the guards would deliberately wait till an inmate had almost reached this goal and then penalise them on any one of a huge list of possible infractions which would cancel out points at the crucial time.

These infractions included – but were not limited to – hoarding or sharing food with other prisoners, walking “incorrectly” in the hallway by straying from a line painted on the ground, hanging socks on a bed incorrectly, or even standing too close to the window.

Other prisoners who spoke about the points system to the BBC described it as a mind game designed to crush spirits.

Former British prisoner Peter Humphrey, who spent two years in detention in Shanghai, said his facility had a similar points calculation and reduction system which was manipulated to control prisoners and block sentence reductions.

“There were cameras everywhere, even three to a cell,” he said. “If you crossed a line marked on the ground and were caught by a guard or on camera, you would be punished. The same if you didn’t make your bed properly to military standard or didn’t place your toothbrush in the right place in the cell.

“There was also group pressure on prisoners with entire cell groups punished if one prisoner did any of these things.”

One ex-inmate told the BBC that in his five years in prison, he never once saw the points actually used to mitigate a sentence.

Radalj said that there were a number of prisoners – including himself – who didn’t bother with the points system.

So authorities resorted to other means of applying psychological pressure.

These included cutting time off monthly family phone calls or the reduction of other perceived benefits.

But the most common daily punishment involved the reduction of food.

The BBC has been told by numerous former inmates that the meals at Beijing’s No 2 prison were mostly made up of cabbage in dirty water which sometimes also had bits of carrot and, if they were lucky, small slivers of meat.

They were also given mantou – a plain northern Chinese bread. Most of the prisoners were malnourished, Radalj added.

Another prisoner described how inmates ate a lot of mantou, as they were always hungry. He said that their diets were so low in nutrition – and they could only exercise outside for half an hour each week – that they developed flimsy upper bodies but retained bloated looking stomachs from consuming so much of the mantou.

Prisoners were given the opportunity to supplement their diet by buying meagre extra rations, if money from relatives had been put into what were called their “accounts”: essentially a prison record of funds delivered to purchase provisions like soap or toothpaste.

They could also use this to purchase items like instant noodles or soy milk powder. But even this “privilege” could be taken away.

Radalj said he was blocked from making any extra purchases for 14 months because he refused to work in the prison factory, where inmates were expected to assemble basic goods for companies or compile propaganda leaflets for the ruling Communist Party.

To make things worse, they were made to work on a “farm”, where they did manage to grow a lot of vegetables, but were never allowed to eat them.

Radalj said the farm was displayed to a visiting justice minister as an example of how impressive prison life was.

But, he said, it was all for show.

“We would be growing tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages and okra and then – at the end of the season – they would push it all into a big hole and bury it,” he added.

“And if you were caught with a chilli or a cucumber in general population you would go straight to solitary confinement for eight months.”

Another prisoner said they would occasionally suddenly receive protein, like a chicken leg, to make their diet look better when officials visited the prison.

Humphrey said there were similar food restrictions in his Shanghai prison, adding that this led to power struggles among the inmates: “The kitchen was run by prison labour. Those who worked there stole the best stuff and it could then be distributed.”

Radalj described a battle between African and Taiwanese groups in Beijing’s Prison No 2 over this issue.

The Nigerian inmates were working in the kitchen and “were getting small benefits, like a bag of apples once a month or some yogurt or a couple of bananas”, he said.

Then the Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese inmates were able to convince the guards to let them take over, giving them control of precious extra food items.

This led to a large brawl, and Radalj said he was caught in the middle of it. He was sent to solitary confinement for 194 day after hitting another prisoner.

Inside solitary, he finally had the lights turned off only to realise he’d be with very little light nearly all of the time, giving him the opposite sensory problem.

His small food ration was also cut in half. There were no reading materials and there was nobody to talk to while he was held in a bare room of 1.2 by 1.8 metres (4ft by 6ft) for half a year.

“You start to go crazy, whether you like it or not, and that’s what solitary is designed to do… So you’ve got to decide very quickly whether your room is really, really small, or really, really big.

“After four months, you just start talking to yourself all the time. The guards would come by and ask ‘Hey, are you okay?’. And you’re like, ‘why?’. They replied, ‘because you’re laughing’.”

Then, Radalj said, he would respond, in his own mind: “It’s none of your business.”

Another feature of Chinese prison life, according to Radalji, was the fake “propaganda” moments officials would stage for Chinese media or visiting officials to paint a rosy picture of conditions there.

He said, at one point, a “computer suite” was set up. “They got everyone together and told us that we’d get our own email address and that we would be able to send emails. They then filmed three Nigerian guys using these computers.”

The three prisoners apparently looked confused because the computers were not actually connected to the internet – but the guards had told them to just “pretend”.

“Everything was filmed to present a fake image of prisoners with access to computers,” Radalj said.

But, he claims, soon after the photo opportunity, the computers were wrapped up in plastic and never touched again.

Throughout much of the ordeal, Radalj had been secretly keeping a journal by peeling open Covid masks and writing tiny sentences inside, with the help of some North Korean prisoners, who have also since been released.

“I would be writing, and the Koreans would say: ‘No smaller… smaller!’.”

Radalj said many of the prisoners had no way of letting their families know they were in jail.

Some had not made phone calls to their relatives because no money had been placed in their accounts for phone calls. For others, their embassies had not registered family telephone numbers for the prison phone system. Only calls to officially approved numbers worked.

So, after word got round that the Australian was planning to try to smuggle his notes out, they passed on details to connect with their families.

“I had 60 or 70 people hoping I could contact their loved ones after I got out to tell them what was happening.”

He wrapped the pieces of Covid mask as tight as he could with sticky tape hoarded from the factory and tried to swallow the egg-sized bundle without the guards seeing.

But he couldn’t keep it down.

The guards saw what was happening on camera and started asking, “Why are you vomiting? Why do you keep gagging? What’s wrong?”

So, he gave up and hid the bundle instead.

When he was about to leave on 5 October 2024, he was given his old clothes which had been ripped five years earlier in the struggle over his initial arrest.

There was a tear in the lining of his jacked and he quickly dropped the notes inside before a guard could see him.

Radalj said he thinks someone told the prison officers of his plan because they searched his room and questioned him before he left.

“Did you forget something?” the guards asked.

“They trashed all my belongings. I was thinking they’re gonna take me back to solitary confinement. There will be new charges.”

But the guard holding his clothes never knew the secret journal had been slipped inside.

“They were like, ‘Get out of here!’. And it wasn’t until I was on the plane, and we had already left, and the seat belt sign was switched off, that I reached into my jacket to check.”

The notes were still there.

Just before he had boarded the plane in Beijing a policeman who had escorted him to the gate had used Radalj’s boarding pass to buy duty free cigarettes for his mates.

“He said don’t come back to China. You’re banned for 10 years. And I said ‘yeah cool. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for your health'”.

The officer laughed.

He arrived back in Australia and hugged his father at Perth airport. The tears were flowing.

Then he got married to his long-time girlfriend and now they spend their days making candles and other products.

Radalj says he is still angry about his experience and has a long way to go to recover properly.

But he is making his way through the contact list of his former inmate friends – “I have spent the best part of six months contacting their families, lobbying their embassies so they might try to do a better job of helping them during their incarceration.”

Some of them, he said, haven’t spoken to people back home for nearly a decade. And helping them has also helped with the transition back to his old life.

“With freedom comes a great sense of gratitude,” Radalj says. “You have a deeper appreciation for the very simplest things in life. But I also have a great sense of responsibility to the people I left behind in prison.”

At a time when women’s participation in the film industry was frowned upon, a young woman dared to dream differently.

In 1920s pre-independence India, PK Rosy became the first female lead in Malayalam-language cinema, in what is now the southern state of Kerala.

She starred in a movie called Vigathakumaran, or The Lost Child, in the 1920s. But instead of being remembered as a pioneer, her story was buried – erased by caste discrimination and social backlash.

Rosy belonged to a lower-caste community and faced intense criticism for portraying an upper-caste woman in Vigathakumaran.

Almost a hundred years later, there is no surviving evidence of Rosy’s role. The film’s reel was destroyed and the cast and crew have all died.

Only a few pictures of the film from a contested press release dated October 1930 survive, along with an unverified black-and-white photo popularised by local newspapers as Rosy’s only portrait.

Even a Google Doodle celebrating her 120th birthday used an illustration similar to the woman in the photograph. But Rosy’s nephew and others who have researched her life told the BBC that they could not conclusively say that it is her in the picture.

PK Rosy was born as Rajamma in the early 1900s in the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore, now Kerala.

She belonged to a family of grass cutters from the Pulaya community, part of the Dalits, who are at the bottom of India’s harsh caste hierarchy and have been historically oppressed.

“People from the Pulaya community were considered slave labour and auctioned off with land,” says Malavika Binny, a professor of history at Kannur University.

“They were considered the ‘lowliest’. They were flogged, raped, tied to trees and set on fire for any so-called transgressions,” she adds.

Despite the dire social challenges, Rosy chose to dream differently.

She was supported by her uncle, who was a theatre artist himself, and with his help Rosy entered the field of entertainment.

“There are few available facts about Rosy’s life, but it is known that she was popular for her performances in local plays,” says Vinu Abraham, the author of The Lost Heroine, a novel based on Rosy’s life.

While her acting skills earned admiration, it was rare for a Dalit woman to take up acting at the time.

“She was likely aware of the fact that this was a new arena and making herself visible was important,” says Prof Binny.

She soon became a well-known figure in local theatre circles and her talent caught the eye of director JC Daniel, who was then searching for a lead actor for his film – a character named Sarojini.

Daniel was aware of Rosy’s caste identity and chose to cast her in the role.

“She was paid five rupees a day for 10 days of filming,” said Mr Abraham. “This was a substantial amount of money in the 1920s.”

On the day of the film’s premiere, Rosy and her family were barred from attending the screening.

They were stopped because they were Dalits, Rosy’s nephew Biju Govindan says.

And so began a chain of events that pushed Rosy out of the public eye and her home.

“The crowd that came to watch the movie were provoked by two things: Rosy playing an upper-caste woman and the hero picking a flower from her hair and kissing it in one scene,” said Mr Abraham.

“They started throwing rocks at the screen and chased Daniel away,” he added.

There are differing accounts of the extent of the damage to the theatre but what is clear is the toll the incident took on both Rosy and Daniel.

Daniel had spent a lot of money to establish a studio and gather resources to produce the film, and was heavily debt-ridden. Facing immense social and financial pressure, the director, who is now widely regarded as the father of Malayalam cinema, never made another film.

Rosy fled her hometown after an angry mob set her house on fire.

She cut all ties with her family to avoid being recognised and never spoke publicly about her past. She rebuilt her life by marrying an upper-caste man and took the name Rajammal.

She lived the rest of her life in obscurity in the town of Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Mr Abraham says.

Her children refused to accept that PK Rosy, the Dalit actor, was their mother, Rosy’s nephew Mr Govindan says.

“Her children were born with an upper-caste Kesavan Pillai’s identity. They chose their father’s seed over their mother’s womb,” he says.

“We, her family, are part of PK Rosy’s Dalit identity before the film’s release,” he said.

“In the space they inhabit, caste restricts them from accepting their Dalit heritage. That is their reality and our family has no place in it.”

In 2013, a Malayalam TV channel tracked down Rosy’s daughter Padma, who was living in financial strain somewhere in Tamil Nadu. She told them that she did not know much about her mother’s life before her marriage but that she did not act after that.

The BBC made attempts to contact Rosy’s children, but their relatives said they were not comfortable with the attention.

Prof Binny says that the erasure of Rosy’s legacy shows how deeply caste-based trauma can run.

“It can be so intense that it shapes or defines the rest of one’s life,” she says, adding that she is glad Rosy eventually found a safe space.

In recent years, Dalit filmmakers and activists have sought to reclaim Rosy’s legacy. Influential Tamil director Pa Ranjith has launched a yearly film festival in her name which celebrates Dalit cinema. A film society and foundation have also been established.

But there is still a haunting sense that while Rosy was ultimately saved, it was at the cost of her passion and identity.

“Rosy prioritised survival over art and, as a result, never tried to speak publicly or reclaim her lost identity. That’s not her failure – it’s society’s,” says Mr Govindan.

Donald Trump says he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday about ending the war in Ukraine, saying the call would be about “stopping the ‘bloodbath'”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the call would take place at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) and he would then speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the leaders of some Nato countries.

Russia and Ukraine were unable to reach any breakthrough when they held their first face-to-face talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday, although a prisoner swap was agreed.

Trump had offered to attend the talks in Turkey if Putin would also be there, but the Russian president declined to go.

Trump’s comments come after he suggested progress on ending the war would only happen if he and Putin held face-to-face talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that preparations were under way for a call between Putin and Trump on Monday. The two leaders have held a phone call before on the topic.

“The conversation is in the works,” Peskov told Tass news agency.

Trump had said on Truth Social: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”

European leaders have been calling for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict.

The US and Russian leaders are expected to discuss a ceasefire, as well as the possible summit between themselves.

Moscow has moved slower than Trump would like, but it welcomed the American efforts at mediation, in a call on Saturday between the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Following the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine also reiterated its call for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

According to a Ukrainian official, the Kremlin had made “new and unacceptable demands including insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory”, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

The head of the Russian delegation, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, said they were satisfied with the talks and ready to continue contact.

Hours later, a Russian drone hit a passenger bus in the Sumy region, killing nine people – prompting Zelensky to demand stiffer sanctions on Moscow.

He said the attack on the bus was “a deliberate killing of civilians”. Russia has not commented, but state media reported that forces had hit a “military staging area” in Sumy province.

FBI officials in California have called a bomb explosion outside a fertility clinic – that killed one person and injured four others – an “intentional act of terrorism”.

The blast happened just before 11:00 local time (19:00 BST) less than a mile from downtown Palm Springs, near several businesses including the American Reproductive Centers (ARC). The clinic said no-one from the facility was harmed.

The FBI later said it had “a person of interest” in its investigation, but officers were “not actively searching” for the suspect.

Rhino Williams, who was at his restaurant nearby, told the BBC he heard the blast, initially thinking a plane or helicopter had crashed.

He said he ran to the scene to see if he could help, finding a badly damaged building with walls blown out and the front axle of a car on fire in the parking lot.

“That’s all that was left of it,” Mr Williams said. He also saw an iPhone on a tripod still standing in the parking lot, as if it was set to film or stream the explosion.

Mr Williams said he rushed through the building shouting for any injured people – but did not find any. A few minutes later first responders arrived.

At a news briefing later on Saturday, the FBI said it was a deliberate attack.

“This was an intentional act of terrorism. As our investigation will unfold we will determine if it’s international terrorism or domestic terrorism,” said Akil Davis, the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

Palm Springs police chief Andy Mills said the blast damaged several buildings, some severely.

He added that the identity of the person who was killed was not known.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state was co-ordinating with local and federal authorities to respond to the incident.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had been briefed on the incident.

The ARC in Palm Springs said the explosion occurred in the parking lot near its building.

It is unclear what the cause of the explosion was.

Palm Springs Mayor Ron De Harte told BBC’s US partner CBS News that the source of the explosion “was in or near the vehicle”.

The incident appeared “intentional”, Palm Springs police officers Mike Villegas told reporters on Saturday afternoon. He added that it remained an active investigation.

The fertility clinic said their lab, including all eggs and embryos, remained “fully secure and undamaged”.

“We are heavily conducting a complete safety inspection and have confirmed that our operations and sensitive medical areas were not impacted by the blast,” the clinic said in its statement.

But Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the clinic, told the Associated Press that the clinic’s office was damaged.

“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”

According to its website, the ARC clinic is the first full-service fertility centre and in vitro fertilisation lab (IVF) in the Coachella Valley.

It offers services like fertility evaluations, IVF, egg donation and freezing, reproductive support for same-sex couples and surrogacy.

The BBC has reached out to Palm Springs police for further comment.

Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

“Don’t expect miracles. But do know – everyone wants this to work.”

