Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia on Sunday, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of audacious strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called “Spider’s Web” operation by the SBU security service, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.

SBU sources earlier told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes, which involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

Russia confirmed Ukrainian attacks in five regions calling them a “terrorist act”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported a massive overnight drone and missile attack on its territory.

All this comes as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are heading to Istanbul, Turkey, for a second round of peace talks on Monday.

Expectations are low, as the two warring sides remain far apart on how to end the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the “absolutely brilliant result” of the operation.

He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot.

“The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions,” the Ukrainian president said.

The FSB is Russia’s powerful state security service.

Zelensky also said that all the people involved in the operation had been safely “led away” from Russia before the strikes.

The SBU estimated the damage to Russia’s strategic aviation was worth about $7bn (£5bn), promising to unveil more details soon.

The Ukrainian claims have not been independently verified.

Sources in the SBU earlier on Sunday told the BBC in a statement that four Russian airbases – two of which are thousands of miles from Ukraine – were hit:

• Belaya in Irkutsk oblast (region), Siberia
• Olenya in Murmansk oblast, Russia’s extreme north-west
• Dyagilevo in central Ryazan oblast
• Ivanovo in central Ivanovo oblast

The SBU sources said that among the hit Russian aircraft were strategic nuclear capable bombers called Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 early warning warplanes.

They described the whole operation as “extremely complex logistically”.

“The SBU first smuggled FPV drones into Russia, followed later by mobile wooden cabins. Once on Russian territory, the drones were hidden under the roofs of these cabins, which had been placed on cargo vehicles,” the sources said.

“At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones took off to strike the Russian bombers.”

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev confirmed drones that attacked the Belaya military base in Sredniy, Siberia, were launched from a truck.

Kobzev posted on Telegram to say that the launch site had been secured and there was no threat to life.

Russian media outlets have also reported that other attacks were similarly started with drones emerging from the lorries.

One user is heard saying that the drones were flying out of a Kamaz truck near a petrol station.

Russian media were reporting the attack in Murmansk but said air defences were working. The attack in Irkutsk was also being reported.

In a post on social media later on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry confirmed that airbases in the country’s five regions were attack.

It claimed that “all attacks were repelled” on military airbases in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The latter base was not mentioned by the SBU sources.

In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, “several aircraft caught fire” after drones were launched from nearby areas, the ministry said.

It said all the blazes were extinguished and there were no casualties. “Some of the participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities say 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles were involved in a wave of attacks on Ukraine last night.

This would appear to be one of the largest single Russian drone attacks so far. Ukraine says it “neutralised” 385 aerial targets.

In a separate development, Ukraine’s land forces said 12 of its military personnel were killed and more than 60 injured in a Russian missile strike on a training centre.

Ukraine’s head of land forces, Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, tendered his resignation shortly afterwards.

He said his decision was “dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy”.

It’s hard to exaggerate the sheer audacity – or ingenuity – that went into Ukraine’s countrywide assault on Russia’s air force.

We cannot possibly verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage, but it’s clear that “Operation Spider’s Web” was, at the very least, a spectacular propaganda coup.

Ukrainians are already comparing it with other notable military successes since Russia’s full-scale invasion, including the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, both in 2022, as well as a missile attack on Sevastopol harbour the following year.

Judging by details leaked to the media by Ukraine’s military intelligence, the SBU, the latest operation is the most elaborate achievement so far.

In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.

“No intelligence operation in the world has done anything like this before,” defence analyst Serhii Kuzan told Ukrainian TV.

“These strategic bombers are capable of launching long-range strikes against us,” he said. “There are only 120 of them and we struck 40. That’s an incredible figure.”

It is hard to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says that even if the bombers, and command and control aircraft were not destroyed, the impact is enormous.

“The extent of the damage is such that the Russian military-industrial complex, in its current state, is unlikely to be able to restore them in the near future,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The strategic missile-carrying bombers in question, the Tu-95, Tu-22, and Tu-160 are, he said, no longer in production. Repairing them will be difficult, replacing them impossible.

The loss of the supersonic Tu-160, he said, would be especially keenly felt.

“Today, the Russian Aerospace Forces lost not just two of their rarest aircraft, but truly two unicorns in the herd,” he wrote.

Beyond the physical damage, which may or may not be as great as analysts here are assessing, Operation Spider’s Web sends another critical message, not just to Russia but also to Ukraine’s western allies.

My colleague Svyatoslav Khomenko, writing for the BBC Ukrainian Service website, recalls a recent encounter with a government official in Kyiv.

The official was frustrated.

“The biggest problem,” the official told Svyatoslav, “is that the Americans have convinced themselves we’ve already lost the war. And from that assumption everything else follows.”

Ukrainian defence journalist Illia Ponomarenko, posting on X, puts it another way, with a pointed reference to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s infamous Oval office encounter with Donald Trump.

“This is what happens when a proud nation under attack doesn’t listen to all those: ‘Ukraine has only six months left’. ‘You have no cards’. ‘Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose’.”

Even more pithy was a tweet from the quarterly Business Ukraine journal, which proudly proclaimed “It turns out Ukraine does have some cards after all. Today Zelensky played the King of Drones.”

This, then, is the message Ukrainian delegates carry as they arrive in Istanbul for a fresh round of ceasefire negotiations with representatives from the Kremlin: Ukraine is still in the fight.

The Americans “begin acting as if their role is to negotiate for us the softest possible terms of surrender,” the government official told Svyatoslav Khomenko.

“And then they’re offended when we don’t thank them. But of course we don’t – because we don’t believe we’ve been defeated.”

Despite Russia’s slow, inexorable advance through the battlefields of the Donbas, Ukraine is telling Russia, and the Trump administration, not to dismiss Kyiv’s prospects so easily.

Members of the Western alliance Nato need to prepare for a possible attack from Russia within the next four years, according to Germany’s chief of defence.

General Carsten Breuer told the BBC that Russia was producing hundreds of tanks a year, many of which could be used for an attack on Nato Baltic state members by 2029 or even earlier.

He also insisted that Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remains unified over the war in Ukraine, despite differences of opinion expressed recently by both Hungary and Slovakia.

Gen Breuer was speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue, a defence summit in Singapore organised by the think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies.

His comments come weeks ahead of a summit of Nato nations at The Hague where they are expected to discuss defence budgets, among other topics.

Gen Breuer said that Nato was facing “a very serious threat” from Russia, one that he has never seen before in his 40 years in service.

At the moment, he said, Russia was building up its forces to an “enormous extent”, producing approximately 1,500 main battle tanks every year.

“Not every single tank is going to [the war in] Ukraine, but it’s also going in stocks and into new military structures always facing the West,” he said.

Russia also produced four million rounds of 152mm artillery munition in 2024, and not all of it was going to Ukraine either, added Gen Breuer.

“There’s an intent and there’s a build up of the stocks” for a possible future attack on Nato’s Baltic state members, he said.

“This is what the analysts are assessing – in 2029. So we have to be ready by 2029… If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029? I would say no, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight,” he said.

Many have long feared an attack on a Nato state as it could trigger a larger war between Russia and the US, which is a key member of Nato. Under Article 5 of the Nato agreement, any attack on a member state would mean other members must come to its defence.

Gen Breuer singled out the so-called Suwalki Gap, an area that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, as one of the most vulnerable.

“The Baltic States are really exposed to the Russians, right? And once you are there, you really feel this… in the talks we are having over there,” he said.

The Estonians, he said, had given the analogy of being close to a wildfire where they “feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke”, while in Germany “you probably see a little bit of smoke over the horizon and not more”.

Gen Breuer said this showed the differing perspectives among European states of the threat of a possible Russian attack.

Russia’s view of the Ukraine war was different from the West’s, he said, where Moscow sees the war as more of a “continuum” in a larger conflict with Nato and is therefore “trying to find ways into our defence lines and it’s testing it”.

He cited recent attacks on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, cyber attacks on European public transport, and unidentified drones spotted over German power stations and other infrastructure.

Nato members should therefore build up their militaries again, Gen Breuer argued. “What we have to do now is really to lean in and to tell everybody, hey, ramp up… get more into it because we need it. We need it to be able to defend ourselves and therefore also to build up deterrence.”

Asked by the BBC about Nato cohesion, given Hungary and Slovakia’s closer relations with Moscow, Gen Breuer insisted the alliance was still healthy.

He pointed to Finland and Sweden’s decisions to join Nato shortly after the Ukraine war began. “I’ve never seen such a unity like it is now” among nations and military leaders, he said.

“All of them understand the threat that is at the moment approaching Nato, all understand that we have to develop a direction of deterrence, into the direction of collective defence. This is clear to everyone. The urgency is seen.”

Gen Breuer’s remarks are yet another sign of a significant change in attitudes in Germany towards defence and Russia.

Like many Western nations, including the UK, it has scaled down its investments in its military over many years.

But there has been a growing recognition of the need to reverse this, with even the Green Party coming onboard a recent vote to lift restrictions on Germany’s defence spending.

But as Western military and political leaders say they are ready for the fight, questions remain on whether this is a case of ambition outpacing reality.

It will take years for Europe’s military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

The US has also been drawing down, not building up, its defence commitments to Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

Warsaw’s liberal Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski has claimed victory in Poland’s presidential election but his winning margin in an exit poll is well within the margin of error.

An exit poll, with a margin of error of 3% broadcast immediately after voting ended, indicates Trzaskowski winning on 50.3%, marginally ahead of his rival, conservative historian Karol Nawrocki on 49.7%.

The official result is due to be published on Monday morning, the head of the state electoral commission said.

Trzaskowski claimed victory in front of cheering supporters in Warsaw. “We won,” he said.

“We won, although the phrase ‘razor’s edge’ will forever enter the Polish language and politics,” he added.

His wife, Malgorzata, jokingly told the crowd, “I’m close to having a heart attack”.

Trzaskowski promised to reach out to voters who supported his opponent. I will be a president for all Polish women and men,” he said.

Nawrocki told his supporters that the result is too close to call.

“Let’s not lose hope for this night. We will win during the night, the difference is minimal. I believe that we will wake up tomorrow with President Karol Nawrocki,” he said.

Poland’s president is a largely ceremonial role with limited influence on foreign policy and defence, but they can veto legislation and Donald Tusk’s pro-EU coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it.

The current conservative incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, has used his powers to prevent Prime Minister Tusk delivering key campaign promises including removing political influence from the judiciary and liberalising the country’s strict abortion law.

If Trzaskowski’s victory is confirmed that obstacle would be removed and would allow Tusk to cement Poland’s place in the European mainstream.

However, Tusk also faces opposition from within his own coalition from the conservative Peoples’ Party on issues including abortion and legalising civil partnerships.

A victory for national conservative Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, would mean continued conflict between the government and president.

It would also re-energise PiS, which lost power 18 months ago, giving the party the belief that it can go on to win parliamentary elections in 2027.

Both candidates support continued assistance for neighbouring Ukraine, although Nawrocki has said he opposes its entry into Nato and the EU for now while Russia continues its war of aggression.

Both men differ over their approach to the EU. Trzaskowski, a former Europe minister, supports Tusk’s vision of a Poland at the heart of the European mainstream, influencing decisions through strong relations with Germany and France.

A deputy leader of Tusk’s Civic Platform, he has served as Warsaw mayor since 2018.

He’s the son of a famous Polish jazz pianist, speaks several languages and is viewed by some voters as a member of the country’s liberal elite who is out of touch with ordinary Poles.

According to the CBOS polling company, Trzaskowski’s typical voter is aged 30-40 years old, is relatively well off with left-liberal views and is open to LGBTQ+ and migrants’ rights. They tend to live in large cities and have positive views of the EU.

Some voters said he tried to “artificially” present himself as a candidate who values patriotism. During the campaign, he has taken a much tougher line against illegal migration, something Tusk started to do before winning power in 2023 and he has volunteered to do basic military training.

Nawrocki, 42, supports a strong sovereign Poland and does not want the country to cede any more powers to Brussels. He opposes the EU’s climate and migration policies. He’s a conservative Catholic that prioritises traditional family values.

He was relatively unknown nationally before he was selected by opposition party PiS to be their “unofficial” candidate.

A keen amateur boxer and footballer, he often posted images of himself working out, allowing PiS to present him as a strong candidate who would stand up for ordinary Poles and the country’s national interests.

A fan of President Donald Trump, he flew to Washington during the campaign for an extremely brief meeting to get a thumbs-up photo of himself with the American president in the Oval Office.

During the campaign he was attacked by the government and media for being morally unfit to be the country’s president, but the allegations did not diminish his support during the last week of campaigning.

During a presidential debate, Nawrocki said that he, like most Poles, owned one apartment. That turned out to be a lie.

Nawrocki was accused of taking advantage of a vulnerable senior citizen to acquire his council flat at a huge discount in exchange for promises of care that were unfulfilled. Following the scandal, Nawrocki said he would donate the flat to charity but always denied the accusation.

Polish news website Onet.pl accused Nawrocki of helping to arrange sex workers for guests at the luxury Grand Hotel in the Baltic seaside resort of Sopot when he worked there as a security guard.

The story was based on anonymous sources, but Onet.pl said the witnesses had sworn they would repeat the allegations under oath in court. Nawrocki called the story a pack of lies and said he would sue the website.

His opponents portrayed him as a football hooligan who admired gangsters and neo-Nazi ultras. Nawrocki did not deny taking part in hooligan brawls as a younger man, calling them “noble fights”. He has also said these allegations were an attempt to smear his reputation.

Some Nawrocki voters told me they did not believe certain stories about him, saying they were inventions of the mainstream Trzaskowski-supporting media.

A “mass casualty influx” of people, many with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, was received at a Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza, the organisation said, following disputed reports about an incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 21 people were “declared dead upon arrival” while women and children were among 179 cases.

The organisation’s statement came after the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded in the incident, which it blamed on “Israeli gunfire” targeting civilians.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre.

The IDF also released drone footage it said showed armed and masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians while they were collecting aid in the nearby city of Khan Younis. The BBC could not immediately verify the footage.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

The group that runs the aid distribution centre, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

As of Sunday evening, the situation on the ground remained unclear.

In its statement, the ICRC said the “Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 179 cases, including women and children” early in the morning on Sunday.

It said “the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds”, and “twenty-one patients were declared dead upon arrival”. It is unclear if the number of people killed reported by the ICRC is separate to the Hamas health ministry’s reports.

“All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the ICRC said.

The ICRC said it was the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago”, and that it “far surpassed” the capacity of the 60-bed facility.

The IDF said in a statement: “In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip.

“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.

Another incident was said to have happened near a separate aid centre in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, with the Palestinian Red Crescent reporting 14 injured.

The BBC was contacted by doctors at the Nasser hospital who said they had received about 200 people with injuries caused by bullets or shrapnel.

Local journalists and activists shared footage of bodies and wounded people being transported on donkey carts to the Red Cross field hospital in the al-Mawasi area.

The BBC has examined footage of bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Nasser Hospital.

Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.

Seventy-nine of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the emergency department, medical staff from British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians reported.

⁠Those killed and injured “were primarily struck by live gunfire, with many victims sustaining direct shots to the head or chest”, the charity’s staff said.

Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.

The GHF, which distributes aid at these sites, denied any incident occurred near its distribution centres.

An IDF soldier in Rafah contacted the BBC to say that Israeli soldiers did fire near the crowd, but not at them, and that no-one was hit.

• BBC Verify: How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos

Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that Palestinians had gathered near the aid centre run by the GHF when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.

Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians were near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by GHF, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.

“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” he said.

“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.”

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s main emergency service the Civil Defence, told AFP news agency that more than 100 people were wounded “due to gunfire from Israeli vehicles towards thousands of citizens”.

The incidents underscore the dire humanitarian conditions in Rafah, where recent Israeli military operations have severely limited access to aid and emergency services.

On Saturday, crowds of civilians rushed aid trucks into Gaza, the World Food Programme said, as hunger and desperation created chaotic scenes.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new US and Israeli-backed organisation that has been distributing food at designated sites across Gaza. Israel set up the plan after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The GHF said it had distributed 4.7 million meals this week, which the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

A military campaign was launched by Israel in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.

An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial law.

She couldn’t quite believe it – until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion down.

Within hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital Seoul.

They turned up not just because Yoon’s decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism – despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said otherwise.

They returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon’s abuse of power went on – and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic months.

And yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible again.

The two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making headlines.

For many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight.

“So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies,” the 24-year-old college student says.

“But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to erase women’s voices.”

When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the atmosphere.

The bitter December cold didn’t stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon’s ouster.

“Most of those around me were young women, we were singing ‘Into the World’ by Girls’ Generation,” Byunghui says.

Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop’s biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president’s career.

“The lyrics – about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world,” Byunghui says, “just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone”.

There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily.

An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them – almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that rally.

The protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap – at 31% – is the widest among rich nations.

Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society.

“I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth,” says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . “I believe that’s why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction.”

For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: “I tried to go every week. It wasn’t easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility.”

That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women’s University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being “anti-feminist” and had “made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women”.

There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in 2022.

These men consider themselves victims of “reverse discrimination”, saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to women.

They label as “man haters” those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality.

These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under Yoon.

It was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women’s rights.

And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed countries.

But his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

“In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon’s party,” says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. “They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s.”

During Yoon’s term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word “women” in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference altogether.

The impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against feminism.

Byunghui saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually older.

Young men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd.

“I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?”

With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his fall.

And this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the seven candidates runnning for president. “It’s shocking,” Jinha says, “that there’s no-one”. In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential candidates.

The PPP’s Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee.

“It’s only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few,” Saeyeon says. “I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination.”

When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”

After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still “faced structural discrimination in many areas”. And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every level.

During his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party.

He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP’s emergency committee.

“It’s evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election,” Ms Kim says.

Prof Go believes it’s because Lee “lost by a very narrow margin” back then. So this time, he is “casting the widest net possible” for votes. “And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that.”

That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment: “Our voices don’t seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned.”

The ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon’s cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents.

But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don’t address the deeper inequalities – which make it hard to balance a career and family – that are making so many women reconsider the usual choices.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking point.

Lee has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and Family.

The ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government’s annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was “politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised”.

“The ministry itself is not huge but it’s symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant.”

It’s also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon’s party, who has since launched his own Reform Party.

Although trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views.

Earlier this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?”

He said the “someone” was frontunner Lee Jae-myung’s son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial posts.

But watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV “was genuinely terrifying,” Byunghui says. “I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities.”

Saeyeon describes “anger and even despair” sinking the “hopes I had for politics, which weren’t that great to begin with”.

She believes his popularity “among certain sections of young men is one of the “significant repercussions” of South Korea “long neglecting structural discrimination” against women.

The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn’t fare well in early polling.

“I’m still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook,” Saeyeon says.

While Kwon represents her concerns, she says it’s smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is “much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that”.

She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon’s base: “He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead.”

That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. “It’s like there is dust on the wall. If you don’t know it’s there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you.”

It’s the same for Jinha who says things can “never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law”.

That was a time when politics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it “feels like something that affects me and is important to my life”.

She says she won’t give up because she wants to be free of “things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace”.

“People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up – and then the world will change again.”

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

He said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance as it is the “fundamental issue” for the region.

Meanwhile, the Philippines defence minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr has called China “absolutely irresponsible and reckless” in its actions in the South China Sea.

The ministers had separately addressed reporters on the sidelines of an Asian defence summit held in Singapore.

China has yet to respond to either Marles or Teodoro.

Organised by the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Shangri-la Dialogue has traditionally been anchored by the US and China, which have been jostling for power in the region.

This year China has sent a lower-level delegation and scrapped its speech. In the absence of a strong Chinese presence, the dialogue has been dominated by criticism and questions of Beijing posed by the US and its allies.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

He cited Australia as an example of such transparency, noting that Canberra makes public its national defence strategy and defence reviews, and makes it “utterly clear” that when they build up their defences it is for Australia and Asia’s security.

“So there is total strategic clarity and assurance that is being provided by Australia to our neighbours, to the region, to the world. That’s what we would like to see,” he said.

Answering a question on a highly-scrutinised Chinese military exercise conducted near Australia and New Zealand’s waters in February, Marles said that while it was “disruptive, and we believe that it could have been done in a better way”, ultimately “China was acting in accordance with international law”.

“The guiding light, the bedrock here, needs to be compliance with international law. That’s what we keep talking about, is the rules-based order.”

Marles was also asked about Hegseth’s call for Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence spending as a bulwark against the threat of China.

Marles said “we actually are taking steps down this path… we understand it, we’re up for it.” US President Donald Trump has called on Australia to increase its spending to 3%, but Canberra has yet to publicly commit to that number.

Marles added that part of that spending would come under Aukus, a pact among Australia, the UK and the US to build up a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

He said projects under the pact were “on track” and he was “very optimistic” about the progress, including more visits of American submarines to Australia and rotations through a Perth-based navy base.

In a separate interview with the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner, the Philippines defence minister Teodoro said China has been “absolutely irresponsible and reckless in appropriating most, if not all, of the South China Sea and the world cannot tolerate this.”

The two countries have repeatedly clashed over competing claims in the South China Sea, and the Philippines has complained of aggressive and violent tactics by the Chinese coast guard.

He echoed the call for a preservation of the international order, saying that “the takeaway of a lot of defence ministers is that Europe and the US must continue to lead” on this.

“That was the call of the Philippines. That is the call of Lithuania, Latvia, the smaller countries who have a way of life that values freedom and dignity of the human being.”

“And with a way of life that we don’t want the deep state looking over our shoulders or being scared of what we say,” he said, referring to China.

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned of China’s “imminent” threat towards Taiwan and accused Beijing of becoming a “hegemonic power” in the region.

China has vigorously attacked Hegseth in two separate statements, with the latest posted on its Foreign Ministry website early on Sunday.

It said that Hegseth had “vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat’.

“No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”

Earlier in the defence summit, French President Emmanuel Macron had made a pitch for Europe to be a new ally to Asia.

China also responded to Macron, who had compared the defence of Taiwan to the defence of Ukraine, and said the comparison was “unacceptable” as the “Taiwan question is entirely China’s affair”.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to eventually “reunify” with it.

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala debut last month left a lasting impression on global fashion.

The 41-year-old singer, who is the only Punjabi musician to perform at Coachella, walked the red carpet dressed like an early 20th Century maharajah.

His opulent ivory and gold ensemble – created by designer Prabal Gurung – complete with a feathered bejewelled turban, trended in India for weeks.

He also wore a gorgeous diamond necklace, its design inspired by a Cartier piece worn by an erstwhile king of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

A Panthère de Cartier watch, a lion-headed and a jewel-studded sword completed the ensemble, which had a map of Dosanjh’s home state embroidered on the back of the cape along with letters from Gurmukhi, the script for Punjabi language.

Of course, Dosanjh is no stranger to such style.

Just like his music, he’s carved out a niche in fashion too – a hip hop singer who is known for melding traditional Punjabi styles with Western influences.

Often seen in anti-fit trousers, chunky sneakers, and stacks of necklaces that he matches with his colourful turbans, his unique form of self-expression has captured the imagination of millions, leading to interesting reinventions in the traditional Punjabi attire.

The changes can be felt everywhere. A 16-minute high-intensity bhangra competition in California would be impossible without high performance sneakers. And basement bhangra nights in Berlin are enjoyed in crop tops and deconstructed pants.

Punjabi music itself, high on volume and energy – with lyrics packed with the names of cities and global luxury brands – has become a subculture.

It’s not just Dosanjh – several other Punjabi musicians have also influenced the region’s style game.

Not long ago, Punjabi-Canadian singer Jazzy B’s rings, often the size of a cookie, along with his plus-sized Kanda pendant and silver blonde hair tints, were trending.

More recently, the yellow tinted glasses worn by singer Badshah; the baggy hoodies sported by Yo Yo Honey Singh; and AP Dhillon’s Louis Vuitton bombers and Chanel watches have been hugely popular with Punjabi youth.

But even though their influence was significant, it was restricted to a region. Dosanjh and a few others like him, however, have managed to mount it to a global level, their style speaking to both the Sikh diaspora as well as a broader audience. For instance, the t-shirts, pearls and sneakers Dosanjh wore to his world tour last year were sold out in a matter of hours. Dhillon’s style statements at Paris Couture Week have created aspiration among Punjabi youth.

Cultural experts say that this reinvention, both in music and fashion, has its roots in Western pop-culture as most of the artistes live and perform in the West.

“Punjabi men are inventive. The region has been at the forefront of fusion, it believes in hybridity. This is especially the case with the Punjabi diaspora – even when they live in ghettos, they are the showmen [of their lives],” says art historian, author and museum curator Alka Pande.

Over the years, as the Punjabi diaspora community grew, a new generation of musicians began mixing modern hip-hop sounds with elements of traditional Punjabi aesthetics.

Their distinct style lexicon – of gold chains, faux fur jackets, plus-sized accessories, braids and beards – went on to spawn media articles, books and doctoral theses on South Asian culture.

The coin dropped instantly back home in Punjab, which absorbed logo fashion like a sponge when luxury brands arrived in the 2000s. For Punjabis – who are largely a farming community – it was an aspirational uprising, symbolic of how success and prosperity should look.

“It symbolised the movement of the Punjabi identity from a farmer to a global consumer,” says acclaimed singer Rabbi Shergill.

Arguing that performers, like everyone else, are a product of their times, Shergill says these impulses are “a response to the hyper capitalist world”.

Curiously, the style game of Punjabi musicians – from hip-hop, R&B, bhangra pop, fusion, Punjabi rap, reggae or filmy music – has also remained rooted and androgynous, instead of being hyper masculine.

A pop star may wear Balenciaga or Indian designer Manish Malhotra’s opulent creations; perform anywhere from Ludhiana city to London; dance with Beyonce around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, atop a luxury car, or in a British mansion – but they always wear their Punjabi identity on their sleeves.

Dosanjh underlined this clearly with his maharajah look at the Met Gala. “It’s like the popularity of his androgynous style was waiting to happen,” Pande says.

The composite impact of this trend on emerging artists is unmissable today in Punjab.

Local Bhangra performances, for instance, are no longer limited to traditional “dhoti-kurta-koti” costume sets paired with juttis (ethnic footwear). Performance attire now includes sneakers, typographic T-shirts, deconstructed bottoms and even denims.

“Such items are highly sought after by customers,” says Harinder Singh, owner of the brand 1469.

The merchandise in Singh’s stores, includes accessories popularised by Punjab’s music stars, such as versions of Phulkari turbans worn by Dosanjh, Kanda pendants that were first popularised by veteran Bhangra artist Pammi Bai. Singh himself owns turbans in more than a 100 shades.

Even overall men’s style in Punjab bears some of this cosmopolitan twang.

Young poet Gurpreet Saini, who performs at cultural festivals across India, says he sources his shawls – printed with ombre Gurmukhi letters – from Hariana, his hometown in Punjab, for a distinctive look. He admits to the influence of music icons, including those like folk singer Gurdas Mann, who he grew up watching.

What began as personal flair in some cases, went on to become fashion statements. Now these choices are cultural signatures. They have recast the Punjabi identity through rhythm, hybridity as well as a rooted sense of self.

Sir Salman Rushdie says he has moved on from the knife attack which has seen his attacker jailed for attempted murder.

Hadi Matar, 27, was sentenced to 25 years last month after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage in 2022.

Sir Salman, who has a new book out later this year, told the Hay Festival that an “important moment” came for him when he and his wife Eliza “went back to the scene of the crime to show myself I could stand up where I fell down”.

“It will be nice to talk about fiction again because ever since the attack, really the only thing anybody’s wanted to talk about is the attack, but I’m over it.”

Sir Salman recently told Radio 4’s Today programme that he was “pleased” the man who tried to kill him had received the maximum possible prison sentence.

The Midnight’s Children and Satanic Verses writer was left with life-changing injuries after the incident – he is now blind in one eye, has damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

Last year, Sir Salman published a book titled Knife reflecting on the event, which he has described as “my way of fighting back”.

The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

In November, the author will publish a short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, his first work of fiction to be written since the stabbing.

Security was tight for Sir Salman’s event, with sniffer dogs present and bag checks leading to a 15-minute delay.

He waved at the audience as he entered the stage and humbly gestured to them to stop applauding before joking that: “I can’t see everyone – but I can hear them.”

He said he was feeling “excellent” although there “were bits of me that I’m annoyed about, like not having a right eye. But on the whole, I’ve been very fortunate and I’m in better shape that maybe I would have expected.”

In a wide-ranging discussion, Sir Salman also touched on US politics, declaring that “America was not in great shape”.

In an apparent reference to President Donald Trump, Sir Salman spoke about “the moment of hope, that image of Barack and Michelle Obama walking down the mall in DC with the crowds around them… people dancing in the streets in New York. And to go from that to the orange moment that we live in, it’s, let’s just say, disappointing.

But he said he was still positive about the future.

“I think I suffer from the optimism disease… I can’t help thinking somehow it will be alright.”

Speaking about free speech, he said “it means tolerating people who say things you don’t like”.

He recalled a time when a film “in which I was the villain”, made around the time of the uproar over Satanic Verses, was not classified by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) “because it was in a hundred ways defamatory” but he asked them to allow its release.

“So they gave it a certificate… and nobody went, you know why? Lousy movie. And it taught me a lesson. Let it out and trust the audience. And that’s still my view.

“I think we do live in a moment when people are too eager to prohibit speech they disapprove of. That’s a very slippery slope” and warned young people “to think about it.”

When asked about the effect of AI on authors, Sir Salman said: “I don’t have Chat GPT… I try very hard to pretend it doesn’t exist. Someone asked it to write a couple of hundred words like me… it was terrible. And it has no sense of humour.”

Despite being considered one of the greatest living writers, Sir Salman joked that authors “don’t even have that much money… except the two of us (him and host Erica Wagner) and those who write about child wizards… the Taylor Swift of literature,” referring to JK Rowling.

“Good on her.”

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When Edna Nicole Luckett sings the Blues on the stage at Red’s, her voice, deep and soulful, echoes against the walls. The juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi is one of the last of its kind in the region, a landmark for a bygone era of American music.

“I was raised in Delta dirt, sunshine and flatland that goes on for miles and miles,” she sings, as people nod their heads and stomp their feet to the beat.

Ms Luckett, like many who were raised in the Mississippi Delta, grew up listening to locally-crafted Blues music and singing in her church choir. It’s experiences like hers – and places like Red’s – that are getting a fresh moment to shine with the box office success of Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners.

The genre-defying film has earned more than $300m (£220m) globally, against a $90m (£67m) budget, and attracted the world’s attention to a historic small town.

For the those who live there – and especially those who still sing the Blues – the spotlight is welcome, in no small part because of Coogler’s careful respect for their history.

