Authorities in India have arrested a man for trying to smuggle dozens of rare reptiles, including venomous snakes, into the country.

The Indian citizen, who was returning from Thailand, was stopped by customs officials at the airport in Mumbai city on Sunday.

Officials said the reptiles, including 47 venomous vipers, were found concealed in the man’s checked-in luggage.

The reptiles have been seized under various wildlife protection laws in India.

The passenger has not been named and as he is in custody. He has not commented on his arrest.

Customs officials have released photographs on X of colourful snakes squirming in a dish.

In their post, they said they had seized three spider-tailed horned vipers, five Asian leaf turtles and 44 Indonesian pit vipers from the passenger.

It isn’t clear where the reptiles had been sourced from.

• Leopard cub found in passenger’s luggage at Indian airport
• Rare Madagascar tortoises seized at Mumbai airport

While it is not illegal to import animals into the country, India’s wildlife protection law bans the import of certain species, including those classified as endangered or protected by the government.

A passenger also needs to get the required permits and licenses before importing any wildlife.

Reports of customs officials seizing banned wildlife from passengers trying to smuggle them into the country are not uncommon.

In January, Indian authorities arrested a Canadian man at the Delhi airport for carrying a crocodile skull in his luggage and month later, officials at the Mumbai airport stopped a passenger carrying five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

The gibbons, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were concealed in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger’s trolley bag.

In November, customs officers arrested two passengers returning from Bangkok for carrying12 exotic turtles.

In 2019, officials at the Chennai airport seized a horned pit viper snake, five Iguanas, four blue-tongued skinks, three green tree frogs and 22 Egyptian tortoises from a man travelling from Thailand.

It’s a grim paradox, doctors say.

On the one hand, antibiotics are being overused until they no longer work, driving resistance and fuelling the rise of deadly superbugs. On the other hand, people are dying because they can’t access these life-saving drugs.

A new study by the non-profit Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) looked at access to antibiotics for nearly 1.5 million cases of carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative (CRGN) infections across eight major low- and middle-income countries, including India, Brazil and South Africa. CRGN bacteria are superbugs resistant to last-line antibiotics – yet only 6.9% of patients received appropriate treatment in the countries studied.

India bore the lion’s share of CRGN infections and treatment efforts, procuring 80% of the full courses of studied antibiotics but managing to treat only 7.8% of its estimated cases, the study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal reports. (A full drug course of antibiotics refers to the complete set of doses that a patient needs to take over a specific period to fully treat an infection.)

Common in water, food, the environment and the human gut, Gram-negative bacteria cause infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia and food poisoning.

They can pose a serious threat to newborns and the elderly alike. Especially vulnerable are hospital patients with weakened immunity, often spreading rapidly in ICUs and proving difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat. Treating carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections is doubly difficult because those bacteria are resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics.

“These infections are a daily reality across all age groups,” says Dr Abdul Ghafur, infectious disease consultant at Apollo Hospital in India’s Chennai city. “We often see patients for whom no antibiotic works – and they die.”

The irony is cruel. While the world tries to curb antibiotic overuse, a parallel tragedy plays out quietly in poorer nations: people dying from treatable infections because the right drugs are out of reach.

“For years, the dominant narrative has been that antibiotics are being overused, but the stark reality is that many people with highly drug-resistant infections in low- and middle-income countries are not getting access to the antibiotics they need,” says Dr Jennifer Cohn, GARDP’s Global Access Director and senior author of the study.

• India’s ‘blockbuster’ drugs to take on deadly superbugs
• India facing a pandemic of antibiotics-resistant superbugs

The study examined eight intravenous drugs active against carbapenem-resistant bacteria – ranging from older antibiotics including Colistin to newer ones such as Ceftazidime-avibactam. Of the few available drugs, Tigecycline was the most widely used.

Researchers blame the treatment gap on weak health systems and limited access to effective antibiotics.

For example, only 103,647 full treatment courses were procured of Tigecycline across eight countries – far short of the 1.5 million patients who needed them, the study found. This highlighted a major shortfall in the global response to drug-resistant infections.

What prevents patients with drug-resistant infections in India from getting the right antibiotics?

Physicians point to multiple barriers – reaching the right health facility, getting accurate diagnostic tests, and accessing effective drugs. Cost remains a major hurdle, with many of these antibiotics priced far beyond the reach of poorer patients.

“Those who can afford these antibiotics often overuse them; those who can’t, don’t get them at all,” says Dr Ghafur. “We need a system that ensures access for the poor and prevents misuse by the well-to-do.”

To improve access, these drugs must be made more affordable. To prevent misuse, stronger regulation is key.

“Ideally, every antibiotic prescription in hospitals should require a second sign-off – by an infection specialist or microbiologist,” says Dr Ghafur. “Some hospitals do this, but most don’t. With the right oversight, regulators can ensure this becomes standard practice.”

To fix the access problem and curb misuse, both smarter policies and stronger safeguards are essential, say researchers. But access alone won’t solve the crisis – the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. The decline in antibiotic R&D – and the limited availability of existing drugs – is a global issue.

India bears one of the world’s heaviest burdens of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but it may also hold the key to combating it – both at home and globally, researchers say.

“India is also one of the largest markets for new antibiotics and can successfully advocate for the development and access of new antibiotics,” says Dr Cohn. With a strong pharmaceutical base, the country is emerging as a hub for AMR innovation, from promising new antibiotics to advanced diagnostics.

Dr Cohn says India can strengthen its antibiotic response by generating local data to better estimate needs and pinpoint gaps in the care pathway.

This would allow for more targeted interventions to improve access to the right drugs.

Innovative models are already emerging – Kerala state, for instance, is using a “hub-and-spoke approach” to support lower-level facilities in managing serious infections. Coordinated or pooled procurement across hospitals or states could also reduce the cost of newer antibiotics, as seen with cancer drug programmes, researchers say.

Without access to the right antibiotics, modern medicine begins to unravel – doctors risk losing the ability to safely perform surgery, treat complications in cancer patients, or manage everyday infections.

“As an infectious disease doctor, I see appropriate use as one part – but only one part – of access,” says Dr Ghafur. “When we get new antibiotics, it’s important to save them on one hand – and save them for right patients.”

Clearly, the challenge is not just to use antibiotics wisely, but to ensure they reach those who need them most.

The Australian woman accused of killing three relatives and gravely injuring another with a toxic mushroom meal has taken to the witness stand at her trial.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to four charges – three of murder and one of attempted murder – over the beef wellington lunch at her regional Victorian house in July 2023.

Prosecutors argue she intentionally sought out death cap mushrooms and cooked them for her relatives, before lying to police and disposing of evidence.

However the defence case is that Patterson had unintentionally served poison to family members she loved, and then “panicked”.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived – local pastor Ian Wilkinson – after weeks of treatment in hospital.

Over six weeks, the jury in the Victorian Supreme Court has heard from more than 50 witnesses called by the prosecution, including Ms Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, and the surviving lunch guest, Ian.

It is now the defence’s turn to call witnesses, and first up was Ms Patterson herself.

The 50-year-old told the court that by 2023 she had felt for some months that her relationship with the wider Patterson family – Don and Gail in particular – had perhaps developed a bit more distance or space.

“We saw each other less,” she says.

“I’d come to have concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much with the family anymore.”

After detailing a brief period of separation between the couple when their first child was an infant, Erin Patterson told the court that she and Simon Patterson struggled to work out their disagreements.

“If we had any problems at all it was… we couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something,” she said.

“We would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it.”

She also told the court about the traumatic birth of her first child in 2009, less than a year before the couple’s first break.

“He started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat,” she said.

Her voice choking up, she explained doctors performed an emergency caesarean to get her son out quickly.

When he was ready to go home, Ms Patterson said she discharged herself from hospital against medical advice as she didn’t want to remain there alone.

The jury has heard that Ms Patterson discharged herself from hospital against medical advice in the days after the fatal lunch, which prosecutors earlier pointed to as evidence that she was not unwell.

However her barrister Colin Mandy in his opening address said she had done so at several occasions over her life.

Ms Patterson gave less than an hour of evidence before court broke up for the day, and will return to resume her testimony on Tuesday.

The striking feature of this election has been the leading opposition candidate, Lee Jae-myung, campaigning in a bullet-proof vest.

At a recent rally, he was escorted to the podium by close protection officers, ready to shield him with their ballistic briefcases. He then addressed the crowd from behind bullet-proof glass, under the gaze of rooftop watchers.

This is not South Korean politics as usual. But South Korea has not been itself lately.

It is still recovering from the martial law crisis last December, when the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, tried to orchestrate a military takeover.

He failed, because of resistance from the public and politicians, and was impeached, triggering this snap election to choose his successor.

But the chaos Yoon unleashed that night has festered.

While stuck in limbo, without a president, the country has become more polarised and its politics more violent.

At street protests earlier this year it became commonplace to chant for various political leaders to be executed. And since launching his presidential bid, Lee has been receiving death threats, and his team say they have even uncovered a credible plot to assassinate him.

This election is an opportunity to steer South Korea back onto safer, more stable ground, and heal these fractures.

Given this, the ruling party was always going to struggle, marred by President Yoon’s self-defeating coup. But rather than break away from the disgraced former president, the conservative People Power Party (PPP) has chosen a candidate who repeatedly defended Yoon and his actions.

