The British paedophile charged in connection with organising a “mock wedding” to a child in Disneyland Paris is Jacky Jhaj, who was found guilty of sexual activity with two 15-year-olds in 2016, the BBC understands.

Jhaj, 39, has been charged in connection with organising the fake ceremony on Saturday, in which a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl was due to feature as his bride.

He was arrested when police were called on Saturday morning by an actor who said he had been hired by Jhaj to play the father of the bride.

The BBC has previously investigated how Jhaj was able to hire hundreds of children to act as his fawning fans at a fake film premiere in London’s Leicester Square in 2023.

Some of the children, who had been hired from casting agencies, were as young as six.

Teenage girls told the BBC that they had been asked to scream for him and try to touch him, without being told his real identity by the agencies.

Then in June last year, Jhaj was seen giving gifts to children outside dance auditions for another production – he was recognised by a parent who had seen the BBC article.

Two months later, and following the BBC’s further investigation, Jhaj was filmed posing naked in front of a mocked-up BBC News lorry in London which had been set on fire.

For the mock wedding at Disneyland Paris, which was to be filmed by Jhaj’s team, around 100 French extras had been recruited to take part.

The BBC understands that he appeared in front of a judge in Meaux, north-east of Paris, on Monday and was charged with fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, and identity theft and placed in pretrial detention.

Preliminary findings also stated that he had allegedly been “made-up professionally so that his face appeared totally different from his own”, according to the French prosecutor.

Jhaj has been on the sex offenders register since 2016 and has spent time in prison. He is subject to restrictions on his freedoms under the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Since he was released from prison, he has repeatedly staged productions involving children or young people.

BBC News can reveal that some videos of these productions were uploaded to a YouTube account styled as an official performer’s channel.

The account received more than six million views and had over 12 million subscribers.

A video on a different channel included secretly filmed footage of one of the 15-year-old victims he was convicted of sexually exploiting.

Her family has told the BBC that Jhaj “destroyed” her life and said it’s unacceptable that YouTube allowed the video to be watched for entertainment for four years.

Videos of the productions remained on YouTube for years until last September, when the BBC alerted Google, which owns the platform.

It told the BBC at the time that it takes users’ safety seriously, but offered no explanation as to how an account featuring a man with almost no profile or success had 12 million subscribers, or why the videos were not removed.

Over the past two years, the BBC has spoken to videographers, production assistants and technicians who worked on some of the events before they discovered Jhaj’s real identity.

Their records show that the cost of hiring casts and venues has run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The cost of hiring the area in front of the Odeon cinema in London’s Leicester Square, which hosts red carpet events for major Hollywood premieres, would have run into tens of thousands of pounds.

French outlet BFMTV reported that the fake wedding at Disneyland may have cost organisers more than €130,000 (£110,000).

It remains unclear how these elaborate productions have been funded.

The French prosecutor said the Ukrainian girl arrived in France two days before the Disneyland event – but had not been a victim of either physical or sexual violence and had not been “forced to play the role” of a bride.

The prosecutor’s statement also said that Disneyland Paris had been “deceived” and that the organiser had used a fake Latvian ID to hire the venue. Disneyland Paris can be rented by members of the public outside opening hours.

In a statement, the UK’s Metropolitan Police said:

“A 39-year-old man is wanted by the Met Police for breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a breach of a Sex Offenders’ Register notification requirement.

“We are aware the man has been arrested in France for other matters and officers are in contact with the French authorities.”

A young left-wing candidate, Zohran Mamdani, is poised to become the Democratic nominee for New York mayor after delivering a stunning political upset.

The 33-year-old democratic socialist declared victory in the party’s primary in the city on Tuesday, defeating his main rival and political veteran Andrew Cuomo who previously served as state governor.

“Tonight we made history,” Mamdani said in his victory speech. If elected, he would be the first Muslim and Indian American to lead the nation’s largest city.

Cuomo, 67, was attempting to pull off a comeback after resigning from office in 2021 over a sexual harassment scandal. He congratulated his opponent for a “really smart and great campaign”.

The primary in staunchly liberal New York is likely to determine who becomes mayor in November’s election.

The contest was being watched as a litmus test for the Democratic Party as it seeks to hone its messaging after election losses last November that saw President Donald Trump’s Republicans win the White House and both chambers in Congress.

Results on Tuesday night showed Mamdani with a commanding lead, but falling short of the 50% threshold needed to win outright.

• Who is Zohran Mamdani?

Cuomo’s concession was unexpected because counting looks likely to continue next week under the ranked choice system, which allowed New Yorkers to pick up to five candidates in order of preference.

The former governor’s loss marks the “biggest upset in modern NYC history,” Trip Yang, a political strategist, told the BBC.

“A massive win for Zohran Mamdani that shows that when Donald Trump is President, New York Democrats want to see their leaders fight with enthusiasm and courage, and that’s what Zohran showed voters.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Cuomo said he was still examining whether he would run in the general election in November on the independent line.

“I said he won the primary election,” Cuomo told the outlet. “I said I wanted to look at the numbers and the ranked-choice voting to decide about what to do in the future, because I’m also on an independent line.”

Cuomo was seen as a moderate and the establishment favourite, known across the country after his governorship during the Covid pandemic.

Mamdani is a millennial outsider who was fairly unknown until recently.

Born in Uganda, his family moved to New York City when he was seven. He has posted one campaign video entirely in Urdu and mixed in Bollywood film clips. In another, he speaks Spanish.

Mamdani’s strong support of Palestinians and criticism of Israel put him at odds with most of the Democratic establishment.

He went viral during his campaign for videos where he talked to New York voters who swung for Trump in the November election.

He asked what issues led them to cast their ballots for the Republican candidate and what it would take for them to swing Democrat.

Mamdani’s platform includes free public buses, universal childcare, freezing rent in subsidised units, and city-run grocery stores – all paid for by new taxes on the rich.

“This is a city where one in four of its people are living in poverty, a city where 500,000 kids go to sleep hungry every night,” he told the BBC at a recent event.

“And ultimately, it’s a city that is in danger of losing that which it makes it so special.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, also democratic socialists, endorsed Mamdani during his campaign.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

One afternoon, as Isabella left school for the day, someone thrust a leaflet into her hand. “Do you want to make money with your beauty?” it asked.

She says a studio looking for models seemed to be targeting teenage pupils in her area in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital.

At 17, with a two-year-old son to support, she desperately needed money, so went along to find out more.

She says when she got there, it was a sexcam studio, run by a couple in a house in a run-down neighbourhood – it had eight rooms decorated like bedrooms.

Studios range from small, low-budget operations to large businesses with individual rooms set up with lights, computers, webcams and an internet connection. Models perform sexual acts which are streamed to viewers around the world, who message them and make requests via intermediaries, also known as monitors.

The next day Isabella, whose real name we are not using, says she started work – even though it is illegal in Colombia for studios to employ webcam models under 18.

She told the BBC World Service there was no written contract detailing how much she would be paid or what her rights were. “They had me streaming without teaching me anything. They said, ’Here’s the camera, let’s go.'”

Isabella says the studio soon suggested she do a livestream from school, so as classmates around her were learning English, she quietly took out her phone and started to film herself at her desk.

She describes how viewers began to ask her to perform specific sexual acts, so she asked her teacher for permission to go to the toilet and, locked in a cubicle, did what the customers had requested.

Her teacher had no idea what was happening, “so I started doing it from other classes”, says Isabella. “I  kept thinking, ‘It’s for my child. I’m doing it for him.’ That gave me the strength.”

The global sexcam industry is booming.

The number of monthly views of webcam platforms globally has more than tripled since 2017, reaching nearly 1.3 billion, in April 2025, according to analytics firm Semrush.

Colombia is now estimated to have more models than any other country – 400,000 – and 12,000 sexcam studios, according to Fenalweb, an organisation representing the country’s adult webcam sector.

These studios film performers and feed the content to global webcam platforms, which broadcast to millions of paying viewers around the world who make requests of models, give tips and buy them gifts.

Many of the models who work in studios do so because they lack privacy, equipment or a stable internet connection at home – often if they’re poor or young and still living with parents.

Performers told the BBC that studios often try to attract people with the promise of making easy money in a country where a third of the population lives in poverty.

• Listen to Colombia’s webcam women on BBC Sounds and watch the documentary on YouTube

Models explained that while some studios are well run and offer performers technical and other support, abuse is rife at unscrupulous operators.

And Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, has described studio owners as “slave masters” who trick women and girls, like Isabella, into believing they can earn good money.

The four biggest webcam platforms that stream material from the studios, BongaCams, Chaturbate, LiveJasmin and StripChat, which are based in Europe and the United States, have checks that are supposed to ensure performers are 18 or older. EU and US laws prohibit the distribution of sexually explicit material involving anyone under 18.

But models told the BBC these checks are too easily sidestepped if a studio wants to employ under-age girls.

They say one way of doing this is to “recycle” old accounts of models who are of legal age but no longer perform, and give them to under-age girls.

Isabella says this is how she was able to appear on both Chaturbate and StripChat when she was 17.

“The studio owner said it was no problem that I was under-age,” Isabella, now 18, says.  “She used the account of another woman, and then I started working under that identity.”

Other models the BBC spoke to say they were given fake IDs by studios. One, Keiny, says this enabled her to appear on BongaCams when she was 17.

Milley Achinte, a BongaCams representative in Colombia, told the BBC they do not allow under-18s to perform and they shut accounts that break this rule. She added that the platform checks IDs on a Colombian government website and if a “model contacts us and we are aware that the model left the studio, we give them their password so they can close their account”.

In a statement, Chaturbate said it has “categorically” stopped the use of fake IDs, and models must regularly submit live images of themselves standing next to government-issued photo IDs, which are checked digitally and manually. It said it has “an average of one reviewer to fewer than 10 broadcasters” and any attempt to recycle accounts “would be unsuccessful” because “the age verification process continues as each and every broadcast is constantly reviewed and checked”.

StripChat also sent a statement saying it has a “zero-tolerance policy regarding under-age models” and that performers “must undergo a thorough age verification process”, adding that its in-house moderation team works with third-party verification services to “validate models’ identities”.

It said that recycled accounts cannot be used on its platform, and recent changes to its rules mean that the account holder must be present on every stream. “So, if a model moves to a new account to work independently, the original account tied to them becomes inactive and unusable by the studio.”

LiveJasmin did not respond to the BBC’s requests for comment.

Keiny is now 20 and works from her bedroom at home in Medellín – streaming through another studio which provides a route to big international platforms.

And if it wasn’t for the high-tech equipment – several ring lights, a camera, and a large screen – this could pass for a child’s room. There are about a dozen stuffed animals, pink unicorns and teddy bears.

Viewers “really like it when you look young”, she says.

“Sometimes I think that’s problematic. Some clients ask that you act like an actual child, and that’s not OK.”

She says she got into the business to help her family financially after her parents decided to divorce.

Her father knows what she’s doing and she says he’s supportive.

Looking back, Keiny thinks she was too young when she started at the age of 17, but even so, she isn’t critical of her former employers.

Instead, she believes they helped her into a job which she says now earns her about $2,000 (£1,500) a month – far more than the minimum wage in Colombia, which is about $300 (£225) a month.

“Thanks to this job, I’m helping my mum, my dad, and my sister – my whole family,” she says.

That point of view is echoed by the studios – some of which are keen to demonstrate they look after their performers.

We visited one of the biggest, AJ Studios, where we were introduced to an in-house psychologist, employed to support models’ mental health. We were also shown a spa which offers pedicures, massages, botox and lip fillers at a “discount” or as prizes for “employees of the month” who may be high earners or people who are collaborative and support fellow models.

But as the country’s president has pointed out, not every performer is treated well or makes good money. And the industry is waiting to see if his new labour law will pave the way for tighter regulations.

Models and studios told the BBC that streaming platforms typically take 50% of the fees paid by viewers, studios take 20-30%, and the models get what’s left. This means that if a show makes $100 (£75), the model would usually get between $20 (£15) and $30 (£22). They explained that unscrupulous studios often take much more.

Models say there have been times when they logged on for sessions of up to eight hours and made as little as $5 (£4) – which can happen if a performance doesn’t have many viewers.

Others say they have been pressured into streaming for up to 18 hours without breaks and fined for stopping to eat or go to the toilet.

These accounts are supported by a report from the campaign group Human Rights Watch, published in December 2024. The author, Erin Kilbride, who did additional research on this story for the BBC, found some people were being filmed in cramped, dirty cubicles infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and were being coerced into performing sexual acts they found painful and degrading.

Sofi, a mother-of-two from Medellín, had been a waitress in a nightclub but, fed up with being insulted by customers, moved into webcam modelling.

But the 26-year-old says a studio she worked for pressured her into carrying out painful and degrading sexual acts, including performing with three other girls.

She explains that these requests were made by customers and agreed to by studio monitors – the staff employed to act as intermediaries between models and viewers.

Sofi says she told the studio she didn’t want to perform these acts, “but they said I had no choice”.

“In the end, I had to do it because it was either that, or they would ban my account,” she adds, explaining that means her account would effectively be closed down.

Sofi continues working in webcam studios because she says a typical salary in Colombia would not be enough to support her and her two children. She is now saving to start a law degree.

It’s not just Colombia that is facing these issues, says Erin Kilbride.

She found that between them, the big four streaming platforms also broadcast material from studios in 10 more countries – Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the US.

And she says she identified “gaps in platform policies and protocols that facilitate or exacerbate human rights abuses”.