On Monday in London the EU and UK hold their first bilateral summit since Brexit. Symbolically, this is a big moment.

Officials and analysts I speak to, on and off the record, like the individual I just quoted, are quick to point out difficulties that exist between the two sides.

But all acknowledge the bilateral bitterness provoked by Brexit is no more. It’s been eviscerated by the gravity of global events.

Concerns about Russia and China, the war in Ukraine, the shock of the US under Donald Trump no longer prioritising European defence, plus a growing sense of voter insecurity is propelling the two powers to work closer together.

“Failure to do so, in the current international context, would not be a good look,” says Anand Menon, director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe.

Most European countries realise that, he adds: “Even the French.”

More than most EU countries, France has been playing hardball in pre-summit negotiations.

Is it a coincidence that as talks went to the wire before Monday’s summit, the UK announced that France’s president has been invited for his first state visit?

King Charles and Queen Camilla will host Emmanuel Macron and his wife at Windsor Palace in July. A UK attempt to butter up the French leader, perhaps?

“It’ll be interesting to see if they can agree common language [for a summit agreement],” says Georgina Wright, European policy expert at the Institut Montaigne.

“Everyone in the EU wants closer relations with the UK right now and France doesn’t want to be seen as the one country blocking closer UK-EU cooperation. But that does not mean that Paris is willing to give up on core interests.”

Interests like fishing rights in UK waters and bidding for EU defence contracts.

Negotiating – or to be more accurate – haggling over the “meat” of the summit will, I’m told, continue till the last moment.

On the day itself, we can expect three separate announcements:

• A joint declaration that addresses the worrying geopolitical situation and emphasises UK-EU shared foreign policy priorities – such as supporting Ukraine, keeping up pressure on Russia, and ending civilian suffering in Gaza
• An EU-UK security and defence pact
• A package of measures targeted at removing some trade barriers between the EU and UK that have come about because of Brexit

These trade measures are the “reset” of relations with the EU that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has promised since his party won a general election last summer.

They are far from an economic gamechanger for the UK, though. Hardly what you’d call ambitious.

Destroying all trade barriers with the EU is impossible if the Labour government keeps to its own “red lines” of not rejoining the bloc’s customs union or single market.

Despite promising to prioritise UK economic growth, and polls suggesting the majority of Britons want to do more trade with the EU, Labour will feel hemmed in by the increasingly popular, Eurosceptic Reform Party.

It performed well in recent local elections in the UK.

While some in Labour (quietly) admit they are tempted by a customs union with the EU to boost growth, any economic benefits would likely not be apparent to voters before the next UK election.

Party members fear they would risk being punished at the polls, amidst accusations by the opposition Conservatives and Reform that the government would have betrayed Brexit.

These concerns make the Starmer government “more cautious, less bold”, says Mr Menon.

The UK is taking a sector-by-sector approach to try reduce costly trade barriers with the EU.

Many EU-UK negotiating hours have gone into agreeing a plant and animal health deal, known as an SPS agreement.

This will facilitate the export and import of meat and plant products between the EU and UK and help reduce post-Brexit trade complications between Northern Ireland and Britain.

In exchange, the EU insists the UK must agree to following any new SPS rules introduced in the future and accept a role for the European Court of Justice in policing the agreement.

Those conditions will likely be unpopular with ardent Brexit supporters.

They might also put backs up in Washington and complicate the UK doing a wider future deal on agriculture with the US, as the UK would be tied to stringent EU standards.

But the Labour government knows public opinion polls suggest most people in the UK prioritise trade with the EU over the US.

Currently the EU counts for 41% of UK exports; the US for 21%.

The UK government will probably insist the SPS agreement is good for the British economy. Though animal and plant exports and imports are, in fact, a small part of overall GDP.

In reality “growth is a bit of a red herring here”, says Mr Menon.

On the EU side, the French, backed by other fishing nations like the Netherlands and Denmark, have taken a tough stance in these talks – refusing to sign up unless the UK agrees to long-term EU fishing rights in UK waters.

The current post-Brexit fishing agreement expires next year.

The reset we’ll hear about at Monday’s summit will also include a “mobility” section.

Starmer will get his ask, for the EU to recognise UK professional qualifications, to encourage cross-border business.

There will also be a reduction in visa restrictions for UK musicians travelling and performing in the EU.

In exchange, the EU – and Germany, most passionately – wants a youth mobility scheme, allowing young EU citizens to travel, study, and even work in the UK.

The UK has similar schemes with Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan, amongst others. But this has been tricky to agree.

Reducing migration figures is a number one priority for the Labour government.

It’s a hot-button issue and the UK Home Office will seek to toughen conditions and limit EU numbers.

Negotiations are ongoing but, according to EU sources, the scheme already has a name: YES, or Youth Experience Scheme.

Some areas of negotiation are more advanced than others. This will be reflected in Monday’s announcement.

There will also be talk at the summit of plans to tackle illegal migration, cooperate on carbon border taxes, and simplify energy trading between the EU and UK.

Reducing EU-UK trade barriers on chemicals and pharmaceutical goods is also a UK ambition, as is getting access to EU databases, like the Schengen Information System, to better track down criminals.

But for now, at least, the EU is saying no to that. If it makes an exception for the UK, other non-EU countries will demand the same, it insists.

Of course, it’s in the interest of both sides to fight cross-border crime. The UK argues the current state of the world calls for more flexible thinking from Brussels.

The case for more flexible thinking is also something the UK is calling for when it comes to Monday’s defence and security pact with the EU.

The EU and UK already work closely together on Russian sanctions and defending Ukraine. And the pact isn’t a legally binding document, so how complicated can these talks be, you may ask?

The answer is pretty complicated.

The UK wants its defence companies to be allowed to bid for contracts under the EU’s new re-armament scheme, SAFE (Security Action for Europe).

“The UK has earned the right to access such a deal because of the leadership it’s shown over Ukraine,” says international defence expert Sophia Gaston, a visiting fellow at King’s College London.

“Britain is a serious player both in traditional defence capabilities, like producing munitions, and in cutting edge defence innovation, where new growth and energy is.

“If the UK has access to the emerging EU defence programmes, it can contribute to mass and pace. [The war in Ukraine] has shown that both are needed.”

But Ms Gaston admits, UK companies getting the go-ahead from Brussels is a “messy” process.

“Re-Arm EU”, as Brussels dubs its new drive, is still a work in progress, spurred by rapidly changing geopolitics, including fears the US will withdraw at least some of the crucial security support Europe has relied on since World War Two.

This is not yet a fully formed EU strategy that the UK can “pay to play” a part in, as it has done post-Brexit with the EU’s research and innovation scheme Horizon, for example.

An agreement with the UK in this defence industrial context will be brand new and bespoke. And it’s getting political.

Signing the security pact on Monday is just a step in the process.

France wants to severely restrict non-EU companies bidding for the bloc’s defence contracts, including the UK but Canadian and American firms too.

If the EU is spending its taxpayers’ money on defence, it argues it should be spent with EU companies to help boost EU economies.

Paris also says, in this rapidly changing world of shifting alliances and allegiances, the EU should be self-reliant, not dependent on suppliers outside the bloc.

Sceptics suspect France, which has a sophisticated defence industry, of wanting to hoover up lucrative EU contracts for itself.

But it looks like it is losing the internal EU argument, with the Nordics, the Baltics, Poland, Italy and the Netherlands favouring more openness on defence contracts, and particularly with the EU’s biggest economic power, Germany, championing the UK.

“Germany and France have very different attitudes towards the UK,” says German economist Armin Steinbach from think tank Bruegel.

Germany will always put relations with EU heavyweights France and Poland first, says Mr Steinbach.

But he believes the UK will be helped in defence and economic negotiations with the EU by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who argues “a unified Europe is the absolute priority in the current geopolitical setting”.

A priority maybe, but it’s still a hugely tall order because it’s all about compromise.

Political leaders will seek to justify increases in defence spending by insisting to voters that it’s for their personal security and in the interest of their national economy, with boosts in revenue for domestic defence industries.

But achieving a pan-European industrial base – built to be efficient, avoid duplication, and to replace much of the US capacity relied on by the continent today – would mean some European countries winning more defence contracts than others.

It would also mean some national businesses shutting down, in favour of better-suited ones elsewhere on the continent.

That’s a hard sell for political leaders facing their voters.

As is another big trade-off: Big increases in defence spending will mean governments have less money to spend on public services.

The challenge for Europe is breathtaking. By comparison, Monday’s symbolic EU-UK summit, may seem like a walk in the park.

Most journalists travelling with the US president don’t see much of the interior of Air Force One, the presidential jet.

The press cabin is in the back of the plane, accessible by a rear set of steps and a quick turn of a corner.

To reach the presidential suite at the front of the plane would require negotiating with the armed Secret Service agents in the next-door cabin.

On Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East this week, when the future of the famous plane was a huge talking point, Fox News host Sean Hannity had priority seating and access to the president to conduct an in-flight interview.

But the rest of us in the travelling press pool were consigned to our small section of the plane.

It was a whirlwind trip, hitting three nations in three nights, half a world away. The president described it as an “endurance test” – one that his staff and those of us in the press pool had to manage, as well.

The presidential jet is not a bad way to fly, however. The 14 seats are comfortable, roughly on par with a first-class domestic flight.

There’s a bathroom and a table with snacks (including the coveted Air Force One-branded M&Ms bearing the president’s signature, which aren’t available anywhere else).

• Qatar’s Air Force One offer angers Trump supporters
• Is Trump allowed to accept 747 gift?

The cabin has a pair of television monitors – usually tuned to the president’s preferred cable news channel (CNN during Joe Biden’s term; Fox News for Trump). On occasion, they’ve been set to a football game or other sporting events.

For longer flights, the on-board kitchen serves plated meals (the president eats from a different, fancier menu). On short hops, there’s usually food in a takeaway bag.

But the interior of this famous aircraft could soon undergo a radical refit if, as looks likely, Trump accepts the Qatari offer to supply a new “palace in the sky” – the biggest foreign gift ever received by a US president.

Technically, “Air Force One” is a radio call sign, the designation for any Air Force aircraft with the US president aboard. The small prop plane Lyndon Baines Johnson took from Austin to his Texas ranch in the 1960s was Air Force One, too.

But the Air Force One most people picture, the one featured in the Harrison Ford action film, is the 747-200b with water blue, steel blue and white paint set against a chrome underbody – a colour scheme picked out by First Lady Jackie Kennedy in 1962.

Currently there are two of these 747s in the Air Force passenger fleet, in use since 1990. Needless to say, technology – both in aircraft design and everything else – has come a long way in the ensuing years. The planes have been upgraded, but the costs of maintaining the airframe and engines are growing. The aircrafts are showing their age.

This has clearly irked the current White House occupant – the only president to own his own jet, or for that matter, his own airline, prior to taking office.

“I leave now and get onto a 42-year-old Boeing,” he said, exaggerating the plane’s age during an industry briefing on Thursday in Abu Dhabi. “But new ones are coming.”

Coming, but not soon enough for Trump. During his first term, he touted an updated presidential aircraft, made by Boeing, that was in the works. He even picked out his own colour palette, scrapping Kennedy’s design for a red-white-and-blue livery. He proudly displays a model of that jet in the Oval Office.

Originally planned to be delivered by 2021, delays and cost overruns for the estimated $4bn construction programme have made it less likely that the two new planes on order will be available for much, if any, of Trump’s second term in office, which expires in January 2029.

He has tasked tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk with speeding up the process and reportedly groused in private that he is embarrassed to travel in such an outdated plane.

That explains why the president has become enamoured with the prospect of a seemingly more immediate solution to his air transport woes – courtesy of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

News of Qatar’s offer of a lavish $400m 747-8 made headlines last week, but the gift apparently has been in the works for months.

Trump surreptitiously visited the aircraft in question in mid-February, just a few weeks after the start of his second term in office.

Aside from the legal and ethical concerns of such a substantial gift – raised by critics and some allies of the president – converting a foreign 747 for use by an American president creates a number of technical challenges.

The aircraft would have to be made capable of in-flight refuelling and retrofitted with a sophisticated package of communications and security equipment. The current models have systems built to withstand the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion.

Such a refitting process, says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, would take years, until 2030 at least.

“They have to assume the jet has been left unattended in a dangerous place for 13 years,” he says. “Which means it’s not enough to take the plane apart. You also have to take every single component apart.”

The plane would need additional power to run its new systems, and its interior might have to be rearranged. Chances are there’s no press cabin in the flying palace as originally designed.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense and Security Department, says the costs of such retrofitting could easily run to $1bn.

He adds, however, that Trump could waive some, or all, of the security modifications if he so chooses.

“He’s the president,” he said.

When the Air Force ultimately does retire its current crop of 747s, it will put to pasture an aircraft that have been part of fabric of American history for decades. One that transported President Bill Clinton, along with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W Bush, to Israel for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral in 1995.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, George W Bush took to the skies in Air Force One and stayed aloft for hours, refuelling mid-air, until his security team determined it was safe for him to land and address the nation, before ultimately returning to Washington.

Six US presidents have travelled on these jets, criss-crossing the US and visiting all corners of the globe. One took Biden to Israel just days after the 7 October attack by Hamas.

Trump has effectively employed the aircraft as a campaign device, holding political rallies at airfields and making low-speed passes over the crowds before landing and using Air Force One as a dramatic backdrop for his speeches.

On Trump’s recent Mid East trip, military fighters from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE accompanied Air Force One as it flew through their national airspace.

Aging though it may be, Air Force One is still one of the most recognisable signs of American presidential authority and power in the world – a military aircraft that serves a higher purpose.

“It’s not made for luxury,” says Aboulafia. “It’s a flying command post. You’re not there to throw parties.”

At least 25 people are reported to have died and dozens are injured after tornadoes tore through parts of two US states.

Officials in Kentucky said there had been 18 deaths while seven people were killed in Missouri, including five in the city of St Louis.

The Kentucky tornado struck Laurel County in the south-east of the state in the early hours of Saturday. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.

Missouri officials said 5,000 buildings had been damaged, roofs destroyed and power lines downed due to the tornado.

About 140,000 properties in Missouri and Kentucky were left without power as of Saturday afternoon. Officials in St Louis said the fire department was conducting house-by-house searches in the worst-affected areas.

St Louis mayor Cara Spencer said in an update on Saturday that at least 38 people were reported injured in her area, largely from collapsed buildings and toppled trees.

Authorities in Kentucky said there were also severe injuries reported. “The search is continuing in the damaged area for survivors,” said Laurel County Sheriff John Root in a post on social media.

National Weather Service radar suggested the tornado touched down in Missouri shortly after 14:30 local time in the west of the city close to Forest Park – home to St Louis Zoo and the site of the 1904 Olympic Games.

St Louis Fire Department said three people had to be rescued after part of the nearby Centennial Christian Church collapsed. One of those people died.

A curfew was imposed from 21:00 to 06:00 local time in the two areas where most of the damage took place, to prevent injuries from debris and reduce the potential for looting.

St Louis mayor Spencer said: “The loss of life and the destruction is truly, truly horrendous.

“We’re going to have a lot of work to do in the coming days. There is no doubt there, but tonight we are focused on saving lives and keeping people safe and allowing our community to grieve.”

The US National Weather Service said tornadoes also hit neighbouring Illinois, with more severe weather conditions stretching eastwards to the Atlantic coast. On Saturday, it warned of few tornadoes that could hit northern Texas over the weekend as a result of strong to severe storms in the area.

The tornadoes struck an area of the US that is generally referred to as “Tornado Alley”, where tornadoes are most frequent. They typically occur in the months of May and June, though they could strike during other times of the year.

Kentucky has seen an average of five tornadoes each May since the year 2000, while Missouri has seen an average of 16.

Two British men accused of robbing a luxury jewellery store in Tokyo can be sent to Japan following a landmark ruling.

For almost a decade, Japanese authorities have pursued the extradition of Kaine Wright, 28, Joe Chappell, 38, and a third man over allegations they posed as customers to steal items worth £679,000 (¥106m) from a Harry Winston store.