Kim Moon-soo, Yoon’s former labour minister, was the only cabinet member who refused to stand and apologise during a parliamentary hearing into martial law. He said sorry only well into his campaign, after he had won Yoon’s public endorsement.

This has turned the election into more of a referendum on martial law than anything else. Given most of the public overwhelmingly rejected the move, it has also virtually gilded the path for the opposition leader Lee, who famously livestreamed himself scaling the walls of the parliament complex, to get inside and vote down the president’s order.

Now the Democratic Party politician portrays himself as the only candidate who can ensure this never happens again. He has said he will change the constitution to make it more difficult for future presidents to declare martial law.

“We must prevent the return of the rebellion forces,” Lee urged voters at his recent rally from behind fortified glass.

Such promises have pulled in people from across the political spectrum. “I didn’t like Lee before, but since martial law I now trust and depend on him,” said 59-year-old Park Suh-jung, who admitted this was the first time she had attended a political event.

One man in his 50s said he was a member of another smaller political party, but had decided to back Lee this time: “He is the only person who can end Yoon’s martial law insurrection. We need to stop those who destroyed our democracy.”

Most recent polls put Lee about 10 points ahead of his rival Kim, but he was not always so popular. This is his second time running for president, having lost out to Yoon three years ago. He is a divisive character, who has been embroiled in a series of court cases and political scandals. There are many who do not trust him, who loathe him even.

Kim, hoping to capitalise on this, has branded himself “the fair and just candidate”. It is a slogan his supporters have adopted, many seemingly backing him not for his policies, but because he is not Lee.

“I don’t like Kim but at this point there’s no real choice. The other candidate has too many issues,” said one elderly woman who is planning to vote for him.

Kim has charted an unusual political path. As a student who campaigned for workers’ rights, he was tortured and imprisoned under South Korea’s right-wing dictatorship in the 1980s but then moved sharply to the right himself.

He was picked by the party base, many of whom are still loyal to Yoon. The party leadership, realising he was not the best choice, tried to replace him at the last minute with a more moderate, experienced politician, only to be blocked by furious members.

This has left the party weak and divided, with many suspecting it will splinter into rival factions after voting day. “Haven’t we already imploded?” one party insider said to me recently, their face crumpled in their hands. “This is a miserable campaign.”

“Choosing Kim is the biggest mistake the conservative party have made in this election, and they do know that. They will have to be held accountable for this decision,” said Jeongmin Kim, the executive director of Korea Pro, a Seoul-based news and analysis service.

Lee has seized this opportunity to hoover up centrist votes. He has shifted his policies to the right, and even claimed his left-leaning party is, in fact, conservative.

This, despite his reputation as a staunch leftist. He grew up in a slum outside Seoul, working in factories rather than attending school, and is someone who has previously quoted US senator Bernie Sanders.

But gone are his previous pledges to introduce a universal basic income. This time, he is courting South Korea’s powerful conglomerate businesses, the chaebols. He has even incorporated the conservative colour red into his own blue logo, and hits the campaign trail wearing red and blue trainers.

He has rebranded his foreign policy too. Typically, his Democratic Party is cautious about Korea’s security alliance with the US, preferring to prioritise relations with China and North Korea.

But Lee is casting himself as a “pragmatist” who can adapt to a changing security environment. “The US-Korea alliance is the backbone of our national security. It should be strengthened and deepened,” he said in a recent televised debate.

All this has left voters and diplomats here unsure of what he really stands for, and what he will do if elected – though this seems to be the point.

Ms Kim, Korea Pro’s analyst, believes his makeover is more genuine than might appear. “He was already high up in the polls, so he didn’t need to work hard to win votes,” she said. “I think he is playing a longer game. He wants to be a popular leader, someone who can be trusted by more than half of the country.”

Bringing the country together will be the biggest challenge for whoever wins.

When people vote on Tuesday, it will be six months to the day since they came out onto the streets to resist a military takeover.

After months of chaos, they are desperate to move forward, so the country can start addressing pressing issues that have been on hold, including tariff negotiations with US President Donald Trump.

But more than anything they hope this election can restore their own confidence in their democracy, which has been badly shaken.

At a baseball game in the capital Seoul last week – arguably the only place where Koreans are as tribal as they are about politics – both sides were united, acutely aware of this election’s importance.

“I’m really concerned about our democracy,” said Dylan, a data engineer. “I hope we have the power to save it and make it greater than before. My vote is a piece of power.”

“The next president needs to show people clearly and transparently what he is doing,” said one man in his mid-20s. “We need to watch him carefully.”

If Lee is to win, and by the margin the polls suggest, he would have a solid mandate, as well as control of parliament, giving him three years to implement major political reforms.

That could be good for rebuilding South Korea’s stability but would come with its own challenges, said the political analyst Ms Kim.

“If Lee wins, he will have a lot of power. {Given how Yoon behaved} he will need to be very responsible when using it.”

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’.”

• Ukraine drones strike bombers during major attack in Russia

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.

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China says the US has “severely violated” their trade truce and that it will take strong measures to defend its interests.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said Washington has “seriously undermined” the agreement reached during talks in Geneva last month, when both countries lowered tariffs on goods imported from each other.

The spokesperson added that US actions have also severely violated the consensus reached during a phone call in January between China’s leader Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump.

The comments come after Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us”.

The US President did not give details but Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal.

Under the trade truce struck in May at a meeting in Geneva, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%. China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.

On Monday, Beijing said US violations of the agreement included stopping sales of computer chip design software to Chinese companies, warning against using chips made by Chinese tech giant Huawei, and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

The deal reached in Geneva came as a surprise to many analysts as it seemed that the two sides were incredibly far apart on many trade issues.

This showed that during face-to-face talks Washington and Beijing can reach agreements.

But as the rhetoric is once again ratcheting up, the fragility of the current truce has been highlighted and gives an indication of just how challenging it may be to reach a longer-term trade deal.

Although the fresh accusations may suggest that talks between Washington and Beijing are not going well, two top White House officials suggested on Sunday that Trump and Xi could hold talks soon.

Treasury Secretary Bessent told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, that details of the trade will be “ironed out” once Xi and Trump speak, but he did not say exactly when that conversation is expected to happen.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told ABC News that the two leaders are expected to talk this week and “both sides have expressed a willingness to talk”.

“The bottom line is that we’ve got to be ready in case things don’t happen the way we want,” Hassett said of the expected talks.

But the Chinese side prefers agreements to be done at a lower level first before they reach the desk of the president.

Last week, Trump announced the US would double its current tariffs on steel and aluminium from 25% to 50%, starting on Wednesday.

Speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Friday, Trump said the move would help boost the local steel industry and national supply, while reducing reliance on China.

A Chinese Harvard graduate’s speech calling for unity in a divided world, delivered days after the US vowed to “aggressively” revoke Chinese students’ visas, has sparked mixed reactions in the US and her home country.

“We don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go,” Jiang Yurong said on Thursday, the same day a US federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students at Harvard.

Her speech went viral on the Chinese internet, with some saying it moved them to tears. However, others said her elite background is not representative of Chinese students.

In the US, some have flagged her alleged links with the Chinese Communist Party.

In their efforts to restrict Harvard from enrolling foreign students, US authorities had accused the institution of “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

Ms Jiang, who studied international development, was the first Chinese woman to speak at a Harvard graduation ceremony.

In her address, Ms Jiang emphasised the value of Harvard’s international classrooms, noting how that taught her and her classmates to “dance through each other’s traditions” and “carry the weight of each other’s worlds”.

“If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies – they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own,” said Ms Jiang, who spent her final two years of school at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales before going to Duke University in the US for her undergraduate degree.

A conservative X account, with the handle @amuse, criticised Harvard for choosing a graduation speaker who is “a representative of a CCP-funded and monitored non-government organisation”, alleging that her father works for a non-government organisation that “serves as a quasi-diplomatic agent for the [party]”.

The account, which has 639,000 followers, has previously posted pro-Donald Trump content, such as the US leader fighting Darth Vader and sexualised imagery of former Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Some Chinese social media users, on the other hand, allege that the organisation Ms Jiang’s father works for is backed by prominent American companies and foundations.

The BBC has not independently verified these allegations.

“This is why she could get a scholarship to go to the UK for high school, and later also to Harvard,” wrote a user on China’s X-like platform, Weibo.

Others called for her to stay on in the US, with comments that reeked with sarcasm. “Such talent should be left to the United States,” one wrote. “I hope she will continue to glow abroad and stay away from us!” read another.

But Ms Jiang’s vision of a “shared humanity” also struck a chord.

“That she is able to stand on an international stage and speak the heart of Chinese students has moved me to tears,” wrote a user on Red Note, another Chinese social media platform.

Another user defended Jiang by hitting back at those who criticised her: “You may not have changed them, but they’ve heard you… As more and more people speak out like you, you will eventually move and change others.”

There are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolments in the past academic year.

About a third of these foreign students are from China, and more than 700 are Indian.

Top secret intelligence files uncovered by the BBC confirm for the first time that missing American journalist Austin Tice was imprisoned by the regime of the now-deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Former Syrian officials have also confirmed Mr Tice’s detention to the BBC.

The US government has previously stated that it believed he had been held by the Syrian government, but the Assad regime continuously denied this, and nothing was known about the details of his detention.