“I’m protective of how the Mississippi Delta is represented,” Ms Luckett said.

Clarksdale was the place where blues legends like Sam Cooke, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters got their start, but its significance was mostly known to music lovers.

Like other small towns in the US south, Clarksdale has faced struggles. The town, home to 14,000 people, lost its only movie theatre in 2003. That meant that residents couldn’t even watch Sinners in their hometown – until now. After a local appeal, Mr Coogler agreed to bring the film to town for six free showings this past week.

The charge was led by Tyler Yarbrough, a Clarksdale native, who wrote a public letter to the director after seeing the movie in a nearby town. Set in 1932, Sinners tells the story of twin brothers, both played by Michael B Jordan, who return home to Clarksdale after World War One. Combining elements of musicals, horror and period drama, the movie fuses vampire lore with meticulous historic research about that time and place in America.

“Beneath the horror and fantasy, your film captures the soul of this place: our history, our struggles, our genius, our joy, our community,” Mr Yarbrough wrote.

He told the BBC he was moved to see this place represented with careful detail.

“It was time traveling back to 1930’s in Clarksdale, in our town, so this is the lives of my great grandma,” he said. “The history from the farms to the juke joints was on full display.”

Mr Coogler, who also made Black Panther and Creed, said it was his Uncle James, a Mississippi native who loved Delta Blues, who helped inspire the film.

Although the movie was ultimately filmed in Louisiana, he visited Clarksdale to do extensive research.

“I never got to come here until working on this script,” Mr Coogler told a crowd of 1,500 on Thursday. “It blew my mind — I got to meet musicians, I got to meet community members. It really changed me just to come here and do the research.”

While some remnants of the town depicted in the film remain, like many towns in America, its storefronts have been emptied and modernised – though it still enjoys tourist interest for its history.

Odes to some of Clarksdale’s blues legends, like Robert Johnson, are colourfully painted onto the sides of buildings, reminding people of the history of the streets where they walk.

One of those streets used to be home to Delta Blues Alley Cafe, a blues joint owned by Jecorry Miller that burned to the ground last month.

Mr Miller wants people to have a better understanding of the history that lives on the streets on Clarksdale and the movie is a way to grasp that.

“The movie itself is going to be great for the town – we get nine times the population of our city that comes to visit the city every year, now it could be ten or 11 times the population that visits Clarksdale,” Mr Miller said. “People being here spending their dollars is a great thing for us.”

And local residents said the attention is all the more welcome because they see themselves and their culture in the film.

At the Thursday screening, longtime Clarksdale residents relished the details.

Ms Luckett, the Blues singer, was listening to make sure the characters’ dialect sounded right. She watched to see if the land in the backdrop of the film was as flat and green as it is in real life.

“It was,” she said with a smile.

Two people have died and hundreds have been arrested across France after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fans celebrated the club’s victory in the Champions League final, according to the French interior ministry.

In the south-west town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest late on Saturday evening, local media reported.

A 23-year-old man who was riding a scooter in central Paris was also killed after being hit by a vehicle, the prosecutor’s office said.

Flares and fireworks were set off, bus shelters smashed and cars torched amid wild celebrations as PSG won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.

Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez said PSG’s Champions League trophy parade will go ahead on Sunday evening – but there will be an increased police and military presence on the ground.

Nuñez spoke after the French interior ministry said 192 people were injured in the overnight clashes and 559 people arrested, including 491 in Paris.

Twenty-two police officers and seven firefighters were injured, the ministry said, adding that 264 vehicles were set on fire.

Nuñez said: “The toll is lower than what we have seen in the past, but we will never get used to this kind of abuse, with people who only came to commit acts of vandalism and who did not even watch the match, and we will always have a very firm response.”

“This is just half time for us because the PSG players are coming to Paris,” he said, with a celebration expected around the Parc des Princes where players will meet fans.

“There again we are expecting some clashes, some scuffles and we will be there and we will be very strong in our response against the vandals, against the thieves who have a go at the police officers.

“We will not tolerate any abuse today and the fans who want to enjoy the parade, can do so safely.”

He added that “PSG supporters shouldn’t be mixed up with gangs of looters and vandals”.

Separately, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office told the BBC “several shops were looted” in the Place des Ternes area. About 30 people were arrested and taken into custody near a Foot Locker on the Champs-Elysées that was robbed, the office said.

Elsewhere across France, Dax mayor Julien Dubois, reacting to the fatal stabbing, said his “thoughts are with the young victim, his family and friends”.

“We are floored by all the drama tonight,” he wrote on social media. “It is advisable to quickly shed light on these facts in order to severely punish the perpetrator.”

While clashes broke out near the city’s Champs-Élysées avenue and PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, the majority of fans celebrated PSG’s 5-0 win over Inter Milan peacefully, with many singing and dancing in the streets or blaring their car horns.

The Eiffel Tower was illuminated with PSG’s blue and red colours.

French President Emmanuel Macron, a keen supporter of rivals Olympique de Marseille, posted on X: “A glorious day for PSG! Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”

Approximately 5,400 police were deployed across Paris in anticipation of the raucous celebrations.

At least 300 people detained were suspected of possessing fireworks and causing disorder, Paris police said.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.

Riot police reportedly used a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe, and fired tear gas into the crowds.

Other clashes between police and crowds occurred on the Paris ring road. At least two cars were torched near the Parc des Princes.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau took a hard line against the disorder, writing on social media: “True PSG supporters are enjoying their team’s magnificent match.

“Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the police.

“It’s unbearable that it’s unthinkable to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.”

Meanwhile, outside Paris, police said a car ploughed into PSG fans in Grenoble in south-east France, leaving four people injured.

All those hurt were from the same family, police said. Two were seriously injured.

The driver handed himself into the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation told the AFP news agency it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally.

The trophy parade in central Paris – scheduled for 17:00 local time (16:00 BST) – will run for one hour from the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.

After the parade, the PSG players and staff will be received at the Élysée Palace and later on Sunday evening the trophy will be presented in front of season ticket holders at the Parc des Princes.

Two bridges have collapsed overnight in separate incidents in Russian regions bordering Ukraine, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens more.

State media said the collapses were being probed as “acts of terrorism”.

A road bridge came down in Bryansk, bringing several heavy trucks onto a moving passenger train late on Saturday, the regional governor said.

At least seven people were killed and at least 71 were injured, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

Hours later another bridge collapsed in the Zheleznogorsk district of Kursk, derailing a locomotive train, acting governor Alexander Khinshtein said.

The train caught fire and a driver suffered injuries to his legs, Khinshtein said.

Khinshtein wrote on Telegram in the aftermath: “The cause of the bridge collapse will be established. All emergency services are working on the scene. I am keeping the situation under control.”

Moscow Railway alleged on Telegram that the Bryansk bridge came down as a result of “illegal interference”.

A Ukrainian national security official said the incidents were Russian “false flag” operations, designed to “manipulate international opinion” ahead of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey on Monday.

Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, accused Russia of “laying the groundwork to derail the negotiations”.

He added Ukraine had “absolutely no incentive to sabotage the Istanbul summit”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the incidents throughout the night, the Kremlin said.

Pictures online from Bryansk showed mangled carriages and passengers helping each other climb out of the wreckage in the dark.

Moscow’s interregional transport prosecutor’s office said an investigation had been launched.

Authorities said the train’s locomotive and several cars derailed when the road bridge fell on to it.

Additional emergency workers, as well as rescue equipment and light towers for carrying out work at night have been sent to the area, according to Russian news agency TASS.

The train was going from the town of Klimovo to Moscow and was in the Vygonichsky district when the collapse happened, officials said.

Passengers were evacuated and guided to a meeting point at a nearby station, Moscow Railway said, adding: “They will be able to continue their journey on a specially formed reserve train” travelling from Bryansk to Moscow.

The first incident took place about 100km (62 miles) from the Ukraine border.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force said seven regions were hit by intense Russian strikes overnight on Saturday, with a total of 472 UAV and drone attacks and seven missile strikes.

Two Scottish men with links to a Glasgow-based criminal gang have been shot dead at a bar in Spain.

BBC Scotland understands they are Eddie Lyons Jnr and Ross Monaghan, who was previously acquitted of a notorious gangland murder.

They both died when a masked gunman opened fire at Monaghans Bar in Fuengirola in Andalucia on Saturday evening.

Local media reported the attack took place just after 23:00 when a car pulled up outside the crowded bar. The gunman then fled in the same vehicle.

Ross Monaghan was previously linked to the high-profile killing of one of Glasgow’s most feared gangland figures – Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll.

Carroll, an enforcer for the Daniel crime family, was shot 13 times as he sat in a car outside a supermarket in Robroyston, Glasgow, in 2010.

Monaghan was accused of the murder and of disposing of evidence after the killing, but was later acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

He was himself shot in the shoulder as he dropped off his daughter at a primary school in Glasgow in 2017.

He is reported to have moved to Spain at around this time.

Eddie Lyons Jnr had also previously been shot and wounded in an attack in 2006, believed to have been carried out by Carroll.

Police Scotland said it was unable to comment on a possible link to a recent gangland feud in Scotland and has directed inquiries to the Spanish authorities.

Rivalries between the Lyons and the Daniel crime families, resulting in numerous violent attacks, have been ongoing for more than 20 years.

But BBC journalist Guy Hedgecoe, based in Madrid, said there had been a number of other shootings in the Costa del Sol area in recent weeks, several of which are believed to be connected with drug crime.

Monaghans is located on the seafront and is a popular bar with tourists and expats.

The bar had been screening the UEFA Champions League final on the evening of the attack.

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached for any consular assistance but that its staff stood ready to assist any British nationals if required.

It was love at first sight for Adarsh Ramchurn. “I couldn’t control it,” he says of his flourishing affection for Nav Sangha.

But their relationship is “frowned upon” by some in their communities, they say, as Adarsh is Hindu and Nav is Sikh.

They’ve been an item for three years and say they receive hateful comments on social media when posting about their life together.

They are also abused because Adarsh, 24, has a darker skin tone than Nav, a form of prejudice known as colourism.

“We push through it,” says Nav, 22. “There are also people who are very supportive and that are in similar situations.”

Data compiled by YouGov in January suggests 45% of 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK believe there is a God, or believe there are Gods. The next highest figure, 36%, is for the over-65s.

BBC News spoke to Nav and Adarsh as well as a Christian from Married At First Sight (MAFS), a Muslim from The Only Way is Essex (Towie), and a former Jehovah’s Witness for the Sex After documentary series.

During a discussion between the participants, Nav was asked what the hardest bit about being a Sikh was. “Probably getting the backlash of being with a Hindu,” she said.

She and Ardash knew their interfaith relationship could be an issue for their parents, so spoke to them early.

“I know it’s different for every family, there can be difficult dynamics,” says Adarsh.

“But if you can have the open discussion [about] dating outside of your religion… I’d always say [you should].”

Something Adarsh’s parents were quick to ask him about was marriage.

The couple say, if they were to wed, they would probably do a Sikh and a Hindu ceremony.

“If we have kids, I feel like it’s important that they learn about both religions and faiths,” Nav adds.

Adarsh agrees and says he’s “looking forward to it”.

Junaid Ahmed’s parents were not as accommodating. His fear of being rejected by them took hold at a young age. Junaid knew being gay contravened the Islamic beliefs he and his family shared.

“When I did finally come out [aged 18], I did expect the worst and… [it] did happen,” he tells us. “They threw me out; they disowned me.”

He says he doesn’t blame his parents for ostracising him.

“I genuinely don’t – it’s made me the person I am today.”

Junaid, now aged 26 and a star of Towie, says he often gets abuse online from other Muslims because he is open about his sexual orientation, but “that [has] never changed my relationship with God”.

He says he is grateful for his religious upbringing and still prays every day.

Like Junaid, Martin Riley – who was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness – was also ostracised by his family.

However, in his case, it was because a few years ago he was expelled from his religion completely, in a process called disfellowshipping.

For Riley, as he is known to his friends, this meant being shunned by other members of his congregation – including close friends and family.

His first marriage, which lasted 20 years, had broken down a few months before he was expelled.

He was a particularly strong believer and, while dating after he was expelled, he abided by the rule of not having sex before marriage.

It was only when Riley began dating the woman who is now his wife, that he began seriously considering whether he wanted to continue adhering to the religion that he’d been part of for 40 years. His wife is not a Jehovah’s Witness.

“I realised that I did not want to have a future that didn’t include her, whether that meant returning to the religion or not.”

After having sex with her for the first time, which he describes as being, “like in the movies”, he recalls: “I was actually surprised by how guiltless I felt about the whole thing.”

Riley, 48, now considers himself an atheist.

Looking back at his expulsion from the religion aged 42, he says: “It was devastating for me, at the time. Now I think it is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me.”

Unlike Riley, Sacha Jones did not grow up devoutly religious, but was baptised as a Christian last year after finding her faith. She has vowed to remain abstinent until she marries.

“I haven’t slept with anyone since my baptism,” she says. “So I’m fresh in the eyes of the Lord!”

Sacha, 30, also says the culture around dating today makes it difficult to form a long-term relationship.

Last year she participated in MAFS, but split up with her partner following the show.

“It’s the absolute trenches out here in the dating world… it’s difficult to trust a man anyway, but then to trust someone that doesn’t fear God as well?”

She says she doesn’t miss sex as much as she might do because she isn’t dating anyone at the moment. She believes the wait will be worth it – once she’s married.

“I no longer lack purpose or peace,” says Sacha, who isn’t the “party animal” she once was. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

It’s a condition that affects more than 10 million people in the UK. It can change futures, end careers, and shrink worlds. So when a hack comes along that says it can “cure”, or at the very least fend off a migraine, people will try it.

While there are medical treatments, there is no cure. Prescription medication can be very effective – but it doesn’t always work. For many people there is no simple solution.

Some discover their own ways of managing the debilitating pain: blasting the side of their face with a hairdryer, or sitting in a hot bath while wearing an ice pack and drinking a smoothie.

But now a new hack has suddenly gone viral – the McMigraine Meal. A simple offering of a full-fat cola and a portion of salty fries seems to be doing the trick for hundreds who’ve been extolling its virtues on TikTok.

If there is any science behind these hacks – what do they do to the body?

Nick Cook, from Oxfordshire, carries “a wallet full of drugs” around in case of a migraine attack. He will “try anything” to make the pain go away, he says.

“When you live with the condition, and you’re working a five-day week and you need to carry on, you’ll give anything a go.”

At its worst the pain around Nick’s eye socket can feel like his eyeball is getting crushed. He says it’s the caffeine and sugar in cola that helps him.

“If I catch it soon enough it can sometimes work, when my vision goes fuzzy and I can feel one coming on.”

He stresses that drinking cola doesn’t replace his amitriptyline tablets – the daily pain medication he takes to try to prevent migraines – but it does sometimes help him “last until the end of the day”.

For Kayleigh Webster, a 27-year-old who has had chronic migraines all her life, it’s the salt on the chips that might slow down a migraine attack.

“It can help,” she says cautiously, “but it’s certainly not a cure.

“Migraine is a complex neurological condition – and it can’t be cured by a bit of caffeine, salt and sugar in a fast food meal.”

Kayleigh’s tried cocktails of different medications, putting her feet in hot water, a flannel at the back of the head, acupuncture, cupping – but they’ve had little effect.

One of the few treatments that has given her relief is medical Botox – having dozens of injections in her head, face and neck. It’s still not clear how Botox works for migraine, but it’s believed to block powerful pain signals being released from the nerves.