On Friday, chief magistrate Judge Goldspring rejected Wright and Chappell’s challenges against extradition. Their case now passes to the home secretary to decide whether they should be sent to Japan.

No extradition treaty exists between the UK and Japan, meaning it would be the first time Japan have successfully received fugitives.

Japan’s initial request was rejected, but the High Court overturned the original decision following an appeal lodged by the Japanese government.

In Friday’s judgement – seen by the BBC – Wright, of Plumstead, and Chappell, of Belvedere, both in London, had raised concerns over prison conditions in Japan which they argued were “arbitrary, excessive and breach international standards”.

The Japanese government said the submissions were “fundamentally flawed both legally and factually”.

District Judge Goldspring, chief magistrate of England and Wales, found there was a “prima facie case” – enough evidence to support a charge at first glance – against Chappell and that extradition would be “compatible” with his and Wright’s human rights.

Friday’s ruling follows a recent High Court judgement that the Japanese government had a case to extradite Wright, Chappell and a third man named in papers as Daniel Kelly – who is Wright’s father.

Japan’s case against Kelly will be heard at the end of this month. He has not appeared in previous extradition hearings due to a conspiracy to murder case against him taking precedence.

Details from January’s High Court judgement state that the Japanese “relied upon a range of evidence” which demonstrated that Kelly, Wright and Chappell travelled to Tokyo around the time of the jewellery raid in November 2015.

CCTV captured all three arriving at Narita International Airport on 18 November 2015 and staying at “the Elm Share House”, Japanese authorities said.

Ch Insp Suzuki set out a record of the investigation to the High Court which indicated the trio “took taxis” to Harry Winston’s branch in Omotesando Hills.

In their efforts to escape, the trio left a number of items behind including an Armani jacket, he said.

Ch Insp Suzuki added: “Goggles were left at the shop and a jacket was left on the route the robbers took to flee from the scene.”

A professor at the Tokyo Dental College compared ePassport images taken at Narita Airport and compared it to CCTV stills of three men taken at the Harry Winston store.

“The possibility that two (or three) persons in the relevant comparison are the same is extremely high,” Ch Insp Suzuki said in his report, citing the professor’s “expert” findings.

As well as other DNA matches, Ch Insp Suzuki’s report referred to “expert evidence that glass shards found at the property where the three stayed that matched the glass in the display case at the jewellery shop”.

Findings in the reports were challenged at the High Court by lawyers representing Wright and Chappell.

The Japanese government said it would ensure that the three men would have the right to consult with a lawyer in private, have any interviews recorded and have the right not to answer any questions.

Wright, once a promising footballer on the books of West Ham United and Brentford, served time in prison after being convicted in 2023 of trying to sell a Ming vase which was stolen from a museum in Switzerland.

Subject to any further appeals, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper now has 28 days to decide whether to extradite Chappell and Wright or reject Japan’s request.

The Eurovision Song Contest brought the drama as 26 countries battled it out for the trophy.

The night saw wacky songs, fabulous outfits and high-tempo dancing.

It eventually came down to tense stand off during the results between Austria and Israel, with Austria eventually taking the Eurovision trophy.

• Austria wins with last-minute vote, as the UK comes 19th
• Eurovision 2025: As it happened

Here are the best photos from the night:

Nicole enters the therapist’s room and clutches what she calls her hugging pillow. She admits to being nervous about sitting down with a stranger to discuss her mental health.

She is 31, lives in London and works as chiropractic assistant. She suffers from anxiety when she drives.

“There are so many things that so quickly go through my head,” she says.

“How far away is it? What is the route? I somehow forget how to drive.”

She suffers from panic attacks and her fear of driving means she is constantly cancelling plans.

But, over the course of six sessions with psychotherapist Owen O’Kane, it becomes clear her problems are much deeper than just a fear of driving.

Every week, one in six of the UK population experience mental health problems such as depression and anxiety and every year more than 1.2 million people seek help from the NHS talking therapies service, with many more paying for support privately.

This form of therapy is most commonly used for anxiety and depression, but can also help with a range of other problems, including body image dysmorphia, obsessive compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. It does not work for everyone: research suggests one-third of people do not benefit.

The BBC has followed 12 people, featured in the series Change Your Mind, Change Your Life, who each received six support sessions from therapists.

The therapists have used a combination of different talking therapy approaches, including cognitive behavioural therapy which focuses on changing the way we think and behave, alongside other techniques to improve relationships and process trauma.

What it reveals is striking: How understanding and learning to manage the mind has the power to transform lives.

“You’re not stuck with the brain you’ve got,” says Owen O’Kane, who has worked in the field for 25 years.

He describes his job as like detective work: “People come with what seems to be a reasonable story, but the interesting thing is that very often the story and emotions don’t match. I guess what we are doing is digging around a little bit.”

Over their sessions, Owen digs deeper into Nicole’s anxiety. At one point she weeps. She admits in the past she has “completely hated” herself. She worries about what people think of her and is socially anxious: “I don’t feel good enough to be there. I might say something wrong. I need people to like me.”

Owen questions why she feels like this: “As human beings we like the nice emotions. We like feeling happy, joy, being in love.” but he says some people try to avoid or suppress emotions like fear, dread and sadness, and that can cause anxiety. Instead, he says it is healthier to accept them and accept them as safe.

When people get to that point, he says, they start to feel empowered: “They realise they’re not going to be overwhelmed.”

Speaking outside the therapy room, Nicole says: “I’m shocked. He got my number straight away. I would see vulnerability as a negative thing, but it’s not.”

Asked to describe herself she uses words such as kind, thoughtful, determined and enthusiastic: “I am not a bad person,” she tells Owen.

She says she has learned a lot: “Most importantly I found I wasn’t being kind to myself. That was really eye-opening.”

Owen says this is typical of many people he treats: “When people get to these crossroads, when they wake up and realise what they are doing, that’s a gold dust moment for me.”

James likewise learned to think about himself differently thanks to therapy.

A 39-year-old father-of-one who works in finance, he struggles with anxiety and, in particular, worries about making mistakes at work. That fear is so debilitating he doesn’t make it to work sometimes.

He has been supported by Prof Steve Peters, a psychiatrist who explains perfectionism is at the root of his problems: “If we think it’s the end of the world if we make a mistake, it paralyses you.”

James was once an athlete, playing semi-professional football and competing in athletics before specialising in the bobsleigh.

He was training for trials for the Great Britain team when he had a stroke eight years ago: “With a flick of a switch, I lost everything,” he says.

“It made me feel a lesser man.”

Now he fears under-performing at work and losing his job.

Over the course of the sessions, Prof Peters explains the key is James’s belief system.

First, he gives some seemingly simple advice: “Put your feet on the floor, stand up and walk,” he says.

Focusing on the basic task of moving, in James’s case moving so he can get to work, enables someone caught up in catastrophic thinking to block out the negative thoughts that stop them doing something.

In later sessions, James and Prof Peters explore what could be behind his problems. James tells Prof Peters about his childhood and how his father would criticise him to push him to improve.

Prof Peters explains how James believes that to please you cannot make errors and then the devastating stroke he suffered at a young age has triggered an absolute desire for things to never go wrong again.

He tells James he needs to make “peace with himself” by defining himself not by performance but by values and behaviours. He too asks James to describe himself and James replies he is hard-working, honest, engaging, friendly and as someone who would put others first.

Over the course of his sessions, James’s way of thinking changes: “I can look at myself in the mirror and feel my value and my worth,” he explains.

Anjalee’s struggles are somewhat different. They relate to one traumatic event in childhood – her mother died suddenly when she was 15.

Now a mother herself, with three children under five, she has struggled emotionally.

She has sleepless nights, a tight chest and feels emotionally disconnected. It is worse than any physical pain, says the 34-year-old: “Becoming a mother has reopening everything I’ve tried to suppress.”

Her first birth was particularly traumatic. She developed sepsis – the condition her mother died from: “I thought I was not going to survive,” she says.

Her psychotherapist, Julia Samuel, explains to Anjalee she has not been able to process what has happened and, as a result, the trauma has stayed with her.

When her mother died, Anjalee was in the middle of exams and had two younger siblings, leaving her without time to grieve.

Julia suggests eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy, which uses movement to help people process and recover from distressing events.

Julia asks Anjalee for her worst memory and she describes how her father tried to save her mother’s life by performing chest compressions in their home until the paramedics arrived. Her mother was rushed out with Anjalee hoping she would return. She never did.

Anjalee says she has never talked about this within anyone. Julia asks Anjalee to cross her arms against her chest and start deep breathing and tapping, mimicking a butterfly’s wings flapping. She talks through the memory and how the images in her head are changing to more positive ones.

Julia says this type of treatment is particularly effective when dealing with one single traumatic event. One memory, she says, can act as a block on everything.

Afterwards, Anjalee speaks about how her symptoms have eased and the contentment she now feels.

“My therapist helped me reconnect with the 15-year-old girl I’d silenced. I began to process the trauma that haunted me. I now understand grief as the other side of love.”

Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

With a pair of bright pink tweezers in hand, Emma Teni is delicately wrestling a large and leggy spider in a small plastic pot.

“He’s posing,” the spider-keeper jests as it rears up on its back legs. It is exactly what she’s trying to achieve – that way she can suck the venom from its fangs using a small pipette.

Emma works from a tiny office known as the spider milking room. On a typical day, she milks – or extracts the venom from – 80 of these Sydney funnel-web spiders.

On three of the four walls there are floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked full of the arachnids, with a black curtain pulled across to keep them calm.

The remaining wall is actually a window. Through it, a small child stares, both fascinated and horrified, as Ms Teni works. Little do they know that the palm-sized spider she’s handling could kill them in a matter of minutes.

“Sydney funnel-webs are arguably the most deadly spider in the world,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

Australia is famously full of such deadly animals – and this room at the Australian Reptile Park plays a critical part in a government antivenom programme, which saves lives on a continent where it’s often joked that everything wants to kill you.

While the quickest recorded death from a Sydney funnel-web spider was a toddler at 13 minutes, the average is closer to 76 minutes – and first aid gives you an even better chance of surviving.

So successful is the antivenom programme here at the Australian Reptile Park that nobody has been killed by one since it started in 1981.

The scheme relies, however, on members of the public either catching the spiders or collecting their egg sacs.

In a van plastered with a giant crocodile sticker, each week Ms Teni’s team drives all over Australia’s most famous city, picking up Sydney funnel-webs that have been handed in at drop-off points such as local veterinary practices.

There are two reasons why these spiders are so dangerous, she explains: not only is their venom extremely potent, but they also live exclusively in a densely populated region where they’re more likely to encounter humans.

Handyman Charlie Simpson is one such person. He moved into his first home with his girlfriend a few months ago, and the keen gardener has already found two Sydney funnel-webs. He took the second spider to the vet, where Ms Teni picked it up shortly after.

“I had gloves on at the time, but realistically I should have had leather gloves on because their fangs are so big and strong,” the 26-year-old says.

“I [just thought] I had better catch it because I kept getting told you’re meant to take them back to be milked, because it’s so critical.”

“This is curing my fear of spiders,” he jokes.

As Ms Teni offloads one arachnid that was delivered to her in a Vegemite jar, she stresses her team isn’t telling Australians to go looking for the spiders and “throw themselves into danger”.

Rather, they’re asking that if someone comes across one, they safely capture it rather than kill it.

“Saying that this is the world’s most deadly spider and then [asking the public to] catch it and bring it to us does sound counter-intuitive,” she says.

“[But] that spider there now, thanks to Charlie, will… effectively save someone’s life.”

All of the spiders her team collects get brought back to the Australian Reptile Park where they are catalogued, sorted by sex and stored.

Any females that get dropped off are considered for a breeding programme, which helps supplement the number of spiders donated by the public.

Meanwhile, the males, which are six to seven times more toxic than the females, are used for the antivenom programme and milked every two weeks, Emma explains.

The pipette she uses to remove the venom from the fangs is attached to a suction hose – crucial for collecting as much venom as possible, since each spider provides only small amounts.

While a few drops is enough to kill, scientists need to milk 200 of these spiders to have enough to fill one vial of antivenom.

A marine biologist by training, Emma never expected to spend her days milking spiders. In fact, she started off working with seals.

But now she wouldn’t have it any other way. Emma loves all things arachnid, and goes under various nicknames – spider girl, spider mama, even “weirdo”, as her daughter calls her.

Friends, family and neighbours rely on her for her knowledge of Australia’s creepy crawlies.

“Some girls arrive home to flowers on their doorstep,” jokes Emma. “For me it’s not unusual to arrive home to a spider in a jar.”

Spiders represent just one small part of what the Australian Reptile Park does. It’s also been providing snake venom to the government since the 1950s.

According to the World Health Organisation, as many as 140,000 people die across the world from snake bites every year, and three times that many are left disabled.

In Australia though, those numbers are far lower: between one and four people each year, thanks to its successful antivenom programme.

Removing a King Brown snake from its storage locker, Billy Collett, the park’s operations manager, brings it to the table in front of him.

With his bare hands, he secures its head and puts its jaws over a shot glass covered in cling film.

“They are very uninclined to bite but once they go, you just see it pouring out of the fangs,” Mr Collett says, as yellow venom drips to the bottom.

“That is enough to kill all of us in the room five times over – maybe more.”

Then he switches to a more reassuring tone: “They’re not looking for people to bite. We’re too big for them to eat; they don’t want to waste their venom on us. They just want to be left alone.”

“To get bitten by a venomous snake, you’ve got to really annoy it, provoke it,” he adds, noting that bites often occur when someone is trying to kill one of the reptiles.

There’s a fridge in the corner of the room where the raw venom Mr Collett is collecting is stored. It’s full of vials labelled “Death Adder”, “Taipan”, “Tiger Snake” and “Eastern Brown”.

The last of these is the second-most venomous snake in the world, and the one that’s most likely to bite you here, in Australia.

This venom gets freeze-dried and sent to CSL Seqirus, a lab in Melbourne, where it’s turned into an antidote in a process that can take up to 18 months.

The first step is to produce what’s known as hyper-immune plasma. In the case of snakes, controlled doses of the venom are injected into horses, because they are larger animals with a strong immune system.

The venom of Sydney funnel-web spiders goes into rabbits, which are immune to the toxins. The animals are injected with increasing doses to build up their antibodies. In some cases, that step alone can take almost a year.

The animal’s supercharged plasma is removed from the blood, and then the antibodies are isolated from the plasma before they’re bottled, ready to be administered.

CSL Seqirus makes 7,000 vials a year – including snake, spider, stonefish and box jellyfish antivenoms – and they are valid for 36 months. The challenge then is to ensure everyone who needs it has supplies.

“It’s an enormous undertaking,” says Dr Jules Bayliss, who leads the antivenom development team at CSL Seqirus.

“First and foremost we want to see them in major rural and remote areas that these creatures are likely to be in.”

Vials are distributed depending on the species in each area. Taipans, for example, are in northern parts of Australia, so there’s no need for their antivenom in Tasmania.

Antivenom is also given to the Royal Flying Doctors, who access some of the nation’s most remote communities, as well as Australian navy and cargo ships for sailors at risk of sea snake bites.

Papua New Guinea also receives about 600 vials a year. The country was once connected to Australia by a land bridge, and shares many of the same snake species, so the Australian government gives the antivenom for free – snake diplomacy, if you like.

“To be honest, we probably have the most impact in Papua New Guinea, more so than Australia, because of the number of snake bites and deaths they have,” says CSL Seqirus executive Chris Larkin. To date, they reckon they’ve saved 2,000 lives.

Back at the park, Mr Collett jokes about the nickname of “danger noodles” that is sometimes given to his serpentine colleagues – a classic Australian trait of making light of something that gives so many visitors nightmares.

Mr Collett, though, is clear: these animals should not put people off from visiting.

“Snakes aren’t just cruising down the streets attacking Brits – it doesn’t work like that,” he jokes.