The intelligence files – along with testimony from several former regime officials – now reveal what happened to the journalist after his abduction.

Austin Tice vanished near the Syrian capital of Damascus in August 2012, just days after his 31st birthday. He had been working as a freelance journalist.

Around seven weeks later, a video posted online showed him blindfolded and with his hands bound being forced to recite an Islamic declaration of faith by a group of armed men.

However, the impression given – that Mr Tice had been abducted by a jihadist group – was quickly questioned by analysts and US officials, who said the scene “may have been staged”.

No group or government has ever claimed responsibility for his disappearance and he has not been heard from since, fuelling widespread speculation as to his whereabouts.

The BBC uncovered the material as part of an ongoing investigation that began over a year ago for a Radio 4 podcast series, while accompanying a Syrian investigator to an intelligence facility.

The intelligence files are the first evidence to surface of the Syrian regime’s detention of Mr Tice since search efforts began to find him following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in early December 2024.

The files labelled “Austin Tice” are comprised of communications from different branches of Syrian intelligence. Their authenticity has been verified by the BBC and law enforcement.

One communication, marked “top secret” shows that he was held in a detention facility in the capital Damascus in 2012.

Additional sources confirmed this to be in Tahouneh and a former senior Syrian intelligence officer also confirmed that Mr Tice had been held in Damascus by a paramilitary group.

The fallen regime consistently denied knowing of his whereabouts; the BBC investigation proves this was false.

Austin Tice is understood to have been arrested near the Damascus suburb of Darayya, and then held by members of a paramilitary force who are loyal to President Assad, called the National Defence Forces (NDF).

A Syrian official confirmed to the BBC that the journalist was there until at least February of 2013.

At that time, he developed stomach issues and was treated by a doctor at least twice. Blood tests are said to have revealed that Mr Tice was suffering from a viral infection at the time.

A man who visited the facility where he was held and saw him told the BBC that Mr Tice was treated better than the Syrian detainees, but that “he looked sad, and that the joy had gone from his face”.

Separately, a former member of the NDF with intimate knowledge of Austin Tice’s detention told the BBC “that Austin’s value was understood” and that he was a “card” that could be played in diplomatic negotiations with the US.

Mr Tice is reported to have briefly escaped his captivity by squeezing through a window in his cell, but was later recaptured. He was also interrogated at least twice by a Syrian government intelligence officer. The incident is believed to have taken place between late 2012 and early 2013.

When Assad was ousted in December 2024, then-US President Joe Biden said he believed Mr Tice was still alive. Two days previously, his mother, Debra Tice, said that a “significant source” had confirmed that he son was alive and being “treated well”.

But when prisons were emptied after the fall of the government, there was no sign of Mr Tice and his whereabouts are still unknown.

The Tice family are aware of the existence of these intelligence files seen by the BBC, as are US authorities, and also a Syrian group that is working to gather information on crimes committed by the Assad regime.

Austin Tice is believed to be one of the longest-held American hostages. His mother Debra and father Marc have led a tireless campaign to highlight their son’s disappearance.

A former US marine captain, Austin Tice has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was a law student at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington DC.

In 2012 he travelled to Syria to report on the civil war as a freelance journalist.

He vanished into a vast and complex system of detention. The UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that 100,000 people disappeared under the Assad regime.

A Palestinian doctor whose children were killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on 23 May has died from injuries sustained in the same attack, health officials say.

Dr Hamdi al-Najjar, 40, had just returned from dropping his wife, Dr Alaa al-Najjar, off at Nasser Hospital, where the couple both worked, when their home in Khan Younis was struck. Nine of their children were killed, while the 10th was severely injured.

Hamdi was treated in hospital for brain and internal injuries but died on Saturday. Alaa and their 11-year-old son Adam, who remains in hospital, are the sole remaining survivors of the family.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said at the time that the incident was being reviewed.

The couple founded a private medical compound in Khan Younis, of which Hamdi was the head. His brother, Dr Ali al-Najjar, described him as a loving father who would tend to poorer patients for free.

Their children Yahya, Rakan, Ruslan, Jubran, Eve, Rivan, Saydeen, Luqman and Sidra were all killed in the attack. The eldest was 12 years old and the youngest six-months, according to local media.

Hamdi sustained significant injuries to his brain, lungs, right arm, and kidney in the strike, Dr Milena Angelova-Chee, a Bulgarian doctor working at Nasser hospital, told the BBC last week.

Graeme Groom, a British surgeon working in the hospital who operated on the surviving son, Adam, told the BBC that it was “unbearably cruel” that his mother Alaa, who spent years caring for children as a paediatrician, could lose almost all her own in a single strike.

He said that Adam’s “left arm was just about hanging off, he was covered in fragment injuries and he had several substantial lacerations.”

“Since both his parents are doctors, he seemed to be among the privileged group within Gaza, but as we lifted him onto the operating table, he felt much younger than 11.”

Italy’s government on Thursday offered to treat Adam after an appeal from his uncle, Dr Ali al-Najjar, who told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper that the Nasser hospital was ill-equipped to treat him.

“He needs to be taken away immediately, to a real hospital, outside of the Gaza Strip. I beg the Italian government to do something, take him, Italians save him,” he said.

“The Italian government has expressed its willingness to transfer the seriously injured boy to Italy,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it was studying the feasibility of the proposal.

At the time, the IDF said in response to reports of the strike that “an aircraft struck several suspects identified by IDF forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Younis area, a dangerous combat zone that had been evacuated of civilians in advance for their protection. The claim of harm to uninvolved individuals is being reviewed.”

Israel launched a military campaign 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 Hamas-run health ministry.

The FBI says an attack in Boulder, Colorado, that injured eight people was a “targeted act of violence”, and they are investigating it as an “act of terrorism”.

A group of people had gathered for a “regularly scheduled, weekly, peaceful event”, which was organised by Run for Their Lives, an organisation that raises awareness for Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

The FBI said that, according to witnesses, a suspect threw an incendiary device into the group of people, and used a “makeshift flamethrower” to attack them. They said a suspect had been identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45. Mr Soliman was taken to hospital shortly after the attack, the FBI said.

Police said they were “fairly confident” that they had the lone suspect in custody. There was no evidence the suspect was connected to a wider group.

“The suspect was heard to yell ‘Free Palestine’ during the attack,” said special agent in charge of the Denver field office of the FBI, Mark Michalek.

He added: “It is clear that this is a targeted act of violence and the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism.”

• Full story: Eight hurt in Colorado fire attack

The suspect has been named as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who was taken to hospital shortly after the attack.

Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said he did not believe anyone else was involved. “We’re fairly confident we have the lone suspect in custody,” he said.

The 45-year-old was an Egyptian national, government officials confirmed to the BBC’s broadcast partner, CBS News, in Colorado.

In 2022, Mr Soliman arrived in California on a non-immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, multiple sources have told CBS News. He had recently been living in Colorado Springs.

Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, said on X that Mr Soliman was given a work permit by the Biden administration after he had overstayed his visa. This has not been verified by the BBC.

There are eight victims, aged between 52 and 88. Four are women and four are men. All of them have been taken to hospitals with burns and other injuries. The injuries range from “minor” to “very serious”.

The eldest of the victims is a Holocaust survivor, Rabbi Israel Wilhelm, the Chabad director at the University of Colorado Boulder, has told CBS.

Wilhelm described the 88-year-old as a “very loving person”.

Run for their Lives holds walking and running events around the world calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, according to their website.

It says its events are not protests, but “peaceful walks”.

Their website says there are currently 230 active groups around the world, with the majority in North America and Europe.

The groups meet once a week for a 1km walk wearing red T-shirts. They also carry national flags of the citizens who are among the hostages still held in Gaza.

The Run for their Lives Instagram account has more than 6,000 followers. Their Facebook group has more than 2,000 members.

The movement was started by a group of Israelis in California, but local events are “independently led”, according to their website.

The investigations continue and more briefings from the police and the FBI are expected on Monday.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said her department is working with “interagency partners, including the FBI”, and would share more information when it becomes available.

“We are praying for the victims and their families. This violence must stop,” she said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, released a statement saying he was “shocked” by the incident, which he called “pure antisemitism”.

The Jewish community in Boulder released a statement saying: “Our hearts go out to those who witnessed this horrible attack, and prayers for a speedy recovery to those who were injured… When events like this enter our own community, we are shaken.”

This is the second high-profile attack on the Jewish community in recent days.

Two young people were shot dead outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC by a gunman who shouted “Free Palestine”.

Data from the Anti-Defamation League suggests antisemitic incidents spiked to a record level in 2023 and again in 2024.

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 six 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.”

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is at the centre of a political firestorm after he approved a law that gives the state the power to expropriate some privately owned land without compensation for owners.

The law, which is yet to be implemented, has drawn the ire of US President Donald Trump, who sees it as discriminating against white farmers.

Centre-right political parties and lobby groups in South Africa have also opposed it, saying they will challenge the Expropriation Act – as the law is named – in court on the grounds that it threatens property rights.

Ramaphosa’s government says the law provides for compensation to be paid in the vast majority of cases – and the changes are needed to increase black ownership of land.

Most private farmland is still owned by white people.

When Nelson Mandela came to power more than 30 years ago, ending the racist system of apartheid, it was promised that this would be rectified through a willing-buyer, willing-seller land reform programme – but critics say this has proved too slow and too costly.