A migraine – which can last days – is very different to a headache, which tend to be short-lived and can be treated more easily with painkillers like paracetamol. Migraines can cause head pain, neck pain, numbness, blurred vision, and even affect speech and movement.

Skulls dating back to 3,000 BC show ancient Egyptians even had trouble with migraines – but despite that long history, their exact cause is still unknown.

It’s thought pain receptors in the blood vessels and nerve tissue around the brain misfire – sending incorrect signals that something is wrong. But we don’t know why some people have an oversensitive nervous system – and why it reacts to some things and not others.

Experts say there’s not enough research into why only some people – around one in seven – are affected, or what can actually help.

Dr Kay Kennis, a trustee for the Migraine Trust and a GP who specialises in migraines, says while there are elements of the McMigraine meal that can help stave off an attack, these aren’t innate to “a McDonald’s”.

“The caffeine in the coke can act as a nerve disruptor, it is a substance that affects nerve activity. For some, that disturbance works in a positive way,” Dr Kennis says.

“There are some painkillers that people take for migraines that have caffeine – and some do respond well to that – but we don’t fully know why.”

But she warns against using caffeinated fizzy drinks like cola as a way of regularly managing migraines.

“Too much caffeine can be a trigger too – and you can end up in a worse situation in the long run,” Dr Kennis says.

Other ingredients in a fast food meal, like the salt on the chips, can affect nerve activity, she explains, but adds the effects of sodium on migraines have not been tested.

She also warns that not only is fast food often ultra-processed and not conducive to a healthy diet, it can contain high levels of Tyramine, a natural compound commonly found in many foods, which can actually cause severe migraines.

For Eloise Underwood none of the quick fixes on social media work.

The chronic migraine sufferer has been looking for a “magic cocktail” for seven years – she’s seen people recommend putting feet in scorching water (not recommended by experts and potentially dangerous); drinking hot coffee (caffeine can be a trigger); or various vibrating devices which have had little effect.

“There are so many videos online that take advantage of the desperation we all feel,” Eloise explains.

She’s left several jobs – often due to lighting and noise in an office environment triggering migraines. She recently stopped working as an interior designer and has now launched a business pressing and framing wedding flowers from her home.

She wears loop ear buds to reduce the sharpness of the sounds around her, and limits her social life.

“People think a migraine is just a headache – that’s just one symptom of it,” Eloise says. “For me, a migraine is a whole body experience…

“Migraines have completely made my life smaller.”

Prof Peter Goadsby, a neurologist at the NIHR-King’s Clinical Research Facility, says research is beginning to produce positive results after years of underfunding.

His latest study shows medications known as gepants could block a group of pain receptors in the lead-up to a migraine attack, cutting off the pain before it starts.

“Any new treatment is a glimmer of hope,” Eloise says. “They do say that nothing will work for everyone – but something will work for someone.”

Lifestyle changes can also make a difference, Prof Goadsby explains. It might be boring, he says, but basically – “be careful of your brain”.

“You want to have regularity, avoid the highs and lows. If you can feel the warning signs – yawning, sleepiness, mood change, passing more urine and even craving salt and sugar – listen to your body.

“Listen to your body – don’t listen to TikTok, that’s my advice.”

Nick has been doing exactly that. He might reach for the odd cola and salty fries, but he’s moulded his whole life in order to manage his migraines.

“I don’t drink, I wear sunglasses even if it’s cloudy,” he says. “I don’t go wild. When me and my partner go away, half the stuff we take is to help us manage our migraines.”

On a recent stag-do weekend, Nick noticed the difference between his and his friends’ lives.

“They were up all night drinking to the early hours,” Nick says. “I turned up with my own pillow, apples, bananas, Weetabix, and any snacks I would need to keep me going, because hunger can be a major trigger.

“I’m in bed by midnight – but my mates know me, and that’s OK, because this is how I have to live my life.”

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala debut last month left a lasting impression on global fashion.

The 41-year-old singer, who is the only Punjabi musician to perform at Coachella, walked the red carpet dressed like an early 20th Century maharajah.

His opulent ivory and gold ensemble – created by designer Prabal Gurung – complete with a feathered bejewelled turban, trended in India for weeks.

He also wore a gorgeous diamond necklace, its design inspired by a Cartier piece worn by an erstwhile king of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

A Panthère de Cartier watch, a lion-headed and a jewel-studded sword completed the ensemble, which had a map of Dosanjh’s home state embroidered on the back of the cape along with letters from Gurmukhi, the script for Punjabi language.

Of course, Dosanjh is no stranger to such style.

Just like his music, he’s carved out a niche in fashion too – a hip hop singer who is known for melding traditional Punjabi styles with Western influences.

Often seen in anti-fit trousers, chunky sneakers, and stacks of necklaces that he matches with his colourful turbans, his unique form of self-expression has captured the imagination of millions, leading to interesting reinventions in the traditional Punjabi attire.

The changes can be felt everywhere. A 16-minute high-intensity bhangra competition in California would be impossible without high performance sneakers. And basement bhangra nights in Berlin are enjoyed in crop tops and deconstructed pants.

Punjabi music itself, high on volume and energy – with lyrics packed with the names of cities and global luxury brands – has become a subculture.

It’s not just Dosanjh – several other Punjabi musicians have also influenced the region’s style game.

Not long ago, Punjabi-Canadian singer Jazzy B’s rings, often the size of a cookie, along with his plus-sized Kanda pendant and silver blonde hair tints, were trending.

More recently, the yellow tinted glasses worn by singer Badshah; the baggy hoodies sported by Yo Yo Honey Singh; and AP Dhillon’s Louis Vuitton bombers and Chanel watches have been hugely popular with Punjabi youth.

But even though their influence was significant, it was restricted to a region. Dosanjh and a few others like him, however, have managed to mount it to a global level, their style speaking to both the Sikh diaspora as well as a broader audience. For instance, the t-shirts, pearls and sneakers Dosanjh wore to his world tour last year were sold out in a matter of hours. Dhillon’s style statements at Paris Couture Week have created aspiration among Punjabi youth.

Cultural experts say that this reinvention, both in music and fashion, has its roots in Western pop-culture as most of the artistes live and perform in the West.

“Punjabi men are inventive. The region has been at the forefront of fusion, it believes in hybridity. This is especially the case with the Punjabi diaspora – even when they live in ghettos, they are the showmen [of their lives],” says art historian, author and museum curator Alka Pande.

Over the years, as the Punjabi diaspora community grew, a new generation of musicians began mixing modern hip-hop sounds with elements of traditional Punjabi aesthetics.

Their distinct style lexicon – of gold chains, faux fur jackets, plus-sized accessories, braids and beards – went on to spawn media articles, books and doctoral theses on South Asian culture.

The coin dropped instantly back home in Punjab, which absorbed logo fashion like a sponge when luxury brands arrived in the 2000s. For Punjabis – who are largely a farming community – it was an aspirational uprising, symbolic of how success and prosperity should look.

“It symbolised the movement of the Punjabi identity from a farmer to a global consumer,” says acclaimed singer Rabbi Shergill.

Arguing that performers, like everyone else, are a product of their times, Shergill says these impulses are “a response to the hyper capitalist world”.

Curiously, the style game of Punjabi musicians – from hip-hop, R&B, bhangra pop, fusion, Punjabi rap, reggae or filmy music – has also remained rooted and androgynous, instead of being hyper masculine.

A pop star may wear Balenciaga or Indian designer Manish Malhotra’s opulent creations; perform anywhere from Ludhiana city to London; dance with Beyonce around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, atop a luxury car, or in a British mansion – but they always wear their Punjabi identity on their sleeves.

Dosanjh underlined this clearly with his maharajah look at the Met Gala. “It’s like the popularity of his androgynous style was waiting to happen,” Pande says.

The composite impact of this trend on emerging artists is unmissable today in Punjab.

Local Bhangra performances, for instance, are no longer limited to traditional “dhoti-kurta-koti” costume sets paired with juttis (ethnic footwear). Performance attire now includes sneakers, typographic T-shirts, deconstructed bottoms and even denims.

“Such items are highly sought after by customers,” says Harinder Singh, owner of the brand 1469.

The merchandise in Singh’s stores, includes accessories popularised by Punjab’s music stars, such as versions of Phulkari turbans worn by Dosanjh, Kanda pendants that were first popularised by veteran Bhangra artist Pammi Bai. Singh himself owns turbans in more than a 100 shades.

Even overall men’s style in Punjab bears some of this cosmopolitan twang.

Young poet Gurpreet Saini, who performs at cultural festivals across India, says he sources his shawls – printed with ombre Gurmukhi letters – from Hariana, his hometown in Punjab, for a distinctive look. He admits to the influence of music icons, including those like folk singer Gurdas Mann, who he grew up watching.

What began as personal flair in some cases, went on to become fashion statements. Now these choices are cultural signatures. They have recast the Punjabi identity through rhythm, hybridity as well as a rooted sense of self.

An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial law.

She couldn’t quite believe it – until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion down.

Within hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital Seoul.

They turned up not just because Yoon’s decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism – despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said otherwise.

They returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon’s abuse of power went on – and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic months.

And yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible again.

The two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making headlines.

For many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight.

“So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies,” the 24-year-old college student says.

“But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to erase women’s voices.”

When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the atmosphere.

The bitter December cold didn’t stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon’s ouster.

“Most of those around me were young women, we were singing ‘Into the World’ by Girls’ Generation,” Byunghui says.

Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop’s biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president’s career.

“The lyrics – about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world,” Byunghui says, “just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone”.

There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily.

An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them – almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that rally.

The protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap – at 31% – is the widest among rich nations.

Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society.

“I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth,” says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . “I believe that’s why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction.”

For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: “I tried to go every week. It wasn’t easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility.”

That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women’s University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being “anti-feminist” and had “made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women”.

There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in 2022.

These men consider themselves victims of “reverse discrimination”, saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to women.

They label as “man haters” those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality.

These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under Yoon.

It was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women’s rights.

And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed countries.

But his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

“In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon’s party,” says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. “They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s.”

During Yoon’s term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word “women” in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference altogether.

The impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against feminism.

Byunghui saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually older.

Young men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd.

“I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?”

With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his fall.

And this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the seven candidates runnning for president. “It’s shocking,” Jinha says, “that there’s no-one”. In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential candidates.

The PPP’s Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee.

“It’s only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few,” Saeyeon says. “I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination.”

When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”

After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still “faced structural discrimination in many areas”. And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every level.

During his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party.

He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP’s emergency committee.

“It’s evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election,” Ms Kim says.

Prof Go believes it’s because Lee “lost by a very narrow margin” back then. So this time, he is “casting the widest net possible” for votes. “And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that.”

That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment: “Our voices don’t seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned.”

The ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon’s cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents.

But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don’t address the deeper inequalities – which make it hard to balance a career and family – that are making so many women reconsider the usual choices.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking point.

Lee has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and Family.

The ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government’s annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was “politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised”.

“The ministry itself is not huge but it’s symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant.”

It’s also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon’s party, who has since launched his own Reform Party.

Although trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views.

Earlier this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?”

He said the “someone” was frontunner Lee Jae-myung’s son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial posts.

But watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV “was genuinely terrifying,” Byunghui says. “I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities.”

Saeyeon describes “anger and even despair” sinking the “hopes I had for politics, which weren’t that great to begin with”.

She believes his popularity “among certain sections of young men is one of the “significant repercussions” of South Korea “long neglecting structural discrimination” against women.

The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn’t fare well in early polling.

“I’m still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook,” Saeyeon says.

While Kwon represents her concerns, she says it’s smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is “much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that”.

She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon’s base: “He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead.”

That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. “It’s like there is dust on the wall. If you don’t know it’s there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you.”

It’s the same for Jinha who says things can “never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law”.

That was a time when politics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it “feels like something that affects me and is important to my life”.

She says she won’t give up because she wants to be free of “things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace”.

“People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up – and then the world will change again.”

Preye Maxwell looks distressed as he leaves his beloved dog Hanks at an animal shelter in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub.

Fighting back tears, he says: “I can’t afford to take care of him. I can’t afford to feed him the way he should be fed.”

His two-year old American Eskimo barks as his owner turns his back and walks out of the St Mark’s Animal Rescue Foundation in the Lagos suburb of Ajah.

Dr Mark Afua, a vet and chairman of the rescue centre, takes Hanks and puts him in a big metal cage – one of many in the single-storey building designed for dogs, cats, snakes and other animals.

Hanks wheels around in circles in his cage – and Dr Afua tries to calm the distressed fluffy-haired dog.

Mr Maxwell, an online media strategist, was recently made redundant. His job-hunting means he is never at home and so feels unable to look after Hanks.

“I’m trying to get whatever I have to do to survive. I don’t even have the time now [to look after Hanks] because I’m always out looking for jobs,” he told the BBC.

The 33-year-old’s decision was difficult to make, but it is one that many pet owners are taking in the face of the rising cost of living in Nigeria.

Africa’s most-populous nation has been hit by high inflation since President Bola Tinubu came to power two years ago and removed a long-standing fuel subsidy.

The inflation rate surged from 22% in May 2023 to 35% in December 2024, a 28-year high, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS.)

Inflation has since fallen back to 24% but this means that prices are still continuing to rise, just not as quickly as before.

The economic crunch has meant that some companies have had to downsize to keep afloat in the face of rising operating costs, pushing young people like Mr Maxwell into an already saturated labour market.

Animal rights activists and animal shelters say that they are seeing an unprecedented numbers of abandoned animals as the cost of looking after pets spirals out of control.

Prices for pet food and veterinary care have jumped by more 100% as some things, especially medication, are imported – and the local currency has plummeted against the dollar.

“About 10 years ago when we started this project, we really didn’t have people giving up their dogs because they were unable to feed the dogs,” Dr Afua told the BBC.

“Right now, we have 10, 12 animals being dropped in a month.”

Some, like Mr Maxwell, hand their pets over to a shelter for adoption but others simply abandon their animals.

Animal cruelty campaigner Jackie Idimogu, who is president of My Dog and I – a dog-lovers’ community in Lagos who often helps to rehome pets, says she has noticed the change.

“Now they don’t even have that patience [to find new owners]. They just tie the dog out to a post on the road or they just unleash it on the road,” she told the BBC.

The 32-year-old says more that 50% of her income as a furniture maker and interior designer now goes on looking after her four dogs.

“I’m spending roughly 250,000 naira ($158; £117) every month on pets,” she says, adding that this includes someone to walk the dogs and look after them when she was not around.

But Ms Idimogu says she cannot bear to give them up.

“As a single lady, I have no kids of my own yet. My dogs are my babies. I don’t see any difference between myself as a dog mum and a human mum. I don’t think I have it in me to give up any of my babies for any reason whatsoever.”

Instead, she has chosen to adapt her lifestyle – fewer luxuries for herself like jewellery, expensive hair styles and spa visits and fewer treats for her pets like chicken, yoghurt treats and car rides.

“I used to be flashy, but now I had to tone down because of my dogs.”

The same goes for Amartya Odanokende, who goes by the name “Jason the Cat Guy” on social media, where he likes to impart his love of felines to his fellow Nigerians who often regard cats with suspicion because of their association with witchcraft.

He spends approximately $160 a month on food for five big cats and some kittens, plus another $7 on 10kg of cat litter. Since he got his Prussian cats in 2020 he says what he spends has gone up 100%.

Such “skyrocketing maintenance cost” is a concern and he worries about getting into debt.