“If you’re going to get bitten by a snake, Australia’s the best place – we’ve got the best antivenom. It’s free. The treatment is unreal.”

At a time when women’s participation in the film industry was frowned upon, a young woman dared to dream differently.

In 1920s pre-independence India, PK Rosy became the first female lead in Malayalam-language cinema, in what is now the southern state of Kerala.

She starred in a movie called Vigathakumaran, or The Lost Child, in the 1920s. But instead of being remembered as a pioneer, her story was buried – erased by caste discrimination and social backlash.

Rosy belonged to a lower-caste community and faced intense criticism for portraying an upper-caste woman in Vigathakumaran.

Almost a hundred years later, there is no surviving evidence of Rosy’s role. The film’s reel was destroyed and the cast and crew have all died.

Only a few pictures of the film from a contested press release dated October 1930 survive, along with an unverified black-and-white photo popularised by local newspapers as Rosy’s only portrait.

Even a Google Doodle celebrating her 120th birthday used an illustration similar to the woman in the photograph. But Rosy’s nephew and others who have researched her life told the BBC that they could not conclusively say that it is her in the picture.

PK Rosy was born as Rajamma in the early 1900s in the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore, now Kerala.

She belonged to a family of grass cutters from the Pulaya community, part of the Dalits, who are at the bottom of India’s harsh caste hierarchy and have been historically oppressed.

“People from the Pulaya community were considered slave labour and auctioned off with land,” says Malavika Binny, a professor of history at Kannur University.

“They were considered the ‘lowliest’. They were flogged, raped, tied to trees and set on fire for any so-called transgressions,” she adds.

Despite the dire social challenges, Rosy chose to dream differently.

She was supported by her uncle, who was a theatre artist himself, and with his help Rosy entered the field of entertainment.

“There are few available facts about Rosy’s life, but it is known that she was popular for her performances in local plays,” says Vinu Abraham, the author of The Lost Heroine, a novel based on Rosy’s life.

While her acting skills earned admiration, it was rare for a Dalit woman to take up acting at the time.

“She was likely aware of the fact that this was a new arena and making herself visible was important,” says Prof Binny.

She soon became a well-known figure in local theatre circles and her talent caught the eye of director JC Daniel, who was then searching for a lead actor for his film – a character named Sarojini.

Daniel was aware of Rosy’s caste identity and chose to cast her in the role.

“She was paid five rupees a day for 10 days of filming,” said Mr Abraham. “This was a substantial amount of money in the 1920s.”

On the day of the film’s premiere, Rosy and her family were barred from attending the screening.

They were stopped because they were Dalits, Rosy’s nephew Biju Govindan says.

And so began a chain of events that pushed Rosy out of the public eye and her home.

“The crowd that came to watch the movie were provoked by two things: Rosy playing an upper-caste woman and the hero picking a flower from her hair and kissing it in one scene,” said Mr Abraham.

“They started throwing rocks at the screen and chased Daniel away,” he added.

There are differing accounts of the extent of the damage to the theatre but what is clear is the toll the incident took on both Rosy and Daniel.

Daniel had spent a lot of money to establish a studio and gather resources to produce the film, and was heavily debt-ridden. Facing immense social and financial pressure, the director, who is now widely regarded as the father of Malayalam cinema, never made another film.

Rosy fled her hometown after an angry mob set her house on fire.

She cut all ties with her family to avoid being recognised and never spoke publicly about her past. She rebuilt her life by marrying an upper-caste man and took the name Rajammal.

She lived the rest of her life in obscurity in the town of Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Mr Abraham says.

Her children refused to accept that PK Rosy, the Dalit actor, was their mother, Rosy’s nephew Mr Govindan says.

“Her children were born with an upper-caste Kesavan Pillai’s identity. They chose their father’s seed over their mother’s womb,” he says.

“We, her family, are part of PK Rosy’s Dalit identity before the film’s release,” he said.

“In the space they inhabit, caste restricts them from accepting their Dalit heritage. That is their reality and our family has no place in it.”

In 2013, a Malayalam TV channel tracked down Rosy’s daughter Padma, who was living in financial strain somewhere in Tamil Nadu. She told them that she did not know much about her mother’s life before her marriage but that she did not act after that.

The BBC made attempts to contact Rosy’s children, but their relatives said they were not comfortable with the attention.

Prof Binny says that the erasure of Rosy’s legacy shows how deeply caste-based trauma can run.

“It can be so intense that it shapes or defines the rest of one’s life,” she says, adding that she is glad Rosy eventually found a safe space.

In recent years, Dalit filmmakers and activists have sought to reclaim Rosy’s legacy. Influential Tamil director Pa Ranjith has launched a yearly film festival in her name which celebrates Dalit cinema. A film society and foundation have also been established.

But there is still a haunting sense that while Rosy was ultimately saved, it was at the cost of her passion and identity.

“Rosy prioritised survival over art and, as a result, never tried to speak publicly or reclaim her lost identity. That’s not her failure – it’s society’s,” says Mr Govindan.

A photographer has spent a decade carrying out “garden safaris” in order to capture the diversity and beauty of Britain’s back garden wildlife.

The images, including battling birds and squabbling squirrels, showed just what could be found “under our noses”, said Andrew Fusek Peters.

“I wanted to celebrate the everyday stories and reveal the beauty of our birds, mammals and insects that live alongside us,” the Shropshire photographer added.

Hundreds of his images feature in a new book.

The majority of the photographs were taken in his “modest” garden, and local village of Lydbury.

“You don’t have to travel to nature reserves or mountains,” he said.

“I sometimes get snobbery from the big photographers who go to Africa and do the lions and tigers, or Greenland for the Polar bears,” he explained.

“And they think I’m somehow inferior because I do blue tits in the garden.”

But, he added, capturing rare images such as a hare feeding her leveret on someone’s back lawn was “just amazing”.

“At the time I took it, that had been photographed maybe less than 10 times in the world,” he said.

“It was sheer gold on my memory card.”

He had also travelled to other parts of the UK in order to capture other “extraordinary moments,” including a fox family playing in Clapham, south London, and a pair of red squirrels on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Fusek Peters started concentrating on his own garden wildlife after a diagnosis of bowel cancer in 2018, perfecting a technique to “make time stop” to get shots of birds and butterflies taking off and in mid flight.

Using his kitchen as a hide, he has also taken rare pictures of birds – showing the effect of diffraction on their wings, giving a rainbow effect.

“This winter I got a woodpecker and a nuthatch” he said, adding the images were “extraordinary”.

“Everyone’s going to accuse me of using AI, but it’s not – it’s actually scientific.”

He added he was “one of the few in the world” to have taken such images.

“I just seem to have this blessed luck when I concentrate on what’s out of the kitchen window.”

The book was also a “rallying cry” to transform “over-manicured spaces into more wildlife friendly havens,” he said.

“These places are important, I think they really are,” he added.

“As we know with climate change and with what’s happening with habitat a lot of species are really suffering, and that includes our garden visitors so it’s important to showcase them.

“They are just as important as all the wonderful creatures of the jungle and the desert,” he added.

Springwatch presenter Iolo Williams said of the book, Garden Safari: “Andrew makes the ordinary look extraordinary – stunning photography which helps to emphasise the importance of our gardens for wildlife.”

“I think this is the best compliment I’ve ever had,” the photographer commented.

A UK-EU summit is likely to pave the way for a deal which could substantially reduce the impact of the Irish Sea border.

The UK wants to reset its post-Brexit relationship with the European Union ( EU) after years of tension.

Monday’s summit is expected to include an “agreement to agree” on trade issues, including the trade in food and agricultural products.

If a full agri-food deal follows, potentially later this year, that will reduce the need for checks and controls on products being sent from GB to Northern Ireland.

It could mean the end of ‘Not for EU’ labelling and the removal of most physical checks on goods.

One food business in Belfast said the reset cannot come soon enough and that immediate measures are needed to help small firms.

BBC News NI first spoke to the owners of Arcadia Deli in 2020 before the sea border started to be implemented. They have faced continuous struggles with the processes needed to get products from GB.

Co-owner Laura Graham-Brown said that new sea border rules on parcels have made the situation much worse in the last month.

“Our partners in England have decided they are not supplying Northern Ireland until further notice until they can get some clarification on how to make it easier,” she said.

“That is our biggest distributor so it is starting to tell on our counter as it becomes increasingly empty.”

She said she would welcome any deal that improves the situation but said something needs to change soon.

“All we want to do is sell cheese and olives. In order to keep stocking our shelves we need something to happen fairly quickly,” she said.

There are no guarantees about the scope of the agreement being negotiated and, on its own, it would not eliminate the sea border.

Stuart Anderson from NI Chamber of Commerce said businesses would take time to analyse the detail of any deal.

“NI Chamber has been calling on the UK government to reach an agreement that is ambitious enough to substantially reduce bureaucracy for all operators in our agrifood supply chain,” he said.

It comes as a poll from Queen’s University Belfast suggests dwindling unionist support for Northern Ireland’s current Brexit deal, the Windsor Framework.

Professor David Phinnemore said there was an “evident drop” in the already limited unionist support that exists for the Windsor Framework particularly among those identifying as “slightly unionist”.

Support among that group has fallen from 51% to 26% over the last year.

Prof Phinnimore said: “If that trend is to be reversed, a closer UK-EU relationship needs to deliver on reducing obstacles to the GB-NI movement of goods.”

The Labour government made a manifesto commitment to seek a new agri-food agreement with the EU which, it said, would aim to “eliminate most border checks created by the Tory Brexit deal”.

The deal would apply to the UK as a whole but would have the biggest impact in Northern Ireland.

That is because NI is still effectively inside the EU’s single market for goods but its supermarkets are mainly supplied from the UK.

The Centre for European Reform (CER), a think tank, said that an agri-food deal would not be of “great macroeconomic significance” for the UK as a whole but that NI would be a “major beneficiary”.

It added: “The closer UK regulations come to those of the EU, the less is the need for border controls on goods crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.”

The Irish Sea border continues to have an impact on Northern Ireland’s politics and its economy.

It came about as the result of a Brexit deal between the EU and UK in 2019, which was revised in 2023, and is now known as the Windsor Framework.

It was agreed that the most practical way to keep the border open between NI and the Republic of Ireland was for NI to follow many EU laws on the regulation of goods.

This means that goods coming from the rest of the UK into NI face checks and controls to ensure they meet EU rules.

For many nationalists in NI, this is a necessary compromise to minimise the impact of Brexit on the island of Ireland.

For many unionists it is a constitutional affront which undermines NI’s place in the UK.

The largest unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), prevented NI’s power-sharing government from operating between 2022 and 2024 in protest.

Agri-food deals from the EU fall into two broad categories: New Zealand-style or Swiss-style.

The EU’s deal with New Zealand means that each party recognises that the other has high food standards and so the frequency of checks on products and paperwork is reduced.

However, New Zealand still sets its own standards and a proportion of goods are still checked as they enter the EU.

By contrast there are no regulatory border controls for trade in agri-food products between Switzerland and the EU.

But the Swiss only have this deal because they agreed to follow EU rules almost to the letter, without much say in setting those rules.

Switzerland is obliged to modify its laws in response to changes in EU legislation, what is known as dynamic alignment, and accept oversight from the European Court of Justice.

A Swiss-style deal would mean controls on GB food products entering NI could be effectively ended.

The EU has previously said this deal would be on offer to the UK but the government had retained an ambivalent stance on whether it would accept this.

However in recent weeks ministers have been careful not to rule it out.

Such a deal will face opposition from Brexit supporters who say it would involve surrendering powers which were returned to the UK after it left the EU.

The Irish Sea is really two borders.

One deals with products’ standards – making sure goods can be legally sold. The other deals with customs – making sure the correct tariffs have been paid.

An agri-food deal would go a long way to removing the standards border but it would leave the customs border untouched.

Businesses in GB would still have to make customs declarations for goods going to NI with the risk that goods would be delayed if the paperwork is incorrect.

The hackers behind a cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer (M&S) managed to gain entry through a third party who had access to its systems, the BBC understands.

The cyber-attack, which happened in April, has caused millions of pounds of lost sales for M&S and left it struggling to get services back to normal, with online orders paused for more than three weeks.

The supermarket declined to comment on the nature of the breach or these new details, saying “availability is now in a much more normal place with stores well stocked this weekend”.

DragonForce – the name the criminals are using – previously told the BBC it was behind the attack and was also responsible for hacking the Co-op and an attempted hack on Harrods.

M&S will announce its annual results on Wednesday, but the focus will all be on the devastating attack and its financial impact.

Bank of America analysts believe M&S has lost more than £40m of sales every week since the incident began over the Easter bank holiday weekend.

It announced on 25 April it had stopped taking online orders. Some stores were left with empty food shelves after the firm had to take some food-related systems offline.

On a precautionary basis, M&S decided to close down many of its IT operations following the attack, effectively locking itself out its core systems as it grappled to deal with the attack.

The biggest challenge is getting its online system fully operational again, which accounts for around a third of its clothing and homeware sales.

M&S told the BBC: “Our stores have remained open and availability is now in a much more normal place with stores well stocked this weekend.”

The retailer said on 13 May that some personal customer data was stolen in the cyber attack, which could include names, date of birth, phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, household information, and online order histories.

It added that any card information taken would not be useable as it does not hold full card payment details on its systems.

The Co-op, which the hackers previously told the BBC they had targeted, said on 30 April that it had shut down parts of its IT systems in response to the attack. The hack caused payment problems and widespread shortages of goods in shops, and customer and staff data was compromised.

It said on Wednesday that customers should see stocks return to more normal levels on Saturday and Sunday.

Ten prisoners, several of them facing murder charges, have escaped from a New Orleans jail and may have had help from staff inside the facility, authorities say.

The inmates are thought to have fled around midnight, and were discovered missing during a headcount at 08:30 local time (13:30 GMT) at the Orleans Parish Jail on Friday morning. One of the 10 has been recaptured.

“There’s no way for anyone to get out of this facility without help,” Sheriff Susan Huston said during a news conference.

The sheriff’s office posted photos showing how the inmates escaped, which included taunting messages apparently left by the escapees. “To Easy LoL,” one message read.

One inmate was apprehended in New Orleans’ French Quarter, police said. The other nine are considered “armed and dangerous”, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said, adding that a manhunt was continuing.

Louisiana State Police identified one escapee as Kendall Myles in central New Orleans through facial recognition technology after he was filmed on a surveillance camera.

He tried to flee on foot before being apprehended hiding underneath a car in a parking garage, police said.

He was transported back to the Orleans Parish Jail, and “is being rebooked at the facility for a new charge of Simple Escape”, it said in a statement.

The New Orleans Police Department has released the names and photographs of the other escapees in a post on X.

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office initially said 11 prisoners had escaped from the facility, but the number was revised to 10 later on Friday.

Sheriff Hutson said the inmates yanked the sliding door from their jail cell off its tracks at 00:23 in the early hours of Friday morning (05:23 GMT).

They exited the jail about half an hour later after ripping a toilet from the wall and breaking metal bars around a hole in the wall that was used for piping.

They then climbed down a wall and ran across a highway, the sheriff said.

The sheriff’s office released images of the hole in the wall, which shows what the piping fixture looked like before the toilet was ripped out. The photos note that “there are clean cuts” on the metal bars, which facilitated their escape.

The photos also show messages on the wall apparently left behind by the inmates.

The photos show messages scrawled in pen, including “To Easy LoL” with an arrow pointing to the hole. It also shows a smiley face with its tongue out and another message, partially smudged, that appears to tell officers to catch the inmates when they can.

New Orleans police chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the prisoner escape was an “urgent and serious situation” and encouraged the public to report any suspicious activity.

Victims of some of the escapees have been notified, she said, adding that several are facing murder and other violent charges.

The inmates probably had help, Supt Kirkpatrick said, and are unlikely to still be wearing prison uniforms, warning that anyone who helped the inmates would be charged.

The FBI and US Marshals have also joined local police in the search, she added.

The Orleans Parish Jail is located near the centre of the city, around 3 km (2 miles) from the city’s famous French Quarter.