In rare circumstances it would be land that was needed for the “public interest”, legal experts told the BBC.

According to South African law firm Werksmans Attorneys, this suggested it would mainly, or perhaps only, happen in relation to the land reform programme.

Although it could also be used to access natural resources such as minerals and water, the firm added, in an opinion written by its experts in the field, Bulelwa Mabasa and Thomas Karberg.

Mabasa and Karberg told the BBC that in their view, productive agricultural land could not be expropriated without compensation.

They said any expropriation without compensation – known as EWC – could take place only in a few circumstances:

• For example, when an owner was not using the land and was holding it for “speculative purposes”
• Or when an owner “abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so”.

Owners would probably still get compensation for the buildings on the land and for the natural resources, the lawyers said.

Mabasa and Karberg added that EWC was “not aimed at rural land or farmland specifically, and could include land in urban areas”.

However, in cases where compensation is paid, the rules are set to change, with owners likely to get less money.

The plan is for owners to receive “just-and-equitable” compensation – a departure from the higher “market value” they have been getting up to now, Mabasa and Karberg said.

The government had been paying market-value compensation despite the fact that this was “at odds” with the constitution, adopted after white-minority rule ended in 1994, they added.

The lawyers said that all expropriations had “extensive procedural fairness requirements”, including the owner’s right to go to court if they were not happy.

The move away from market-value compensation will also apply to land expropriated for a “public purpose” – like building state schools or railways.

This has not been a major point of controversy, possibly because it is “hardly a novel concept” – a point made by JURISTnews, a legal website run by law students from around the world.

“The US Constitution, for instance, provides that the government can seize private property for public use so long as ‘just compensation’ is provided,” it added.

The government hopes so.

University of Western Cape land expert Prof Ruth Hall told the BBC that more than 80,000 land claims remain unsettled.

In the eastern regions of South Africa, many black people work on farms for free – in exchange they are allowed to live there and keep their livestock on a portion of the owners’ land, she said.

The government wants to transfer ownership of this land to the workers, and it was “unfair” to expect it to pay the market value, Prof Hall added.

Over the last three decades, the government has used existing powers to expropriate property–- with less than market-value compensation – in fewer than 20 cases, she said.

The new law was aimed at making it easier and cheaper to restore land to black people who were “dispossessed” of it during white-minority rule or were forced to be “long-term tenants” as they could not own land, Prof Hall added.

“It’s a bargaining chip,” she said.

But she doubts that the government will press ahead with implementing the law in the foreseeable future as the “political cost” has become too high.

The academic was referring to the fact that Trump has opposed the law, saying it discriminates against white farmers and their land was being “seized” – a charge the government denies.

In February, Trump cut aid to South Africa, and in April he announced a 30% tariff on South African goods and agricultural products, although this was later paused for 90 days.

This was followed by last month’s infamous Oval Office showdown when Trump ambushed Ramaphosa with a video and printouts of stories alleging white people were being persecuted – much of his dossier has been discredited.

• Fact-checking Trump’s Oval Office confrontation with Ramaphosa

Like Trump, the second-biggest party in Ramaphosa’s coalition government, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is opposed to the legislation.

In a statement on 26 May, the party said that its top leadership body had rejected the notion of “nil compensation”.

However, it has agreed with the concept of just-and-equitable compensation rather than market-value compensation, adding it should be “adjudicated by a court of law”.

Surprisingly, Jaco Kleynhans of the Solidarity Movement, an influential Afrikaner lobby group, said that while the new law could “destroy” some businesses and he was opposed to it, he did not believe it would lead to the “large-scale expropriation of farmland”.

“I don’t see within the wording of this text that that will happen,” he said in a recent panel discussion at an agricultural exhibition held in South Africa’s Free State province – where a large number of conservative Afrikaner farmers live.

The South African Property Owners Association said it was “irrational” to give “nil compensation” to an owner who held land for speculative purposes.

“There are many landowners whose sole purpose of business is to speculate in land. They do not get the land for free and they have significant holding costs,” the association said, adding it had no doubt the law would be “abundantly tested” in the courts.

Mabasa and Karberg said one view was that the concept of EWC was a “legal absurdity” because “intrinsic in the legal definition of expropriation, is a requirement for compensation to be paid”.

However, the lawyers pointed out the alternative view was that South Africa’s constitution “implicitly recognises that it would in some circumstances be just and equitable for compensation to be nil”.

South Africa’s Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson has defended the legislation, breaking ranks with his party, the DA.

In fact he is in charge of the new legalisation and, on a discussion panel, he explained that while he had some concerns about the law, it was a “dramatic improvement” on the previous Expropriation Act, with greater safeguards for owners.

He said the law could also help end extortionist demands on the state, and in some cases “nil compensation” – which he argued was different from EWC – could be justified.

He gave as an example the problems being faced by the state-owned power utility Eskom.

It plans to roll out a transmission network over about 4,500km (28,000 miles) of land to boost electricity supplies to end the power crisis in the country.

Ahead of the roll-out, some individuals colluded with Eskom officials to buy land for 1m rand ($56,000; £41,000), and then demanded R20m for it, he said.

“Is it just and equitable to give them what they want? I don’t think that’s in the interest of the broader community or the state,” Macpherson said.

Giving another example, Macpherson said that some of South Africa’s inner cities were in a “disastrous” condition. After owners left, buildings were “over-run” and “hijacked” for illegal occupation. The cost to the state to rebuild them could exceed their value, and in such cases the courts could rule that an owner qualified for “nil compensation”, he said.

“Nil is a form of compensation,” Macpherson added, while ruling it out for farms.

Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero told South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper that he wanted to use the buildings for the “public good”, like accommodating around 300,000 people on the housing waiting list.

He added the owners of nearly 100 buildings could not be located.

“They have abandoned the buildings,” he said, adding some of the owners were from the UK and Germany.

But Mabasa and Karberg told the BBC that in such cases compensation would probably still have to be paid for the buildings, though not the land.

If the state could not locate the owners, it “must deposit the compensation with the Master of the High Court” in case they returned or could be traced later, they said.

The law is in limbo, as Ramaphosa – about four months after giving his assent to it – has still not set a date for its implementation.

Nor is he likely to do so anytime soon, as he would not want to further antagonise Trump while South Africa was trying to negotiate a trade deal with the US.

And on the domestic front, the DA is spearheading opposition to the legislation. It said it wanted a “judicial review” of it, while at the same time it was pressing ahead with court action to challenge the law’s constitutionality.

The DA’s tough line is in contrast with that of Macpherson, who, a few weeks ago, warned that if the law was struck down in its entirety: “I don’t know what’s going to come after that.

“In politics, sometimes you must be careful what you wish for because often you can get it,” he said.

His comments highlight the deep fissures in South African politics, with some parties, such as Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), believing that the legislation did not go far enough to tackle racial inequality in land ownership.

With land such an emotive issue, there is no easy solution to the dispute – and it is likely to continue to cause tensions within South Africa, as well as with the US president.

• Rebuked by Trump but praised at home: How Ramaphosa might gain from US showdown
• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• South Africans’ anger over land set to explode

From allegations of infidelity to swinging scandals, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers a look into a version of Mormon life far removed from traditional public perception.

Set in suburban Utah, the TV series follows a group of Mormon women – most of whom rose to fame on TikTok and became MomTok influencers – as they manage scandals, confront marital breakdowns and clash over everything from business ventures to party invitations.

But beneath the sensational plotlines is a more complex story about the evolving dynamics within a tight-knit community.

The group of Mormon mothers have been making content online for the past five years but say the concept of reality TV still feels very new to them.

“I’ve heard that eventually people learn how to play the reality TV game but that’s not us yet, we’re still trying to figure it out,” Jessi Ngatikaura tells the BBC. “So you’re getting to see the real us.”

What started off as a hobby has now become a job and the women speak openly on the show about the amount of money they make from reality TV and brand deals.

“It is totally our job now but we chose this and we could all walk away any time if we didn’t want to be part of it,” Jessi says.

Whitney Leavitt explains that “naturally dynamics will change when there’s more money and family involved and definitely some people get competitive” but reassures me the group are still friends off camera.

Across the two seasons of the show, Jessi and Whitney have had challenging storylines play out – Whitney is presented as the villain in season one and at the end of season two it is alleged Jessi has had an affair.

The pair speak candidly about the impact having your life watched and commented on by millions of people worldwide has had on them.

“It’s been hard coming to terms with the fact we have no control over the narrative and you don’t ever really get over it,” Whitney explains. “But you have to accept that and let it go.”

As the show follows the lives of nine friends, it’s easy to see how some of them may create more drama for themselves in order to guarantee some screen time but Jessi insists that’s not the case and no one “plays up but naturally emotions are heightened”.

“We’re actually recording four or five days a week so we don’t know what will make the final edit.”

Jessi says her explosive Halloween party was not manufactured by producers and there is just “naturally so much drama that we don’t need to create more just for the show”.

Given the intensity of drama and filming demands, the presence of strong aftercare is essential and both women praise the production for its duty of care standards.

“There are always therapists on hand and at first I was like why are Taylor and Jen having therapy all the time and now I’m having five or six hours of it a week,” Jessi confesses. “I’ve found it’s useful even if you’re not going through a hard time.”

Whitney also accessed some aftercare in season one after being presented as the villain of the show.