When we asked platforms about conditions at the studios they stream, Milley Achinte from BongaCams said she is part of a team of eight women who visit some studios in Colombia “making sure that the models are getting paid, that the rooms are clean, that models are not getting violated”.

StripChat and Chaturbate do not visit studios and said they are not direct employers of performers and therefore do not intervene in the terms set between studios and models. But they both told us they are committed to a safe working environment. StripChat also said it expects studios to ensure “respectful and comfortable working conditions”.

BongaCams, StripChat and Chaturbate all said they have teams to intervene if they believe a model is being forced or coerced to do something.

After two months of waking up at 05:00 to juggle webcamming, secondary school, and caring for her son, Isabella says she was eager to receive her first payment.

But after the platform and the studio took their cut, Isabella explains she was paid just 174,000 Colombian pesos ($42; £31) – far less than she expected. She believes that the studio paid her a much lower percentage than agreed and also stole most of her earnings.

The money was a pittance, she says, adding that she used some of it to buy milk and nappies.  “They deceived me.”

Isabella, who is still at school, only worked as a webcam model for a few months before quitting.

The way she says she was treated at such a young age left her deeply traumatised. She couldn’t stop crying, so her mother arranged for her to see a psychologist.

She and six other former employees of the studio have got together to file an official complaint with the state prosecutor’s office. Collectively, they have accused the studio of exploitation of minors, labour exploitation and economic abuse.

“There are video recordings of me still online, under-age,” she says, explaining she feels powerless when it comes to trying to get them removed. “It’s affected me a lot and I don’t want to think about it any more.”

Eurostar passengers are facing a second day of severe delays after two people died on the railway track in France and then cables were stolen.

The high-speed rail operator has told passengers to cancel or postpone their trips on Wednesday, with a number of services cancelled and delayed on routes serving London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Two people died in separate incidents on the LGV Nord high-speed line between Lille and Paris on Tuesday, closing the line for much of the day.

Eurostar said the disruption from this was already continuing into Wednesday when services were further delayed after cable was stolen on the same railway line near Lille.

The theft, which French media says is of around 600 metres of copper cables, is causing trains to be rerouted, leading to extended journey times.

Routes to and from London are subject to last-minute cancellations and severe delays, Eurostar said.

It added that impacted passengers can change their travel plans for free or request a full refund.

“We’re very sorry for the impact this is having on our customers,” Eurostar said in a statement.

“Our teams are working closely with the French authorities and infrastructure teams to manage the situation and restore services safely.”

The operator says one track has reopened, allowing some trains to run in both directions until full repairs are completed, expected to be around 16:00 BST.

Water is being handed out to passengers onboard delayed trains, and stations are also very busy.

You can also get in touch by following this link

Inside an anonymous building in Oxford, Riley Jackson is frying a steak. The perfectly red fillet cut sizzles in the pan, its juices releasing a meaty aroma. But this is no ordinary steak. It was grown in the lab next door.

What’s strangest of all is just how real it looks. The texture, when cut, is indistinguishable from the real thing.

“That’s our goal,” says Ms Jackson of Ivy Farm Technologies, the food tech start-up that created it. “We want it to be as close to a normal steak as possible.”

Lab-grown meat is already sold in many parts of the world and in a couple of years, pending being granted regulatory approval, it could also be sold in the UK too – in burgers, pies and sausages.

Unlike so-called vegetarian meat, which is already available in UK supermarkets – from fake bacon rashers made from pea protein to steaks made of soy, and dyed bright red to resemble the real thing – lab-grown meat is biologically real meat, grown from cow cells.

To some, this could be a smart technological fix for a growing environmental problem: the rise in planet-heating gases caused, in part, by the rapid and growing demand for meat.

But others argue that the environmental benefits of lab-grown meat, officially known as cultivated meat, have been oversold. Some critics say that more effort should instead be expended on reducing meat consumption, instead of looking to a technology fix.

Then there are questions around the ultra-processed nature of this meat, which some also worry will be produced by a handful of multinational companies.

So now, with dog food made from meat that was grown in factory vats having already gone on sale in the UK earlier this year and with the possibility of lab-grown food for humans becoming available sooner than expected – the debate has never been more prescient.

Nor has the question: to grow or not to grow?

Global demand for meat is growing. According the the UK’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, meat production has increased fivefold since the 1960s and reached around 364 million tonnes in 2023.

Producing 1kg of beef can generate planet-heating greenhouse gases, equivalent to roughly 40kg of carbon dioxide, though estimates can vary depending on the type of production.

A study published in Nature Food in 2021 concluded that food production was responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cattle also burp planet-heating methane gas, plus they require water and land.

Tim Lang, a professor of food policy at City St George’s, University of London argues that the issue is a ticking environmental time bomb. “The situation is absolutely dire,” he says.

“Politicians are fearful of engaging with the issue. They don’t want to take on the meat and farming industry, nor do they wish to risk unpopularity by enacting policies that would reduce meat consumption.”

Lab-grown meat has been marketed as part of a solution. Its advocates claim that it can meet the growing demand for meat with much less carbon emissions and land use, plus it can help governments hit certain targets.

In the UK, for example, a 2021 independent review for the Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has called for a 30% reduction in meat consumption by 2032 to meet the country’s net zero target.

The science behind lab-grown meat is also relatively straightforward. Researchers take cells from a farm animal and grow more of them in a dish. When they have enough, they are put into ever larger vats until they have enough to produce a meat product.

Turning this into something that people want to eat is trickier. Each company has its own closely guarded secret sauce. But in the main, the cells are developed in a cocktail of nutrients, which encourage them to grow in the right way, after which other ingredients are sometimes added to boost the nutritional values.

The result is a paste, which is then processed and mixed with other foods such as soy to make it look, feel and taste more like meat. There are also plans to produce fish-like products this way, including eel and even caviar.

Ivy Farm Technologies is currently the only UK business that has applied for approval. If granted, its first products won’t be steaks but burgers and sausages.

It plans to combine cultivated mince, (which is cheaper and easier to produce than trying to replicate the taste of a real steak) with regular mince to create a blended cow-cultivated beef burger.

“If you want to make a sustainable difference, you have to go for mass production and burgers are where the masses are,” says the firm’s CEO Dr Harsh Amin. “If you blend our cultivated meat with animal derived meat, you are [still] reducing the carbon footprint.”

Ivy Farm claims this type of meat can lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental benefits. Other companies make similar claims, but these are based more on hope than hard evidence, according to Dr John Lynch, of Oxford University, who has carried out a comprehensive, independent assessment of the climate impact of lab-grown meat.

“There have not been any accurate climate assessment studies because production is not happening at large scale at the moment,” he adds.

The problem with comparing the climate impact of lab-grown meat with agricultural production is that there is little data and many variables.

Growing cells in vats requires energy, as does producing the chemicals that are added. Businesses keep the details of their processes secret, for perfectly legitimate reasons, so it is hard to produce a single figure for the climate cost of cultivated meat.

Dr Lynch has assessed the data available in scientific papers and found that the best-case cultivated meat carbon footprints were as low as 1.65 kg of CO2 per kg, which is better for the climate than traditional beef production.

However, if a lab-grown meat process needs a lot of energy, some estimates put the figure as high as 22kg of CO2 per kg, making its climate advantage less certain.

Then there is the fact that the cows’ methane gas burps disappear from the atmosphere after 12 years or so, whereas the CO2 produced to grow the lab meat continues to do its damage for much longer.

So, in the long run, it may be a bad idea to replace cows with high energy lab-grown production, according to Dr Lynch’s assessment. Yet that may be counter-balanced by the fact that cultivated meat production would require far less land.

The bottom line is that the environmental advantages of lab-grown beef over cattle farming is a closer run thing than its advocates argue – but it is likely to have the edge as production methods scale up and become more efficient, according to Dr Lynch.

“For beef, it is quite viable for cultured meat to come out on top,” he argues. “But I don’t think it is the same story for chicken and pork, which convert their feed into meat more efficiently than cattle.”

Singapore became the first country to allow the sale of cell-cultivated meat for human consumption in 2020. This was followed by the United States three years later and Israel in 2024.

UK firms have complained that the regulatory approvals process is too slow for them to keep up with overseas competitors. But sales in those countries have in the main been peripatetic, with many firms only offering tastings or serving it in upmarket restaurants for short periods.

This is largely because manufacturers are not able to mass-produce their products in sufficient quantities or as cheaply as traditional meat.

In the US, four companies have received some form of regulatory approval for their lab-grown chicken, pork fat and salmon. Salmon from Wildtype, for example, is now served at Kann, a fine-dining restaurant in Oregon, while Good Meat’s chicken was introduced at a restaurant in Washington, DC.

The response from consumers so far has been “optimistic and curious”, according to Suzi Gerber who is the executive director of the US Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation.

Some parts of the US cattle industry have, however, expressed opposition to the technology and lobbied for it to be banned, though other livestock firms have remained neutral or been supportive.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and several state-level organisations publicly oppose bans, perhaps in case it sets a precedent for banning other scientific advances, such as bio-engineered food stock for cattle.

The cultivated meat industry says that their products should have no effect on the livestock industry – people will always prefer real meat over artificial. The role of the new technology is, they say, to meet the demand that livestock production is unable to.

The seafood industry has also shown openness: for example, the US National Fisheries Institute recognises cultivated seafood as part of a broader domestic production of on-land fish, like aquaculture.

Ellen Dinsmoor is chief operating officer of Vow, a Sydney-based firm that sells cultivated Japanese quail products in Singapore. It recently received approval to sell in Australia too.

Unlike some cultivated meat firms, Vow is not trying to copy normal meats. Instead, the firm has chosen quail because fewer people know what it is supposed to taste like.

“What we have to do is produce a really delicious product that people want,” she explains. “A little later we can sell it on nutrition, for example we can add healthy omega-3 oils found only in salmon into chicken. And then if we can do all that at a fraction of the price, this is where it becomes interesting to consumers.”

This is all part of a strategy to create a stable high-end market, which could in time enable investment in producing food that is less posh and in larger quantities.

But for some critics, the potential benefits of this technology for the environment, or indeed for the poorest communities in the world, are being lost.

Some of the start-up companies involved are driven by delivering swift returns to their investors, argues Dr Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People, which can be more easily done by producing high-priced products in high-income countries.

A simpler, cheaper and easier option, he argues, would be to persuade people in both developed and emerging countries to eat less meat.

“It is all very well to propose to people that they should eat a high-protein slurry to keep themselves well,” he argues, “but… I don’t think it is something we should impose on already marginalised groups of people.”

He also worries that the emergence of cultivated food is an acceleration of a long-term trend away from environmentally sustainable, locally sourced, whole foods and toward factory mass-produced fare. “And at the moment the process is pretty energy intensive.”

But like it or not, lab-grown meat is here. To some, it’s a healthier option with less cholesterol, no animal suffering – and a clever solution to a pressing environmental problem. To others, those benefits may have been overblown.

For all the promises and potential about helping the world, however, most people choose food for more personal reasons, namely how it tastes and how affordable it is. That, more than anything, may well decide its future.

Progress in vaccinating children against a variety of life-threatening diseases has stalled in the past two decades – and even gone backwards in some countries – a new global study suggests.

The situation has been made worse by the Covid pandemic, leaving millions of children unprotected from diseases such as measles, tuberculosis and polio.

The researchers are calling for a concerted effort to provide better and more equal access to vaccines.

Child health experts warn that cuts to international aid budgets that fund vaccination programmes, combined with vaccine scepticism, are creating a “perfect storm”.

The global childhood vaccination programme has been a huge success.

Since 1974, more than four billion children have been vaccinated, preventing an estimated 150 million deaths worldwide.

In nearly half a century until 2023, researchers say vaccine coverage doubled.

But since 2010 progress has stagnated, to the extent that there are now wide variations in vaccine coverage around the world.

A study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, says measles vaccinations have declined in nearly 100 countries.

The Covid-19 pandemic made things even worse, because of disruption to vaccine programmes during lockdowns.

By 2023, there were nearly 16 million children who had not had any childhood vaccinations – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia.

Study author Dr Jonathan Mosser, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in the United States, says large numbers of children remain under-vaccinated and un-vaccinated.

“Routine childhood vaccinations are among the most powerful and cost-effective public health interventions available, but persistent global inequalities, challenges from the Covid pandemic, and the growth of vaccine misinformation and hesitancy have all contributed to faltering immunisation progress,” he said.

Dr Mosser said there was now an increased risk of outbreaks of diseases like measles, polio and diphtheria.

All children should benefit from life-saving immunisations, he added.

Wide discrepancies remain between vaccination rates in wealthier and lower-income countries.

But the report’s authors warn that vaccination rates have fallen in Europe, the US and other wealthy countries too.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, says the findings present a concerning picture.

“More children will be hospitalised, permanently damaged and die from fully preventable diseases if the trend is not reversed.

“Alas, the cuts in global health funding mean that this situation is set to deteriorate,” Prof Pollard said.

Dr David Elliman, from University College London, says many factors have contributed to the current situation.

“Around the world, the increasing number of countries torn apart by civil unrest and wars, combined with the drastic cuts in foreign aid from rich nations, such as USA and UK, makes it difficult to get vaccines to many populations,” he said.

“Where it appears that policy is being made on the basis of ill-informed opinion, rather than science, we have a perfect storm,” Dr Elliman added.

The researchers recommend that all countries try to strengthen primary healthcare systems and combat misinformation around vaccines to prevent parents being hesitant about getting their children vaccinated.

They also call for a concerted effort to provide better and more equal access to vaccines around the world.

Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines you need to start the day. Sign up here.

A South African court has halted plans to bury former Zambian President Edgar Lungu at a private ceremony in South Africa just as the ceremony was due to start.