A second man has been arrested in connection with alleged arson attacks in north London at properties connected to Sir Keir Starmer.

The 26-year-old was arrested on Saturday at London Luton Airport on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life.

The arrest relates to three incidents: a vehicle fire in Kentish Town, a fire at the prime minister’s private home on the same street, and a fire at an address he previously lived at in north-west London.

Another man, Roman Lavrynovych, 21, who the BBC understands is a builder and roofer, appeared in court on Friday and is accused of three counts of arson with intent to endanger life following the fires. He did not enter any pleas.

The 26-year-old man is in police custody in London.

The Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command have led the investigation into the fires because of the connection with a high-profile public figure.

Emergency services responded to a fire in the early hours of Monday at the Kentish Town home where Sir Keir lived before becoming prime minister and moving into 10 Downing Street.

Police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade to reports of a fire at the residential address at 01:35 BST.

Damage was caused to the property’s entrance but nobody was hurt.

It is understood Sir Keir still owns the property and is renting it out.

On 8 May, a car that Sir Keir sold to a neighbour in 2024 caught fire on the same street.

In the early hours of Sunday, firefighters dealt with a small fire at the front door of a house converted into flats in nearby Islington, which the prime minister previously lived at.

One person was helped to safety via an internal staircase by crews wearing breathing apparatus, the fire brigade previously said.

Two British men accused of robbing a luxury jewellery store in Tokyo can be sent to Japan following a landmark ruling.

For almost a decade, Japanese authorities have pursued the extradition of Kaine Wright, 28, Joe Chappell, 38, and a third man over allegations they posed as customers to steal items worth £679,000 (¥106m) from a Harry Winston store.

On Friday, chief magistrate Judge Goldspring rejected Wright and Chappell’s challenges against extradition. Their case now passes to the home secretary to decide whether they should be sent to Japan.

No extradition treaty exists between the UK and Japan, meaning it would be the first time Japan have successfully received fugitives.

Japan’s initial request was rejected, but the High Court overturned the original decision following an appeal lodged by the Japanese government.

In Friday’s judgement – seen by the BBC – Wright, of Plumstead, and Chappell, of Belvedere, both in London, had raised concerns over prison conditions in Japan which they argued were “arbitrary, excessive and breach international standards”.

The Japanese government said the submissions were “fundamentally flawed both legally and factually”.

District Judge Goldspring, chief magistrate of England and Wales, found there was a “prima facie case” – enough evidence to support a charge at first glance – against Chappell and that extradition would be “compatible” with his and Wright’s human rights.

Friday’s ruling follows a recent High Court judgement that the Japanese government had a case to extradite Wright, Chappell and a third man named in papers as Daniel Kelly – who is Wright’s father.

Japan’s case against Kelly will be heard at the end of this month. He has not appeared in previous extradition hearings due to a conspiracy to murder case against him taking precedence.

Details from January’s High Court judgement state that the Japanese “relied upon a range of evidence” which demonstrated that Kelly, Wright and Chappell travelled to Tokyo around the time of the jewellery raid in November 2015.

CCTV captured all three arriving at Narita International Airport on 18 November 2015 and staying at “the Elm Share House”, Japanese authorities said.

Ch Insp Suzuki set out a record of the investigation to the High Court which indicated the trio “took taxis” to Harry Winston’s branch in Omotesando Hills.

In their efforts to escape, the trio left a number of items behind including an Armani jacket, he said.

Ch Insp Suzuki added: “Goggles were left at the shop and a jacket was left on the route the robbers took to flee from the scene.”

A professor at the Tokyo Dental College compared ePassport images taken at Narita Airport and compared it to CCTV stills of three men taken at the Harry Winston store.

“The possibility that two (or three) persons in the relevant comparison are the same is extremely high,” Ch Insp Suzuki said in his report, citing the professor’s “expert” findings.

As well as other DNA matches, Ch Insp Suzuki’s report referred to “expert evidence that glass shards found at the property where the three stayed that matched the glass in the display case at the jewellery shop”.

Findings in the reports were challenged at the High Court by lawyers representing Wright and Chappell.

The Japanese government said it would ensure that the three men would have the right to consult with a lawyer in private, have any interviews recorded and have the right not to answer any questions.

Wright, once a promising footballer on the books of West Ham United and Brentford, served time in prison after being convicted in 2023 of trying to sell a Ming vase which was stolen from a museum in Switzerland.

Subject to any further appeals, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper now has 28 days to decide whether to extradite Chappell and Wright or reject Japan’s request.

Three alleged Iranian spies have appeared in court charged with targeting UK-based journalists so that “serious violence” could be inflicted on them.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, all from London, appeared in custody at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

They are accused of targeting individual journalists working for Iran International, an independent media organisation based in London.

The three defendants were granted temporary leave to remain in the UK after claiming asylum. They arrived in the UK between 2016 and 2022. Mr Sepahvand arrived in 2016 concealed in a lorry. The other two arrived in small boats.

The three men are charged with committing offences under the National Security Act between 2024 and this year. They were arrested two weeks ago.

They are charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service, namely that of Iran, in carrying out UK-related activities and knew or ought to have reasonably known their conduct was likely to assist a foreign intelligence service.

“Iran must be held to account for its actions,” Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement following Saturday’s charges.

She added: “We must also strengthen our powers to protect our national security as we will not tolerate growing state threats on our soil.”

Mr Sepahvand, of St John’s Wood, London is also charged with engaging in surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research with the intention of committing serious violence against a person in the UK.

Mr Manesh, of Kensal Rise, London and Mr Noori, of Ealing, London are also charged with engaging in surveillance and reconnaissance with the intention that serious violence against a person in the UK would be committed by others.

A fourth man, 31, was arrested on 9 May as part of the investigation but was released without charge on Thursday, police said.

It is alleged the three men carried out surveillance with a view to locating journalists associated with Iran International.

Iran International produces coverage that is critical of the current regime in Iran and has been proscribed in Iran as a terrorist organisation.

The three defendants appeared in the dock wearing grey tracksuits flanked by eight guards. Mr Sepahvand was in a wheelchair.

No pleas were indicated by the men. District Judge Annabel Pilling remanded them in custody to appear the Old Bailey on 6 June.

Cdr Dominic Murphy, from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, said the “extremely serious” charges made on Saturday come follow “a very complex and fast-moving investigation”.

He said detectives had been “working around the clock” since the men were arrested, and added that officers had been “in contact with the individuals directly affected”.

Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said: “It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

The arrest of the three men on 3 May came on the same day that five other Iranian men were detained in London, Stockport, Rochdale and Manchester by police as part of a separate counter-terrorism investigation.

One of those men was later released on bail until an unspecified date in May, while police obtained further detention orders for the four others until Saturday.

The other four Iranian nationals were released from custody on Saturday, with Cdr Murphy saying “our investigation remains active and ongoing”.

The police have stressed that they were not treating the two investigations as linked.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has given his strongest signal yet that a youth mobility scheme could form part of a new deal with the EU.

Speaking to the Times ahead of a summit on Monday between the bloc and the UK, he insisted such a scheme would not amount to a return to pre-Brexit freedom of movement.

While Sir Keir said it would be a “reciprocal” arrangement in which young people would be able to move abroad for up to two years, no specific details about the ages of those who could be eligible and whether there would be a cap on numbers were given.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has described the possible scheme as “free movement through the back door”.

“We’re not against youth mobility schemes. We’re against uncapped migration schemes,” she wrote on X.

Reform UK has echoed these sentiments. Its deputy leader, Richard Tice, said earlier this week such a scheme would be “the thin end” to EU free movement.

Sir Keir has denied these accusations, saying that Labour has a “red line in our manifesto about freedom of movement” and that “youth mobility is not freedom of movement”.

An agreement is expected to be announced at Monday’s summit, which is being held at London’s Lancaster House.

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has been told that it will only be an agreement in principle, not the final deal.

She understands that the EU has been pushing for stays as long as four years, while the UK is not contemplating more than one or two.

In fresh comments on Saturday evening ahead of the summit, Sir Keir said “a strengthened partnership” with the EU would “be good for our jobs, good for our bills and good for our borders”.

Prior to Brexit, young people in the UK had the right to travel and study freely, without a visa, in the rest of Europe and vice versa. A new deal could see a return to a similar state of affairs.

The prime minister has pointed to reciprocal youth mobility schemes (YMS) that the UK already has with the likes of Australia – where people between the ages of 18 and 35 are allowed to work in each other’s countries.

The UK currently offers visas allowing young people from 12 non-EU countries including Japan, South Korea and Uruguay to study or work in the UK for up to two years. Those from Australia, Canada or New Zealand can extend by a further year.

These visas are subject to annual quotas, ranging from 100 visas for Andorra to 42,000 for Australia, with ballots held where they are oversubscribed.

The former Tory government last year rejected an EU offer that would have made it easier for people aged between 18 and 30 to study and work abroad in the wake of Brexit.

Labour at the time said it had “no plans for a youth mobility scheme” if it won the general election.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Friday that the current government was giving “mixed messages” and that he wanted to hear it “speaking in one voice and say they would like a youth mobility scheme”.

He said such a scheme would “put rocket boosters up businesses in London”, where there are gaps in sectors including hospitality, creative industries, health and social care.

The Liberal Democrats have also welcomed the idea of a new form of youth mobility scheme, with Europe spokesperson James MacCleary calling it a “welcome step in the right direction”.

He added: “This news is a glimmer of hope for young people who have been so badly let down by Brexit. The government now need to follow through.”

The UK’s European relations minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, publicly confirmed last week that the government was considering setting up a youth mobility scheme as part of a new partnership agreement with the EU.

He told the Financial Times that “a smart, controlled youth mobility scheme would of course have benefits for our young people” – provided the government’s red lines are respected.

Asked whether the UK might in the future consider re-joining the Erasmus student scheme, Thomas-Symonds said there were not currently plans to do so but added the government was “always open to listening to sensible proposals from the EU”.

Universities and students the BBC has spoken to recently say Brexit has made studying in the UK less attractive.

For example, since August 2021, new students from the EU generally have had to pay international fees and do not qualify for tuition fee loans.

As well as youth mobility, issues such as fishing rights are also expected to be discussed during Monday’s meeting – the first since Brexit.

Sir Keir described the upcoming talks as a “really significant moment”, saying they would help to create greater wealth for British people.

“Nobody wants to relitigate the last nine years and I think [the things] they will be most concerned about — am I going to be better off, is this going to help my living standards, is it going to make sure my job’s preserved, are there jobs in the future, is my community going to benefit from that? — that’ll be test number one,” he said.

Most journalists travelling with the US president don’t see much of the interior of Air Force One, the presidential jet.

The press cabin is in the back of the plane, accessible by a rear set of steps and a quick turn of a corner.

To reach the presidential suite at the front of the plane would require negotiating with the armed Secret Service agents in the next-door cabin.

On Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East this week, when the future of the famous plane was a huge talking point, Fox News host Sean Hannity had priority seating and access to the president to conduct an in-flight interview.

But the rest of us in the travelling press pool were consigned to our small section of the plane.

It was a whirlwind trip, hitting three nations in three nights, half a world away. The president described it as an “endurance test” – one that his staff and those of us in the press pool had to manage, as well.

The presidential jet is not a bad way to fly, however. The 14 seats are comfortable, roughly on par with a first-class domestic flight.

There’s a bathroom and a table with snacks (including the coveted Air Force One-branded M&Ms bearing the president’s signature, which aren’t available anywhere else).

• Qatar’s Air Force One offer angers Trump supporters
• Is Trump allowed to accept 747 gift?

The cabin has a pair of television monitors – usually tuned to the president’s preferred cable news channel (CNN during Joe Biden’s term; Fox News for Trump). On occasion, they’ve been set to a football game or other sporting events.

For longer flights, the on-board kitchen serves plated meals (the president eats from a different, fancier menu). On short hops, there’s usually food in a takeaway bag.

But the interior of this famous aircraft could soon undergo a radical refit if, as looks likely, Trump accepts the Qatari offer to supply a new “palace in the sky” – the biggest foreign gift ever received by a US president.

Technically, “Air Force One” is a radio call sign, the designation for any Air Force aircraft with the US president aboard. The small prop plane Lyndon Baines Johnson took from Austin to his Texas ranch in the 1960s was Air Force One, too.

But the Air Force One most people picture, the one featured in the Harrison Ford action film, is the 747-200b with water blue, steel blue and white paint set against a chrome underbody – a colour scheme picked out by First Lady Jackie Kennedy in 1962.

Currently there are two of these 747s in the Air Force passenger fleet, in use since 1990. Needless to say, technology – both in aircraft design and everything else – has come a long way in the ensuing years. The planes have been upgraded, but the costs of maintaining the airframe and engines are growing. The aircrafts are showing their age.

This has clearly irked the current White House occupant – the only president to own his own jet, or for that matter, his own airline, prior to taking office.

“I leave now and get onto a 42-year-old Boeing,” he said, exaggerating the plane’s age during an industry briefing on Thursday in Abu Dhabi. “But new ones are coming.”

Coming, but not soon enough for Trump. During his first term, he touted an updated presidential aircraft, made by Boeing, that was in the works. He even picked out his own colour palette, scrapping Kennedy’s design for a red-white-and-blue livery. He proudly displays a model of that jet in the Oval Office.

Originally planned to be delivered by 2021, delays and cost overruns for the estimated $4bn construction programme have made it less likely that the two new planes on order will be available for much, if any, of Trump’s second term in office, which expires in January 2029.

He has tasked tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk with speeding up the process and reportedly groused in private that he is embarrassed to travel in such an outdated plane.

That explains why the president has become enamoured with the prospect of a seemingly more immediate solution to his air transport woes – courtesy of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

News of Qatar’s offer of a lavish $400m 747-8 made headlines last week, but the gift apparently has been in the works for months.

Trump surreptitiously visited the aircraft in question in mid-February, just a few weeks after the start of his second term in office.

Aside from the legal and ethical concerns of such a substantial gift – raised by critics and some allies of the president – converting a foreign 747 for use by an American president creates a number of technical challenges.

The aircraft would have to be made capable of in-flight refuelling and retrofitted with a sophisticated package of communications and security equipment. The current models have systems built to withstand the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion.

Such a refitting process, says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, would take years, until 2030 at least.

“They have to assume the jet has been left unattended in a dangerous place for 13 years,” he says. “Which means it’s not enough to take the plane apart. You also have to take every single component apart.”

The plane would need additional power to run its new systems, and its interior might have to be rearranged. Chances are there’s no press cabin in the flying palace as originally designed.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense and Security Department, says the costs of such retrofitting could easily run to $1bn.

He adds, however, that Trump could waive some, or all, of the security modifications if he so chooses.

“He’s the president,” he said.

When the Air Force ultimately does retire its current crop of 747s, it will put to pasture an aircraft that have been part of fabric of American history for decades. One that transported President Bill Clinton, along with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George W Bush, to Israel for Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral in 1995.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, George W Bush took to the skies in Air Force One and stayed aloft for hours, refuelling mid-air, until his security team determined it was safe for him to land and address the nation, before ultimately returning to Washington.

Six US presidents have travelled on these jets, criss-crossing the US and visiting all corners of the globe. One took Biden to Israel just days after the 7 October attack by Hamas.

Trump has effectively employed the aircraft as a campaign device, holding political rallies at airfields and making low-speed passes over the crowds before landing and using Air Force One as a dramatic backdrop for his speeches.

On Trump’s recent Mid East trip, military fighters from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE accompanied Air Force One as it flew through their national airspace.

Aging though it may be, Air Force One is still one of the most recognisable signs of American presidential authority and power in the world – a military aircraft that serves a higher purpose.

“It’s not made for luxury,” says Aboulafia. “It’s a flying command post. You’re not there to throw parties.”

Sharing a dirty cell with a dozen others, constant sleep deprivation, cells with lights on 24-hours a day; poor hygiene and forced labour. These are some of what prisoners in Chinese jails are subjected to, according to Australian citizen Matthew Radalj, who spent five years at the Beijing No 2 prison – a facility used for international inmates.