“It totally sucked being the villain and I was angry, had a lot of resentment and was really sad. There were so many overwhelming emotions for me but I was proud that instead of running away I stayed and had those hard conversations I didn’t want to have,” Whitney says.

Whitney was one of the members of the MomTok group that Taylor Frankie Paul publicly revealed was involved in “soft swinging”, something she denies and caused a rift to form in their friendship.

The open discussions around sex, marital affairs and alcohol on the show has caused some backlash from the Mormon church.

“When the first trailer came out there was some backlash from the church because they were scared but actually we’re showing you how we live the Mormon life and we all live it differently,” Whitney says.

Jessi adds the docudrama shows how “we are all normal and everyday girls, not people wearing bonnets and churning butter like you might think”.

The women say that not only has the church come to accept the show, they are also helping young women think about their faith differently.

“We’ve definitely influenced people to question their faith, dive deeper into it or be more honest about it and I’ve had messages from some people saying that they’re joining the church because of me,” Jessi says.

While their religion plays an important part of their life, they’re keen to tell me that they are not the face of Mormonism.

“There are Mormons who still get upset about it but we’re just showing our version of it and I think that’s empowering as hopefully people can relate to our stories and struggles.”

Adamu Yusuf’s life has been upended since he lost nine of his family members in Tiffin Maza, one of two communities in his town worst-hit by floods in north-central Nigeria.

The father-of-one, 36, said his wife and newborn baby were among those washed away in floods early on Thursday morning in Niger state.

“She was the one that woke me up when the flood hit, and I quickly gathered the family and told everyone to hold one another. As we stepped outside, we saw water everywhere in our living room and the compound. They panicked and we got disconnected.”

His wife and baby had only just returned to the town of Mokwa a day prior, after having stayed at his in-laws house for a few weeks after having given birth.

“I watched helplessly as water washed away my family. I survived because I could swim. It was God that saved me,” Mr Adamu said.

Local officials say the death toll has risen to more than 200 on Sunday, a sharp increase from 110 on Friday.

Another 500 people are missing and a local official told the BBC that rescue efforts had stopped because the authorities believe they are unlikely to be found alive.

The mood in the Tiffin Maza community on Saturday was one of grief, despair and loss.

Scattered clothes, soaked mattresses and crushed metal roofing sheets were some of the last remains of what are now hundreds of destroyed houses.

The structures still standing bear the harsh impact of the floods, with roofs washed off or some parts of the buildings destroyed.

Standing on a blue tiled floor, the only thing that points to where his bedroom once was, Mr Adamu looked around the vast empty space that has replaced his community.

“I lost everything to this flood. But the most painful is that of my family. The only valuable I have now is this cloth I am wearing which was even given to me by my friend.”

He said one relative has been found dead and he has “resigned to fate that others won’t return” to him alive.

Nineteen-year-old high school graduate, Isa Muhammed, has been inconsolable since he heard that his beloved teacher’s house was washed away while the teacher and eight members of his family were inside.

“Two have been found dead; one of them was his baby. My teacher, his second child, his sister and four other relatives are still missing. A building fell on his wife who wasn’t inside the house with them, and she died instantly.”

Mr Muhammed also lost family, remembering his uncle who died in the disaster.

“Uncle Musa was a very good friend to my late father. He took care of me since my dad died in 2023. He taught me to value education and always told me to do the right thing.

“Anytime I am alone and think about him, tears always roll down my cheeks. I haven’t been able to sleep since the incident happened,” Mr Muhammed said.

The water has now receded, and residents gathered on Saturday to offer condolences to the victims and also lend a hand in the search efforts.

Some residents told BBC News that the deluge was at least 7ft (2.1m) high in some parts of the community.

There was a strong foul smell around Tiffin Maza, and residents believe it is proof that there were dead bodies under the thick mud the floods washed up.

They are working to find them and give the dead a decent burial like they have done for others since Thursday.

“I have never seen that kind of floods before in my life, but I am grateful that my family survived it,” 65-year-old Ramat Sulaiman said.

Ms Sulaiman’s house was completely destroyed, rendering her family homeless.

She said 100 children who used to sleep in a Quranic school two blocks from her house “all got washed away”.

“It was a painful sight for me. The children cried for help, but no one could do anything. As their cries got louder, their building sunk and flowed away.”

Her son, Saliu, has been left homeless and broke.

“I lost at least $1,500 to the floods. It was the proceeds from the sale of my farm produce the previous day. I contemplated going back into the room to get it, but the pressure of the water scared me,” he said.

“I also lost eleven bags of groundnuts and seven bags of beans. My wife and I couldn’t pick anything from our room. But I am grateful we made it out on time. There were so many dead bodies in the water.”

He has been having nightmares since, he said.

“I am traumatised.”

Authorities are yet to confirm if a dam broke, exacerbating the impact of the recent floods as widely reported.

Mokwa District Head, Alhaji Muhammadu Shaba Aliyu, indicated to the BBC that there is a “reservoir” in the area that can spill out water “anytime there’s rain”, however he added that the magnitude of the flood is excessive.

Residents told BBC News they believed the floodwater was not caused by the heavy rainfall they had experienced.

“The rain couldn’t have caused the floods because it had subsided and there was no water anywhere. I was outside and suddenly I saw water gushing down in high speed and scattering everything on its path,” Mr Muhammed said.

Ms Sulaiman said: “When I woke up for prayers, I opened the door and looked outside and didn’t see any water. Moments later, I started hearing people screaming. We don’t know where it came from. Its source is a mystery.”

“For people that said the flood was as a result of the rain, they are lying. The rain had stopped before the flood started. Nobody knows the cause of this flood, it’s just from God,” Mr Adamu said.

Mokwa Deputy Local Chairman, Musa Alhaji Aliyu Kimboku, also dismissed that rain caused the flood.

The National Emergency Management Agency said those injured are receiving treatment, while displaced victims have been taken to resettlement camps and relief materials distributed.

The country’s Meteorological Agency has projected that the rainy season will last up to 200 days in central Nigeria this year, while it could linger for a longer period in mostly southern states.

At the beginning of May, the federal government launched a flood awareness campaign, to educate citizens on flood risks.

Thirty of the West African nation’s 36 states are at risk of flooding, and Niger state is one of them.

As victims salvage what they can from the ruins of their homes to start a new life, those that lost their loved ones like Mr Adamu said that they will never be able to heal, although they have accepted their fate.

• Heartbreak as cash-strapped Nigerians abandon their pets
• Could Nigeria’s careful ethnic balancing act be under threat?

The striking feature of this election has been the leading opposition candidate, Lee Jae-myung, campaigning in a bullet-proof vest.

At a recent rally, he was escorted to the podium by close protection officers, ready to shield him with their ballistic briefcases. He then addressed the crowd from behind bullet-proof glass, under the gaze of rooftop watchers.

This is not South Korean politics as usual. But South Korea has not been itself lately.

It is still recovering from the martial law crisis last December, when the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, tried to orchestrate a military takeover.

He failed, because of resistance from the public and politicians, and was impeached, triggering this snap election to choose his successor.

But the chaos Yoon unleashed that night has festered.

While stuck in limbo, without a president, the country has become more polarised and its politics more violent.

At street protests earlier this year it became commonplace to chant for various political leaders to be executed. And since launching his presidential bid, Lee has been receiving death threats, and his team say they have even uncovered a credible plot to assassinate him.

This election is an opportunity to steer South Korea back onto safer, more stable ground, and heal these fractures.

Given this, the ruling party was always going to struggle, marred by President Yoon’s self-defeating coup. But rather than break away from the disgraced former president, the conservative People Power Party (PPP) has chosen a candidate who repeatedly defended Yoon and his actions.

Kim Moon-soo, Yoon’s former labour minister, was the only cabinet member who refused to stand and apologise during a parliamentary hearing into martial law. He said sorry only well into his campaign, after he had won Yoon’s public endorsement.

This has turned the election into more of a referendum on martial law than anything else. Given most of the public overwhelmingly rejected the move, it has also virtually gilded the path for the opposition leader Lee, who famously livestreamed himself scaling the walls of the parliament complex, to get inside and vote down the president’s order.

Now the Democratic Party politician portrays himself as the only candidate who can ensure this never happens again. He has said he will change the constitution to make it more difficult for future presidents to declare martial law.

“We must prevent the return of the rebellion forces,” Lee urged voters at his recent rally from behind fortified glass.

Such promises have pulled in people from across the political spectrum. “I didn’t like Lee before, but since martial law I now trust and depend on him,” said 59-year-old Park Suh-jung, who admitted this was the first time she had attended a political event.

One man in his 50s said he was a member of another smaller political party, but had decided to back Lee this time: “He is the only person who can end Yoon’s martial law insurrection. We need to stop those who destroyed our democracy.”

Most recent polls put Lee about 10 points ahead of his rival Kim, but he was not always so popular. This is his second time running for president, having lost out to Yoon three years ago. He is a divisive character, who has been embroiled in a series of court cases and political scandals. There are many who do not trust him, who loathe him even.

Kim, hoping to capitalise on this, has branded himself “the fair and just candidate”. It is a slogan his supporters have adopted, many seemingly backing him not for his policies, but because he is not Lee.

“I don’t like Kim but at this point there’s no real choice. The other candidate has too many issues,” said one elderly woman who is planning to vote for him.