This is the latest twist in a row between the government and Lungu’s family over his burial, after the family opted for a private ceremony in South Africa, rather than a full state funeral at home.

The Zambian government had filed an urgent case in the Pretoria High Court seeking to stop the burial planned by his family.

The court said that the funeral would not go ahead following an “agreement between the parties” however it appears that any funeral won’t happen until August at the earliest.

The dispute follows a long-standing feud between Lungu and his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema, with Lungu’s family saying he had indicated that Hichilema should not attend his funeral.

• From Dos Santos to Mugabe – the burial disputes over ex-leaders
• The presidential feud that even death couldn’t end

Following Lungu’s death in South Africa aged 68, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, including the repatriation of his body, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

The government and his family later agreed he would have a state funeral before relations broke down over the precise arrangements, prompting the family to opt for a burial in South Africa.

President Hichilema has since argued that Lungu, as a former president, “belongs to the nation of Zambia” and should be buried in the country.

The Pretoria court gave Zambian attorney general Mulilo D Kabesha until 4 July to submit his “amended notice of motion” in support of Lungu’s repatriation to Zambia. His family has until 11 July to file their opposing papers.

“This matter will be heard as a special motion on the 4th of August 2025,” the court said. The costs of the urgent application will be determined then.

The Zambian government argues that personal wishes should not override the greater public interest, citing the case of founding President Kenneth Kaunda.

In 2021, Kaunda’s family said he wanted to be laid to rest next to his wife and not at the site designated by the government.

However, the government went ahead and buried Kaunda at Embassy Memorial Park in Lusaka.

The current row over Lungu’s burial underscores the tense relationship between him and his successor, which played out in life and continues even in death.

When Lungu was president, Hichilema was locked up for over 100 days on treason charges after Hichilema’s motorcade allegedly refused to give way for him.

• Funeral row causes chaos for mourners of Zambia’s ex-president
• ‘My son is a drug addict, please help’ – the actor breaking a Zambian taboo
• An ancient writing system confounding myths about Africa
• Zambia president orders ministers to stop sleeping in cabinet

Jubilant Indians have been celebrating the successful launch of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission which has taken off with a multi-country crew, including an Indian astronaut.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, who’s piloting the mission, has become only the second Indian to travel to space.

In just over 26 hours – when the spacecraft docks at the International Space Station (ISS) – Group Captain Shukla will become the first ever Indian to visit Nasa’s orbiting laboratory.

His trip comes 41 years after cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to fly to space aboard a Russian Soyuz in 1984.

Led by former Nasa astronaut Peggy Whitson – a space veteran who has been commander of ISS twice, has spent more than 675 days in space and done 10 space walks – Ax-4 lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 02:31 EDT, (06:31 GMT; 12:01 India time) on Wednesday.

The trip to ISS aboard Ax-4 – a commercial flight operated by Houston-based private company Axiom Space – is a collaboration between Nasa, India’s space agency Isro, European Space Agency (Esa) and SpaceX.

Its four-member team also includes Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski from Poland and Tibor Kapu from Hungary. They will also be taking their countries back to space after more than four decades. The astronauts spent weeks in quarantine before Wednesday’s launch.

The flight has generated huge interest in India with Isro saying the experience Group Captain Shukla will gain during his trip to the ISS will help its efforts immensely.

The 39-year-old was among four Indian air force officers shortlisted last year to travel on the country’s first-ever human space flight, scheduled for 2027. India has also announced ambitious plans to set up a space station by 2035 and send an astronaut to the Moon by 2040.

Isro, which has been carrying out a number of tests to prepare for going into space, has paid 5bn rupees ($59m; £43m) to secure a seat for Group Captain Shukla on Ax-4 and his training.

Within minutes of take off, Group Captain Shukla had a message for India.

“We’re back in space after 41 years and what an amazing ride it’s been,” he said.

“Right now, we are orbiting Earth at a speed of 7.5km per second. On my shoulder, I carry the Indian flag. This is not the start of my journey to the ISS, this is the beginning of India’s human spaceflight. I welcome all my fellow Indians to be a part of this journey and feel proud and excited.”

The launch, using the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket, was broadcast live by Axiom Space and Nasa and set off celebrations in India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the successful launch and said the Indian astronaut “carries with him the wishes, hopes and aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians”.

In Group Captain Shukla’s home city of Lucknow, his parents joined hundreds of students to watch the lift-off. They were welcomed by a music band on their arrival at the school and were seen breaking out into applause as the rocket lifted off.

Born on 10 October 1985 in the northern city of Lucknow, Group Captain Shukla joined the Indian air force as a fighter pilot in 2006.

He has flown MiGs, Sukhois, Dorniers, Jaguars and Hawks and has more than 2,000 hours of flying experience.

Describing the past year as “nothing short of transformative”, Group Captain Shukla recently told an online press conference that he did not have words to describe his excitement.

“It has been an amazing journey so far, but the best is yet to come,” he said.

“As I go into space, I carry not just instruments and equipment, I carry hopes and dreams of a billion hearts.

“I request all Indians to pray for the success of our mission,” he added.

Besides piloting the mission, the Indian astronaut will have a busy schedule during his two weeks on ISS.

Considering the huge interest in the flight, Isro has said they are organising events for him to interact with Indian students and answer their questions while floating in space. An interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also on the cards.

But most of the time, the four-member crew will be conducting 60 scientific experiments, seven of which come from India.

Former Nasa scientist Mila Mitra says Isro’s experiments will help improve our understanding of space and its effects on biology and micro-gravity.

One of the key experiments, she explains, will investigate the impact of spaceflight on six varieties of crop seeds.

• Sweets to toy swan – what Indian astronaut will take on historic space voyage
• The Indian pilot set for a historic space journey on Axiom-4

Another Isro experiment involves growing three strains of microalgae which could be used as food, fuel or even in life support systems and this will help identify the most suitable ones for growing in microgravity, she says.

The Isro projects will also investigate how tardigrades – micro-animals on Earth that can survive extreme environments – would fare in space.

The other experiments aim to identify how muscle loss occurs in space and how it can be treated; and the physical and cognitive impact of using computer screens in microgravity.

Donald Trump will make a full state visit to the UK later this year after King Charles and the US president’s schedules meant they would be unable to meet informally over the summer, it is understood.

Buckingham Palace confirmed an invitation signed by the King, called the “Manu Regia”, was taken to the White House by representatives from the British Embassy in Washington last week.

The dates of Trump’s visit are yet to be confirmed but September is said to be the most likely.

It is also understood that there will not be a private meeting between Trump and King Charles this summer ahead of the state visit.

The scheduling issues come despite the King going to Scotland for his summer break each year, and Trump being expected to visit his new golf course in Aberdeenshire when it opens this summer.

“His Majesty has known President Trump for many years and looks forward to hosting him and the First Lady later this year,” a Buckingham Palace aide told the BBC.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told Parliament on Wednesday: “We are really pleased the US president is coming for a second state visit.”

Trump was hosted by the late Queen Elizabeth II during his previous three-day state visit in 2019, which took place during his first term in office.

Formal planning for the second official state visit has now begun.

In February during a visit to the White House, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer handed Trump a letter from the King.

Traditionally, second-term US presidents are not offered a state visit and have instead been invited for tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle.

King Charles’ letter proposed a meeting to discuss details of the state visit at either Dumfries House or Balmoral, both in Scotland, a country to which Trump has connections.

Speaking in April, Trump said: “They’re going to do a second, as you know, a second fest… that’s what it is: a fest, and it’s beautiful, and it’s the first time it’s ever happened to one person.

“And the reason is we have two separate terms, and it’s an honour… I’m a friend of Charles, I have great respect for King Charles and the family, William, we have really just a great respect for the family.

“And I think they’re setting a date for September.”

The Times reported that Buckingham Palace raised concerns about Trump’s “threats to Canada, seeing it as a reason not to rush into a state visit”.

According to the newspaper, a senior source said that a senior Palace aide told government officials that the King did not want to fête Trump with a state visit while the US president was “impugning his sovereignty” over Canada.

It added that senior government sources said the King wished to have a state visit at a later date in Trump’s second term.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “It’s a matter for the Palace.”

Aboard Air Force One en route to the Nato summit in the Netherlands, Trump shared a personal text message from a somewhat unlikely source.

It was sent by Nato boss Mark Rutte who praised the American president for what he had accomplished in using US bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“Congratulations and thank you for your decisive action in Iran, ” wrote Rutte in a message the president posted to his Truth Social account. “That was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do.”

Trump has had his differences with Nato in the past, as he’s called into doubt the alliance’s mutual defence agreement and the military contributions made by other member nations.

Rutte addressed that, as well, telling Trump he was “flying into another big success” at the Nato summit, where member nations had agreed to Trump’s demand to boost defence spending to 5% of their gross domestic product.

“It will be your win,” he concluded.

• Follow latest live updates and reaction

The warm words, and the president’s eagerness to share them to the world, illustrated just how much the diplomatic equation in the Middle East and among US allies has changed for Trump.

Last week he left the G7 summit in Canada a day early, as conflict raged between Israel and Iran and it appeared increasingly likely the US would join the fight.

The Americans attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday night, but by Tuesday morning the president departed Washington for another international trip, this time with a fragile ceasefire established between the two warring parties.

Rutte’s text – which a Nato press officer confirmed to the BBC as authentic – dovetails with the accounts provided on and off the record by White House officials.

Trump’ military strike removed the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. His actions triggered the ceasefire and ended what he calls the “12 Day War”.

His involvement and his pressure – including an angry outburst directed at both sides on Tuesday morning and what the White House called an “exceptionally firm and direct” phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Air Force One – ensured that the ceasefire would hold.

Last week, America’s allies were anxious. Now, it appears Trump is heading to Europe with the intention of basking in their praise.

The outlook, however, is more complicated than that.

While the administration touts that the US bombing raid “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear research facilities, US military intelligence officials have told American media that the damage is not as severe as the White House has claimed.

The country’s nuclear programme has probably only been set back by months, according to a preliminary Pentagon intelligence assessment. And the Islamic Republic’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated in the bombings, sources familiar with the report told CBS News.

The White House says the assessment is “flat-out wrong” and is “a clear attempt to demean” President Trump.

• US strikes did not destroy nuclear programme, says Pentagon

Questions remain about the quantity and location of Iran’s enriched uranium supply – a key component of a nuclear weapon. There are also reports of the existence of an undisclosed and undamaged research facility elsewhere in Iran.

While the ceasefire is holding for now, Middle East truces are notoriously tenuous. Iran’s leadership has been weakened through two weeks of devastating Israeli attacks and the nation’s future is uncertain.

One need only look at the long bloody civil war in Syria to see the risks presented when an authoritarian government loses its grip on power. Trump has talked of “love, peace and prosperity” for Iran, but chaos, and regional turmoil, are still a realistic possibility.

And although Trump appears to have stopped the two-week Israel-Iran fighting, the wars that Trump inherited and promised to end, in Gaza and Ukraine, rage on.

For this White house, however, those appear to be concerns for another day.

• ‘We’re exhausted’ – how Iranians feel after fragile ceasefire
• ‘We thought it was the end’ – Israeli town reels

At the moment, the dire warnings of Trump’s domestic critics, particularly within his own party, have proven unfounded. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who had planned to introduce legislation curtailing Trump’s use of military force in Iran, has announced he is abandoning that effort for now.

That has given Trump the political space to herald what his administration is trumpeting as an unqualified success.

Since Trump picked him as his vice-presidential running mate, JD Vance has often sought to add ideological substance to Trump’s America First politics.

On Tuesday morning, the vice-president took to Truth Social to offer his take on what he said were the three parts of Trump’s “foreign policy doctrine”.

“1) clearly define an American interest; 2) negotiate aggressively to achieve that interest; 3) use overwhelming force if necessary,” he wrote.

As doctrines go, however, that’s not much to work with.

Often, the president’s foreign policy seems reactive and contradictory, more tactical than strategic – whether it’s applying and removing tariffs or negotiating with allies and adversaries.

In the past two weeks, Trump has swung between distancing the US from Israel’s attacks on Iran to becoming an active participant in them; from calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” to negotiating a ceasefire with unclear terms; from entertaining the idea of regime change to downplaying it.

It makes for a rollercoaster ride, with the prospect of a catastrophic derailment seemingly around every bend.

But results, as they say, speak for themselves. And this week, Trump’s tumultuous ride has ended in a victory lap.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the country’s nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months, according to an early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the attack.

The Islamic Republic’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated in Saturday’s bombings, sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

The White House said the “flat-out wrong” assessment was leaked by “a low-level loser in the intelligence community”.

President Donald Trump again declared the nuclear sites in Iran “completely destroyed” and accused the media of “an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history”.

• Live: Follow the latest updates on Iran
• Decoy flights and seven B-2 stealth bombers – how US says it hit Iran’s nuclear sites
• Watch: How successful have the US strikes on Iran been?

The US has 18 intelligence agencies, which sometimes produce conflicting reports based on their mission and area of expertise. For example, the American intelligence community is still not in agreement over the origins of Covid-19.

It is possible future intelligence reports will include more information showing a different level of damage to the facilities.

According to CBS, officials familiar with the report warned it was an early assessment that could change as more information becomes available about the sites. It is also not clear at what confidence level the findings included in the report were made.

The US struck three nuclear facilities in Iran – Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan – with “bunker buster” bombs capable of penetrating 18m (60ft) of concrete or 61m (200ft) of earth before exploding.