Lagos sales executive Iyke Elueze is also struggling to look after her 10 dogs.

“There’s a particular brand of food I used to use. It was just about 30,000 naira then. That same brand of dog food is 165,000 naira,” he told the BBC.

He credits his first dog Hennessey with saving his life at a time he was struggling with depression – nonetheless he would like to get rid of some of his animals as he now needs to prioritise his toddlers.

But the 36-year-old fears that his dogs could end up being eaten – as they are considered a delicacy in some parts of southern Nigeria.

Celebrity chef and Guinness record breaker Hilda Baci once came under fire on social media after she admitted making a dog-meat themed menu.

“I am very careful with who adopts my dogs. I don’t want my dogs ending up in any other person’s pots,” said the father-of-two.

Mistura Ibrahim, a young tattoo artist in Lagos who has made it her mission to help cats after saving two who were about to be stoned, is depressed about the situation and is finding it hard to find new homes for others she continues to rescue.

“I get some calls from people that I’ve given cats to in the past and they say that they really cannot afford to keep the cats.”

She no longer feeds her cats tinned meals, opting to give them food from her own plate.

Her advice is to take pet welfare seriously: “It’s just like having a child. If you can’t afford to have a child, then don’t bring a child to the world.”

For Dr Afua, who uses the profit from his veterinary practice to fund his shelter, it is getting harder to house the unwanted animals.

“We try to help the animals get homes quickly but I’m careful [about] the homes they go to so they don’t come back. And some animals will never find homes because of previous abuse.”

With St Mark’s Animal Rescue Foundation caring for more than 60 dogs at the moment – around twice its capacity – would he ever turn away an animal?

“I don’t have the heart to. As I speak I have dogs and cats everywhere. My office and home is full – and I still make room for the next.”

• ‘I’ve been sleeping under a bridge in Lagos for 30 years’
• Are Nigerians abroad widening the class divide back home?
• ‘I scarred my six children by using skin-lightening creams’
• Blank questions, power cuts and a suicide: Nigeria’s exams fiasco
• The Nigerian professor who makes more money welding

A fifth of Ukrainian territory is now under Russian control, and for Ukrainians living under occupation there seems little chance that any future deal to end the war will change that.

Three Ukrainians in different Russian-controlled cities have told the BBC of the pressures they face, from being forced to accept a Russian passport to the risks of carrying out small acts of resistance. We are not using their real names for their own safety, and will call them Mavka, Pavlo and Iryna.

The potential dangers are the same, whether in Mariupol or Melitopol, seized by Russia in the full-scale invasion in 2022, or in Crimea which was annexed eight years before.

Mavka chose to stay in Melitopol when the Russians invaded her city on 25 February 2022, “because it is unfair that someone can just come to my home and take it out”.

She has lived there since birth, midway between the Crimean peninsula and the regional capital Zaporizhzhia.

In recent months she has noticed a ramping up of not only a strict policy of “Russification” in the city, but of an increased militarisation of all spheres of life, including in schools.

She has shared pictures of a billboard promoting conscription to young locals, a school notebook with Putin’s portrait on it, and photos and a video of pupils wearing Russian military uniforms instead of the school outfits – boys and girls – and performing military education tasks.

Some 200km (125 miles) along the coast of the sea of Azov, and much closer to the Russian border, the city of Mariupol feels as if it has been “cut off” from the outside world, according to Pavlo.

This key port and hub of Ukraine’s steel industry was captured after a devastating siege and bombardment that lasted almost three months in 2022.

Russian citizenship is now obligatory if you want to work or study or have an urgent medical help, Pavlo says.

“If someone’s child, let’s say, refuses to sing the Russian anthem at school in the morning, the FSB [Russia’s security service] will visit their parents, they will be ‘pencilled in’ and then anything can happen.”

Pavlo survived the siege despite being shot six times, including to his head.

Now that he has recuperated, he feels he cannot leave because of elderly relatives.

“Most of those who stayed in Mariupol or returned, did so to help their elderly parents or their sick grandparents, or because of their flat,” he tells me over the phone after midnight so no-one will overhear.

The biggest preoccupation in Mariupol is holding on to your home, as most of the property damaged in the Russian bombardment has been demolished, and the cost of living and unemployment has surged.

“I’d say 95% of all talk in the city is about property: how to claim it back, how to sell it. You’ll hear people talk about it while queuing to buy some bread, on your way to a chemist, in the food market, everywhere,” he says.

Crimea has been under occupation since Vladimir Putin annexed the peninsula in 2014, when Russia’s war in Ukraine began.

Iryna decided to remain, also to care for an elderly relative but also because she did not want to leave “her beautiful home”.

All signs of Ukrainian identity have been banned in public, and Iryna says she cannot speak Ukrainian in public any more, “as you never know who can tell the authorities on you”.

Children at nursery school in Crimea are told to sing the Russian anthem every morning, even the very youngest. All the teachers are Russian, most of them wives of soldiers who have moved in from Russia.

Iryna occasionally puts on her traditional, embroidered top when she has video calls with friends elsewhere on the peninsula.

“It helps us to keep our spirits high, reminding us about our happy life before the occupation”.

But the risks are high, even for wearing a vyshyvanka. “They might not shoot you straight away, but you can simply disappear afterwards, silently,” she declares.

She speaks of a Ukrainian friend being questioned by police because Russian neighbours, who came to Crimea in 2014, told police he had illegal weapons. “Of course he didn’t. Luckily they let him go in the end, but it’s so frightening.”

Iryna complains that she cannot go out on her own even for coffee “because solders can point a gun at you and say something abusive or order you to please them”.

Resistance in Ukraine’s occupied cities is dangerous, and it often comes in small acts of defiance aimed at reminding residents that they are not alone.

In Melitopol, Mavka talks of being part of a secret female resistance movement called (Angry Mavka) “to let people know that Ukrainians don’t agree with the occupation, we didn’t call for it, and we will never tolerate it”.

The network is made up of women and girls in “pretty much all occupied cities”, according to Iryna, although she cannot reveal its size or scale because of the potential dangers for its members.

Mavka describes her role in running the network’s social media accounts, which document life under occupation and acts like placing Ukrainian symbols or leaflets in public places “to remind other Ukrainians that they are not alone”, as well as even riskier practices.

“Sometimes we also put a laxative in alcohol and baked goods for the Russian soldiers, as a ‘welcome pack’,” she says.

Punishment for that kind of act, which the BBC is unable to verify, would be severe.

Russia’s occupation authorities treat the Ukrainian language or anything related to Ukraine as extremist, says Mavka.

Ukrainians are well aware of what happened to journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, 27, who disappeared while investigating allegations of torture prisons in eastern Ukraine in 2023.

Russian authorities told her family she had died in custody in September 2024. Her body was returned earlier this month, with several organs removed and clear signs of torture.

Silent disappearance is what Mavka fears most: “When suddenly nobody can find out where you are or what’s happened to you.”

Her network has developed a set of tasks for new joiners to pass to avoid infiltration, and so far they have managed to avoid cyber attacks.

For now they are waiting and watching: “We cannot take up arms and fight back against the occupier right now, but we want at least to show that pro-Ukrainian population is here, and it will also be here”.

She and others in Melitopol are following closely what is happening in Kyiv, “because it is important for us to know whether Kyiv is ready to fight for us. Even small steps matter”.

“We have a rollercoaster of moods here. Many are worried documents might get signed that, God forbid, leave us under Russian occupation for even longer. Because we know what Russia will do here.”

The worry for Mavka and people close to her is that if Kyiv does agree a ceasefire it could mean Russia pursuing the same policy as in Crimea, erasing Ukrainian identity and repressing the population.

“They’ve already been replacing locals with their people. But people here are still hopeful, we will continue our resistance, we’ll just have to be more creative”.

Unlike Mavka, Pavlo believes the war must end, even if it means losing his ability to return to Ukraine.

“Human life is of the greatest value… but there are certain conditions for a ceasefire and not everyone might agree with them as it raises a question, why have all those people died then during the past three years? Would they feel abandoned and betrayed?”

Pavlo is wary of talking, even via an encrypted line, but adds: “I don’t envy anyone involved in this decision-making process. It won’t be simple, black and white.”

Iryna fears for Crimea’s next generation who have grown up in an atmosphere of violence and, she says, copy their fathers who have returned from Russia’s war against Ukraine.

She shows me her bandaged cat, and says a child on her street shot it with a rubber bullet.

“For them it was fun. These kids are not taught to build peace, they are taught to fight. It breaks my heart.”

Some 17,000 people have evacuated the Canadian province of Manitoba as fast-moving wildfires move across parts of the country.

A military aircraft and helicopters have been used to evacuate some residents in remote areas as firefighters face growing flames. Hot and dry weather is expected in the coming days.

Dense smoke from the fires – of which there are more than 188 according to officials – has spread across Canada and into parts of the US.

Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba have declared states of emergency for the next month and have asked for international help in fighting the fires.

In Saskatchewan, there are 17 wildfires burning as of Saturday, with eight classified as not contained. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) classified conditions in the province as extreme.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe warned at a Saturday news conference that the current figure of 8,000 fire evacuees could climb to 10,000 as dry weather conditions persist.

“The next four to seven days are absolutely critical until we can find our way to changing weather patterns, and ultimately a soaking rain throughout the north,” Mr Moe said.

Large parts of Alberta and British Columbia have also ordered evacuations as the fires spread.

The evacuation of residents of the northern First Nations community of Pukatawagan, is a “rapidly evolving situation”, a Manitoba official told the BBC on Saturday.

Canadian Armed Forces, Manitoba Wildfire Service and Manitoba’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team have been using a military aircraft and helicopters to bring people to safety from the northern community in Manitoba.

“The scale and complexity of these air evacuations cannot be overstated — and neither can the unwavering dedication of the teams executing them,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday.

In Flin Flon, a city of 5,000 in Manitoba, only firefighters and support workers are left in the town.

In Manitoba, there are a total of 25 active fires, according to the province’s fire situation report, with 11 classified as out of control.

Danielle Desjardins, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada based in Winnipeg, told the BBC that the forecast for both provinces is not promising.

While a cold front is expected to hit some parts of Saskatchewan, it will not bring relief to the regions where fires are burning.

“The bad news about this cold front is it’s going to be windy,” said Ms Desjardins, adding that the wind, coupled with the heat and lack of rain, are prime conditions for wildfire spread.

Smoke from the fires has also left an estimated 22 million Americans under air quality alerts this weekend.

In northern Minnesota, residents have been warned smoke could reach levels “unhealthy for everyone”, while the rest of the state faces air quality warnings for sensitive groups. That alert runs through Monday evening.

Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record in 2023, when more than 42 million acres (17.3m hectares) burned.

Fires happen naturally in many parts of the world, including in Canada.

But climate change is making the weather conditions needed for wildfires to spread more likely, according to the UN’s climate body.

Extreme and long-lasting heat draws more and more moisture out of the ground and vegetation.

The US has sent Iran a proposal for a nuclear deal between Tehran and Washington, the White House confirmed on Saturday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had been presented with “elements of a US deal” by his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi during a short visit to the Iranian capital.

It comes after a report by the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had further stepped up its production of enriched uranium, a key component in the making of nuclear weapons.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday it was in Tehran’s “best interest to accept” the deal, adding: “President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb”.

Leavitt said a “detailed and acceptable” proposal had been sent to Iran by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The US proposal “will be appropriately responded to in line with the principles, national interests and rights of the people of Iran”, Araghchi wrote on X.

The precise details of the deal are not yet clear.

The proposal follows a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – seen by the BBC – which found Iran now possesses over 400kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity – close to the 90% purity required for weapons-grade uranium.

This is well above the level of purity sufficient for civilian nuclear power and research purposes.

It is enough for about 10 nuclear weapons if further refined, making Iran the only non nuclear-armed state producing uranium at this level.

The report paves the way for the US, Britain, France and Germany to push for the IAEA’s board of governors to find Iran in violation of its non-proliferation obligations.

Iran insists its programme is peaceful. On Saturday, Iranian state media described the IAEA report as “politically motivated” containing “baseless accusations”.

Iran has said it will “implement appropriate measures” in response to any effort to take action against Tehran at the IAEA governors’ meeting.

The US has long sought to limit Iran’s nuclear capacity. Talks between the two powers mediated by Oman have been under way since April.

Both sides have expressed optimism during the course of the talks but remain divided over key issues – chief among them, whether Iran can continue enrichment under any future agreement.

Despite the ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Washington, the IAEA report offered no indication that Iran has slowed its nuclear enrichment efforts.

Iran has produced highly enriched uranium at a rate equivalent to roughly one nuclear weapon per month over the past three months, the IAEA report found.

US officials estimate that, if Iran chooses to make a weapon, it could produce weapons-grade material in less than two weeks and potentially build a bomb within months.

Iran has long denied it is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. However, the IAEA said it could not confirm whether this was still the case because Iran refuses to grant access to senior inspectors and has not answered longstanding questions about its nuclear history.

Trump is seeking a new nuclear agreement with Tehran after pulling the US out of a previous nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers in 2018.

This nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, was signed in 2015 by Iran and the US, China, France, Russia, Germany and the UK.

The JCPOA sought to limit and monitor Iran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting sanctions that had been placed on the regime in 2010 over suspicions that its nuclear programme was being used to develop a bomb.

But Donald Trump withdrew from the deal during his first term in office, claiming JCPOA was a “bad deal” because it was not permanent and did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programme, amongst other things.

Trump then re-imposed US sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Iran to negotiate a new and expanded agreement.

In the intervening years, Tehran has steadily overstepped the 2015 agreement’s limits on its nuclear programme, designed to make it harder to develop an atomic bomb.

Trump has previously threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to achieve a deal.

Few 27-year-olds look at used cooking oil and see a green business opportunity to produce soap or dog food.

But that is what Hugo Daniel Chávez, a project manager for the NGO Sustenta Honduras, has done.

“We have so many businesses and domestic practices that create waste, so we are trying to transform waste and give it a second life,” he tells the BBC.

Across Latin America, several million tonnes of cooking oil are consumed every year. It is often used to fry food, mostly chicken, plantain strips, chips and pork.

But reusing and heating it too often – as is often the case in Honduras, where there is a huge black market for used cooking oil – can create compounds which are bad for consumers’ health.

Improperly discarded, it can also have a massive detrimental impact on the environment.

If it is drained down the sink, it can damage pipes and contaminate groundwater, and when it is tossed by the side of the road, it can contaminate freshwater and crops many communities rely on.

Faced with these health and environmental hazards, the young green entrepreneurs behind Sustenta tried to come up with a solution which would not only give businesses an incentive to dispose of their oil and grease properly, but also turn these waste products into something useful.

The NGO’s executive director, Ricardo Pineda, explains that their idea originated from earlier efforts by different companies and organisations to transform used cooking oil into biodiesel. “But in Honduras, we don’t have a market for biodiesel,” he says.

“So we decided to produce products that can do well in our domestic markets [such as soap and dog food].”

In order to make it more attractive to people to get rid of the oil legally rather than sell it to unscrupulous buyers, Sustenta offers to buy the used cooking oil and pick it up regularly from the shops that participate in their project.

Their efforts have gained international recognition, most notably when they were awarded a $20,000-prize as one of the winners of the 2023 Youth4Climate Energy Challenge, a global initiative co-led by the Italian government and the United Nations Development Programme.

Sustenta also receives funding from the embassy of the The Netherlands in the region, which told the BBC that it chose Sustenta because “their project offered an innovative and viable solution, using an enterprising approach which has a social impact”.