Radalj, who is now living outside China, has decided to go public about his experience, and described undergoing and witnessing severe physical punishment, forced labour, food deprivation and psychological torture.

The BBC has been able to corroborate Radalj’s testimony with several former prisoners who were behind bars at the same time he was.

Many requested anonymity, because they feared retribution on loved ones still living inside the country. Others said they just wanted to try to forget the experience and move on.

The Chinese government has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

“I was in really bad shape when I arrived. They beat me for two days straight in the first police station that I was in. I hadn’t slept or eaten or had water for 48 hours and then I was forced to sign a big stack of documents,” said Radalj of his introduction to imprisonment in China, which began with his arrest on 2 January, 2020.

The former Beijing resident claims he was wrongfully convicted after a fight with shopkeepers at an electronics market, following a dispute over the agreed price to fix a mobile phone screen.

He claims he ended up signing a false confession to robbery, after being told it would be pointless to try to defend his innocence in a system with an almost 100% criminal conviction rate and in the hope that this would reduce the time of his incarceration.

Court documents indicate that this worked at least to some extent, earning him a four-year sentence.

Once in prison, he said he first had to spend many months in a separate detention centre where he was subjected to a more brutal “transition phase”.

During this time prisoners must follow extremely harsh rules in what he described as horrific conditions.

“We were banned from showering or cleaning ourselves, sometimes for months at a time. Even the toilet could be used only at specific allotted times, and they were filthy – waste from the toilets above would constantly drip down on to us.”

Eventually he was admitted to the “normal” prison where inmates had to bunk together in crowded cells and where the lights were never turned off.

You also ate in the same room, he said.

According to Radalj, African and Pakistani prisoners made up the largest groups in the facility, but there were also men being held from Afghanistan, Britain, the US, Latin America, North Korea and Taiwan. Most of them had been convicted for acting as drug mules.

Radalj said that prisoners were regularly subjected to forms of what he described as psychological torture.

One of these was the “good behaviour points system” which was a way – at least in theory – to reduce your sentence.

Prisoners could obtain a maximum of 100 good behaviour points per month for doing things like studying Communist Party literature, working in the prison factory or snitching on other prisoners. Once 4,200 points were accumulated, they could in theory be used to reduce prison time.

If you do the maths, that would mean a prisoner would have to get maximum points every single month for three-and-half years before this could start to work.

Radalj said that in reality it was used as a means of psychological torture and manipulation.

He claims the guards would deliberately wait till an inmate had almost reached this goal and then penalise them on any one of a huge list of possible infractions which would cancel out points at the crucial time.

These infractions included – but were not limited to – hoarding or sharing food with other prisoners, walking “incorrectly” in the hallway by straying from a line painted on the ground, hanging socks on a bed incorrectly, or even standing too close to the window.

Other prisoners who spoke about the points system to the BBC described it as a mind game designed to crush spirits.

Former British prisoner Peter Humphrey, who spent two years in detention in Shanghai, said his facility had a similar points calculation and reduction system which was manipulated to control prisoners and block sentence reductions.

“There were cameras everywhere, even three to a cell,” he said. “If you crossed a line marked on the ground and were caught by a guard or on camera, you would be punished. The same if you didn’t make your bed properly to military standard or didn’t place your toothbrush in the right place in the cell.

“There was also group pressure on prisoners with entire cell groups punished if one prisoner did any of these things.”

One ex-inmate told the BBC that in his five years in prison, he never once saw the points actually used to mitigate a sentence.

Radalj said that there were a number of prisoners – including himself – who didn’t bother with the points system.

So authorities resorted to other means of applying psychological pressure.

These included cutting time off monthly family phone calls or the reduction of other perceived benefits.

But the most common daily punishment involved the reduction of food.

The BBC has been told by numerous former inmates that the meals at Beijing’s No 2 prison were mostly made up of cabbage in dirty water which sometimes also had bits of carrot and, if they were lucky, small slivers of meat.

They were also given mantou – a plain northern Chinese bread. Most of the prisoners were malnourished, Radalj added.

Another prisoner described how inmates ate a lot of mantou, as they were always hungry. He said that their diets were so low in nutrition – and they could only exercise outside for half an hour each week – that they developed flimsy upper bodies but retained bloated looking stomachs from consuming so much of the mantou.

Prisoners were given the opportunity to supplement their diet by buying meagre extra rations, if money from relatives had been put into what were called their “accounts”: essentially a prison record of funds delivered to purchase provisions like soap or toothpaste.

They could also use this to purchase items like instant noodles or soy milk powder. But even this “privilege” could be taken away.

Radalj said he was blocked from making any extra purchases for 14 months because he refused to work in the prison factory, where inmates were expected to assemble basic goods for companies or compile propaganda leaflets for the ruling Communist Party.

To make things worse, they were made to work on a “farm”, where they did manage to grow a lot of vegetables, but were never allowed to eat them.

Radalj said the farm was displayed to a visiting justice minister as an example of how impressive prison life was.

But, he said, it was all for show.

“We would be growing tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages and okra and then – at the end of the season – they would push it all into a big hole and bury it,” he added.

“And if you were caught with a chilli or a cucumber in general population you would go straight to solitary confinement for eight months.”

Another prisoner said they would occasionally suddenly receive protein, like a chicken leg, to make their diet look better when officials visited the prison.

Humphrey said there were similar food restrictions in his Shanghai prison, adding that this led to power struggles among the inmates: “The kitchen was run by prison labour. Those who worked there stole the best stuff and it could then be distributed.”

Radalj described a battle between African and Taiwanese groups in Beijing’s Prison No 2 over this issue.

The Nigerian inmates were working in the kitchen and “were getting small benefits, like a bag of apples once a month or some yogurt or a couple of bananas”, he said.

Then the Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese inmates were able to convince the guards to let them take over, giving them control of precious extra food items.

This led to a large brawl, and Radalj said he was caught in the middle of it. He was sent to solitary confinement for 194 day after hitting another prisoner.

Inside solitary, he finally had the lights turned off only to realise he’d be with very little light nearly all of the time, giving him the opposite sensory problem.

His small food ration was also cut in half. There were no reading materials and there was nobody to talk to while he was held in a bare room of 1.2 by 1.8 metres (4ft by 6ft) for half a year.

“You start to go crazy, whether you like it or not, and that’s what solitary is designed to do… So you’ve got to decide very quickly whether your room is really, really small, or really, really big.

“After four months, you just start talking to yourself all the time. The guards would come by and ask ‘Hey, are you okay?’. And you’re like, ‘why?’. They replied, ‘because you’re laughing’.”

Then, Radalj said, he would respond, in his own mind: “It’s none of your business.”

Another feature of Chinese prison life, according to Radalji, was the fake “propaganda” moments officials would stage for Chinese media or visiting officials to paint a rosy picture of conditions there.

He said, at one point, a “computer suite” was set up. “They got everyone together and told us that we’d get our own email address and that we would be able to send emails. They then filmed three Nigerian guys using these computers.”

The three prisoners apparently looked confused because the computers were not actually connected to the internet – but the guards had told them to just “pretend”.

“Everything was filmed to present a fake image of prisoners with access to computers,” Radalj said.

But, he claims, soon after the photo opportunity, the computers were wrapped up in plastic and never touched again.

Throughout much of the ordeal, Radalj had been secretly keeping a journal by peeling open Covid masks and writing tiny sentences inside, with the help of some North Korean prisoners, who have also since been released.

“I would be writing, and the Koreans would say: ‘No smaller… smaller!’.”

Radalj said many of the prisoners had no way of letting their families know they were in jail.

Some had not made phone calls to their relatives because no money had been placed in their accounts for phone calls. For others, their embassies had not registered family telephone numbers for the prison phone system. Only calls to officially approved numbers worked.

So, after word got round that the Australian was planning to try to smuggle his notes out, they passed on details to connect with their families.

“I had 60 or 70 people hoping I could contact their loved ones after I got out to tell them what was happening.”

He wrapped the pieces of Covid mask as tight as he could with sticky tape hoarded from the factory and tried to swallow the egg-sized bundle without the guards seeing.

But he couldn’t keep it down.

The guards saw what was happening on camera and started asking, “Why are you vomiting? Why do you keep gagging? What’s wrong?”

So, he gave up and hid the bundle instead.

When he was about to leave on 5 October 2024, he was given his old clothes which had been ripped five years earlier in the struggle over his initial arrest.

There was a tear in the lining of his jacked and he quickly dropped the notes inside before a guard could see him.

Radalj said he thinks someone told the prison officers of his plan because they searched his room and questioned him before he left.

“Did you forget something?” the guards asked.

“They trashed all my belongings. I was thinking they’re gonna take me back to solitary confinement. There will be new charges.”

But the guard holding his clothes never knew the secret journal had been slipped inside.

“They were like, ‘Get out of here!’. And it wasn’t until I was on the plane, and we had already left, and the seat belt sign was switched off, that I reached into my jacket to check.”

The notes were still there.

Just before he had boarded the plane in Beijing a policeman who had escorted him to the gate had used Radalj’s boarding pass to buy duty free cigarettes for his mates.

“He said don’t come back to China. You’re banned for 10 years. And I said ‘yeah cool. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for your health'”.

The officer laughed.

He arrived back in Australia and hugged his father at Perth airport. The tears were flowing.

Then he got married to his long-time girlfriend and now they spend their days making candles and other products.

Radalj says he is still angry about his experience and has a long way to go to recover properly.

But he is making his way through the contact list of his former inmate friends – “I have spent the best part of six months contacting their families, lobbying their embassies so they might try to do a better job of helping them during their incarceration.”

Some of them, he said, haven’t spoken to people back home for nearly a decade. And helping them has also helped with the transition back to his old life.

“With freedom comes a great sense of gratitude,” Radalj says. “You have a deeper appreciation for the very simplest things in life. But I also have a great sense of responsibility to the people I left behind in prison.”

Austrian singer JJ has won the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, after a nail-biting finish that saw him topple Israel from pole position at the very last minute.

The 24-year-old, who is a counter-tenor at the Vienna State Opera, took the title with the song Wasted Love, an tempestuous electro-ballad about unrequited love.

“Thank you so much for making my dreams come true,” he said as he accepted the coveted glass microphone trophy. “Love is the strongest force in the world, let’s spread more love.”

The singer scored 436 points, with Israel in second place on 357 and Estonia third on 356. The UK’s act, Remember Monday, placed 19th with 88 points.

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For the second year in a row, the UK received zero from the public.

1. Austria: JJ – Wasted Love
2. Israel: Yuval Raphael: New Day Will Rise
3. Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
4. Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
5. Italy: Lucio Corsi – Volevo Essere Un Duro

JJ’s younger sister broke through security guards to hug him after his victory was announced.

The Austrian said his whole family had arrived to support him at the contest, including his 85-year-old grandfather, and a four-month-old niece, who watched outside with his brother.

It is the third time Austria has won the contest, with previous victories going to Udo Jürgens’ Merci, Cherie in 1966; and Conchita Wurst with Rise Like a Phoenix in 2014. JJ was inspired to take part in Eurovision by Conchita.

The singer had always been one of the favourites to win, but the most hotly-tipped contestants were Sweden’s KAJ – whose tongue-in-cheek ode to sauna culture, Bara Bada Bastu, ultimately took fourth place.

Speaking after the show, JJ said he was “so pleased” that viewers had connected with his story of heartache.

“I wanted to let them have an insight on my deepest soul [and] how I felt when we wrote the song.”

“What I’m trying to commit [to] is that there’s no wasted love. There’s so much love that we can spread around. It’s the strongest force on planet earth.”

Asked how he would celebrate, he replied: “Honestly, I need to sleep now. I’m tired.”

For the second year in a row, there was controversy over Israel’s participation, with protestors arguing for the country’s dismissal over its military action in Gaza.

Pro-Palestinian protests took place on the streets of Basel in the hours before the contest.

Later, a man and a woman people were prevented from invading the stage during Israel’s performance.

“One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit,” said Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR in a statement to the BBC.

“The crew member is fine and nobody was injured.

“The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.”

The performance, by young singer Yuval Raphael, was unaffected.

The 25-year-old is a survivor of the Hamas attacks of 7 October, 2023, an experience which coloured her delicate ballad, New Day Will Rise.

The Israeli delegation said Raphael was left “shaken and upset” by the incident, but that it was “extremely proud” of her performance “which represented Israel in a respectful manner”.

Elsewhere, Eurovision was its usual explosion of high camp, sexual innuendo and dresses being removed to reveal smaller, tighter dresses.

Malta’s Mariana Conte was forced to rewrite her disco anthem Serving Kant to remove what sounded like a swear word – but performed the censored version with a knowing wink, safe in the knowledge the audience would fill in the blanks.

Although it was a fan favourite, Conte could only manage 17th.

Estonia’s Tommy Cash, who came third, also kept the innuendo train running, with Espresso Macchiato, a caffeinated disco anthem featuring the unforgettable phrase: “Life is like spaghetti, it’s hard until you make it.”

Another highlight was Finland’s Erika Vikman, who dispensed with double entendres entirely on Ich Komme, a vibrant hymn to sexual pleasure.

The singer ended her performance by taking flight on a giant phallic microphone that shot sparks into the air.

It thrust her into 11th position, and a permanent place in the Eurovision pantheon.

The contest also dealt with more weighty subjects like economic migration (Portuguese rock band Napa) and environmental catastrophe (Latvia’s Tautumeitas, who scored 12 points from the UK jury).

Dutch singer Claude delivered a heartfelt tribute to his mother in C’est La Vie – an upbeat anthem that reflected on her positivity as she uprooted the family from their home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a child.

In a touching climax, the 21-year-old danced with an image of his childhood self in a mirror on the stage.

Also reflecting on their childhood was French singer Louane, whose tearjerking ballad was dedicated to her mother, who died of cancer when she was 17.

In one of the night’s most striking performances, she was surrounded by a whirlwind of sand as she hollered the word “mother” over and over again.

One of the favourites to win, it ended the night in seventh place, after receiving a disappointing 50 points from the public.

JJ’s performance was similarly dramatic. Shot entirely in black and white, it saw him being tossed around on a rickety boat, as waves (of emotion) threatened to consume him.

An honourable mention also goes to Italy’s Lucio Corsi, whose harmonica solo in Volevo Essere Un Duro marked the first time a live instrument has been played at Eurovision since 1998.

The UK spent a third year in the bottom half of the leaderboard, despite a spirited performance from girl group Remember Monday.

A group of friends who met at high school, their inventive pop song What The Hell Just Happened? drew on their many years of experience in West End theatre.

The girls pulled off their tricky three-part harmonies while dancing around a fallen chandelier, but the performance didn’t connect with voters.

Despite earning a healthy 88 points from juries – including 12 from Italy – it bombed with viewers.

They ended in 19th place, one below last year’s entrant Olly Alexander.

The group laughed off their “nul points” score from the public, holding up peace signs and hugging each other as the score was announced.

The voting was chaotic overall.

Thirteen of the 26 finalists received the maximum of 12 points from at least one jury, leaving the competition completely open before the public vote was counted.

Israel, who had been languishing in the bottom half of the table, then received 297 points from the public (out of a possible maximum of 444). Twelve of those points came from the UK.

For a while, it looked like Yuval Raphael’s lead might be unassailable – but Austria’s tally of 178 was the last to be announced, leaving the singer empty-handed.

There was disappointment, too, for fans of Canadian singer Céline Dion, who had been rumoured to appear at the contest.

The singer won Eurovision for Switzerland in 1988, and had appeared in a video wishing the contestants good luck at Tuesday’s semi-final.

Despite hopes from Eurovision organisers that she might turn up, the moment never came to pass.

Hamas has proposed releasing more hostages under a new Gaza ceasefire deal, after new negotiations were held on Saturday. The talks began hours after Israel’s military launched a major new offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has agreed to release nine hostages in exchange for a 60-day truce and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners, a Palestinian official told the BBC.