But sources familiar with the Pentagon’s intelligence assessment say Iran’s centrifuges are largely “intact” and the impact was limited to above-ground structures.

Entrances to two nuclear facilities were sealed off, and some infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, but much of the facilities, which are deep underground, escaped the brunt of the blasts.

The anonymous sources told US media it is estimated that the attack only set Iran back “a few months, tops”, and that any resumption of its nuclear programme may be based on how long it takes the country to dig out and make repairs.

Sources also confirmed to CBS that some of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was moved before the strikes, according to the intelligence assessment.

The US 30,000lb (14,000kg) Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb was thought to be the only weapon capable of destroying Iran’s underground enrichment facilities.

Tehran has always said its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

In the hours that followed Saturday’s strikes, Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that it would take time to assess the damage to the facilities.

But he added that “all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction”. Satellite images showed six fresh craters clustered around two entry points at the Fordo nuclear sites, as well as grey dust and debris.

It is unclear from the images, however, how much damage the sites sustained below the surface.

Hassan Abedini, the deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster, claimed the three sites targeted by the US had been evacuated a “while ago”, and that Iran “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out”.

US officials, on the other hand, hailed the mission as a success, as have Israeli officials.

In a statement on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “based on everything we have seen – and I’ve seen it all – our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons”.

“Anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission,” Hegseth said.

US Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC the Trump administration was using vague terms to declare victory – when it’s still unclear what the bombing mission accomplished.

He added that the administration hasn’t said whether the strikes destroyed Iran’s ability to weaponise its uranium, its uranium-enriching centrifuges or depleted its stockpile, which he said would be enough to create nine nuclear weapons.

“When they say obliterate the programme, they’re not even saying whether it’s obliterated the centrifuges and the ability to create uranium in the future or whether it is obliterating the stockpile,” Sherman told the BBC.

“All indications, including Vice-President Vance’s statement, indicate that we don’t think we got the stockpile,” he said, noting images that show trucks going to one of the facilities days before the strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that since hostilities with Iran began on 13 June, Israel has been successful in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as well as destroying its missiles arsenal.

“We have removed two immediate existential threats to us – the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said in video remarks issued by his office.

A report in Saudi news outlet Al Hadath, citing an unnamed Israeli source, said that Israel believes most of Iran’s enriched uranium is buried under the rubble.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on secret nuclear weapons development, said the damage Iran sustained by the US attacks will mean “it will take significant time, investment and energy” for it to restore its nuclear programme.

In a post on X, Albright added that Iran is “under intense scrutiny and observation from the United States and Israel”, and it risks further attacks if it tries to rebuild.

On Monday, Iran retaliated against the US airstrikes by launching a missile attack on Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which is home to thousands of US troops.

That attack was largely intercepted, and no casualties or injuries were reported.

Since Iran’s retaliation, an Iran-Israel ceasefire – brokered by President Trump and Qatari mediators – is in place.

Since 13 June, Israel has inflicted widespread damage on Iran’s military infrastructure, Iranian missiles have pierced Israel’s defence systems and the US has conducted strikes against Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Then, over the course of a dizzying 24 hours beginning on Monday, events moved even faster: a US air base came under attack, the White House mediated a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, and that deal came close to unravelling.

This is how that volatile day unfolded.

The first signs that the conflict gripping the Middle East was about to spread to the Gulf was a calmly worded warning to US citizens in Qatar.

“Shelter in place” was the recommendation from the US government – with an attached reassurance that this was “out of an abundance of caution”.

The UK issued similar advice shortly after.

It was always feasible Iran would strike back at America in Qatar. The country is home to the al-Udeid military base, a sprawling installation outside the capital, Doha, which houses thousands of troops and is where US air operations in the Middle East are orchestrated.

Leaders in Tehran had threatened retaliation for unprecedented US strikes over the weekend against three nuclear facilities in Iran, including its prized Fordo enrichment site, buried deep below a mountain.

From the bunker where he has reportedly been sheltering since Israel launched its military operation against Iran, it seemed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had issued an order: to hit back against the US at one of its most strategically important assets in the region.

• Follow the latest Middle East updates on our live page

The airspace above Qatar is closed, its government announced.

Air traffic controllers in Doha hurriedly started turning passenger planes back, and flights bound for one of the world’s busiest airports began to land elsewhere in the Gulf.

The BBC then learned of a “credible threat” from an Iranian missile attack against the al-Udeid air base.

Unnamed US officials briefed American media that missile launchers had been sighted pointing in the direction of Qatar.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and his most senior general headed for the White House to monitor the situation.

Within the hour, explosions were heard over Doha and the sky above its lavish skyscrapers was streaked with trails left behind by air defence missiles as they hunted down Iranian weapons in the air.

Iran’s state-controlled media began to report its retaliation was under way. Shortly after, the Iran’s revolutionary guards confirmed as much.

“US bases in the region are not strengths but vulnerabilities,” it said – but the attack was over soon after.

Qatar reacted before the US. Though the target was the US base on its soil, its sovereignty had been violated by “brazen aggression”, a furious government statement read.

But crucially, it confirmed the missiles had been intercepted. The base had been evacuated before the attack began and no one had been killed or injured.

At around the same time, an inflammatory illustration appeared on the supreme leader’s X account, depicting missiles reigning down on a US military base as a tattered American flag burned.

However, rather than heralding any destruction, he wrote: “We didn’t harm anyone.”

It was beginning to appear that the US and Qatar had known about the planned Iranian attack in advance.

To outside analysts, it looked as though it had been designed to allow Iran’s leaders to save face but avoid escalation.

They could tell their public they had retaliated against the Americans – but they did so without inflicting the sort of loss that would risk dragging it into a direct war against a far more powerful adversary.

A de-escalation was in sight – and the world waited for the president of the United States to log on to social media.

“Weak.” “Expected.” “Effectively countered.”

That was how Donald Trump described Iran’s attack – but as his message continued, the tone was more conciliatory.

The president thanked Iran “for giving us early notice” and said they had “gotten it all out of their ‘system’.”

He went on: “Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”

Two hours earlier, Iran had attacked a US air base. Two days earlier, Trump had ordered unprecedented strikes against Iran, a country he has deemed evil and a mortal danger to the world in the past.

Now he was offering its leaders an olive branch.

Concluding a series of posts which sent observers into a tailspin, he wrote: “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”

It has since emerged that frantic talks were under way behind the scenes involving the US, Iran, Israel and Qatar.

Donald Trump spoke directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally whose war on Iran the president had briefly joined. The call took place in private but the message was apparent: it was time to end the fighting.

Meanwhile, Trump’s deputy JD Vance and his chief international negotiator Steve Witkoff were reaching out to the Iranians directly and via diplomatic backchannels.

From Washington, Trump’s team was attempting to hastily piece together something prized above all else by the US president, but which has proven so elusive in the Middle East: a deal.

Reports of success and competing denials began to swirl – but slowly and surely, momentum appeared to build as reports of progress emerged.

Then, just after 11:00 BST, the president took to social media again. His message to began: “CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE”.

A complete and total ceasefire had been agreed between Iran and Israel, the president wrote. There would be a grace period for “in progress, final missions”, and it would come into force six hours later.

The conflict should henceforth be known as “the 12 Day War”, Trump wrote.

Six thousands miles away in the Middle East, another day was dawning.

Across Israel, sirens began to sound and people were ordered to shelters: Iranian missiles were incoming, the Israel Defense Forces warned.

Across a period of less than 60 minutes, Israel said Iran had launched three waves of missiles. Several more would follow as the morning wore on, the Israeli military said.

In Beersheba, there was a direct hit on a multi-storey residential building. Four people – at least three of whom were hiding in a safe room – were killed when a missile tore through it.

Israel’s prime minister accused Iran of deploying one of the largest missiles in its arsenal against the homes.

At the same time, Iranian media reported it had sustained heavy strikes by Israel overnight, killing nine in the northern town of Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh. Mohammad Reza Seddiqi Saberi, a nuclear scientist, was reportedly among them.

The region’s deputy governor said four apartments “were completely destroyed, and many surrounding houses were damaged due to the explosion”. Pictures from the scene showed debris scattered across a street surrounded by houses.

Iran accused Israel of firing “a last round of missiles” to beat the ceasefire deadline.

The Israeli military later confirmed it had carried out operations overnight, while the Iraqi government claimed drones had targeted bases on its territory. Pro-Iranian armed militias operate in Iraq but it is not clear what was targeted.

What was clear was that the fighting was continuing until the very last moment.

Trump declared the beginning of the ceasefire in a social media post, writing: “THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!”

Shortly after, the Israeli government formally accepted the ceasefire arrangements.

A statement said Israel had achieved its war objectives of eliminating Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, and had taken its place among “world powers” as a result.

Iran’s foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had already indicated overnight that Tehran was open to the ceasefire put forward by Trump. He said that if Israel stopped its attacks before 04:00 local time, then “we have no intention to continue our response afterwards”.

But it would not take long until it looked as though that ceasefire was in peril.

Air defences were activated when a missile was launched from Iran, the Israeli military said.

Iran issued denials, but Israel’s defence minister said he had ordered “intense strikes against regime targets in the heart of Tehran”, while Bezalel Smotrich – a far-right government minister – warned: “Tehran will shake.”

It looked as thought Trump’s rapidly assembled deal might be unravelling a couple of hours after it came into force.

With Israeli jets on their way to the Iranian capital, Trump posted again: “DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!”

As morning broke in Washington DC, the US president stepped onto the White House lawn, where a helicopter was waiting to take him to a Nato summit.

Reporters were also waiting, eager to hear what he had to say after a dizzying night of announcements, claims and denials.

Both Israel and Iran had violated the ceasefire, Trump told them – but he insisted the deal was still in place.

Referencing the Israeli jets he had urged Netanyahu to turn back, he said: “There was one [Iranian] rocket that I guess was fired overboard after the time limit and now Israel is going out. These guys [have] got to calm down.”

Trump said the Iranian missile was fired “perhaps by mistake” and “didn’t land”.

The president appeared angry. He said he was “not happy with Israel” for launching strikes “the likes of which I’ve never seen before” just as the deal was agreed.

“I’m not happy with Iran either,” he added.

As Trump turned to walk away, he vented his frustration with Israel and Iran, using an expletive as he said they had been fighting so long that they don’t know what they’re doing.

The helicopter took him to a military base in Maryland, where he was to board Air Force One and fly to the Netherlands for the summit.

Once in the air, he called Netanyahu, a conversation which appears to have been a tense one.

A White House source told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the president was “exceptionally firm and direct” with the Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu “understood the severity of the situation and the concerns President Trump expressed”.

Trump reportedly confirmed to reporters on board that he had told Netanyahu to bring back the military aircraft, which he indicated were on the verge of attacking Iran.

As for leaders in Tehran, Trump said that developing a nuclear weapon would be the “last thing” on their minds.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman, is set to be the Democratic candidate for New York City Mayor, making history as the first Muslim nominee.

With 95% of ballots counted, Mamdani leads former governor Andrew Cuomo – who resigned that post after sexual harassment allegations in 2021 – 43% to 36% in the Democratic primary, propelled by a wave of grassroots support and a bold left-wing platform.

“Tonight, we made history,” Mamdani told supporters. “I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City.”

New York’s ranked-choice voting system means the final result could still evolve, but Mamdani’s lead and momentum appear decisive.

His victory over Cuomo – once a dominant figure in state politics – marks a watershed moment for progressives and signals a shift in the city’s political centre of gravity.

Born in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani moved to New York with his family age seven. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and later earned a degree in Africana Studies from Bowdoin College, where he co-founded the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

The millennial progressive, who would be the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, has leaned into his roots in a diverse city. He’s posted one campaign video entirely in Urdu and mixed in Bollywood film clips. In another, he speaks Spanish.

Mamdani and his wife, 27-year-old Brooklyn-based Syrian artist Rama Duwaji, met on the dating app Hinge.

His mother, Mira Nair, is a celebrated film director and his father Professor Mahmood Mamdani, teaches at Columbia. Both parents are Harvard alumni.

Mamdani presents himself as a candidate of the people and an organiser.

“As life took its inevitable turns, with detours in film, rap, and writing,” reads his state assembly profile, “it was always organising that ensured that the events of our world would not lead him to despair, but to action.”

Before entering politics, he worked as a housing counsellor, helping low-income homeowners in Queens fight eviction.

He has also made his Muslim faith a visible part of his campaign. He visited mosques regularly and released a campaign video in Urdu about the city’s cost-of-living crisis.

“We know that to stand in public as a Muslim is also to sacrifice the safety that we can sometimes find in the shadows,” he said at a rally this spring.

“There’s nobody who represents the totality of the issues that I truly care about that’s running for mayor currently other than Zohran,”Jagpreet Singh, political director for social justice organization DRUM, told the BBC.

Mamdani said that voters in the most expensive US city want Democrats to focus on affordability.

“This is a city where one in four of its people are living in poverty, a city where 500,000 kids go to sleep hungry every night,” he told the BBC at a recent event. “And ultimately, it’s a city that is in danger of losing that which it makes it so special.”

He has proposed:

• Free bus service citywide
• Rent freezes and stricter accountability for negligent landlords
• A chain of city-owned grocery stores focused on affordability
• Universal childcare for children aged six weeks to five years
• Tripling the production of rent-stabilized, union-built housing

His plan also includes “overhauling” the Mayor’s Office to hold property owners responsible and massively expanding permanently affordable housing.

In his campaign, he linked these policies to highly visual, and viral, gestures. He plunged into the Atlantic to dramatize rent freezes and broke a Ramadan fast on a subway train with a burrito to underscore food insecurity. Days before the primary, he walked the entire length of Manhattan, pausing for selfies with voters.