“It [their project] not only contributes to lessening the environmental impact through an emphasis on creating a circular economy, but also empowers young people and women – the groups most affected by climate change – and generates green jobs.”

Sustenta offers between 2.50 and 3.50 Lempiras (£0.08 and £0.11) per pound of used cooking oil.

And it is not just small businesses it deals with.

In May of 2024, the NGO signed a contract with the Mexican and Central American division of the retail giant Walmart.

This contract guarantees a flow of used cooking oil and grease from all companies related to Walmart to Sustenta, which Mr Pineda says is critical to Sustenta’s project.

“We needed a reliable flow to scale up production. (…) Otherwise, we could quickly run out of used cooking oil, because of the black market that is competing with us,” adds Mr Chávez.

It then brings the cooking oil and grease to a plant in Comayagua, where they are purified and processed in a reaction known as saponification. This process combines fats or oils with an alkali to produce soap.

Mr Pineda says that Sustenta is keen to develop “a circular ecological system in which we reuse everything”.

“Next to our plant that produces the soap and dog food, someone else has a water purification plant and we use the water that plant cannot purify, its waste so to say, for our water cooling system,” he explains.

The idea of teaming up with Walmart, Mr Pineda says, is “to sell the dog food and soap we have refined from their waste at Walmart”.

“They could profit from their own waste and also see the economic value behind circular economies, ” he tells the BBC.

At 15 lempiras (£0.45) per bar of soap, the project makes a monthly revenue of over 106,000 Lempiras (£3,194.70), which excludes fixed costs like salaries, commission and distribution.

Mr Pineda emphasises that “the money doesn’t stay with us”. “We just help with the implementation of the project and as soon as it’s up and running we seek new opportunities,” he says.

The recycling of cooking oil is just one several projects running simultaneously at Sustenta.

The organisation is comprised of young people, all under 30 and averaging 23 years of age, and their youthful enthusiasm and impatience with established ways of doing things has been key to their approach.

“We started as a young group that was sick of the regular ways large institutions handle issues with climate change and the environment,” Mr Pineda says.

“We want to create actual solutions and not sit around only talking about what could be done.”

Their strategy also differs from that of other young environmental organisations in the region, who often focus on a confrontational approach, trying to halt large mining or energy projects and holding politicians accountable for corruption.

But Sustenta’s project coordinator, Paola Acevedo, says the two approached are not at odds, but rather complement each other: “This type of [classical] environmentalism is very important and there is no doubt that we need it.”

“We try to focus on solutions, while the others fight on the front lines,” she adds.

Three people have died after a fire broke out overnight at a hospital ward caring for elderly people in Hamburg.

The north German city’s fire brigade said they were unable to reach the three victims during the rescue effort. They died at the scene.

The fire at the Marienkrankenhaus was reported shortly after midnight.

Around 220 emergency workers were dispatched to tackle the blaze and treat patients. More than 35 people were injured.

Two people were taken to another hospital in the city for treatment. One person has life-threatening injuries, said the fire brigade.

They added 18 others had suffered serious injuries and another 15 people had minor wounds.

Some of the injured were treated in the Marienkrankenhaus’s emergency room by hospital staff.

When the first firefighters arrived, a ground floor room at the hospital was already ablaze and the fire was threatening to spread to the room above.

Patients in other rooms came to their windows to tell firefighters they were unable to leave due to the smoke. The building has four floors.

The fire brigade said they used turntable and portable ladders to rescue patients, several of whom were elderly and had mobility issues.

Other patients were helped out through corridors with the aid of fire escape hoods, a breathing apparatus used by fire brigades in smoke-filled environments.

Firefighters were able to stop the flames spreading to other rooms in the hospital. The cause of the fire is not yet known.

The defence review will send a “message to Moscow”, the defence secretary has said, as he warned Russia was launching cyber-attacks on UK military networks “every day”.

John Healey told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the review would set out plans to deter “growing Russian aggression” in a “world that is changing”.

The report, to be unveiled on Monday, is expected to conclude the UK faces a “new era of threat” and will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and other countries, including China.

It will also commit £1.5bn to build six new factories to make munitions, in a bid to revive Britain’s industrial base.

The new funding will see UK munitions spending hit £6bn during this parliament, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said, and create 1,800 new jobs.

As part of its defence review, the government said it would build new factories to make key munitions and explosives to have an “always on” munitions production capacity that could be scaled up quickly.

Long-range weapons including drones and missiles would be procured over several years.

Ministers said the extra investment – which came after Healey said that UK defence spending would rise to 3% of GDP by 2034 at the latest – would strengthen the armed forces and boost British jobs.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted serious deficiencies in the West’s ability to produce weapons and munitions, and senior British military officers have long warned about the UK’s depleted stockpiles.

On a visit to a factory in Stevenage on Saturday, where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons.

He added: “This is a message to Moscow as well. This is Britain standing behind making our Armed Forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight if required.”

Senior Western military chiefs have long been warning the UK would quickly run out of ammunition in the event of a war.

In 2021, the former head of the US Army in Europe, Gen Ben Hodges, told MPs in a simulated wargame most of the British army’s inventory was exhausted after just eight days.

The former head of the British army, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, has also been calling for the UK to boost weapons production.

He recently said the army’s diminished stocks of artillery rounds and missiles “would put hairs on the back of your neck”.

The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, which has assessed the capabilities and equipment that would be needed by the UK’s armed forces in the coming years.

Healey said cyber attacks from Russia were taking place “every day” as part of 90,000 attacks on the UK’s military networks from adversaries in the last two years.

In the run-up to Monday’s announcement, the government has already confirmed the review will recommend a new “cyber and electromagnetic command” to lead the UK’s defensive cyber operations.

Alongside the existing National Cyber Force, it will also play a role in offensive operations – including degrading opponents’ command systems, jamming signals sent to drones or missiles, and intercepting military communications.

However, Healey suggested the overall size of the army might not begin rising again until after the next general election, adding his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers under the previous government.

He added that he then hoped an army target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers would be met “in the next Parliament”.

Sir Keir Starmer has committed the government to spending 2.5% of the UK’s national income on defence by 2027, up from 2.3% currently.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said he welcomed the government’s commitment to get to 2.5% – but added that the Tories wanted to see the higher 3% target met before the election.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Labour’s target to eventually hit 3% spending by 2034 was “far too late” and showed a “complete lack of urgency”.

Healey declined to comment on reports the UK was considering buying American-made combat aircraft capable of firing “tactical” nuclear weapons, which are less powerful than conventional bombs.

According to the Sunday Times, the government is in talks with the US over the move, which would expand Britain’s nuclear capabilities after it moved to a submarine-based system after the Cold War.

Healey said he would not “get into the sort of discussions that need to remain private” – but argued that maintaining a nuclear capability provided the UK with the “ultimate guarantee of security” and was what “[Vladimir] Putin fears most”.

Sir Simon Case, the UK’s former top civil servant, said having an additional means to launch nuclear weapons would give the UK additional “resilience and flexibility”.

He added that the UK was “unusual” among nuclear powers in relying on a single launch method, adding that most had a “number of different systems”.

A British man has been indicted in the US for allegedly trying to smuggle “sensitive American military technology” to China, including missiles, air defence radar and drones.

John Miller, 63, and a Chinese man, Cui Guanghai, are wanted by the FBI on charges relating to conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and conspiracy, smuggling and violations of the Arms Control Act.

Mr Miller, a permanent US resident, and Mr Cui, 43, were both arrested in Serbia. They remain there and could now face extradition to the US.

The Foreign Office has confirmed it is providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in April and it is “in touch with the local authorities and his family”.

Court documents suggest the two men discussed ways of exporting a device that could be used for encryption and decryption. They are alleged to have paid a $10,000 (£7,430) deposit for the equipment.

Mr Miller and Mr Cui are also accused of trying to “harass” an anti-Chinese government protester, which included installing a tracking device on their car and slashing their tyres.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the pair of a “blatant assault” on US national security and its democratic values.

He added: “This Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on US soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defence systems.”

If found guilty, Mr Miller could face up to 20 years in prison for violation of the Arms Export Control Act, and 10 years for smuggling.

Court documents detail how the men allegedly solicited the procurement of US defence articles, including missiles, air defence radar, drones and cryptographic devices for unlawful export to China.

Mr Cui and Mr Miller are said to have discussed with two individuals – identified as “Individual 5” and “Individual 6” in court documents – how to export a cryptographic device from the US to China.

Items the men allegedly discussed using to smuggle the technology include small electronics, a blender and a motor starter.

The indictment also alleges the pair enlisted two individuals in the US to carry out a plot that would have prevented a victim from protesting against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit held in Los Angeles in November 2023.

Mr Miller and Mr Cui were unaware that those two individuals – identified in court documents as “Individual 1” and “Individual 2” – were acting at the direction of the FBI.

“The indictment alleges that Chinese foreign actors targeted a victim in our nation because he criticised the Chinese government and its president,” said US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California.

“My office will continue to use all legal methods available to hold accountable foreign nationals engaging in criminal activity on our soil.”

A similar scheme allegedly played out in the spring of 2025, when the alleged victim announced in a public video feed that he planned to unveil two new artistic statues that depicted Xi and his wife.

Mr Cui and Mr Miller paid two other individuals – identified in court documents as “Individual 3” and “Individual 4” – to try and dissuade the alleged victim from sharing his online display of statues.

Those individuals were paid $36,000 (£26,745), but the indictment notes that those two people were also affiliated with and acting at the direction of the FBI.

The two men remain in Serbia and the US is co-ordinating with Serbian officials regarding their pending extraditions.

“An indictment is merely an allegation,” the US Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California said in a statement. “All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

He said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance as it is the “fundamental issue” for the region.

Meanwhile, the Philippines defence minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr has called China “absolutely irresponsible and reckless” in its actions in the South China Sea.

The ministers had separately addressed reporters on the sidelines of an Asian defence summit held in Singapore.

China has yet to respond to either Marles or Teodoro.

Organised by the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Shangri-la Dialogue has traditionally been anchored by the US and China, which have been jostling for power in the region.

This year China has sent a lower-level delegation and scrapped its speech. In the absence of a strong Chinese presence, the dialogue has been dominated by criticism and questions of Beijing posed by the US and its allies.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

He cited Australia as an example of such transparency, noting that Canberra makes public its national defence strategy and defence reviews, and makes it “utterly clear” that when they build up their defences it is for Australia and Asia’s security.

“So there is total strategic clarity and assurance that is being provided by Australia to our neighbours, to the region, to the world. That’s what we would like to see,” he said.

Answering a question on a highly-scrutinised Chinese military exercise conducted near Australia and New Zealand’s waters in February, Marles said that while it was “disruptive, and we believe that it could have been done in a better way”, ultimately “China was acting in accordance with international law”.

“The guiding light, the bedrock here, needs to be compliance with international law. That’s what we keep talking about, is the rules-based order.”

Marles was also asked about Hegseth’s call for Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence spending as a bulwark against the threat of China.

Marles said “we actually are taking steps down this path… we understand it, we’re up for it.” US President Donald Trump has called on Australia to increase its spending to 3%, but Canberra has yet to publicly commit to that number.

Marles added that part of that spending would come under Aukus, a pact among Australia, the UK and the US to build up a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

He said projects under the pact were “on track” and he was “very optimistic” about the progress, including more visits of American submarines to Australia and rotations through a Perth-based navy base.

In a separate interview with the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner, the Philippines defence minister Teodoro said China has been “absolutely irresponsible and reckless in appropriating most, if not all, of the South China Sea and the world cannot tolerate this.”

The two countries have repeatedly clashed over competing claims in the South China Sea, and the Philippines has complained of aggressive and violent tactics by the Chinese coast guard.

He echoed the call for a preservation of the international order, saying that “the takeaway of a lot of defence ministers is that Europe and the US must continue to lead” on this.

“That was the call of the Philippines. That is the call of Lithuania, Latvia, the smaller countries who have a way of life that values freedom and dignity of the human being.”

“And with a way of life that we don’t want the deep state looking over our shoulders or being scared of what we say,” he said, referring to China.

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned of China’s “imminent” threat towards Taiwan and accused Beijing of becoming a “hegemonic power” in the region.

China has vigorously attacked Hegseth in two separate statements, with the latest posted on its Foreign Ministry website early on Sunday.

It said that Hegseth had “vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat’.

“No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”

Earlier in the defence summit, French President Emmanuel Macron had made a pitch for Europe to be a new ally to Asia.

China also responded to Macron, who had compared the defence of Taiwan to the defence of Ukraine, and said the comparison was “unacceptable” as the “Taiwan question is entirely China’s affair”.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to eventually “reunify” with it.

Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia on Sunday, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called “Spider’s Web” operation by the SBU security service, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.

SBU sources earlier told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes, which involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

Russia confirmed Ukrainian attacks in five regions calling them a “terrorist act”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported a massive overnight drone and missile attack on its territory.

All this comes as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are heading to Istanbul, Turkey, for a second round of peace talks on Monday.

Expectations are low, as the two warring sides remain far apart on how to end the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the “absolutely brilliant result” of the operation.

He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot.

“The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions,” the Ukrainian president said.

The FSB is Russia’s powerful state security service.

Zelensky also said that all the people involved in the operation had been safely “led away” from Russia before the strikes.

The SBU estimated the damage to Russia’s strategic aviation was worth about $7bn (£5bn), promising to unveil more details soon.

The Ukrainian claims have not been independently verified.

Sources in the SBU earlier on Sunday told the BBC in a statement that four Russian airbases – two of which are thousands of miles from Ukraine – were hit:

• Belaya in Irkutsk oblast (region), Siberia
• Olenya in Murmansk oblast, Russia’s extreme north-west
• Dyagilevo in central Ryazan oblast
• Ivanovo in central Ivanovo oblast

The SBU sources said that among the hit Russian aircraft were strategic nuclear capable bombers called Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 early warning warplanes.

They described the whole operation as “extremely complex logistically”.

“The SBU first smuggled FPV drones into Russia, followed later by mobile wooden cabins. Once on Russian territory, the drones were hidden under the roofs of these cabins, which had been placed on cargo vehicles,” the sources said.

“At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones took off to strike the Russian bombers.”

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev confirmed drones that attacked the Belaya military base in Sredniy, Siberia, were launched from a truck.

Kobzev posted on Telegram to say that the launch site had been secured and there was no threat to life.

Russian media outlets have also reported that other attacks were similarly started with drones emerging from the lorries.

One user is heard saying that the drones were flying out of a Kamaz truck near a petrol station.

Russian media were reporting the attack in Murmansk but said air defences were working. The attack in Irkutsk was also being reported.

In a post on social media later on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry confirmed that airbases in the country’s five regions were attack.

It claimed that “all attacks were repelled” on military airbases in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The latter base was not mentioned by the SBU sources.

In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, “several aircraft caught fire” after drones were launched from nearby areas, the ministry said.

It said all the blazes were extinguished and there were no casualties. “Some of the participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities say 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles were involved in a wave of attacks on Ukraine last night.

This would appear to be one of the largest single Russian drone attacks so far. Ukraine says it “neutralised” 385 aerial targets.

In a separate development, Ukraine’s land forces said 12 of its military personnel were killed and more than 60 injured in a Russian missile strike on a training centre.

Ukraine’s head of land forces, Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, tendered his resignation shortly afterwards.

He said his decision was “dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy”.

Members of the Western alliance Nato need to prepare for a possible attack from Russia within the next four years, according to Germany’s chief of defence.