Kim has charted an unusual political path. As a student who campaigned for workers’ rights, he was tortured and imprisoned under South Korea’s right-wing dictatorship in the 1980s but then moved sharply to the right himself.

He was picked by the party base, many of whom are still loyal to Yoon. The party leadership, realising he was not the best choice, tried to replace him at the last minute with a more moderate, experienced politician, only to be blocked by furious members.

This has left the party weak and divided, with many suspecting it will splinter into rival factions after voting day. “Haven’t we already imploded?” one party insider said to me recently, their face crumpled in their hands. “This is a miserable campaign.”

“Choosing Kim is the biggest mistake the conservative party have made in this election, and they do know that. They will have to be held accountable for this decision,” said Jeongmin Kim, the executive director of Korea Pro, a Seoul-based news and analysis service.

Lee has seized this opportunity to hoover up centrist votes. He has shifted his policies to the right, and even claimed his left-leaning party is, in fact, conservative.

This, despite his reputation as a staunch leftist. He grew up in a slum outside Seoul, working in factories rather than attending school, and is someone who has previously quoted US senator Bernie Sanders.

But gone are his previous pledges to introduce a universal basic income. This time, he is courting South Korea’s powerful conglomerate businesses, the chaebols. He has even incorporated the conservative colour red into his own blue logo, and hits the campaign trail wearing red and blue trainers.

He has rebranded his foreign policy too. Typically, his Democratic Party is cautious about Korea’s security alliance with the US, preferring to prioritise relations with China and North Korea.

But Lee is casting himself as a “pragmatist” who can adapt to a changing security environment. “The US-Korea alliance is the backbone of our national security. It should be strengthened and deepened,” he said in a recent televised debate.

All this has left voters and diplomats here unsure of what he really stands for, and what he will do if elected – though this seems to be the point.

Ms Kim, Korea Pro’s analyst, believes his makeover is more genuine than might appear. “He was already high up in the polls, so he didn’t need to work hard to win votes,” she said. “I think he is playing a longer game. He wants to be a popular leader, someone who can be trusted by more than half of the country.”

Bringing the country together will be the biggest challenge for whoever wins.

When people vote on Tuesday, it will be six months to the day since they came out onto the streets to resist a military takeover.

After months of chaos, they are desperate to move forward, so the country can start addressing pressing issues that have been on hold, including tariff negotiations with US President Donald Trump.

But more than anything they hope this election can restore their own confidence in their democracy, which has been badly shaken.

At a baseball game in the capital Seoul last week – arguably the only place where Koreans are as tribal as they are about politics – both sides were united, acutely aware of this election’s importance.

“I’m really concerned about our democracy,” said Dylan, a data engineer. “I hope we have the power to save it and make it greater than before. My vote is a piece of power.”

“The next president needs to show people clearly and transparently what he is doing,” said one man in his mid-20s. “We need to watch him carefully.”

If Lee is to win, and by the margin the polls suggest, he would have a solid mandate, as well as control of parliament, giving him three years to implement major political reforms.

That could be good for rebuilding South Korea’s stability but would come with its own challenges, said the political analyst Ms Kim.

“If Lee wins, he will have a lot of power. {Given how Yoon behaved} he will need to be very responsible when using it.”

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 UK will build “up to” 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister will announce, as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday.

The new conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines will replace the seven-strong Astute class from the late 2030s onwards.

The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to “warfighting readiness” to deter growing threats faced by the UK.

The prime minister is also expected to confirm the UK will spend £15bn on its nuclear warhead programme.

Sir Keir will say that, alongside the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines, the new vessels would keep “Britain and Nato safe for decades”.

The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson, which was commissioned by Labour shortly after it took office last July.

The report will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of its publication, Sir Keir said the danger posed by Russia “cannot be ignored” and the “best way” to deter conflict was to prepare for it.

The government has committed to increasing UK defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of national income by 2027, a move welcomed by opposition parties amid a growing consensus on boosting military expenditure.

But the run-up to the review’s release has been dominated by a political row over when UK spending should hit the next milestone of 3%.

The government says it has an “ambition” to hit the target by 2034 at the latest, after the next general election, but the Conservatives say the move – which would hike spending by around £20bn a year – should be met by the end of the decade.

Sir Keir said he would only commit the government to a timescale when he knew how it could be paid for, adding a date would otherwise be “performative”.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said Labour’s review should be “taken with a pinch of salt” unless the government showed there would be enough money to pay for it.

The Liberal Democrats have said Labour’s 2034 timeline is “far too late” and have suggested an earlier date should be found in cross-party talks.

The party’s defence spokesperson Helen Maguire called for a “concrete commitment” on funding to back up the submarines announcement, adding that Labour had left “serious questions” over how the project would be financed.

Other announcements in the review will include:

• Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an “always on” munitions production capacity
• Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces
• Pledge to set up a “cyber and electromagnetic command” to boost the military’s defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace
• Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing
• £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers

Defence Secretary John Healey has signalled he is not aiming to increase the overall size of the Army before the next general election.

On Sunday, he said his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers with a target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers “in the next Parliament”.

The Astute class is the Royal Navy’s current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles.

As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK’s Trident nuclear missiles.

The sixth submarine in the current Astute series was launched last October, with the seventh, the final one in the series, currently under construction.

The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal announced in 2021 under the previous Conservative government.

Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident missiles is already under way.

The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government’s commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.

In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards.

The MoD’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines.

Northern Ireland-born fashion designer Jonathan Anderson has announced he is to take on the role of creative director of both women’s and men’s collections at Dior.

In April, Anderson confirmed he was to become the artistic director of the luxury French fashion house menswear, one month after stepping back as creative director at Loewe after more than 10 years in the job.

He becomes the first designer to head both the women’s and men’s lines at the well-known brand.

The 40-year-old, who was born in Magherafelt in County Londonderry, said it was a “great honour” to take on the role.

“I have always been inspired by the rich history of this House, its depth, and empathy,” he said in an Instagram post on Monday.

“I look forward to working alongside its legendary Ateliers to craft the next chapter of this incredible story.”

Anderson is to take on the womenswear collection after its artistic director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, announced her departure after almost a decade in the job last week.

In January, British designer Kim Jones stepped down as artistic director for Dior’s menswear.

Anderson’s move to Dior is part of a major reshuffling of jobs at global fashion brands following some resignations and forced departures.

He is set to debut his first collection, Dior Men Summer 2026, during Paris Fashion Week on 27 June.

Bernard Arnault, chair of luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVHM) and Dior’s parent company, described Anderson as “one of the greatest creative talents of his generation”.

“His incomparable artistic signature will be a crucial asset in writing the next chapter of the history of the House of Dior.”

Dior’s chairperson, Delphine Arnault, said she is “delighted” that Anderson’s creativity will be brought to life at the House.

“I have followed his career with great interest since he joined the LVMH group over 10 years ago,” she said in a statement.

“I am convinced he will bring a creative and modern vision to our House, inspired by the fabulous story of Monsieur Dior and the codes he created.”

Anderson is known for his innovative styles and gender-fluid designs, and has created some iconic and recognisable looks throughout his career.

In 2023, he crafted Rihanna’s Super Bowl half-time performance outfit, which she used to announce her pregnancy and Ariana Grande’s 2024 Met Gala gown.

Anderson trained at the London College of Fashion, before beginning his career in Prada’s marketing department.

He launched his eponymous brand JW Anderson in 2008, before being appointed as the creative director at Loewe – a Spanish leather goods brand founded in 1846 – in 2013.

One of his designs, a colourful patchwork crochet cardigan worn by singer Harry Styles which inspired a viral TikTok trend amongst fans during the Covid-19 pandemic, was added to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum fashion collection earlier this year.

Anderson has won a number of high-profile awards, including Designer of the Year at the 2024 Fashion Awards in December for the second year in a row.

He is also the son of former Ireland rugby captain, Willie Anderson.

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.

The figures come from German and allied nations’ analysts.

“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.

A Chinese Harvard graduate’s speech calling for unity in a divided world, delivered days after the US vowed to “aggressively” revoke Chinese students’ visas, has sparked mixed reactions in the US and her home country.

“We don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go,” Jiang Yurong said on Thursday, the same day a US federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students at Harvard.

Her speech went viral on the Chinese internet, with some saying it moved them to tears. However, others said her elite background is not representative of Chinese students.

In the US, some have flagged her alleged links with the Chinese Communist Party.

In their efforts to restrict Harvard from enrolling foreign students, US authorities had accused the institution of “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

Ms Jiang, who studied international development, was the first Chinese woman to speak at a Harvard graduation ceremony.

In her address, Ms Jiang emphasised the value of Harvard’s international classrooms, noting how that taught her and her classmates to “dance through each other’s traditions” and “carry the weight of each other’s worlds”.

“If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies – they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own,” said Ms Jiang, who spent her final two years of school at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales before going to Duke University in the US for her undergraduate degree.

A conservative X account, with the handle @amuse, criticised Harvard for choosing a graduation speaker who is “a representative of a CCP-funded and monitored non-government organisation”, alleging that her father works for a non-government organisation that “serves as a quasi-diplomatic agent for the [party]”.

The account, which has 639,000 followers, has previously posted pro-Donald Trump content, such as the US leader fighting Darth Vader and sexualised imagery of former Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Some Chinese social media users, on the other hand, allege that the organisation Ms Jiang’s father works for is backed by prominent American companies and foundations.