While he insists he can make the city more affordable, critics question such ambitious promises.

The New York Times did not endorse anyone in the city’s mayoral primary and criticised the candidates generally. Its editorial board said Mamdani’s agenda is “uniquely unsuited to the city’s challenges” and “often ignores the unavoidable trade offs of governance.”

His rent freezes would restrict housing supply, said the board.

Cuomo and others frame Mamdani as untested and too radical for a city with a $115 billion budget and over 300,000 municipal workers.

Cuomo, backed by big donors and centrist endorsements including Bill Clinton, insisted experience matters, saying: “Experience, competence, knowing how to do the job, knowing how to deal with Trump, knowing how to deal with Washington, knowing how to deal with the state legislature, these are basics. I believe in on-the-job training, but not as the mayor of New York.”

But Trip Yang, a political strategist, said “experience” isn’t necessarily a game changer in this political era. And whether or not Mamdani wins, Mr Yang believes his campaign has done “the unthinkable.”

“Zohran is powered by tens of thousands of volunteers, hundreds of thousands of unique donors. It’s very rare to see a local Democratic primary New York campaign with this much amount of volunteer and grassroots excitement,” he said.

“He understand us. He belong to us. He’s from our community, you know, the immigrant community,” added supporter Lokmani Rai.

At a recent Mamdani campaign event at a park in Jackson Heights, one of the most diverse communities in the country, children ran and played on swings, as Latino food vendors sold ice cream and snacks.

In many ways, the scene perfectly captured the city’s diversity – what many Democrats consider New York’s greatest asset. But the city is not without its racial and political tensions. Mamdani said he’s received Islamophobic threats daily, some targeting his family. According to police, a hate-crimes investigation into the threats is underway.

He told the BBC that racism is indicative of what’s broken in US politics and criticised a Democratic Party “that allowed for Donald Trump to be re-elected” and fails to stand up for working people “no matter who they were or where they came from”.

The candidates’ stances on the Israel-Gaza war was also likely on voters’ minds.

Mamdani’s strong support of Palestinians and staunch criticism of Israel goes further than most of the Democratic establishment. The assemblyman introduced a bill to end the tax-exempt status of New York charities with ties to Israeli settlements that violate international human rights law.

He has also said he believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, is an apartheid state, and that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested. Israel vehemently rejects accusations of genocide and apartheid.

Mamdani has been pressed numerous times by press in interviews to state whether he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. In a response this month, he said: “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else, I think that in the way that we have in this country, equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That’s my belief.” Israel says all religions have equal rights under the law.

Mamdani has also said he accepts Israel’s right to exist as a state, telling the Late Show on Monday that “like all nations, I believe it has a right to exist and a responsibility also to uphold international law”.

Mamdani has also said that there is no room for antisemitism in New York City, adding that if he were elected, he would increase funding to combat hate crimes.

Cuomo, on the other hand, has described himself as a “hyper supporter of Israel and proud of it”.

In many ways the issues facing New York Democrats are the same ones the party faces in future elections, and afterwards, the primary may be dissected nationally for what it says about the party – and how it should take on Trump.

“Did you know I can run 100 metres in 19 seconds?”

Rod Stewart, Rod Stewart, is boasting about his physical prowess. And why not?

At the age of 80, he’s still cavorting around the world, playing sold out shows, recording new music and even writing a book about his beloved model train set.

This weekend, he’ll play the coveted “legends” slot on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage… although the former headliner isn’t 100% happy about his billing.

“I just wish they wouldn’t call it the tea time slot,” he complains.

“That sounds like pipe and slippers, doesn’t it?”

He’s also persuaded organisers to extend his set, securing an hour-and-a-half slot after initially being offered 75 minutes.

“Usually I do well over two hours so there’s still a load of songs we won’t be able to do,” he says.

“But we’ve been working at it. I’m not gonna make any announcements between songs. I’ll do one number, shout ‘next’, and go straight into the next one.

“I’m going to get in as many songs I can.”

It’s not like he’s short of choice. Sir Rod has one of the all-time classic songbooks, from early hits with the Faces such as Stay With Me and Ooh La La, to his solo breakthrough with Maggie May, the slick pop of Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? and his reinvention as a crooner on songs like Downtown Train and Have I Told You Lately.

The last time he played Glastonbury, in 2002, he was viewed as an interloper – sitting awkwardly on the bill beside the likes of The White Stripes, Coldplay and Orbital.

At first, “the crowd was wary” of the musician, who “looked to be taking himself too seriously”, said the BBC’s Ian Youngs in a review of the show.

But a peerless setlist of singalongs won them over. By the end of the night, 100,000 people were swaying in time to Sailing as if they were genuinely adrift on the surging tides of the Atlantic.

Amazingly, Rod has no memory of it.

“I don’t remember a thing,” he confesses. “I do so many concerts, they all blend into one.”

• Glastonbury Festival: Five newcomers you don’t want to miss
• Glastonbury: Full line-up and stage times
• The secret sets that could take place at Glastonbury

One particular show does stand out, though. On New Year’s Eve 1994, Sir Rod played a free gig on Brazil’s Copacabana Beach, drawing a crowd of more than three million people.

But it wasn’t the record-breaking audience that made it memorable.

“I was violently sick about an hour before I was supposed to go on,” he confesses.

“I’d eaten something terrible, and I was in a toilet going, ‘huerrrgurkurkbleaggggh’

“I didn’t think I was going to make it but luckily they got a doctor to sort me out.”

We’re talking to the star about a month before Glastonbury at the Devonshire, a relaxed, old-school boozer just off Picadilly Circus that’s become the favoured haunt of everyone from Ed Sheeran to U2.

It’s a bit too early for a drink, though, so Sir Rod orders up a venti coffee, shooing away an over-eager assistant who attempts to stir in his sugar.

He’s dressed in a cream jacket and black jeans, which sit above the ankle to show off his box-fresh, zebra-striped trainers. His white shirt is unbuttoned far enough to display a diamond-encrusted necklace with the crest of his beloved football club, Celtic.

And then there’s the hair. A bleached blonde vista of windswept spikes, so famous that it earned a whole chapter in the singer’s autobiography.

Steve Marriott of The Small Faces once claimed that Sir Rod achieved this gravity-defying barnet by rubbing mayonnaise into his scalp, then rubbing it with a towel.

This, says the musician, is utter “bollocks”.

“Nah, nah, nah. I used to use sugared hot water, before the days of hair lacquer. And I couldn’t afford hair lacquer, anyway.”

But what really sets Sir Rod apart is that voice.

Raspy, soulful, raw and expressive, he’s one of rock and roll’s best interpretive singers. There’s a reason why his covers of Cat Steven’s First Cut Is The Deepest or Crazy Horse’s I Don’t Wanna Talk About It have eclipsed the originals.

So it’s a surprise to learn that he was discovered not for his vocals, but his harmonica skills.

That fateful night in 1964, he’d been at a gig on Twickenham’s Eel Pie Island, and was drunkenly playing the riff from Holwin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightnin’ while he waited for the train home, when he was overheard by influential blues musician Long John Baldry.

“As he described it, he was walking along platform nine when he noticed this pile of rubble and clothes with a nose pointing out,” Sir Rod recalls.

“And that was me playing harmonica.”

At the time, he “wasn’t so sure” about his singing voice. But, with Baldry’s encouragement, he started to develop his signature sound.

“I wanted to always sound like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, so that’s the way I went,” he says. “I suppose I was trying to be different from anybody else.”

Sir Rod began his ascent to stardom with the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces, a boisterous blues-rock outfit heavily inspired by the Rolling Stones – both on and off the stage.

They were regularly so drunk he’d forget the words to his own songs, he admits. In the US, the group received a 40-year ban from the Holiday Inn hotel chain after racking up a $11,000 bill (£8,000 – or £54,000 in 2025 money) for trashing their rooms.

“We only did it because the Holiday Inns would treat us so badly, like we were the scum of the earth,” he says.

“So we’d get our own back by smashing the hotels up. One time we actually got a couple of spoons and chiselled through the walls to one another’s rooms.

“But we used to book in as Fleetwood Mac, so they’d get the blame.”

How come he never succumbed to drink and drugs, like many of his contemporaries?

“I never was a really druggy person, because I played football all the time and I had to be match fit,” he says.

“I would use the word dabble. I’ve dabbled in drugs, but not anymore.”

Perhaps a more destructive force was the singer’s womanising.

He wrote You’re In My Heart for Bond girl Britt Ekland, but they split two years later, due to his persistent unfaithfulness.

His marriage to Alana Stewart and relationship with model Kelly Emberg ended the same way.

“When it came to beautiful women, I was a tireless seeker of experiences,” he wrote in his memoir.

“I didn’t know how to resist. And also… I thought I could get away with it.”

He thought he’d settled down after marrying model Rachel Hunter in 1990, but she left him nine years later, saying she felt she had “lost her identity” in the relationship.

The split hit Sir Rod hard.

“I felt cold all the time,” he said. “I took to lying on the sofa in the day, with a blanket over me and holding a hot water bottle against my chest.

“I knew then why they call it heartbroken: You can feel it in your heart. I was distracted, almost to the point of madness.”

However, since 2007, the star has been happily married to TV presenter / police constable Penny Lancaster, with the couple reportedly renewing their vows in 2023.

Last week, they celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary with a trip on the Orient Express from Paris, where they met in 2005, to La Cervara in Portofino, where they held their wedding ceremony, in a medieval monastery.

These days, Sir Rod says, family is his priority.

“I’ve got eight kids all together, so sometimes I’ll wake up in the morning and see all these messages, Stewart, Stewart, Stewart, Stewart… and it’s all the kids. It’s just gorgeous.”

His youngest, Aiden, is now 14, and becoming an historian of his dad’s work.

“He’s gone back and listened to everything I’ve done, bless him,” says the star. “He knows songs that I don’t even remember recording!”

His Glastonbury appearance coincides with the release of a new greatest hits album – his 20th. (“Is it really?” gasps Sir Rod. “Oh “)

So how does it feel to look back over those five decades of music?

“Oh, it’s tremendous,” he says. “It’s a feeling that you’ve done what you set out to do.

“I don’t consider myself a particularly good songwriter,” he adds. “I struggle with it. It takes me ages to write a set of lyrics.

“So I don’t think I’m a natural songwriter. I’m just a storyteller, that’s all. A humble storyteller.”

Maybe – but this humble storyteller is going to draw a crowd of thousands when he plays the Pyramid Stage on Sunday afternoon.

“You know, it’s wonderful,” he concedes. “I’ll be in good voice. I’ll enjoy myself. I don’t care anymore what the critics think.

“I’m there to entertain my people.”

A Russian warship disguised itself using a fake ID signal while travelling through the English Channel with two sanctioned oil tankers, a BBC Verify investigation has found.

The Boikiy – a corvette armed with guided missiles – broadcast the fake ID code as it passed through the Channel on Saturday.

On tracking sites it wrongly appeared as ships which have previously used that ID. BBC Verify matched the ID to the Boikiy by using satellite imagery, tracking data and a video of it passing under a bridge in Denmark.

It travelled alongside two vessels known to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – a network of tankers whose ownership can be obscured and are used to transport sanctioned oil products.

BBC Verify has approached the Russian embassy in London for comment. But experts told BBC Verify that recent Western moves against the shadow fleet may have prompted Moscow to use its military to protect the tankers.

Last month, a Russian Su-35 fighter jet flew past a shadow fleet vessel and entered Estonian airspace after the country attempted to intercept the ship, which was suspected of carrying sanctioned oil.

“The action seems designed to deter the UK and other Nato states from attempting to board and, or, seize these vessels, since the presence of a military escort heightens the risk of confrontation and further escalation,” Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses, said.

Attention was first drawn to the Boikiy on social media by independent open-source intelligence analyst Christian Panton on Bluesky.

The ship is known to have left West Africa in June, where it was taking part in a diplomatic mission. Photos posted online showed the ship docked in Guinea’s capital, Conakry.

The corvette left port without activating its Automatic Identification System (AIS). All ships are expected to broadcast the signal, though military vessels often sail without it.

However, a vessel travelling under the generic identification number 400000000 – a code sometimes used by vessels who want to alert others to their presence for safety reasons without identifying themselves – was seen briefly near the Canary Islands.

The location is consistent with the time it could have taken the Boikiy to travel the 200km from Conakry. Satellite imagery reviewed by BBC Verify showed a 100m-long ship, matching the dimensions of the Boikiy and distinguishing it from other vessels which had used the ID.

Frederik Van Lokeren – an analyst and ex-lieutenant in the Belgian navy – noted that the Boikiy’s actions were unusual for a Russian naval vessel.

“Normally, if the Russians want to remain hidden in secret, they just turn off their AIS signal,” he said. “So for them to be camouflaging as something else… it’s very, very uncommon.”

• Russian warship tracked near British waters
• UK to announce fresh sanctions on Putin’s ‘shadow fleet’
• Germany says Russian ‘shadow’ ship stuck in Baltic Sea

The Boikiy was later joined by two oil tankers which had made their way from India through the Suez Canal and across the Mediterranean – the Sierra and the Naxos. Both ships have been sanctioned by the UK.

The three vessels all met at the mouth of the Channel on 20 June. Here, the Russian naval vessel appeared again in radar-based and optical satellite images, allowing us to confirm once again that it was a size and shape which matched the Boikiy.

The Naxos had reached the entrance to the Channel several days earlier than the other ships, and waited for the warship before proceeding into the channel.