General Carsten Breuer told the BBC that Russia was producing hundreds of tanks a year, many of which could be used for an attack on Nato Baltic state members by 2029 or even earlier.

He also insisted that Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remains unified over the war in Ukraine, despite differences of opinion expressed recently by both Hungary and Slovakia.

Gen Breuer was speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue, a defence summit in Singapore organised by the think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies.

His comments come weeks ahead of a summit of Nato nations at The Hague where they are expected to discuss defence budgets, among other topics.

Gen Breuer said that Nato was facing “a very serious threat” from Russia, one that he has never seen before in his 40 years in service.

At the moment, he said, Russia was building up its forces to an “enormous extent”, producing approximately 1,500 main battle tanks every year.

“Not every single tank is going to [the war in] Ukraine, but it’s also going in stocks and into new military structures always facing the West,” he said.

Russia also produced four million rounds of 152mm artillery munition in 2024, and not all of it was going to Ukraine either, added Gen Breuer.

“There’s an intent and there’s a build up of the stocks” for a possible future attack on Nato’s Baltic state members, he said.

“This is what the analysts are assessing – in 2029. So we have to be ready by 2029… If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029? I would say no, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight,” he said.

Many have long feared an attack on a Nato state as it could trigger a larger war between Russia and the US, which is a key member of Nato. Under Article 5 of the Nato agreement, any attack on a member state would mean other members must come to its defence.

Gen Breuer singled out the so-called Suwalki Gap, an area that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, as one of the most vulnerable.

“The Baltic States are really exposed to the Russians, right? And once you are there, you really feel this… in the talks we are having over there,” he said.

The Estonians, he said, had given the analogy of being close to a wildfire where they “feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke”, while in Germany “you probably see a little bit of smoke over the horizon and not more”.

Gen Breuer said this showed the differing perspectives among European states of the threat of a possible Russian attack.

Russia’s view of the Ukraine war was different from the West’s, he said, where Moscow sees the war as more of a “continuum” in a larger conflict with Nato and is therefore “trying to find ways into our defence lines and it’s testing it”.

He cited recent attacks on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, cyber attacks on European public transport, and unidentified drones spotted over German power stations and other infrastructure.

Nato members should therefore build up their militaries again, Gen Breuer argued. “What we have to do now is really to lean in and to tell everybody, hey, ramp up… get more into it because we need it. We need it to be able to defend ourselves and therefore also to build up deterrence.”

Asked by the BBC about Nato cohesion, given Hungary and Slovakia’s closer relations with Moscow, Gen Breuer insisted the alliance was still healthy.

He pointed to Finland and Sweden’s decisions to join Nato shortly after the Ukraine war began. “I’ve never seen such a unity like it is now” among nations and military leaders, he said.

“All of them understand the threat that is at the moment approaching Nato, all understand that we have to develop a direction of deterrence, into the direction of collective defence. This is clear to everyone. The urgency is seen.”

Gen Breuer’s remarks are yet another sign of a significant change in attitudes in Germany towards defence and Russia.

Like many Western nations, including the UK, it has scaled down its investments in its military over many years.

But there has been a growing recognition of the need to reverse this, with even the Green Party coming onboard a recent vote to lift restrictions on Germany’s defence spending.

But as Western military and political leaders say they are ready for the fight, questions remain on whether this is a case of ambition outpacing reality.

It will take years for Europe’s military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

The US has also been drawing down, not building up, its defence commitments to Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

Two people have died and hundreds have been arrested across France after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fans celebrated the club’s victory in the Champions League final, according to the French interior ministry.

In the south-west town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest late on Saturday evening, local media reported.

A 23-year-old man who was riding a scooter in central Paris was also killed after being hit by a vehicle, the prosecutor’s office said.

Flares and fireworks were set off, bus shelters smashed and cars torched amid wild celebrations as PSG won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.

Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez said PSG’s Champions League trophy parade will go ahead on Sunday evening – but there will be an increased police and military presence on the ground.

Nuñez spoke after the French interior ministry said 192 people were injured in the overnight clashes and 559 people arrested, including 491 in Paris.

Twenty-two police officers and seven firefighters were injured, the ministry said, adding that 264 vehicles were set on fire.

Nuñez said: “The toll is lower than what we have seen in the past, but we will never get used to this kind of abuse, with people who only came to commit acts of vandalism and who did not even watch the match, and we will always have a very firm response.”

“This is just half time for us because the PSG players are coming to Paris,” he said, with a celebration expected around the Parc des Princes where players will meet fans.

“There again we are expecting some clashes, some scuffles and we will be there and we will be very strong in our response against the vandals, against the thieves who have a go at the police officers.

“We will not tolerate any abuse today and the fans who want to enjoy the parade, can do so safely.”

He added that “PSG supporters shouldn’t be mixed up with gangs of looters and vandals”.

Separately, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office told the BBC “several shops were looted” in the Place des Ternes area. About 30 people were arrested and taken into custody near a Foot Locker on the Champs-Elysées that was robbed, the office said.

Elsewhere across France, Dax mayor Julien Dubois, reacting to the fatal stabbing, said his “thoughts are with the young victim, his family and friends”.

“We are floored by all the drama tonight,” he wrote on social media. “It is advisable to quickly shed light on these facts in order to severely punish the perpetrator.”

While clashes broke out near the city’s Champs-Élysées avenue and PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, the majority of fans celebrated PSG’s 5-0 win over Inter Milan peacefully, with many singing and dancing in the streets or blaring their car horns.

The Eiffel Tower was illuminated with PSG’s blue and red colours.

French President Emmanuel Macron, a keen supporter of rivals Olympique de Marseille, posted on X: “A glorious day for PSG! Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”

Approximately 5,400 police were deployed across Paris in anticipation of the raucous celebrations.

At least 300 people detained were suspected of possessing fireworks and causing disorder, Paris police said.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.

Riot police reportedly used a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe, and fired tear gas into the crowds.

Other clashes between police and crowds occurred on the Paris ring road. At least two cars were torched near the Parc des Princes.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau took a hard line against the disorder, writing on social media: “True PSG supporters are enjoying their team’s magnificent match.

“Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the police.

“It’s unbearable that it’s unthinkable to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.”

Meanwhile, outside Paris, police said a car ploughed into PSG fans in Grenoble in south-east France, leaving four people injured.

All those hurt were from the same family, police said. Two were seriously injured.

The driver handed himself into the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation told the AFP news agency it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally.

The trophy parade in central Paris – scheduled for 17:00 local time (16:00 BST) – will run for one hour from the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.

After the parade, the PSG players and staff will be received at the Élysée Palace and later on Sunday evening the trophy will be presented in front of season ticket holders at the Parc des Princes.

A “mass casualty influx” of people, many with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, was received at a Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza, the organisation said, following disputed reports about an incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 21 people were “declared dead upon arrival” while women and children were among 179 cases.

The organisation’s statement came after the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded in the incident, which it blamed on “Israeli gunfire” targeting civilians.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre.

The IDF also released drone footage it said showed armed and masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians while they were collecting aid in the nearby city of Khan Younis. The BBC could not immediately verify the footage.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

The group that runs the aid distribution centre, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

As of Sunday evening, the situation on the ground remained unclear.

In its statement, the ICRC said the “Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 179 cases, including women and children” early in the morning on Sunday.

It said “the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds”, and “twenty-one patients were declared dead upon arrival”. It is unclear if the number of people killed reported by the ICRC is separate to the Hamas health ministry’s reports.

“All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the ICRC said.

The ICRC said it was the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago”, and that it “far surpassed” the capacity of the 60-bed facility.

The IDF said in a statement: “In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip.

“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.

Another incident was said to have happened near a separate aid centre in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, with the Palestinian Red Crescent reporting 14 injured.

The BBC was contacted by doctors at the Nasser hospital who said they had received about 200 people with injuries caused by bullets or shrapnel.

Local journalists and activists shared footage of bodies and wounded people being transported on donkey carts to the Red Cross field hospital in the al-Mawasi area.

The BBC has examined footage of bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Nasser Hospital.

Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.

Seventy-nine of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the emergency department, medical staff from British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians reported.

⁠Those killed and injured “were primarily struck by live gunfire, with many victims sustaining direct shots to the head or chest”, the charity’s staff said.

Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.

The GHF, which distributes aid at these sites, denied any incident occurred near its distribution centres.

An IDF soldier in Rafah contacted the BBC to say that Israeli soldiers did fire near the crowd, but not at them, and that no-one was hit.

• BBC Verify: How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos

Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that Palestinians had gathered near the aid centre run by the GHF when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.

Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians were near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by GHF, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.

“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” he said.

“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.”

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s main emergency service the Civil Defence, told AFP news agency that more than 100 people were wounded “due to gunfire from Israeli vehicles towards thousands of citizens”.

The incidents underscore the dire humanitarian conditions in Rafah, where recent Israeli military operations have severely limited access to aid and emergency services.

On Saturday, crowds of civilians rushed aid trucks into Gaza, the World Food Programme said, as hunger and desperation created chaotic scenes.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new US and Israeli-backed organisation that has been distributing food at designated sites across Gaza. Israel set up the plan after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The GHF said it had distributed 4.7 million meals this week, which the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

A military campaign was launched by Israel in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Donald Trump has had a busy seven days. On Monday, he threatened to redirect $3bn in Harvard research funding to vocational schools. On Tuesday, the White House sent a letter to federal agencies, instructing them to review the approximately $100m in contracts the government has awarded Harvard and “find alternative vendors” where possible. On Wednesday, he had more to say on the matter still.

“Harvard’s got to behave themselves,” he told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. “Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect, and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper.”

When combined with other administration attempts – freezing more than $3bn in research grants and suspending foreign students from enrolling in Harvard – Trump’s directives represent a frontal attack on one of America’s most prestigious, and wealthy, institutions of higher education.

Even if court challenges overrule some of these actions – some have already been put on hold – the impact is being felt across the landscape of American higher education.

“They’re doing multiple things every single day, some of those things are sneaking through,” says Greg Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. “But more importantly, they’re changing the culture. They’re changing people.”

At Harvard’s commencement ceremonies on Thursday, students said there was a “palpable concern” on campus.

“People sort of knew Trump was trying some of these moves but [they were] shocked when it happens,” admits one graduate, a British national who requested anonymity because he was concerned public comments could threaten his US work visa. “It feels like the nuclear option.”

“If this can happen to Harvard it can happen to any university in the country,” he adds.

But the repercussions of this apparent Harvard-Trump fight run far deeper than the management of a single Ivy League university. Could the measures Trump is taking mark, as some suggest, the latest, albeit most ambitious, step by conservatives to erode some of the traditional pillars of support for the Democratic Party?

If that is the case, the campus has become a pivotal battle in shaping America’s cultural and political landscape.

Trump and his administration have offered various explanations for their actions, including a perceived lack of conservatives among the ranks of Harvard’s professors, along with suggestions of admitting too many foreign students and financial links to China.

But according to the White House, the most immediate cause has been the university’s apparent failure to address antisemitism on campus, in the wake of anti-Israel protests at universities across the US since the start of the Gaza war.

In December 2023, three prominent university presidents – including the then-president of Harvard, Claudine Gay – struggled to answer whether calling for the “genocide of Jews” violated their student conduct codes on bullying and harassment, sparking a firestorm of criticism.

Dr Gay, who was asked the question at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on US college campuses, answered that it depended on the context. She later apologised, telling the student newspaper: “When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret.”

On the campaign trail last year, Trump promised to cut off federal funding and government accreditation for colleges that he said were engaging in “antisemitic propaganda”. Once Trump returned to the White House in January, he began following through on this.

Several universities – including Columbia, which saw some of the most high profile protests – agreed to sweeping changes in campus security rules and closer supervision of its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies departments.

In April, Harvard released the results of a university task force review (commissioned before Trump’s election) of antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice on its own campus. It found that many Jewish and Muslim students faced bias, exclusion and alienation from the university curriculum and its community.

However, the administration’s demands go well beyond calls to address antisemitism. In a letter to the university, its “Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” laid out a laundry list of changes that Harvard must make, including terminating diversity programmes, reforming admissions and hiring, screening foreign students for views hostile to “American values”, and expanding and protecting “viewpoint diversity” among students and faculty.

Trump’s shock-and-awe strategy of rapid and aggressive pressure has stunned many in higher education, who never imagined the scope of the demands or the force behind them.

“It’s not about higher education,” argues Mr Wolfson. “Higher education is one of the levers they see as critical to transforming our society.”

But the potential for a long-term transformation could largely depend on whether the majority of American universities choose to accommodate the administration’s demands – or whether it stands and fights, as Harvard is trying to do.

While Harvard has been the most prominent target of the administration’s ire, and the most visible in its resistance, it is just one of many high-profile American universities that has received funding cuts or been subject of investigations.

Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania have reported that the administration has suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in their research grants. The Department of Education has launched investigations of 10 universities for alleged antisemitism – and warned dozens of others that they could face similar inquiries. It is also investigating 52 universities for illegal race-based programmes.

To some, this all amounts to an across-the-board war on elite higher education by the Trump administration in an effort to reshape universities in a more conservative-friendly image. To others, this is no bad thing.

“Universities are not about the pursuit of knowledge, they’re about the forceful pushing of a left-wing world view,” Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, said in a Fox News interview last month. “We’re here to shake it up.”

Many on the right have long viewed American college campuses as hotbeds of liberal indoctrination, whether it has taken the form of left-wing anti-war radicalism in the 1960s, “political correctness” of the 1990s, Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalism of the 2000s or the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-Israel demonstrations in recent years.

Polling has illustrated a certain divide in beliefs between those who have and haven’t attended college. In a recent survey by the polling company Civiqs, non-college graduates were split on the job Trump is doing in office, with 49% disapproving and 47% approving.

College graduates, on the other hand, had a significantly different view, as 58% disapproved of Trump’s performance in office versus only 38% who approved.

“I think a lot of this blowback is from the sense that they have become the universities of blue [Democratic] America, and that this is the consequence,” says Rick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

In recent years, according to Mr Hess, American higher education has become more closely tied to the government and more reliant on government funding.

He says that the new Trump team has simply adopted levers of control over higher education employed by recent Democratic administrations – including civil rights investigations, federal anti-discrimination laws and control over funding.

“In classic Trump form,” he added, “it’s absolutely the case that these levers have been turned up to 11.”

And there are fewer procedural and legal safeguards than there were under the Joe Biden and Barack Obama presidencies.

“It’s both an evolution and a revolution,” says Mr Hess.

But it is one, he argues, that universities have brought on themselves by being overtly political during Trump’s first term and making elite school the face of American higher education.

“The price for collecting billions a year in tax dollars is that institutions should both honour the promises they make, such as enforcing civil rights law, and hew to a mission in which they explicitly serve the whole nation,” says Mr Hess.

Withholding federal funding from universities may be a new challenge for higher education, but to some this is just the latest in a long effort by conservatives to undercut key traditional pillars of liberal power.

Through a combination of legislation and court rules, the influence of labour unions – which had provided the Democratic Party with volunteer personnel and funds – had diminished long before Trump succeeded in winning over white working-class voters in his three presidential runs.

State-level lawsuit reforms have also curtailed the vast sums that trial lawyers could contribute to Democratic coffers. And ongoing efforts to shrink the government workforce – which reached a peak with Elon Musk’s Doge reductions – have eroded another traditionally Democratic bloc.

However, Mr Wolfson fears that something greater could be lost if some of the Trump administration’s measures are enforced.