The BBC has not independently verified these allegations.

“This is why she could get a scholarship to go to the UK for high school, and later also to Harvard,” wrote a user on China’s X-like platform, Weibo.

Others called for her to stay on in the US, with comments that reeked with sarcasm. “Such talent should be left to the United States,” one wrote. “I hope she will continue to glow abroad and stay away from us!” read another.

But Ms Jiang’s vision of a “shared humanity” also struck a chord.

“That she is able to stand on an international stage and speak the heart of Chinese students has moved me to tears,” wrote a user on Red Note, another Chinese social media platform.

Another user defended Jiang by hitting back at those who criticised her: “You may not have changed them, but they’ve heard you… As more and more people speak out like you, you will eventually move and change others.”

There are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolments in the past academic year.

About a third of these foreign students are from China, and more than 700 are Indian.

Authorities in India have arrested a man for trying to smuggle dozens of rare reptiles, including venomous snakes, into the country.

The Indian citizen, who was returning from Thailand, was stopped by customs officials at the airport in Mumbai city on Sunday.

Officials said the reptiles, including 47 venomous vipers, were found concealed in the man’s checked-in luggage.

The reptiles have been seized under various wildlife protection laws in India.

The passenger has not been named and as he is in custody. He has not commented on his arrest.

Customs officials have released photographs on X of colourful snakes squirming in a dish.

In their post, they said they had seized three spider-tailed horned vipers, five Asian leaf turtles and 44 Indonesian pit vipers from the passenger.

It isn’t clear where the reptiles had been sourced from.

• Leopard cub found in passenger’s luggage at Indian airport
• Rare Madagascar tortoises seized at Mumbai airport

While it is not illegal to import animals into the country, India’s wildlife protection law bans the import of certain species, including those classified as endangered or protected by the government.

A passenger also needs to get the required permits and licenses before importing any wildlife.

Reports of customs officials seizing banned wildlife from passengers trying to smuggle them into the country are not uncommon.

In January, Indian authorities arrested a Canadian man at the Delhi airport for carrying a crocodile skull in his luggage and month later, officials at the Mumbai airport stopped a passenger carrying five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

The gibbons, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were concealed in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger’s trolley bag.

In November, customs officers arrested two passengers returning from Bangkok for carrying12 exotic turtles.

In 2019, officials at the Chennai airport seized a horned pit viper snake, five Iguanas, four blue-tongued skinks, three green tree frogs and 22 Egyptian tortoises from a man travelling from Thailand.

A couple who were seriously injured in the Smiler rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers say they can “never move on” from it, but still “couldn’t be happier”.

Now married, Leah Washington-Pugh, then 17 and 18-year-old Joe Pugh, from South Yorkshire, were on a date when their Smiler carriage rammed into another at the Staffordshire theme park, 10 years ago.

Leah’s legs were crushed, forcing the amputation of her left leg above the knee whilst both of Joe’s kneecaps were shattered and some of his fingers severed in the crash, they said was “equivalent to driving into a car at 90mph”.

The crash, on 2 June 2015, led to operator Merlin being fined £5m, with compensation paid to the 16 victims.

Speaking through their legal representatives, the pair said despite going through some dark times they had “definitely come a long way” since the crash.

Remembering the day, the couple said they had made a beeline for the ride as soon as they had entered the park.

Technical difficulties had delayed them getting on, but “I never thought anything of it,” said Leah.

After eventually setting off, their carriage had “gone around a corner and crashed straight into the empty cart,” she explained.

“I think if I remember rightly if you compare it to a car accident it was the equivalent of driving into a car at 90 miles an hour, it was pretty severe,” added Joe.

“And then I looked down at my legs and realised that something wasn’t right,” said Leah.

“I looked at Joe and Joe’s little finger was hanging off.”

Stranded on the ride for about four hours, she credits emergency workers for saving her life.

“The air ambulance was flying in blood for me because I was just losing that much,” she said.

“If it wasn’t for the air ambulance and other services on the day I know I wouldn’t be here today.”

Following her rescue, Leah spent five days in intensive care and was in hospital for eight weeks.

After being discharged “navigating life in normal surroundings was quite difficult at the start,” she said.

“We had to learn not only how to walk again and live again, but how to build a relationship again with each other,” added Joe.

The couple said supporting each other through their recovery had been “really important”.

“Yes, our injuries were there and everything else around us was going off, but we still had that relationship and friendship and that got us through everything.”

“Fast forward 10 years we’re both really happy,” continued Joe.

“We’re now married, we’re almost a year into us marriage, we’ve got a beautiful home together we couldn’t be happier.”

The crash was “utterly shocking” and “unlike anything that had ever happened the world over,” according to one industry expert.

Vicky Balch, of Leyland, Lancashire, also needed a partial leg amputation after the crash.

“Knowing quite a bit about the theme park industry, it was a shock as to how it could have happened and what would have been the cause,” said European Coaster Club journalist Marcus Gaines.

“The incident attracted worldwide attention which shows how rare and unusual it was and what a major incident it was,” he added.

Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd admitted breaches of the Health and Safety Act in what bosses called “the most serious incident” in Alton Towers’ history.

Imposing the fine on Merlin, Judge Michael Chambers QC said the crash had been foreseeable, but accepted the company which owns Alton Towers had subsequently taken full and extensive steps to remedy the problems that led to it happening.

Mr Gaines added that at the time the UK was recognised as one of the leading experts in amusement park safety.

“Lots of other countries don’t have any real regulation about ride safety,” he said.

He said safety measures put in place since the crash included visual checks where staff physically inspect the entire length of the track to ensure it is clear.

“We’ve had this horrific accident, but it is unprecedented that that accident happened,” Mr Gaines continued.

“I think the fact that we haven’t seen anything like that before, and we’ve not seen anything like it in the 10 years since, shows what high standards we do have in the UK.”

Reflecting on a decade since the crash, Leah said: “You’ve always got to find the positive in the negative and just got to grab life, because it’s so precious, and make the most of it”.

The couple are using the anniversary to host a ball to support the Midlands Air Ambulance, Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the LimbBo Foundation, a charity which supports limb-different children.

The events of 2015 were “tragic”, Leigh added, but had also “fetched a lot of happiness and experiences that we would never have had”.

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’.”

• Ukraine drones strike bombers during major attack in Russia

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.

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A Chinese Harvard graduate’s speech calling for unity in a divided world, delivered days after the US vowed to “aggressively” revoke Chinese students’ visas, has sparked mixed reactions in the US and her home country.

“We don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go,” Jiang Yurong said on Thursday, the same day a US federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s ban on foreign students at Harvard.

Her speech went viral on the Chinese internet, with some saying it moved them to tears. However, others said her elite background is not representative of Chinese students.

In the US, some have flagged her alleged links with the Chinese Communist Party.

In their efforts to restrict Harvard from enrolling foreign students, US authorities had accused the institution of “co-ordinating with the Chinese Communist Party”.

Ms Jiang, who studied international development, was the first Chinese woman to speak at a Harvard graduation ceremony.

In her address, Ms Jiang emphasised the value of Harvard’s international classrooms, noting how that taught her and her classmates to “dance through each other’s traditions” and “carry the weight of each other’s worlds”.

“If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies – they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own,” said Ms Jiang, who spent her final two years of school at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Wales before going to Duke University in the US for her undergraduate degree.

A conservative X account, with the handle @amuse, criticised Harvard for choosing a graduation speaker who is “a representative of a CCP-funded and monitored non-government organisation”, alleging that her father works for a non-government organisation that “serves as a quasi-diplomatic agent for the [party]”.

The account, which has 639,000 followers, has previously posted pro-Donald Trump content, such as the US leader fighting Darth Vader and sexualised imagery of former Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Some Chinese social media users, on the other hand, allege that the organisation Ms Jiang’s father works for is backed by prominent American companies and foundations.

The BBC has not independently verified these allegations.

“This is why she could get a scholarship to go to the UK for high school, and later also to Harvard,” wrote a user on China’s X-like platform, Weibo.

Others called for her to stay on in the US, with comments that reeked with sarcasm. “Such talent should be left to the United States,” one wrote. “I hope she will continue to glow abroad and stay away from us!” read another.

But Ms Jiang’s vision of a “shared humanity” also struck a chord.

“That she is able to stand on an international stage and speak the heart of Chinese students has moved me to tears,” wrote a user on Red Note, another Chinese social media platform.

Another user defended Jiang by hitting back at those who criticised her: “You may not have changed them, but they’ve heard you… As more and more people speak out like you, you will eventually move and change others.”

There are around 6,800 international students at Harvard, who make up more than 27% of its enrolments in the past academic year.

About a third of these foreign students are from China, and more than 700 are Indian.

Authorities in India have arrested a man for trying to smuggle dozens of rare reptiles, including venomous snakes, into the country.

The Indian citizen, who was returning from Thailand, was stopped by customs officials at the airport in Mumbai city on Sunday.

Officials said the reptiles, including 47 venomous vipers, were found concealed in the man’s checked-in luggage.

The reptiles have been seized under various wildlife protection laws in India.

The passenger has not been named and as he is in custody. He has not commented on his arrest.

Customs officials have released photographs on X of colourful snakes squirming in a dish.