The official said the new proposed deal would also allow the entry of 400 aid trucks a day, and the evacuation of medical patients from Gaza. Israel, in turn, has demanded proof of life and detailed information about all remaining hostages.

The new round of ceasefire talks is being held through Qatari and US mediators in Doha, and began on Saturday afternoon local time.

Israel is yet to respond publicly to the proposed deal, but said prior to the talks that it would not withdraw troops from Gaza or commit to an end to the war.

The proposal would not include these elements, the BBC understands.

Israel’s military announced the launch of a new offensive named “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” earlier on Saturday, amid the deadliest wave of strikes in Gaza in months.

At least 300 people have been killed since Thursday, rescuers say, including at hospitals and refugee camps in the north and south of the Strip.

Thousands have died since Israel resumed strikes on 18 March, following the collapse of a fragile ceasefire which lasted two months.

Aid agencies say Gaza’s grievous humanitarian situation has also worsened, as Israel has been blocking supplies of food and other aid from entering the territory for 10 weeks.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month promised a major military escalation in the war to occupy and control swathes of Gaza, force the Palestinian population to the south of the territory, and “destroy” Hamas.

Speaking from inside Gaza, journalist Ghada Al Qurd told the BBC’s Newshour programme there had been lots of “airstrikes, shellings, drones, shooting and even exploding, in the north and east.”

“It’s terrifying and horrible,” she said.

She said her family had only been having one meal a day, due to the scarcity and spiralling cost, and accused Israel of “using food as a weapon” – an allegation UN officials have also made in recent weeks.

Aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among Gaza’s 2.1 million population, as footage and accounts emerge of emaciated children suffering malnutrition under the Israeli blockade.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that “a lot of people were starving” in Gaza. The Israeli government has repeatedly rejected claims there is a food shortage in Gaza.

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Victoria Rose, a British reconstructive surgeon working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her team were “exhausted” and staff had lost a “considerable amount of weight”.

“The children are really thin,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of youngsters whose teeth have fallen out.

“A lot of them have quite significant burn injuries and with this level of malnutrition they’re so much more prone to infection and they’ve got so much less capacity to heal.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said on 5 May that Israel was preparing an “intense entry into Gaza” to capture and hold territory, but that it would not commence until Trump completed his tour of the Middle East. He left the region on Friday.

That day, residents across northern and central Gaza were told to leave their homes or places of shelter – an order aid workers say is almost impossible because many have already been repeatedly made homeless during the war.

The IDF said on Saturday it wouldn’t stop operating “until Hamas is no longer a threat and all our hostages are home” and that it had “struck over 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the preceding 24 hours.

Strikes on Saturday hit towns in the north of Gaza, including Beit Lahiya and the Jabalia refugee camp, as well as in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Hamas-run health ministry and civil defence forces said.

Thousands of Israeli troops, including soldiers and reservists, could enter Gaza as the operation ramps up in the coming days. Israeli tanks have also been seen at the border, Reuters news agency reported.

The intensified offensive has been condemned by the UN and some European leaders.

Commissioner-General of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) Philippe Lazzarini expressed shock at Israel’s military operation, saying: “How many more Palestinian lives will be wiped off from their homeland by bombardments, hunger or lack of medical care?”

“Atrocities are becoming a new norm, under our watch, making the unbearable bearable with indifference,” he said.

Following the new strikes, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani all called for a permanent ceasefire, while Germany’s Foreign Ministry said the new offensive risked “worsening the catastrophic humanitarian situation for Gaza’s population and the remaining hostages”.

Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage. Hamas still holds 58 hostages.

At least 53,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, including more than 3,000 people since March.

FBI officials in California have called a bomb explosion outside a fertility clinic – that killed one person and injured four others – an “intentional act of terrorism”.

The blast happened just before 11:00 local time (19:00 BST) less than a mile from downtown Palm Springs, near several businesses including the American Reproductive Centers (ARC). The clinic said no-one from the facility was harmed.

The FBI later said it had “a person of interest” in its investigation, but officers were “not actively searching” for the suspect.

Rhino Williams, who was at his restaurant nearby, told the BBC he heard the blast, initially thinking a plane or helicopter had crashed.

He said he ran to the scene to see if he could help, finding a badly damaged building with walls blown out and the front axle of a car on fire in the parking lot.

“That’s all that was left of it,” Mr Williams said. He also saw an iPhone on a tripod still standing in the parking lot, as if it was set to film or stream the explosion.

Mr Williams said he rushed through the building shouting for any injured people – but did not find any. A few minutes later first responders arrived.

At a news briefing later on Saturday, the FBI said it was a deliberate attack.

“This was an intentional act of terrorism. As our investigation will unfold we will determine if it’s international terrorism or domestic terrorism,” said Akil Davis, the head of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

Palm Springs police chief Andy Mills said the blast damaged several buildings, some severely.

He added that the identity of the person who was killed was not known.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state was co-ordinating with local and federal authorities to respond to the incident.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had been briefed on the incident.

The ARC in Palm Springs said the explosion occurred in the parking lot near its building.

It is unclear what the cause of the explosion was.

Palm Springs Mayor Ron De Harte told BBC’s US partner CBS News that the source of the explosion “was in or near the vehicle”.

The incident appeared “intentional”, Palm Springs police officers Mike Villegas told reporters on Saturday afternoon. He added that it remained an active investigation.

The fertility clinic said their lab, including all eggs and embryos, remained “fully secure and undamaged”.

“We are heavily conducting a complete safety inspection and have confirmed that our operations and sensitive medical areas were not impacted by the blast,” the clinic said in its statement.

But Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the clinic, told the Associated Press that the clinic’s office was damaged.

“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”

According to its website, the ARC clinic is the first full-service fertility centre and in vitro fertilisation lab (IVF) in the Coachella Valley.

It offers services like fertility evaluations, IVF, egg donation and freezing, reproductive support for same-sex couples and surrogacy.

The BBC has reached out to Palm Springs police for further comment.

Sixteen-year-old Nimra stood outside, rooted to the spot, as the Indian missiles that had woken her a moment ago rained down on the mosque a few metres from her house in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. She watched one tear the minaret off the top of the building. But she failed to realise she, too, had been struck – in the chest.

When the family reached the relative safety of her aunt’s house nearby, someone turned on a phone torch. “My aunt gasped. There was blood on my frock. It was pink and white but now soaked in red. I hadn’t seen it before.” Again they ran. “I was running but my hand was pressed on my chest the whole time. I didn’t want to take it off. I thought if I let go, everything inside me would come out.” A piece of shrapnel was lodged near her heart, she later discovered.

A few hours later, in Poonch, Indian-administered Kashmir, a different family was dodging shelling which Pakistan had launched in response to India’s missile strikes.

“When the firing began, everyone ran for their lives – children clinging to their parents in fear,” said MN Sudhan, 72. “Some families managed to leave for Jammu in their vehicles. We also decided to escape. But barely 10 minutes into our journey, a shell landed near our vehicle. The shrapnel tore through the car. My grandson died on the spot.”

“Our future was shattered at that [very] moment,” Mr Sudhan said of 13-year-old Vihaan’s death. “Now we’re left with nothing but grief. I have witnessed two wars between India and Pakistan, but never in my life have I seen shelling as intense as this.”

Nimra and Vihaan were among many of the villagers caught up in the deadliest attacks for several years in a decades-long conflict between two of the world’s nuclear powers – India and Pakistan. Both sides administer the Himalayan region in part but claim it in full. Both governments deny targeting civilians, but BBC journalists in the region have spoken to families caught up in the violence.

The strike that injured Nimra was part of India’s armed response after a militant attack killed 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – last month at a beauty spot in India-administered Kashmir. Police there claimed militants included at least two Pakistan nationals. Pakistan has asked India for evidence of this, and has called for an independent inquiry into who was behind the attack.

What followed was four days of tit-for-tat shelling and drone attacks, intensifying each day and culminating in missile strikes on military bases, which threatened to tip over into full-blown conflict. Then, suddenly, a ceasefire brokered by the US and other international players on 10 May brought the two nuclear powers back from the brink.

Families on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border in Kashmir – told us they had had loved ones killed and property destroyed. At least 16 people are reported to have been killed on the Indian side, while Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, though it remains unclear how many were directly caused by the shelling. We also heard from Indian and Pakistani government insiders about the mood in their respective administrations as the conflict escalated.

In Delhi’s corridors of power, the atmosphere was initially jubilant, an Indian government source told the BBC. Its missile attacks on targets in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Pakistan itself – including the Bilal Mosque in Muzaff arabad, which India claims is a militant camp, though Pakistan denies this – were deemed a success.

“The strikes… were not limited to Pakistani-administered Kashmir or along the Line of Control,” an Indian government source told the BBC. “We went deep – even into the Pakistani side of Punjab, which has always been Pakistan’s red line.”

But the Pakistani military had been prepared, a source from the Pakistan Air Force told the BBC. Days earlier, the Pakistani government said it was expecting an attack.

“We knew something was coming, and we were absolutely ready,” one officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said Indian fighter jets approached Pakistani territory and the air force was under instructions to shoot down any that crossed into its airspace or dropped a payload.

Pakistan claims to have shot down five Indian jets that night, something India has remained silent on.

“We were well prepared, and honestly, we were also lucky,” the source said – his account repeated by two other sources.

But Mr Sudhan, Vihaan’s grandfather, said there had been no warning to stay indoors or evacuate. “Why didn’t they inform us? We, the people, are caught in the middle.”

It is likely that no evacuation orders had been issued because the Indian government needed to keep the military strikes confidential, though the local administration had, following the April militant attack, directed locals to clean out community bunkers as a precautionary measure.

A day after the initial missile strikes, Thursday, both sides launched drone attacks, though they each accused the other of making the first move.

India began to evacuate thousands of villagers along the Indian side of the LoC. Just after 21:00 that evening, the Khan family in India-administered Kashmir decided they must flee their home in Uri, 270km (168 miles) to the north of Poonch. Most of their neighbours had already left.

But after travelling for just 10 minutes, their vehicle was struck by shrapnel from a shell, fatally injuring 47-year-old Nargis. Her sister-in-law Hafeeza was seriously injured. They headed to the nearest hospital, only to find the gates locked.

“I somehow climbed the hospital wall and called out for help, telling them we had injured people with us. Only then did the staff come out and open the gate. As soon as they did, I collapsed. The doctors were terrified by the ongoing shelling and had closed everything out of fear,” Hafeeza said.

Hafeeza’s sister-in-law Nargis is survived by six children. The youngest daughter Sanam, 20, said the first hospital they went to was not equipped to help, and as they headed to another, her mother died of her injuries.

“A piece of shrapnel had torn through her face. My clothes were soaked in her blood… We kept talking to her, urging her to stay with us. But she passed away on the way.”

Since a ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in 2021 there had been relative peace in the region, locals told the BBC. For the first time in years, they had been able to live normal lives, they said, and now this sense of security was destroyed.

Sanam, who lost her mother, said: “I appeal to both governments – if you’re heading into war, at least secure your civilians. Prepare… Those who sit in comfort and demand war – they should be sent to the borders. Let them witness what it really means. Let them lose someone before their eyes.”

Sajjad Shafi, the representative for Uri in the regional government, said he had acted as promptly as possible.

“The moment I got the news that India has attacked, I got in touch with people and started moving them out.”

After two days of attacks and counter attacks, the Indian government source said there was now a “clear sense in… power corridors that things were escalating but we were ready.

“We were ready because India had spent the last 10 years acquiring and building strategic military assets – missiles, warheads and defence systems.”

On the international stage, there had been consternation that the tensions would not be de-escalated by the US, despite its diplomatic overtures during India and Pakistan’s previous Kashmir clashes.

US Vice President JD Vance said a potential war would be “none of our business”.

This statement came as no surprise, the Indian government source told the BBC. At that stage, “it was clear the US didn’t want to get involved”.

By the following day, Friday, shelling had become more intense.

Muhammed Shafi was at home with his wife in Shahkot village in the Neelum Valley, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on the LoC.

The 30-year-old was standing in the doorway, just a few steps away from where his son was playing; his wife standing in their courtyard.

“I remember looking up and seeing a mortar shell coming from a distance. In the blink of an eye, it struck her. She didn’t even have time to scream. One second she was there, and the next, she was gone. Her face… her head… there was nothing left. Just a cloud of smoke and dust. My ears went numb. Everything went silent. I didn’t even realise I was screaming.

“That night, her body lay there, right in our home. The entire village was hiding in bunkers. The shelling continued all night, and I stayed beside her, weeping. I held her hand for as long as I could.”

One of those in a bunker was his niece, 18-year-old Umaima. She and her family were holed up in the shelter for four days, on and off, in brutal conditions.

“There were six or seven of us packed into it,” she said. “The other bunker was already full. There’s no place to lie down in there – some people stood, others sat. There was no drinking water, no food,” with people shouting, crying and reciting prayers in the pitch black.

Also in a bunker, in the Leepa Valley, Pakistan-Administered Kashmir – one of the most militarised and vulnerable valleys in the region – was Shams Ur Rehman and family. It is Shams’s own bunker, but that night he shared it with 36 other people, he said.

Leepa is surrounded on three sides by the LoC and Indian-administered territory, so Shams was used to living with cross-border tensions. But he was not prepared for the complete destruction of his house.

He left the bunker at three in the morning to survey the scene.

“Everything was gone. Wooden beams and debris from the house were scattered everywhere. The blast was so powerful, the shockwave pushed in the main wall. The metal sheets on the roof were shredded. The entire structure shifted – by at least two inches.

“A house is a person’s life’s work. You’re always trying to improve it – but in the end, it’s all gone in seconds.”

Four hours later, back in the Neelum Valley, Umaima and her family also emerged on Saturday 10 May to a transformed landscape.

“We came out of the bunker at seven in the morning. That’s when we saw – nothing was left.”

As Umaima surveyed the ruins of her village, India and Pakistan’s forces that day were trading ever more destructive blows – firing missiles at each other’s military installations, which both sides accused the other of instigating.

India had targeted three Pakistani air bases, including one in Rawalpindi – the garrison city that houses the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters.

“This was a red line crossed,” said one Pakistani officer. “The prime minister gave the go-ahead to the army chief. We already had a plan, and our forces were desperately ready to execute it… For anyone in uniform, it was one of those unforgettable days.”

Pakistan hit back at Indian military installations. On the diplomatic front, this was seen as a moment to highlight the issue of Kashmir on the international stage, an official in the Pakistan foreign office told the BBC.

“It was non-stop. Endless meetings, coordination, and back-to-back calls to and from other countries for both foreign minister and then the prime minister. We welcomed mediation offers from the US, the Saudis, the Iranians, or anyone who could help de-escalate.”

On the Indian side, the Pahalgam attack on 22 April had already prompted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to speak to at least 17 world leaders or diplomats, including UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In most of these conversations, he has tweeted, the emphasis had been on the “cross-border terrorist attack” and focused on building a case to hold the perpetrators accountable for the attack.

Then, on Saturday afternoon local time, in the aftermath of the latest missile exchanges, came a diplomatic breakthrough out of nowhere. US President Donald Trump took to social media to reveal that a ceasefire had been agreed.

“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.

“Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” he wrote on social media platform Truth Social.

India has since downplayed Washington’s role in the ceasefire and it has rejected that trade was used as a lever to achieve this.

Behind the scenes, US mediators, diplomatic backchannels and regional players, including the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia, had proved critical in negotiating the climbdown, experts say.

“We hit Pakistani strategic bases deep inside their territory and that must have worried the US,” the Indian government source believes.

In Pahalgam, the site of the militant gun attack that sparked the crisis, the search is still on for the perpetrators.

Vinay Narwal, a 26-year-old Indian Navy officer, was on his honeymoon in Pahalgam when he was killed. He had got married just a week before the attack.

A photo of Vinay’s wife Himanshi, sitting near her husband’s body following the attack, has been widely shared on social media.

His grandfather Hawa Singh Narwal wants “exemplary punishment” for the killers.