“The fact that we have multiracial, multicultural, multinational universities is a boon to our universities,” he says. “It creates really diverse communities, really diverse intellectual thought.”

Harvard – perhaps best known for its renowned law school – has turned the courts into its principal tool to resist Trump’s pressure.

On Thursday, a federal judge indefinitely suspended the administration’s attempts to prohibit foreign students from receiving visas to attend the university.

The university has also sued to prevent the Trump administration from terminating more than $2.2bn in federal grants, although that case is pending.

“The trade-off put to Harvard and other universities is clear,” Harvard wrote in its complaint filed with a Massachusetts federal court. “Allow the government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardise the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.”

Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, has also defended his university, saying that Harvard would be “firm” in its commitments to education and truth, during an interview with NPR.

“Harvard is a very old institution, much older than the country,” he continued. “As long as there has been a United States of America, Harvard has thought that its role is to serve the nation.”

Trump, meanwhile, has shared strong words of his own. “Harvard wants to fight,” he said on Wednesday. “They want to show how smart they are, and they’re getting their ass kicked.”

Opinion polls show that Trump’s political base supports his efforts, and the underlying message. Yet those same polls suggest a majority of the general population support American universities and don’t approve of his proposed funding cuts.

And opinion aside, the practicality of achieving such a fundamental reordering of America’s system of higher education, even with all the tools at the federal government’s disposal, is a daunting task.

According to Mr Wolfson, however, repairing what he says is the damage being done to academic independence will be equally challenging.

A growing number of members of the American Association of University Professors fear the consequences of expressing political views or conducting disfavoured research.

“The destruction is real,” argues Mr Wolfson. “Even if the courts step in, there will still be a massive undermining of the higher education project in this country due to Trump’s reckless, reckless moves.”

Mr Hess, who has pushed for conservative education reform for years, is less concerned. He believes that Trump’s chaotic, scattershot approach – including last week’s comments – could end up less effective than a more methodical restructuring of American universities.

“This is all an ambitious experiment,” Mr Hess said. “Whether it’s a strategy that’s going to work is very much an open question.”

One thing seems clear, however. Even if American universities resist – or outlast – Trump’s efforts, they are no longer insulated from the scorched-earth warfare of American politics. The walls of the ivory tower have been breached, regardless of whether one believes it is the barbarians – or liberators – at the gate.

It was love at first sight for Adarsh Ramchurn. “I couldn’t control it,” he says of his flourishing affection for Nav Sangha.

But their relationship is “frowned upon” by some in their communities, they say, as Adarsh is Hindu and Nav is Sikh.

They’ve been an item for three years and say they receive hateful comments on social media when posting about their life together.

They are also abused because Adarsh, 24, has a darker skin tone than Nav, a form of prejudice known as colourism.

“We push through it,” says Nav, 22. “There are also people who are very supportive and that are in similar situations.”

Data compiled by YouGov in January suggests 45% of 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK believe there is a God, or believe there are Gods. The next highest figure, 36%, is for the over-65s.

BBC News spoke to Nav and Adarsh as well as a Christian from Married At First Sight (MAFS), a Muslim from The Only Way is Essex (Towie), and a former Jehovah’s Witness for the Sex After documentary series.

During a discussion between the participants, Nav was asked what the hardest bit about being a Sikh was. “Probably getting the backlash of being with a Hindu,” she said.

She and Ardash knew their interfaith relationship could be an issue for their parents, so spoke to them early.

“I know it’s different for every family, there can be difficult dynamics,” says Adarsh.

“But if you can have the open discussion [about] dating outside of your religion… I’d always say [you should].”

Something Adarsh’s parents were quick to ask him about was marriage.

The couple say, if they were to wed, they would probably do a Sikh and a Hindu ceremony.

“If we have kids, I feel like it’s important that they learn about both religions and faiths,” Nav adds.

Adarsh agrees and says he’s “looking forward to it”.

Junaid Ahmed’s parents were not as accommodating. His fear of being rejected by them took hold at a young age. Junaid knew being gay contravened the Islamic beliefs he and his family shared.

“When I did finally come out [aged 18], I did expect the worst and… [it] did happen,” he tells us. “They threw me out; they disowned me.”

He says he doesn’t blame his parents for ostracising him.

“I genuinely don’t – it’s made me the person I am today.”

Junaid, now aged 26 and a star of Towie, says he often gets abuse online from other Muslims because he is open about his sexual orientation, but “that [has] never changed my relationship with God”.

He says he is grateful for his religious upbringing and still prays every day.

Like Junaid, Martin Riley – who was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness – was also ostracised by his family.

However, in his case, it was because a few years ago he was expelled from his religion completely, in a process called disfellowshipping.

For Riley, as he is known to his friends, this meant being shunned by other members of his congregation – including close friends and family.

His first marriage, which lasted 20 years, had broken down a few months before he was expelled.

He was a particularly strong believer and, while dating after he was expelled, he abided by the rule of not having sex before marriage.

It was only when Riley began dating the woman who is now his wife, that he began seriously considering whether he wanted to continue adhering to the religion that he’d been part of for 40 years. His wife is not a Jehovah’s Witness.

“I realised that I did not want to have a future that didn’t include her, whether that meant returning to the religion or not.”

After having sex with her for the first time, which he describes as being, “like in the movies”, he recalls: “I was actually surprised by how guiltless I felt about the whole thing.”

Riley, 48, now considers himself an atheist.

Looking back at his expulsion from the religion aged 42, he says: “It was devastating for me, at the time. Now I think it is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me.”

Unlike Riley, Sacha Jones did not grow up devoutly religious, but was baptised as a Christian last year after finding her faith. She has vowed to remain abstinent until she marries.

“I haven’t slept with anyone since my baptism,” she says. “So I’m fresh in the eyes of the Lord!”

Sacha, 30, also says the culture around dating today makes it difficult to form a long-term relationship.

Last year she participated in MAFS, but split up with her partner following the show.

“It’s the absolute trenches out here in the dating world… it’s difficult to trust a man anyway, but then to trust someone that doesn’t fear God as well?”

She says she doesn’t miss sex as much as she might do because she isn’t dating anyone at the moment. She believes the wait will be worth it – once she’s married.

“I no longer lack purpose or peace,” says Sacha, who isn’t the “party animal” she once was. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial law.

She couldn’t quite believe it – until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion down.

Within hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital Seoul.

They turned up not just because Yoon’s decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism – despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said otherwise.

They returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon’s abuse of power went on – and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic months.

And yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible again.

The two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making headlines.

For many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight.

“So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies,” the 24-year-old college student says.

“But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to erase women’s voices.”

When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the atmosphere.

The bitter December cold didn’t stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon’s ouster.

“Most of those around me were young women, we were singing ‘Into the World’ by Girls’ Generation,” Byunghui says.

Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop’s biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president’s career.

“The lyrics – about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world,” Byunghui says, “just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone”.

There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily.

An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them – almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that rally.

The protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap – at 31% – is the widest among rich nations.

Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society.

“I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth,” says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . “I believe that’s why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction.”

For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: “I tried to go every week. It wasn’t easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility.”

That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women’s University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being “anti-feminist” and had “made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women”.

There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in 2022.

These men consider themselves victims of “reverse discrimination”, saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to women.

They label as “man haters” those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality.

These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under Yoon.

It was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women’s rights.

And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed countries.

But his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

“In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon’s party,” says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. “They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s.”

During Yoon’s term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word “women” in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference altogether.

The impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against feminism.

Byunghui saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually older.

Young men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd.

“I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?”

With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his fall.

And this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the seven candidates runnning for president. “It’s shocking,” Jinha says, “that there’s no-one”. In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential candidates.

The PPP’s Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee.

“It’s only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few,” Saeyeon says. “I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination.”

When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”

After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still “faced structural discrimination in many areas”. And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every level.

During his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party.

He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP’s emergency committee.

“It’s evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election,” Ms Kim says.

Prof Go believes it’s because Lee “lost by a very narrow margin” back then. So this time, he is “casting the widest net possible” for votes. “And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that.”

That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment: “Our voices don’t seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned.”

The ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon’s cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents.

But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don’t address the deeper inequalities – which make it hard to balance a career and family – that are making so many women reconsider the usual choices.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking point.

Lee has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and Family.

The ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government’s annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was “politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised”.

“The ministry itself is not huge but it’s symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant.”

It’s also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon’s party, who has since launched his own Reform Party.

Although trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views.

Earlier this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?”

He said the “someone” was frontunner Lee Jae-myung’s son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial posts.

But watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV “was genuinely terrifying,” Byunghui says. “I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities.”

Saeyeon describes “anger and even despair” sinking the “hopes I had for politics, which weren’t that great to begin with”.

She believes his popularity “among certain sections of young men is one of the “significant repercussions” of South Korea “long neglecting structural discrimination” against women.

The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn’t fare well in early polling.

“I’m still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook,” Saeyeon says.

While Kwon represents her concerns, she says it’s smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is “much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that”.

She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon’s base: “He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead.”

That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. “It’s like there is dust on the wall. If you don’t know it’s there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you.”

It’s the same for Jinha who says things can “never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law”.

That was a time when politics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it “feels like something that affects me and is important to my life”.

She says she won’t give up because she wants to be free of “things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace”.

“People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up – and then the world will change again.”

Two Scottish men have been killed in a shooting at a bar in southern Spain, according to Spanish officials.

A gunman fired several shots at Monaghans Bar in Fuengirola in Andalusia on Saturday evening before fleeing the scene.

Javier Salas from the central government in the Malaga province confirmed to BBC News both men were believed to be Scottish.

Spanish media reported that officers from the region’s specialist and violent crime unit are leading the investigation.

Regional newspaper Diario Sur reported the attack took place just after 23:00 when a car pulled up and a masked man opened fire.

They said both men died at the scene, and the gunman fled in the vehicle.

Monaghans is located on the seafront and is a popular bar with tourists and expats.

The bar had been screening the UEFA Champions League final on the evening of the attack.

Police are yet to make any arrests but have not ruled out that the killings were linked to organised crime.

Police Scotland said it was unable to comment on a possible link to a recent gangland feud in Scotland, and directed inquiries towards the Spanish authorities.

BBC journalist Guy Hedgecoe said there had been a number similar shootings in the Costa del Sol area in recent weeks, several of which are believed to have some kind of connection to drug crime.

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached for any consular assistance but that its staff stood ready to assist any British nationals if required.

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala debut last month left a lasting impression on global fashion.

The 41-year-old singer, who is the only Punjabi musician to perform at Coachella, walked the red carpet dressed like an early 20th Century maharajah.

His opulent ivory and gold ensemble – created by designer Prabal Gurung – complete with a feathered bejewelled turban, trended in India for weeks.

He also wore a gorgeous diamond necklace, its design inspired by a Cartier piece worn by an erstwhile king of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

A Panthère de Cartier watch, a lion-headed and a jewel-studded sword completed the ensemble, which had a map of Dosanjh’s home state embroidered on the back of the cape along with letters from Gurmukhi, the script for Punjabi language.

Of course, Dosanjh is no stranger to such style.

Just like his music, he’s carved out a niche in fashion too – a hip hop singer who is known for melding traditional Punjabi styles with Western influences.

Often seen in anti-fit trousers, chunky sneakers, and stacks of necklaces that he matches with his colourful turbans, his unique form of self-expression has captured the imagination of millions, leading to interesting reinventions in the traditional Punjabi attire.

The changes can be felt everywhere. A 16-minute high-intensity bhangra competition in California would be impossible without high performance sneakers. And basement bhangra nights in Berlin are enjoyed in crop tops and deconstructed pants.

Punjabi music itself, high on volume and energy – with lyrics packed with the names of cities and global luxury brands – has become a subculture.

It’s not just Dosanjh – several other Punjabi musicians have also influenced the region’s style game.

Not long ago, Punjabi-Canadian singer Jazzy B’s rings, often the size of a cookie, along with his plus-sized Kanda pendant and silver blonde hair tints, were trending.

More recently, the yellow tinted glasses worn by singer Badshah; the baggy hoodies sported by Yo Yo Honey Singh; and AP Dhillon’s Louis Vuitton bombers and Chanel watches have been hugely popular with Punjabi youth.

But even though their influence was significant, it was restricted to a region. Dosanjh and a few others like him, however, have managed to mount it to a global level, their style speaking to both the Sikh diaspora as well as a broader audience. For instance, the t-shirts, pearls and sneakers Dosanjh wore to his world tour last year were sold out in a matter of hours. Dhillon’s style statements at Paris Couture Week have created aspiration among Punjabi youth.

Cultural experts say that this reinvention, both in music and fashion, has its roots in Western pop-culture as most of the artistes live and perform in the West.

“Punjabi men are inventive. The region has been at the forefront of fusion, it believes in hybridity. This is especially the case with the Punjabi diaspora – even when they live in ghettos, they are the showmen [of their lives],” says art historian, author and museum curator Alka Pande.

Over the years, as the Punjabi diaspora community grew, a new generation of musicians began mixing modern hip-hop sounds with elements of traditional Punjabi aesthetics.

Their distinct style lexicon – of gold chains, faux fur jackets, plus-sized accessories, braids and beards – went on to spawn media articles, books and doctoral theses on South Asian culture.

The coin dropped instantly back home in Punjab, which absorbed logo fashion like a sponge when luxury brands arrived in the 2000s. For Punjabis – who are largely a farming community – it was an aspirational uprising, symbolic of how success and prosperity should look.

“It symbolised the movement of the Punjabi identity from a farmer to a global consumer,” says acclaimed singer Rabbi Shergill.

Arguing that performers, like everyone else, are a product of their times, Shergill says these impulses are “a response to the hyper capitalist world”.

Curiously, the style game of Punjabi musicians – from hip-hop, R&B, bhangra pop, fusion, Punjabi rap, reggae or filmy music – has also remained rooted and androgynous, instead of being hyper masculine.

A pop star may wear Balenciaga or Indian designer Manish Malhotra’s opulent creations; perform anywhere from Ludhiana city to London; dance with Beyonce around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, atop a luxury car, or in a British mansion – but they always wear their Punjabi identity on their sleeves.

Dosanjh underlined this clearly with his maharajah look at the Met Gala. “It’s like the popularity of his androgynous style was waiting to happen,” Pande says.

The composite impact of this trend on emerging artists is unmissable today in Punjab.

Local Bhangra performances, for instance, are no longer limited to traditional “dhoti-kurta-koti” costume sets paired with juttis (ethnic footwear). Performance attire now includes sneakers, typographic T-shirts, deconstructed bottoms and even denims.

“Such items are highly sought after by customers,” says Harinder Singh, owner of the brand 1469.

The merchandise in Singh’s stores, includes accessories popularised by Punjab’s music stars, such as versions of Phulkari turbans worn by Dosanjh, Kanda pendants that were first popularised by veteran Bhangra artist Pammi Bai. Singh himself owns turbans in more than a 100 shades.

Even overall men’s style in Punjab bears some of this cosmopolitan twang.

Young poet Gurpreet Saini, who performs at cultural festivals across India, says he sources his shawls – printed with ombre Gurmukhi letters – from Hariana, his hometown in Punjab, for a distinctive look. He admits to the influence of music icons, including those like folk singer Gurdas Mann, who he grew up watching.

What began as personal flair in some cases, went on to become fashion statements. Now these choices are cultural signatures. They have recast the Punjabi identity through rhythm, hybridity as well as a rooted sense of self.