In their post, they said they had seized three spider-tailed horned vipers, five Asian leaf turtles and 44 Indonesian pit vipers from the passenger.

It isn’t clear where the reptiles had been sourced from.

• Leopard cub found in passenger’s luggage at Indian airport
• Rare Madagascar tortoises seized at Mumbai airport

While it is not illegal to import animals into the country, India’s wildlife protection law bans the import of certain species, including those classified as endangered or protected by the government.

A passenger also needs to get the required permits and licenses before importing any wildlife.

Reports of customs officials seizing banned wildlife from passengers trying to smuggle them into the country are not uncommon.

In January, Indian authorities arrested a Canadian man at the Delhi airport for carrying a crocodile skull in his luggage and month later, officials at the Mumbai airport stopped a passenger carrying five Siamang gibbons, a small ape native to the forests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

The gibbons, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, were concealed in a plastic crate placed inside the passenger’s trolley bag.

In November, customs officers arrested two passengers returning from Bangkok for carrying12 exotic turtles.

In 2019, officials at the Chennai airport seized a horned pit viper snake, five Iguanas, four blue-tongued skinks, three green tree frogs and 22 Egyptian tortoises from a man travelling from Thailand.

Multiple people have been injured after a man shouting “free Palestine” tossed Molotov cocktails at a gathering in support of Israeli hostages in Colorado, authorities say.

Police said eight people – aged 52 to 88 – were injured in the attack at the Pearl Street Mall, a popular outdoor space in Boulder, about 30 miles (48km) from Denver.

The FBI called it a suspected terror attack and said the suspect used a makeshift flamethrower, Molotov cocktails and other incendiary devices.

Footage of the attack shows the suspect, who was shirtless, screaming at the group and had what appears to be Molotov cocktails in each hand when he was arrested.

The attack unfolded during a weekly scheduled demonstration put on by Run for Their Lives, a pro-Israeli group that holds walks in the outdoor pedestrian mall in solidarity with Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Police got calls around 13:26 local time (19:26 GMT) about a man with a weapon and people being set on fire, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said at a news conference.

Officers who responded found multiple people injured, including those with burns.

One of the people hurt in the attack was a Holocaust survivor, according to Rabbi Israel Wilhelm, the Chabad director at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Speaking to the BBC’s US partner CBS News, Wilhelm described the 88-year-old as a “very loving person”.

The attack is the second high-profile act of violence in the US in the last two weeks that appears to be related to the conflict in Gaza.

A man who shouted “free Palestine” fatally shot two Israeli embassy employees outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC on 22 May. The incident happened at a networking event organised by a Jewish organisation.

• What we know about the attack so far

After Sunday’s incident, witnesses told authorities that the suspect used a “makeshift flamethrower and threw an incendiary device into the crowd,” said Mark Michalek, who heads the FBI’s Denver office.

Redfearn added that those devices included Molotov cocktails, which he said were tossed at the crowd.

Mr Michalek identified the suspect as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45.

He is an Egyptian national, government officials told CBS. In 2022, Mr Soliman arrived in California on a non-immigrant visa that expired in February 2023, multiple sources told the broadcaster. He had been living in Colorado Springs.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Mr Soliman had been given a work permit after his visa expired under the previous administration of President Joe Biden. The BBC has not verified this.

Warning: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.

Footage that appeared to be from the attack showed a chaotic scene: smoke filling the air, people running in multiple directions, spots of grass on fire and people injured on the ground.

In images and videos posted online, a man who appears to be the suspect is seen without a shirt and holding bottles with liquid with a piece of red cloth inside. He can be heard yelling at the crowd and appears to be advancing on them as some rush to flee.

As he screams, one woman is on the ground and appears injured. People surround her and one man pours water on her body.

Footage shows police rushing to the scene and arresting the suspect. Police say he was taken to the hospital with injuries.

“It is clear that this is a targeted act of violence and the FBI is investigating this as an act of terrorism,” Mr Michalek said. “Sadly, attacks like this are becoming too common across the country.”

Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser said that from what officials knew, the attack “appears to be hate crime given the group that was targeted”.

“People may have differing views about world events and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, but violence is never the answer to settling differences,” Weiser said in a statement on Sunday. “Hate has no place in Colorado.”

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said he was “shocked” by the incident and called the attack “pure antisemitism”.

“Shocked by the terrible antisemitic terror attack targeting Jews in Boulder, Colorado,” he wrote on X. “This is pure antisemitism, fuelled by the blood libels spread in the media.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, similarly was saddened over the attack, calling it “terrorism” and asking for “concrete action” in response.

In a post on X, the ambassador said that Jewish protesters were brutally attacked”.

“Terrorism against Jews does not stop at the Gaza border – it is already burning the streets of America,” he said.

China says the US has “severely violated” their trade truce and that it will take strong measures to defend its interests.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said Washington has “seriously undermined” the agreement reached during talks in Geneva last month, when both countries lowered tariffs on goods imported from each other.

The spokesperson added that US actions have also severely violated the consensus reached during a phone call in January between China’s leader Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump.

The comments come after Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us”.

The US President did not give details but Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers as agreed under the deal.

Under the trade truce struck in May at a meeting in Geneva, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%. China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.

On Monday, Beijing said US violations of the agreement included stopping sales of computer chip design software to Chinese companies, warning against using chips made by Chinese tech giant Huawei, and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

The deal reached in Geneva came as a surprise to many analysts as it seemed that the two sides were incredibly far apart on many trade issues.

This showed that during face-to-face talks Washington and Beijing can reach agreements.

But as the rhetoric is once again ratcheting up, the fragility of the current truce has been highlighted and gives an indication of just how challenging it may be to reach a longer-term trade deal.

Although the fresh accusations may suggest that talks between Washington and Beijing are not going well, two top White House officials suggested on Sunday that Trump and Xi could hold talks soon.

Treasury Secretary Bessent told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, that details of the trade will be “ironed out” once Xi and Trump speak, but he did not say exactly when that conversation is expected to happen.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told ABC News that the two leaders are expected to talk this week and “both sides have expressed a willingness to talk”.

“The bottom line is that we’ve got to be ready in case things don’t happen the way we want,” Hassett said of the expected talks.

But the Chinese side prefers agreements to be done at a lower level first before they reach the desk of the president.

Last week, Trump announced the US would double its current tariffs on steel and aluminium from 25% to 50%, starting on Wednesday.

Speaking at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Friday, Trump said the move would help boost the local steel industry and national supply, while reducing reliance on China.

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 at least 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 told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes.

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

The attacks come as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are heading to Istanbul, Turkey, for a second round of peace talks on Monday.

Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian government’s centre for counteracting disinformation, said at least 13 Russian aircraft were destroyed and others damaged.

The talks are expected to start around 13:00 local time (10:00 GMT) at the Ciragan Palace.

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

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported a massive drone and missile attack on its territory over the weekend.

At least six people, including a seven-year-old child, were injured following a strike in Kharkiv in the early hours of Monday, the region’s governor said.

Elsewhere, Russia’s state news agency Ria said the country’s security service thwarted an attempted arson attack in the east.

It said two residents in the Primorye region were attempting to sabotage a railway track on Ukraine’s orders.

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.

• Ukraine’s audacious drone attack sends critical message to Russia – and the West

SBU sources earlier told BBC News Sunday’s attack involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

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”.

The Australian woman accused of killing three relatives and gravely injuring another with a toxic mushroom meal has taken to the witness stand at her trial.

Erin Patterson has pleaded not guilty to four charges – three of murder and one of attempted murder – over the beef wellington lunch at her regional Victorian house in July 2023.

Prosecutors argue she intentionally sought out death cap mushrooms and cooked them for her relatives, before lying to police and disposing of evidence.

However the defence case is that Patterson had unintentionally served poison to family members she loved, and then “panicked”.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the meal, including Ms Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

A single lunch guest survived – local pastor Ian Wilkinson – after weeks of treatment in hospital.

Over six weeks, the jury in the Victorian Supreme Court has heard from more than 50 witnesses called by the prosecution, including Ms Patterson’s estranged husband, Simon, and the surviving lunch guest, Ian.

It is now the defence’s turn to call witnesses, and first up was Ms Patterson herself.

The 50-year-old told the court that by 2023 she had felt for some months that her relationship with the wider Patterson family – Don and Gail in particular – had perhaps developed a bit more distance or space.

“We saw each other less,” she says.

“I’d come to have concerns that Simon was not wanting me to be involved too much with the family anymore.”

After detailing a brief period of separation between the couple when their first child was an infant, Erin Patterson told the court that she and Simon Patterson struggled to work out their disagreements.

“If we had any problems at all it was… we couldn’t communicate well when we disagreed about something,” she said.

“We would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it.”

She also told the court about the traumatic birth of her first child in 2009, less than a year before the couple’s first break.

“He started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat,” she said.

Her voice choking up, she explained doctors performed an emergency caesarean to get her son out quickly.

When he was ready to go home, Ms Patterson said she discharged herself from hospital against medical advice as she didn’t want to remain there alone.

The jury has heard that Ms Patterson discharged herself from hospital against medical advice in the days after the fatal lunch, which prosecutors earlier pointed to as evidence that she was not unwell.

However her barrister Colin Mandy in his opening address said she had done so at several occasions over her life.

Ms Patterson gave less than an hour of evidence before court broke up for the day, and will return to resume her testimony on Tuesday.