A UK defence ministry source confirmed to BBC Verify that the Royal Navy shadowed the Boikiy as it passed through the Channel.

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify appeared to show a ship tailing the Boikiy as it transited through the waterway, but we cannot confirm that this is the Royal Navy ship.

All three vessels proceeded towards the Baltic Sea, where the Boikiy – still travelling under the fake AIS marker – was recorded passing underneath the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark.

Webcam footage showed the vessel clearly for the first time as a naval vessel.

Its unclear where the vessels are bound for, though all three have continued sailing through the Baltic and may be moving towards ports in mainland Russia or Kaliningrad – an exclave between Poland and Lithuania.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

A quarter of a century after their land was seized during a chaotic land reform programme that made global headlines, a small group of white Zimbabwean farmers have accepted a controversial compensation deal from the government.

Once the backbone of the country’s agricultural sector, many of them are now elderly, visibly frail, battling illness and financially desperate.

“I believe this is the only opportunity. We can’t wait 10 years for another deal, ” 71-year-old Arthur Baisley told the BBC.

Still recuperating from back surgery, Mr Baisley was among those who arrived earlier this year at a conference room in the capital, Harare – some aided by walking sticks and walking frames – to discuss the deal.

The catch is that these farmers have now been paid only 1% of their total compensation in cash – the rest is being issued as US dollar-denominated treasury bonds that mature in 10 years – with 2% interest paid twice a year.

The land reform programme, sparked by the invasion of white-owned farms around the country by supporters of the late Robert Mugabe, was launched in 2000 by the then president, who was desperate to shore up political support at the time when Zimbabwe had about 2,500 white farmers owning 4,000 farms – half of the country’s best farmland.

The seizures became Africa’s biggest modern-day land revolution, and was meant to redress colonial-era land grabs, when black people were forced to leave their land. But it set the country on a collision path with Western nations – economic sanctions followed, companies exited and the economy collapsed.

This compensation deal has been pushed by Mugabe’s successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is keen to mend fences. The money being given to the farmers, as stipulated by the constitution, is for infrastructure and improvements to the land – like buildings and dams, not the value of the land itself, which Zimbabwe’s government insists was illegally seized from the country’s original inhabitants.

Overall this is estimated to total $3.5bn (£2.6bn). However, the recent cash pay-out totalled just $3.1m for 378 farms.

Mr Baisley said it was not the best deal but was reasonably fair – and his decision to accept it has come with the realisation that the takeovers cannot be undone.

“It was difficult for my family in the beginning but life goes on, you have to move on,” he said, adding that he would start selling some of the bonds immediately to offset medical bills and to care for his sickly parents.

It is a significant shift, a softening of hard lines previously drawn by both sides.

Mugabe used to pound the lectern at party rallies saying the white farmers should go to the UK, the former colonial power, for their compensation – although quietly he was paying out select farmers.

The white farmers meanwhile had insisted on a $10bn full cash settlement. Both sides have settled on the $3.5bn figure.

However, unlike Mr Baisley, the majority of white farmers are holding out for a deal which would see all the cash paid upfront.

Deon Theron, who in 2008 was forced off the farm he had bought after independence, leads more than 1,000 farmers who have rejected the offer.

Boxes of his possessions, hastily packed during his departure, still fill the veranda of his Harare home where he told me the deal was not fair as there was no guarantee that the bonds would be honoured in 10 years’ time.

The 71-year-old said it was clear that the government did not have the money – and he wanted to see the international community, including the UK, help with negotiations as the government was refusing to budge, or even meet the dissenting group.

“The British can’t go and sit in the pavilion and watch what’s happening because they are part of it. They are linked with our history. They can’t walk away from it,” he told the BBC.

In an agreement brokered in the run-up to independence, the UK was to support land reform financially – but it floundered towards the end of the 1990s when the Labour government came to power and relations soured.

The need to re-engage Britain on the compensation was the battle cry of many of the war veterans who led the farm invasions. They had fought in the 1970s war against white-minority rule – and felt let down by the slow pace of land reform following independence.

But like the white farmers, the war veterans are also split over the government’s handling of the compensation.

One faction is suing the government for “clandestinely” agreeing to pay $3.5bn in compensation, saying the offer should have been agreed in parliament.

One of its leaders, Godfrey Gurira, said that given the myriad economic challenges cash-strapped Zimbabwe faced, it should not have prioritised white farmers.

“It’s such a colossal amount… for a nation of our size. People are suffering they can hardly make ends meet, the hospitals have nothing, then we have the luxury to pay $3.5bn. In our opinion it’s an unnecessary act of appeasement,” he told the BBC.

A second lawsuit challenges an aspect of a new land policy that demands that new farmers pay for the land in order to obtain title deeds to own the land outright.

In the wake of the redistribution, the 250,000 people who replaced the 2,500 white farmers were only entitled to 99-year leases. However this meant it was near-impossible for them to get bank loans as their security of tenure was not guaranteed.

Last year, the government said farmers could apply to own their land outright – with title deeds – but they needed to pay between $100 and $500 per hectare (2.47 acres).

That money will go towards the compensation deal to white farmers, according to the government.

Those challenging this say forcing black farmers to effectively buy back the land contradicts the law.

And the black farmers themselves are divided over the issue.

The land reform programme has had mixed results. Many new farmers did not have the skills, the finances and labour to farm successfully. But the country’s agricultural sector is now rebounding with pockets of successful farmers.

In 2002, Solomon Ganye arrived on a bicycle to receive a 20-hectare bare piece of land in Harare South.

It was part of the sprawling 2,700-hectare farm that had been divided among 77 people.

He found the initial years a struggle – suffering from a lack of finances and climate shocks. But slowly through Chinese money ploughed into the tobacco sector, and after handing the business over to his sons – both agriculture graduates in their 20s – things have improved.

They have built an enviable enterprise with 200 permanent workers, and have expanded into dairy and livestock farming. They are applying for the title deeds of their land and have even acquired more in recent years from the government.

Aaron Ganye, his oldest son, told the BBC that without the land reform programme, his family would probably not have been able to buy a farm because in the past the structure of ownership saw vast tracts of land being held by a single family.

“I’m very happy because to be honest we’ve taken farming to another level because now we’re living a good life through farming. We’re doing more than what the white guys were doing in terms of quality of tobacco and the leaf is good,” the 25-year-old said proudly.

“We’ve invested in technology. It’s not easy. I’m now motivating more farmers to do good work here,” he said.

He does believe that new farmers should contribute to compensation payments but based on the value of infrastructure they inherited.

On the political front, tensions are also easing – and the UK government no longer has any Zimbabwean on its sanction list having recently delisted four military and government officials it had accused of human rights abuses.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told the BBC this was because they were no longer in the positions they held at the time they were added to the list in 2021.

Nonetheless, it is a significant development, marking the end of more than 20 years of sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The country now hopes that the farmers’ compensation issue can be properly sorted out to get Western support for ongoing talks on restructuring its massive foreign debt.

There is no question that 25 years on, calm has returned to almost all farming fronts.

Agriculture is rebounding, this year farmers have sold over 300,000 tonnes of tobacco at auction – the highest tobacco production ever.

But compromise is needed on all sides for the country to fully jump over the hurdle of land reform and its fallout.

• How a self-styled knight giving away cars and wads of cash got people talking
• I cannot forgive Mugabe’s soldiers – massacre survivor
• Is Zimbabwe extending an olive branch to its white farmers?

Oil prices have hit their lowest in two weeks after Israel agreed to US President Donald Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire with Iran.

But business leaders at a key economic meeting in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin find themselves troubled by the state of the global economy, and the prospect for meaningful growth.

The rapid escalation of the conflict between Iran and Israel – which has now pulled in the United States – temporarily replaced trade, tariffs and inflation at the top of a long list of concerns with far-reaching consequences.

“It is the most complex geopolitical and geo-economic backdrop we’ve seen in decades,” Borge Brende, president and chief executive of the World Economic Forum (WEF), said ahead of the summit, dubbed the “Summer Davos”.

“If we are not able to revive growth again, we can unfortunately see a decade of lower growth.”

WEF has long been a symbol of the merits of free trade and a globalised world – but Trump’s tariff wars have upended supply chains and the ability of businesses to plan for the future.

“We live in an environment of radical uncertainty,” says Jeffry Frieden, professor of international and public affairs and political science at Columbia University.

“Businesses have to figure out what has happened over the past several years as we come to the end of an era, in my view, of international economic and political affairs and move into a new era.”

Geopolitical risks have significant implications for the global economy.

Higher oil prices can push up the operational costs of energy for goods producers – and at some point, those additional costs may be passed onto the consumer.

People may in turn hold back on spending, as increased prices dampen demand. If inflation remains high, central banks will be reluctant to bring down interest rates.

Geopolitical tensions can also lead to losses as the result of other factors, such as the rerouting of flights and disruption to tourism activities.

Investors can get rattled by uncertainty, leading to sell-offs on the market and a rush for safe haven assets like gold and the US dollar.

Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s most critical transit routes, through which roughly a quarter of the world’s global oil supply passes – would leave China especially vulnerable. It is estimated that Beijing imports 90% of the oil Iran sells.

Chris Torrens, head of China at advisory and advocacy firm APCO, points out that some of the country’s bigger machinery sectors, including the new high technology industries that Beijing is trying to support, still rely on oil.

“So anything that disrupts that oil supply is going to be a worry to Beijing,” he says.

The WEF event comes at a critical moment for China’s economy, which has for years struggled from a protracted property crisis, high unemployment and sluggish domestic spending.

Beijing has unveiled a string of measures to try to stimulate the economy.

Until now, China is still achieving its official growth target of around 5%, and economists say the country could account for almost 30% of global growth this year.

Mr Torrens says Chinese officials detect an opportunity, and suggests that in a sense the country is opening its doors through the WEF event.

“I think the US is giving China a massive PR opportunity to portray itself as a champion of globalisation,” he says. “To say that China is a bastion of free trade is still a work in progress, because there are still market access issues. But China is certainly keen to play its part and step up as a regional and a global player.”

With Trump’s trade war now threatening exports from the manufacturing powerhouse, Beijing is looking to emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) as potential sources of growth.

“Trade has been an important engine of growth for the last decade or two, but it’s clear that certain technologies have a huge potential to help us with new sources of growth and competitiveness,” said Mirek Dusek, managing director at WEF.

Accounting firm PwC says AI could boost global growth by 15% by 2035.

At the WEF event, though, tariffs are never far from the minds of business leaders, as they try to make alliances and navigate an uncertain economic environment.

In the coming weeks, Trump’s pauses on his hefty reciprocal levies are due to expire. And there’s little certainty as to how the global business landscape might look after that.

“It’s very difficult for businesses to make long term plans,” Mr Frieden explains. “If you don’t know what the level of tariffs on your goods are, you can ‘t figure out if it makes sense to relocate in the US or keep your activities overseas – whether you’re an American corporation, or a non-American corporation.”

Demand for so-called “fast tech” – cheap electronic items often quickly binned or abandoned in drawers – is growing, a not-for-profit that works to reduce electronic waste has warned.

Material Focus singled out heatwave-fuelled demand for battery powered mini-fans as an example of the problem, suggesting over seven million were purchased last year.

Nearly £8m was spent on light-up toilet seats, mini karaoke machines and LED balloons, the group’s calculations also suggested.

Overall, consumer spending on fast tech has quadrupled to £11.6bn since 2023, surveys carried out for Material Focus suggested.

The boom could be as rapid as the growth in fast fashion with a “similar negative impact”, Professor Cathrine Jansson-Boyd wrote in the announcement of the findings.

Although fast tech can cost less than a pound, valuable materials can still be locked up in the cut-price gadgets.

A previous report by Material Focus looking at tech lurking in so-called “drawers of doom” suggested in total the junk could contain over 38,000 tonnes of copper.

The mining of materials used by tech gadgets can be environmentally damaging, and yet, experts say, such elements will be crucial as nations seek to transition to low carbon technologies.

Material Focus, whose board includes trade bodies representing manufacturers of domestic appliances, and lighting manufactures, argued that consumers needed to be more thoughtful,

“We had fast food, then fast fashion, now fast tech”, Scott Butler, the group’s executive director wrote.

He urged consumers to “think before you buy your latest fast tech item, and if you do really need it”.

Unwanted tech should always be recycled, Mr Butler argued. However, surveys carried out for the group suggest that over half of fast tech ends up in the bin or unused.

Joe Iles of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation which promotes the idea of a “circular economy” based on reuse and recycling said the charity believed the problem of fast tech could be fixed.

“It’s easy to think of these patterns of rapid use, disposal as inevitable, but they’re a recent symptom that has accelerated in the past 50 years or so”, he told the BBC.

There was already a booming market for some durable, reused, and refurbished electronics, he added.

And policy tools such as Right to Repair and Extended Producer Responsibility could encourage better design, as well as new practices in collection, repair, and resale, he said.

Others highlight how goods need to be manufactured in a way that helps consumers make sustainable choices.

Laura Burley, plastics campaign lead at Greenpeace UK told the BBC that the combination of plastic and electrical components made fast tech “a toxic cocktail that is very hard to recycle”.

The fact that so much cheap tech is not built to be repaired or to last exacerbated the problem she said.

When plastic and electronic waste is thrown away it often ends up being dumped on poorer countries.

The solution was “a circular economy where producers are responsible for the full life cycle of their products, and incentivised to make them easier to repair”.

Consumers could help by not buying fast tech – “manual fans or an open window work just as well” she noted.

Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world’s top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.

A labrador-sized dinosaur was wrongly categorised when it was found and is actually a new species, scientists have discovered.