“This terrorism should end. Today, I lost my grandson. Tomorrow, someone else will lose their loved one,” he said.

A witness to the attack’s aftermath, Rayees Ahmad Bhat, who used to lead pony treks to the beauty spot where the shootings took place, said his industry was now in ruins.

“The attackers may have killed tourists that day, but we – the people of Pahalgam – are dying every day since. They’ve stained the name of this peaceful town… Pahalgam is terrorised, and its people broken.”

The attack was a huge shock for a government which had begun to actively promote tourism in stunningly picturesque Kashmir, famed for its lush valleys, lakes and snow-capped mountains.

The source in the Indian administration said this might have lulled Delhi into a false sense of security.

“Perhaps we got carried away by the response to tourism in Kashmir. We thought we were over a hump but we were not.”

The four-day conflict has once again shown how fragile peace can be between the two nations.

At a time when women’s participation in the film industry was frowned upon, a young woman dared to dream differently.

In 1920s pre-independence India, PK Rosy became the first female lead in Malayalam-language cinema, in what is now the southern state of Kerala.

She starred in a movie called Vigathakumaran, or The Lost Child, in the 1920s. But instead of being remembered as a pioneer, her story was buried – erased by caste discrimination and social backlash.

Rosy belonged to a lower-caste community and faced intense criticism for portraying an upper-caste woman in Vigathakumaran.

Almost a hundred years later, there is no surviving evidence of Rosy’s role. The film’s reel was destroyed and the cast and crew have all died.

Only a few pictures of the film from a contested press release dated October 1930 survive, along with an unverified black-and-white photo popularised by local newspapers as Rosy’s only portrait.

Even a Google Doodle celebrating her 120th birthday used an illustration similar to the woman in the photograph. But Rosy’s nephew and others who have researched her life told the BBC that they could not conclusively say that it is her in the picture.

PK Rosy was born as Rajamma in the early 1900s in the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore, now Kerala.

She belonged to a family of grass cutters from the Pulaya community, part of the Dalits, who are at the bottom of India’s harsh caste hierarchy and have been historically oppressed.

“People from the Pulaya community were considered slave labour and auctioned off with land,” says Malavika Binny, a professor of history at Kannur University.

“They were considered the ‘lowliest’. They were flogged, raped, tied to trees and set on fire for any so-called transgressions,” she adds.

Despite the dire social challenges, Rosy chose to dream differently.

She was supported by her uncle, who was a theatre artist himself, and with his help Rosy entered the field of entertainment.

“There are few available facts about Rosy’s life, but it is known that she was popular for her performances in local plays,” says Vinu Abraham, the author of The Lost Heroine, a novel based on Rosy’s life.

While her acting skills earned admiration, it was rare for a Dalit woman to take up acting at the time.

“She was likely aware of the fact that this was a new arena and making herself visible was important,” says Prof Binny.

She soon became a well-known figure in local theatre circles and her talent caught the eye of director JC Daniel, who was then searching for a lead actor for his film – a character named Sarojini.

Daniel was aware of Rosy’s caste identity and chose to cast her in the role.

“She was paid five rupees a day for 10 days of filming,” said Mr Abraham. “This was a substantial amount of money in the 1920s.”

On the day of the film’s premiere, Rosy and her family were barred from attending the screening.

They were stopped because they were Dalits, Rosy’s nephew Biju Govindan says.

And so began a chain of events that pushed Rosy out of the public eye and her home.

“The crowd that came to watch the movie were provoked by two things: Rosy playing an upper-caste woman and the hero picking a flower from her hair and kissing it in one scene,” said Mr Abraham.

“They started throwing rocks at the screen and chased Daniel away,” he added.

There are differing accounts of the extent of the damage to the theatre but what is clear is the toll the incident took on both Rosy and Daniel.

Daniel had spent a lot of money to establish a studio and gather resources to produce the film, and was heavily debt-ridden. Facing immense social and financial pressure, the director, who is now widely regarded as the father of Malayalam cinema, never made another film.

Rosy fled her hometown after an angry mob set her house on fire.

She cut all ties with her family to avoid being recognised and never spoke publicly about her past. She rebuilt her life by marrying an upper-caste man and took the name Rajammal.

She lived the rest of her life in obscurity in the town of Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Mr Abraham says.

Her children refused to accept that PK Rosy, the Dalit actor, was their mother, Rosy’s nephew Mr Govindan says.

“Her children were born with an upper-caste Kesavan Pillai’s identity. They chose their father’s seed over their mother’s womb,” he says.

“We, her family, are part of PK Rosy’s Dalit identity before the film’s release,” he said.

“In the space they inhabit, caste restricts them from accepting their Dalit heritage. That is their reality and our family has no place in it.”

In 2013, a Malayalam TV channel tracked down Rosy’s daughter Padma, who was living in financial strain somewhere in Tamil Nadu. She told them that she did not know much about her mother’s life before her marriage but that she did not act after that.

The BBC made attempts to contact Rosy’s children, but their relatives said they were not comfortable with the attention.

Prof Binny says that the erasure of Rosy’s legacy shows how deeply caste-based trauma can run.

“It can be so intense that it shapes or defines the rest of one’s life,” she says, adding that she is glad Rosy eventually found a safe space.

In recent years, Dalit filmmakers and activists have sought to reclaim Rosy’s legacy. Influential Tamil director Pa Ranjith has launched a yearly film festival in her name which celebrates Dalit cinema. A film society and foundation have also been established.

But there is still a haunting sense that while Rosy was ultimately saved, it was at the cost of her passion and identity.

“Rosy prioritised survival over art and, as a result, never tried to speak publicly or reclaim her lost identity. That’s not her failure – it’s society’s,” says Mr Govindan.

Almost daily, my phone pings with messages from hackers of all stripes.

The good, the bad, the not-so-sure.

I’ve been reporting on cyber security for more than a decade, so I know that many of them like to talk about their hacks, findings and escapades.

About 99% of these conversations stay firmly locked in my chat logs and don’t lead to news stories. But a recent ping was impossible to ignore.

“Hey. This is Joe Tidy from the BBC reporting on this Co-op news, correct?” the hackers messaged me on Telegram.

“We have some news for you,” they teased.

When I cautiously asked what this was, the people behind the Telegram account – which had no name or profile picture – gave me the inside track on what they claimed to have done to M&S and the Co-op, in cyber attacks that caused mass disruption.

Through messages back-and-forth over the next five hours, it became clear to me that these apparent hackers were fluent English speakers and although they claimed be messengers, it was obvious they were closely linked to – if not intimately involved in – the M&S and Co-op hacks.

They shared evidence proving that they had stolen a huge amount of private customer and employee information.

I checked out a sample of the data they had given me – and then securely deleted it.

They were clearly frustrated that Co-op wasn’t giving in to their ransom demands but wouldn’t say how much money in Bitcoin they were demanding of the retailer in exchange for the promise that they wouldn’t sell or give away the stolen data.

After a conversation with the BBC’s Editorial Policy team, we decided that it was in the public interest to report that they had provided us with evidence proving that they were responsible for the hack.

I quickly contacted the press team at the Co-op for comment, and within minutes the firm, who had initially downplayed the hack, admitted to employees, customers and the stock market about the significant data breach.

Much later, the hackers sent me a long angry and offensive letter about Co-op’s response to their hack and subsequent extortion, which revealed that the retailer narrowly dodged a more severe hack by intervening in the chaotic minutes after its computer systems were infiltrated. The letter and conversation with the hackers confirmed what experts in the cyber security world had been saying since this wave of attacks on retailers began – the hackers were from a cyber crime service called DragonForce.

Who are DragonForce, you might be asking? Based on our conversations with the hackers and wider knowledge, we have some clues.

DragonForce offers cyber criminal affiliates various services on their darknet site in exchange for a 20% cut of any ransoms collected. Anyone can sign up and use their malicious software to scramble a victim’s data or use their darknet website for their public extortion.

This has become the norm in organised cyber crime; it’s known as ransomware-as-a-service.

The most infamous of recent times has been a service called LockBit, but this is all but defunct now partly because it was cracked by the police last year.

Following the dismantling of such groups, a power vacuum has emerged. Cue a tussle for dominance in this underground world, leading to some rival groups innovating their offerings.

DragonForce recently rebranded itself as a cartel offering even more options to hackers including 24/7 customer support, for example.

The group had been advertising its wider offering since at least early 2024 and has been actively targeting organisations since 2023, according to cyber experts like Hannah Baumgaertner, Head of Research at Silobeaker, a cyber risk protection company.

“DragonForce’s latest model includes features such as administration and client panels, encryption and ransomware negotiation tools, and more,” Ms Baumgaertner said.

As a stark illustration of the power-struggle, DragonForce’s darknet website was recently hacked and defaced by a rival gang called RansomHub, before re-emerging about a week ago.

“Behind the scenes of the ransomware ecosystem there seems to be some jostling – that might be for prime ‘leader’ position or just to disrupt other groups in order to take more of the victim share,” said Aiden Sinnott, senior threat researcher from the cyber security company Secureworks.

DragonForce’s prolific modus operandi is to post about its victims, as it has done 168 times since December 2024 – a London accountancy firm, an Illinois steel maker, an Egyptian investment firm are all included. Yet so far, DragonForce has remained silent about the retail attacks.

Normally radio silence about attacks indicates that a victim organisation has paid the hackers to keep quiet. As neither DragonForce, Co-op nor M&S have commented on this point, we don’t know what might be happening behind the scenes.

Establishing who the people are behind DragonForce is tricky, and it’s not known where they are located. When I asked their Telegram account about this, I didn’t get an answer. Although the hackers didn’t tell me explicitly that they were behind the recent hacks on M&S and Harrods, they confirmed a report in Bloomberg that spelt it out.

Of course, they are criminals and could be lying.

Some researchers say DragonForce are based in Malaysia, while others say Russia, where many of these groups are thought to be located. We do know that DragonForce has no specific targets or agenda other than making money.

And if DragonForce is just the service for other criminals to use – who is pulling the strings and choosing to attack UK retailers?

In the early stages of the M&S hack, unknown sources told cyber news site Bleeping Computer that evidence is pointing to a loose collective of cyber criminals known as Scattered Spider – but this has yet to be confirmed by the police.

Scattered Spider is not really a group in the normal sense of the word. It’s more of a community which organises across sites like Discord, Telegram and forums – hence the description “scattered” which was given to them by cyber security researchers at CrowdStrike.

They are known to be English-speaking and probably in the UK and the US and young – in some cases teenagers. We know this from researchers and previous arrests. In November the US charged five men and boys in their twenties and teens for alleged Scattered Spider activity. One of them is 22-year-old Scottish man Tyler Buchanan, who has not made a plea, and the rest are US based.

Crackdowns by police seem to have had little effect on the hackers’ determination, though. On Thursday, Google’s cyber security division issued warnings that it was starting to see Scattered Spider-like attacks on US retailers now too.

As for the hackers I spoke to on Telegram, they declined to answer whether or not they were Scattered Spider. “We won’t answer that question” is all they said.

Perhaps in a nod to the immaturity and attention-seeking nature of the hackers, two of them said they wanted to be known as “Raymond Reddington” and “Dembe Zuma” after characters from US crime thriller The Blacklist which involves a wanted criminal helping police take down other criminals on a blacklist.

In a message to me, they boasted: “We’re putting UK retailers on the Blacklist.”

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Tucked away in a lane in the southern end of India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is a museum dedicated to the followers of one of the world’s oldest religions, Zoroastrianism.

The Framji Dadabhoy Alpaiwalla Museum documents the history and legacy of the ancient Parsi community – a small ethnic group that’s fast dwindling and resides largely in India.

Now estimated at just 50,000 to 60,000, the Parsis are believed to be descendants of Persians who fled religious persecution by Islamic rulers centuries ago.

Despite their significant contributions to India’s economic and cultural fabric, much about the Parsi community remains little known to the mainstream population and the wider world.

“The newly-renovated museum hopes to shake off some of this obscurity by inviting people to explore the history, culture and traditions of the Parsi community through the rare historical artefacts on display,” says Kerman Fatakia, curator of the museum.

Some of these include cuneiform bricks, terracotta pots, coins and other objects sourced from places like Babylon, Mesopotamia, Susa and Iran and are dated to 4000-5000 BCE.

These are places where Zoroastrian Iranian kings once ruled, like the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties.

There are also artefacts from Yazd, a city in central Iran which was once a barren desert and the place where many Zoroastrians settled after fleeing other regions of Iran after the Arab invasion in 7th Century BCE.

One of the notable artefacts on display is a replica of a clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, a Persian king who was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

Fatakia says the clay cylinder – also known as the “Edict of Cyrus” or the “Cyrus Cylinder” – is one of the most important discoveries of the ancient world. Inscribed in cuneiform script, it outlines the rights granted by Cyrus to his subjects in Babylon. Widely seen as the first human rights charter, a replica is also displayed at the United Nations.

Then there are maps that trace the migration routes of thousands of Iranian Zoroastrians who fled their home country fearing persecution and travelled to India in the 8th to10th centuries, and again in the 19th century.

The collection also features furniture, manuscripts, paintings, and portraits of prominent Parsis – among them Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the iconic Tata Group, which owns brands like Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley tea.

Another striking section showcases artefacts collected by Parsis who grew wealthy in the early 19th century trading tea, silk, cotton – and notably, opium – with China. The exhibits include traditional Parsi sarees influenced by designs from China, France, and other regions shaped by these global trade ties.

Two of the museum’s most compelling exhibits are replicas of a Tower of Silence and a Parsi fire temple.

The Tower of Silence, or dakhma, is where Parsis leave their dead to be returned to nature – neither buried nor cremated. “The replica shows exactly what happens to the body once it’s placed there,” says Fatakia, noting that entry to actual towers is restricted to a select few.

The life-size replica of the fire temple is equally fascinating, offering a rare glimpse into a sacred space typically off-limits to non-Parsis. Modelled on a prominent Mumbai temple, it features sacred motifs inspired by ancient Persian architecture in Iran.

The Alpaiwala Museum, originally founded in 1952 in what was then Bombay, is one of the city’s older institutions. Recently renovated, it now features modern displays with well-captioned exhibits in glass cases. Every visitor is offered a guided tour.

“It’s a small museum but it is packed with history,” Fatakia says.

“And it’s a great place for not just the residents of Mumbai or India to learn more about the Parsi community but for people from all over the world.”

Donald Trump says he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Monday about ending the war in Ukraine, saying the call would be about “stopping the ‘bloodbath'”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the call would take place at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) and he would then speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the leaders of some Nato countries.

Russia and Ukraine were unable to reach any breakthrough when they held their first face-to-face talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday, although a prisoner swap was agreed.

Trump had offered to attend the talks in Turkey if Putin would also be there, but the Russian president declined to go.

Trump’s comments come after he suggested progress on ending the war would only happen if he and Putin held face-to-face talks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that preparations were under way for a call between Putin and Trump on Monday. The two leaders have held a phone call before on the topic.

“The conversation is in the works,” Peskov told Tass news agency.

Trump had said on Truth Social: “Hopefully it will be a productive day, a ceasefire will take place, and this very violent war, a war that should have never happened, will end.”

European leaders have been calling for Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict.

The US and Russian leaders are expected to discuss a ceasefire, as well as the possible summit between themselves.

Moscow has moved slower than Trump would like, but it welcomed the American efforts at mediation, in a call on Saturday between the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Following the talks in Istanbul, Ukraine also reiterated its call for a full and unconditional ceasefire.

According to a Ukrainian official, the Kremlin had made “new and unacceptable demands including insisting Kyiv withdraw its troops from large parts of its own territory”, he said, in exchange for a ceasefire.

The head of the Russian delegation, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, said they were satisfied with the talks and ready to continue contact.

Hours later, a Russian drone hit a passenger bus in the Sumy region, killing nine people – prompting Zelensky to demand stiffer sanctions on Moscow.

He said the attack on the bus was “a deliberate killing of civilians”. Russia has not commented, but state media reported that forces had hit a “military staging area” in Sumy province.