Its new name is Enigmacursor – meaning puzzling runner – and it lived about 150 million years ago, running around the feet of famous giants like the Stegosaurus.

It was originally classified as a Nanosaurus but scientists now conclude it is a different animal.

On Thursday it will become the first new dinosaur to go on display at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London since 2014.

BBC News went behind the scenes to see the dinosaur before it will be revealed to the public.

The discovery promises to shed light on the evolutionary history that saw early small dinosaurs become very large and “bizarre” animals, according to Professor Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the museum.

When we visit, the designer of a special glass display case for the Enigmacursor is making last-minute checks.

The dinosaur’s new home is a balcony in the museum’s impressive Earth Hall. Below it is Sophie the Stegosaurus who also lived in the Morrison Formation in the Western United States.

Enigmacursor is tiny by comparison. At 64 cm tall and 180 cm long it is about the height of a labrador, but with much bigger feet and a tail that was “probably longer than the rest of the dinosaur,” says Professor Susannah Maidment.

“It also had a relatively small head, so it was probably not the brightest,” she adds, adding that it was probably a teenager when it died.

With the fossilised remains of its bones in their hands, conservators Lu Allington-Jones and Kieran Miles expertly assemble the skeleton on to a metal frame.

“I don’t want to damage it at this stage before its revealed to everybody,” says Ms Allington-Jones, head of conservation.

“Here you can see the solid dense hips showing you it was a fast-running dinosaur. But the front arms are much smaller and off the ground – perhaps it used them to shovel plants in its mouth with hands,” says Mr Miles.

It was clues in the bones that led scientists at NHM to conclude the creature was a new species.

“When we’re trying to identify if something is a new species, we’re looking for small differences with all of the other closely-related dinosaurs. The leg bones are really important in this one,” says Prof Maidment, holding the right hind limb of the Enigmacursor.

When the dinosaur was donated to the museum it was named Nanosaurus, like many other small dinosaurs named since the 1870s.

But the scientists suspected that categorisation was false.

To find out more, they travelled to the United States with scans of the skeleton and detailed photographs to see the original Nanosaurus that is considered the archtype specimen.

“But it didn’t have any bones. It’s just a rock with some impressions of bone in it. It could be any number of dinosaurs,” Professor Maidment said.

In contrast, the NHM’s specimen was a sophisticated and near-to-complete skeleton with unique features including its leg bones.

Untangling this mystery around the names and categorisation is essential, the palaeontologists say.

“It’s absolutely foundational to our work to understand how many species we actually have. If we’ve got that wrong, everything else falls apart,” says Prof Maidment.

The scientists have now formally erased the whole category of Nanosaurus.

They believe that other small dinosaur specimens from this period are probably also distinct species.

The discovery should help the scientists understand the diversity of dinosaurs in the Late Jurassic period.

Smaller dinosaurs are “very close to the origins of the large groups of dinosaurs that become much more prominent later on,” says Prof Barrett.

“Specimens like this help fill in some of those gaps in our knowledge, showing us how those changes occur gradually over time,” he adds.

Looking at these early creatures helps them identify “the pressures that finally led to the evolution of their more bizarre, gigantic descendants,” says Prof Barrett.

The scientists are excited to have such a rare complete skeleton of a small dinosaur.

Traditionally, big dinosaur bones have been the biggest prize, so there has been less interest in digging out smaller fossils.

“When you’re looking for those very big dinosaurs, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the smaller ones living alongside them. But now I hope people will keep their eyes close to the ground looking for these little ones,” says Prof Barrett.

The findings about Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae are published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Dozens of people have been hospitalised for heat-related illnesses as the summer’s first major heat wave descends on eastern North America.

More than 150 people fell ill at an outdoor school graduation ceremony in Paterson, New Jersey on Monday, according to US media, as the city’s mayor declared a state of emergency.

In Washington DC, six people needed hospital treatment during a concert by South Korean band ‘Stray Kids’, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.

Heat warnings are in effect from the US Midwest to the East Coast, as well as in parts of Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia in Canada, impacting more than 160 million people through the week.

Further south along the US east coast, dozens in North Carolina sought treatment for heat-related injuries.

Local news media reported at least 41 people – including children – had been hospitalized in central North Carolina.

Local authorities in New Jersey called the illnesses at a pair of graduation ceremonies a “mass casualty” incident due to how many were sickened. It led to some graduation ceremonies being cancelled in the area.

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh declared a state of emergency over the heat, cancelling all recreational activities in the area and opening cooling centres.

Experts warn that the soaring temperatures throughout parts of North America could aggravate the risk of heat-related illness, especially due to high humidity levels.

Compounding the danger is the extended duration of the event, with little nighttime relief – temperatures in some eastern cities may remain above 80F (27C) overnight.

The heatwave arrives less than a week after the official start of summer. Forecasters say several places may experience record highs.

The Mid-Atlantic region is expected to face the most intense conditions by Thursday, followed by the eastern Ohio Valley into Friday. Several consecutive days of oppressive heat in these areas could significantly increase health risks.

• What is the best clothing to keep you cool in a heatwave?
• What science says about staying cool in a heatwave

The US National Weather Service (NWS) has warned people to “take action when you see symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke”.

People are advised to stay out of the sun during the hottest times of day, drink plenty of water, and to check on vulnerable individuals, including the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions.

Although spells of extreme heat affect many parts of North America each summer, this heatwave could surpass June records in places.

In New York, highs on Tuesday may reach 101F (38C) which would equal the highest June temperature ever recorded in the city, dating back to 1966.

Energy companies on the east coast have appealed to customers to conserve power, due to fears of blackouts, as millions crank up their air conditioning units to high.

When he isn’t preaching the word of God, Reverend Joo Yeong-bong is raising dogs for slaughter.

Business is not going well though. In fact, it’s on the brink of becoming illegal.

“Since last summer we’ve been trying to sell our dogs, but the traders just keep hesitating,” Mr Joo, 60, tells the BBC. “Not a single one has shown up.”

In 2024, the South Korean government implemented a nationwide ban on the sale of dog meat for consumption. The landmark legislation, which was passed last January, gives farmers like Mr Joo until February 2027 to shutter their operations and sell off their remaining animals.

But many say that isn’t enough time to phase out an industry which has propped up livelihoods for generations – and that authorities still haven’t come up with adequate safeguards for farmers or the estimated half a million dogs in captivity.

Even those who support the ban, including experts and animal rights advocates, have flagged issues around its enforcement – including the difficulty of rehoming dogs that, having been saved from the kill floor, now face the increasingly likely threat of euthanasia.

Midway through the grace period, dog farmers are finding themselves with hundreds of virtually unsellable animals, farms that can’t be closed, and little means of putting food on the table.

“People are suffering,” says Mr Joo, who is also president of the Korean Association of Edible Dogs, a group representing the industry. “We’re drowning in debt, can’t pay it off, and some can’t even… find new work.

“It’s a hopeless situation.”

Chan-woo has 18 months to get rid of 600 dogs.

After that, the 33-year-old meat farmer – who we agreed to anonymise for fear of backlash – faces a penalty of up to two years in prison.

“Realistically, even just on my farm, I can’t process the number of dogs I have in that time,” he says. “At this point I’ve invested all of my assets [into the farm] – and yet they are not even taking the dogs.”

By “they”, Chan-woo doesn’t just mean the traders and butchers who, prior to the ban, would buy an average of half a dozen dogs per week.

He’s also referring to the animal rights activists and authorities who in his view, having fought so hard to outlaw the dog meat trade, have no clear plan for what to do with the leftover animals – of which there are close to 500,000, according to government estimates.

“They [the authorities] passed the law without any real plan, and now they’re saying they can’t even take the dogs.”

Lee Sangkyung, a campaign manager at Humane World for Animals Korea (Hwak), echoes these concerns.

“Although the dog meat ban has passed, both the government and civic groups are still grappling with how to rescue the remaining dogs,” he says. “One area that still feels lacking is the discussion around the dogs that have been left behind.”

A foreign press spokesperson from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Mafra) told the BBC that if farm owners gave up their dogs, local governments would assume ownership and manage them in shelters.

Rehoming them, however, has proven challenging.

Since weight equals profit in the dog meat industry, farms tend to favour larger breeds. But in South Korea’s highly urbanised society, where many people live in apartment complexes, aspiring pet owners often want the opposite.

There is also a social stigma associated with dogs that come from meat farms, Mr Lee explains, due to concerns of disease and trauma. The issue is further complicated by the fact that many are either pure or mixed tosa-inu, a breed that is classified as “dangerous” in South Korea and requires government approval to keep as a pet.

Meanwhile, rescue shelters are already overcrowded.

This perfect storm of obstacles points to a perverse irony: that countless so-called rescue dogs, with nowhere else to go, now face the prospect of being euthanised.

“It’s just unbelievable,” says Chan-woo.

“Since the law was made according to the demands of these groups, I assumed they had also worked out a solution for the dogs – like they would take responsibility for them. But now I hear that even the animal rights groups say euthanasia is the only option.”

Cho Hee-kyung, head of the Korean Animal Welfare Association, conceded in September 2024 that while rights groups would try to rescue as many animals as possible, there would “be dogs left over”.

“If remaining dogs become ‘lost and abandoned animals’ then it’s heartbreaking but they will be euthanised,” she said.

The government sought to temper these concerns weeks later, saying that euthanising animals was “certainly” not part of their plan.

More recently, Mafra told the BBC it was investing about 6bn Korean won ($4.3m; £3.2m) annually to expand animal shelters and support private facilities, and would offer up to 600,000 Korean won per dog ($450; £324) to farmers who shut their businesses early.

Hwak, however, says they have lobbied Mafra “hard” to have a clear rescue component in its phase-out plan.

They also point out that, while Hwak has rehomed almost 2,800 dogs from South Korean meat farms since 2015, animal welfare charities shouldn’t be expected to absorb the huge number that have proliferated over the years.

Chun Myung-Sun, director of the Office of Veterinary Medical Education at Seoul National University, agrees that the government’s plan for leftover dogs is largely lacking.

“There needs to be a concrete discussion about how to ‘dispose’ of the dogs,” she says.

“Both adoption and euthanasia should be on the table. [But] if we’ve gone to the effort of rescuing dogs from cruel slaughter only to euthanise them, it’s understandable that people would feel heartbroken and angry.”

Some have looked for solutions further afield, sending the animals overseas to more willing adopters in countries like Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2023, a team from Hwak rescued some 200 dogs from a farm in Asan city – all of which have since been sent to Canada and the US.

The former owner of that farm, 74-year-old Yang Jong-tae, told the BBC that as he watched the rescuers loading his dogs into their trucks, he was astonished by the level of compassion they showed.

“When I saw how they handled the animals – like they were handling people, so gently and lovingly – it really moved me,” he said.

“We don’t treat them like that. For us, raising dogs was just a way to make a living. But those people from the animal group treated the dogs like they were individuals with dignity, and that really touched my heart.”

Mr Yang hastened to add, however, that he disapproves of the ban on dog meat farming.

“If dog meat is banned because dogs are animals, then why is it okay to eat other animals like cows, pigs or chicken?” he said. “It’s the same thing. These things exist in nature for people to live on.”

Eating dog is not the same as eating other meats, according to Ms Chun. She points out that dog meat carries more risk from a food safety and hygiene perspective – especially in South Korea, where it has not been integrated into the formal, regulated meat production system.

The meat is also consumed in countries such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, parts of northeastern India and several countries in Africa, according to Humane World for Animals.

But while consumption rates have fluctuated throughout Korea’s history, it has become increasingly taboo in South Korea in recent years.

A government poll from 2024 found only 8% of respondents said they had tried dog meat in the previous 12 months – down from 27% in 2015. About 7% said they would keep eating it up until February 2027, and about 3.3% said they would continue after the ban came into full effect.

Since the ban was announced, 623 of South Korea’s 1,537 dog farms have closed.

“As society and culture have evolved, South Korean society has now made the decision to stop producing dog meat,” Ms Chun says.

And yet for many it remains the cornerstone of an industry on which they’ve built their lives.

Every member of the dog meat trade the BBC spoke to expressed uncertainty about how they would support themselves now that their longtime livelihood has been deemed illegal.

Some say they have resigned themselves to lives of poverty, noting that they were born during the Korean War and knew how to live hungry. Others suggested that the trade could go underground.

Many agree, however, that for younger farmers the crackdown is particularly worrying.

“Young people in this industry are really facing a bleak reality,” Mr Joo says. “Since they can’t sell the dogs, they can’t shut down quickly either. They’re stuck, with no way forward or back.”

Chan-woo recalls that when he started working in the industry a decade ago, at 23, “The perception of dog meat wasn’t that negative”.

“Still,” he adds, “There were some comments from people around me, so even back then I was aware that it wasn’t something I could do for the rest of my life.”

The ban came quicker than he expected – and since its announcement, he says, “Making a living has become incredibly uncertain”.

“All we’re hoping for now is that the grace period can be extended so that the process [of dealing with the remaining dogs] can happen more gradually.”

Many others are hoping for the same. But as the dog meat industry is pulled out from under the feet of those who’ve come to depend upon it, Mr Joo can’t help but speculate on a grim thought: that some farmers may not be able to endure the uncertainty for much longer.

“Right now, people are still holding on, hoping something might change – maybe the grace period will be extended,” he says. “But by 2027, I truly believe something terrible will happen.

“There are so many people whose lives have completely unravelled.”

“An instrument to a musician is way more than an object, it’s more of a companion,” says classical violinist David Lopez Ibanez, whose 18th Century violin was stolen in February.

The instrument, which is worth more than £150,000, was stolen from a north London pub, a moment that Mr Ibanez described as “a musician’s worst nightmare”.

Mr Ibanez, who is a member of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, said the violin was his “voice”.

“It’s the loss and the grief that it takes a while to get over. I don’t think I have got over it yet. You have to search for other tools to try and find your sound back but obviously it was linked to that instrument.”

The violin was produced in Florence in 1740 by renowned instrument maker Lorenzo Carcassi.

It was stolen on the evening of 18 February from The Marquess Tavern on Canonbury Street in Islington, while Mr Ibanez was having dinner with a friend.

Mr Ibanez reported the theft to the Met Police that evening.

“The violin was always right next to me, and then when we were about to leave, it wasn’t,” Mr Ibanez said. “It’s entirely heartbreaking.

“I had it for eight years prior to the theft and it’s seen me grow through college, my first professional auditions, lots of highs and lows, bad moments and good moments.

“An instrument to a musician is way more than an object, it’s more of a companion.

“It comes with you everywhere around the world and it allows you to communicate something greater.

“It becomes your voice really, so aside of the actual monetary value of it, to me it really was priceless.”

Mr Ibanez explained how the violin was bought for him to play by a German businessman, who he said was “an amazing music lover”.

“He’d seen a video of me playing and decided to buy the instrument for me to play, which is very generous of of him,” he added. “That’s the reality of most classical musicians.

“These things are so incredibly valuable it would be very hard to actually own one, so we do rely on these people’s generosity.”

Mr Ibanez said he was still trying to deal with the loss of the instrument.

“I’m still trying my best to to get up there and play music the best way I can, but obviously you have to deal with all that’s inside and all the loss.”

The violin has a unique feature – a small heart-shaped cut-out on the back of the scroll at the top of the instrument.

“If people at home have seen a violin of this description in a pawn shop, in a secondhand shop, wherever, antiques, markets, if they have purchased it, please do the right thing and bring it forward,” Mr Ibanez said.

“But if you have seen it, get in touch with the police.

“The violin has a hole in the shape of a heart in the scroll. That’s a very distinctive feature, it doesn’t come up often, it’s very rare.”

The Met has said it is working hard to try and locate the suspect and has appealed for witnesses.

A US judge has ruled that using books to train artificial intelligence (AI) software is not a violation of US copyright law.

The decision came out of a lawsuit brought last year against AI firm Anthropic by three authors, including best-selling mystery thriller writer Andrea Bartz, who accused it of stealing her work to train its Claude AI model and build a multi-billion dollar business.

In his ruling, Judge William Alsup said Anthropic’s use of the authors’ books was “exceedingly transformative” and therefore allowed under US law.

But he rejected Anthropic’s request to dismiss the case, ruling the firm would have to stand trial over its use of pirated copies to build its library of material.

Bringing the lawsuit alongside Ms Bartz, whose novels include We Were Never Here and The Last Ferry Out, were non-fiction writers Charles Graeber, author of The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder and Kirk Wallace Johnson who wrote The Feather Thief.

Anthropic, a firm backed by Amazon and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, could face up to $150,000 in damages per copyrighted work.

The firm holds more than seven million pirated books in a “central library” according to the judge.

The ruling is among the first to weigh in on a question that is the subject of numerous legal battles across the industry – how Large Language Models (LLMs) can legitimately learn from existing material.

“Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works, not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different,” Judge Alsup wrote.

“If this training process reasonably required making copies within the LLM or otherwise, those copies were engaged in a transformative use,” he said.

He noted that the authors did not claim that the training led to “infringing knockoffs” with replicas of their works being generated for users of the Claude tool.

If they had, he wrote, “this would be a different case”.

Similar legal battles have emerged over the AI industry’s use of other media and content, from journalistic articles to music and video.

This month, Disney and Universal filed a lawsuit against AI image generator Midjourney, accusing it of piracy.

The BBC is also considering legal action over the unauthorised use of its content.

In response to the legal battles, some AI companies have responded by striking deals with creators of the original materials, or their publishers, to license material for use.

Judge Alsup allowed Anthropic’s “fair use” defence, paving the way for future legal judgements.

However, he said Anthropic had violated the authors’ rights by saving pirated copies of their books as part of a “central library of all the books in the world”.

In a statement Anthropic said it was pleased by the judge’s recognition that its use of the works was transformative, but disagreed with the decision to hold a trial about how some of the books were obtained and used.

The company said it remained confident in its case, and was evaluating its options.

A lawyer for the authors declined to comment.

Joy turned to shock for a newlywed couple in Singapore when a thief took off with nearly S$50,000 ($39,083; £28,705) worth of red envelopes from their wedding reception.

The culprit, Lee Yi Wei, who later gambled the money away, was sentenced to a year in prison on Tuesday, and ordered to compensate the couple. His prison term will be extended by 100 days if he is unable to pay the money back.

The 36-year-old used to serve tables at the hotel where the wedding was held and was familiar with its layout, a Singapore court heard.

In many Asian cultures, wedding guests typically give newlyweds money, usually in red envelopes, as a sign of good luck.

These envelopes are usually slotted into large boxes that are placed at a clearly demarcated table that guests will pass by before entering the wedding hall.

Lee, who was not a guest invited to the April wedding, had made off with two such boxes while they were unattended. The wedding organiser made a police report after realising the boxes were missing.

The court heard that Lee swiftly spent a few hundred dollars on clothing and gambled away S$12,200 in just four hours.

He then converted most of his loot into online gambling credits and placed 195 bets with those credits over three days.

By the time he was arrested a few days later, police managed to seize just S$3,000 from him.

In Singapore, the practice of gifting red envelopes to newlyweds has in recent years been shaped by unspoken rules such as how much to give, with some couples seeing it as a way of helping them pay for the wedding.

Online guides, which provide information on how much to give depending on where and when the event is held, are published and updated annually.

In many Asian cultures, red envelopes are also given out to children or younger unmarried relatives during the Lunar New Year.

Eurostar passengers are facing a second day of severe delays after two people died on the railway track in France and then cables were stolen.

The high-speed rail operator has told passengers to cancel or postpone their trips on Wednesday, with a number of services cancelled and delayed on routes serving London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Two people died in separate incidents on the LGV Nord high-speed line between Lille and Paris on Tuesday, closing the line for much of the day.

Eurostar said the disruption from this was already continuing into Wednesday when services were further delayed after cable was stolen on the same railway line near Lille.

The theft, which French media says is of around 600 metres of copper cables, is causing trains to be rerouted, leading to extended journey times.

Routes to and from London are subject to last-minute cancellations and severe delays, Eurostar said.

It added that impacted passengers can change their travel plans for free or request a full refund.

“We’re very sorry for the impact this is having on our customers,” Eurostar said in a statement.

“Our teams are working closely with the French authorities and infrastructure teams to manage the situation and restore services safely.”

The operator says one track has reopened, allowing some trains to run in both directions until full repairs are completed, expected to be around 16:00 BST.

Water is being handed out to passengers onboard delayed trains, and stations are also very busy.

You can also get in touch by following this link

A young left-wing candidate, Zohran Mamdani, is poised to become the Democratic nominee for New York mayor after delivering a stunning political upset.

The 33-year-old democratic socialist declared victory in the party’s primary on Tuesday, defeating his main rival and political veteran Andrew Cuomo who previously served as state governor.

“Tonight we made history,” Mamdani said in his victory speech. If elected, he would be the first Muslim and Indian American to lead the nation’s largest city.

Cuomo, 67, was attempting to pull off a comeback after resigning from office in 2021 over a sexual harassment scandal. He congratulated his opponent for a “really smart and great campaign”.

The primary in staunchly liberal New York is likely to determine who becomes mayor in November’s election.

The contest was being watched as a litmus test for the Democratic Party as it seeks to hone its messaging after election losses last November that saw President Donald Trump’s Republicans win the White House and both chambers in Congress.

Results on Tuesday night showed Mamdani with a commanding lead, but falling short of the 50% threshold needed to win outright.

• Who is Zohran Mamdani?

Cuomo’s concession was unexpected because counting looks likely to continue next week under the ranked choice system, which allowed New Yorkers to pick up to five candidates in order of preference.

The former governor’s loss marks the “biggest upset in modern NYC history,” Trip Yang, a political strategist, told the BBC.

“A massive win for Zohran Mamdani that shows that when Donald Trump is President, New York Democrats want to see their leaders fight with enthusiasm and courage, and that’s what Zohran showed voters.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Cuomo said he was still examining whether he would run in the general election in November on the independent line.

“I said he won the primary election,” Cuomo told the outlet. “I said I wanted to look at the numbers and the ranked-choice voting to decide about what to do in the future, because I’m also on an independent line.”

Cuomo was seen as a moderate and the establishment favourite, known across the country after his governorship during the Covid pandemic.

Mamdani is a millennial outsider who was fairly unknown until recently.

Born in Uganda, his family moved to New York City when he was seven. He has posted one campaign video entirely in Urdu and mixed in Bollywood film clips. In another, he speaks Spanish.

Mamdani’s strong support of Palestinians and criticism of Israel put him at odds with most of the Democratic establishment.

He went viral during his campaign for videos where he talked to New York voters who swung for Trump in the November election.

He asked what issues led them to cast their ballots for the Republican candidate and what it would take for them to swing Democrat.

Mamdani’s platform includes free public buses, universal childcare, freezing rent in subsidised units, and city-run grocery stores – all paid for by new taxes on the rich.

“This is a city where one in four of its people are living in poverty, a city where 500,000 kids go to sleep hungry every night,” he told the BBC at a recent event.

“And ultimately, it’s a city that is in danger of losing that which it makes it so special.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, also democratic socialists, endorsed Mamdani during his campaign.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The British paedophile charged in connection with organising a “mock wedding” to a child in Disneyland Paris is Jacky Jhaj, who was found guilty of sexual activity with two 15-year-olds in 2016, the BBC understands.

Jhaj, 39, has been charged in connection with organising the fake ceremony on Saturday, in which a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl was due to feature as his bride.

He was arrested when police were called on Saturday morning by an actor who said he had been hired by Jhaj to play the father of the bride.

The BBC has previously investigated how Jhaj was able to hire hundreds of children to act as his fawning fans at a fake film premiere in London’s Leicester Square in 2023.

Some of the children, who had been hired from casting agencies, were as young as six.

Teenage girls told the BBC that they had been asked to scream for him and try to touch him, without being told his real identity by the agencies.

Then in June last year, Jhaj was seen giving gifts to children outside dance auditions for another production – he was recognised by a parent who had seen the BBC article.

Two months later, and following the BBC’s further investigation, Jhaj was filmed posing naked in front of a mocked-up BBC News lorry in London which had been set on fire.

For the mock wedding at Disneyland Paris, which was to be filmed by Jhaj’s team, around 100 French extras had been recruited to take part.

The BBC understands that he appeared in front of a judge in Meaux, north-east of Paris, on Monday and was charged with fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, and identity theft and placed in pretrial detention.

Preliminary findings also stated that he had allegedly been “made-up professionally so that his face appeared totally different from his own”, according to the French prosecutor.

Jhaj has been on the sex offenders register since 2016 and has spent time in prison. He is subject to restrictions on his freedoms under the terms of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Since he was released from prison, he has repeatedly staged productions involving children or young people.

BBC News can reveal that some videos of these productions were uploaded to a YouTube account styled as an official performer’s channel.

The account received more than six million views and had over 12 million subscribers.

A video on a different channel included secretly filmed footage of one of the 15-year-old victims he was convicted of sexually exploiting.

Her family has told the BBC that Jhaj “destroyed” her life and said it’s unacceptable that YouTube allowed the video to be watched for entertainment for four years.

Videos of the productions remained on YouTube for years until last September, when the BBC alerted Google, which owns the platform.

It told the BBC at the time that it takes users’ safety seriously, but offered no explanation as to how an account featuring a man with almost no profile or success had 12 million subscribers, or why the videos were not removed.

Over the past two years, the BBC has spoken to videographers, production assistants and technicians who worked on some of the events before they discovered Jhaj’s real identity.

Their records show that the cost of hiring casts and venues has run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The cost of hiring the area in front of the Odeon cinema in London’s Leicester Square, which hosts red carpet events for major Hollywood premieres, would have run into tens of thousands of pounds.

French outlet BFMTV reported that the fake wedding at Disneyland may have cost organisers more than €130,000 (£110,000).

It remains unclear how these elaborate productions have been funded.

The French prosecutor said the Ukrainian girl arrived in France two days before the Disneyland event – but had not been a victim of either physical or sexual violence and had not been “forced to play the role” of a bride.

The prosecutor’s statement also said that Disneyland Paris had been “deceived” and that the organiser had used a fake Latvian ID to hire the venue. Disneyland Paris can be rented by members of the public outside opening hours.

In a statement, the UK’s Metropolitan Police said:

“A 39-year-old man is wanted by the Met Police for breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and a breach of a Sex Offenders’ Register notification requirement.

“We are aware the man has been arrested in France for other matters and officers are in contact with the French authorities.”

One afternoon, as Isabella left school for the day, someone thrust a leaflet into her hand. “Do you want to make money with your beauty?” it asked.

She says a studio looking for models seemed to be targeting teenage pupils in her area in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital.

At 17, with a two-year-old son to support, she desperately needed money, so went along to find out more.

She says when she got there, it was a sexcam studio, run by a couple in a house in a run-down neighbourhood – it had eight rooms decorated like bedrooms.

Studios range from small, low-budget operations to large businesses with individual rooms set up with lights, computers, webcams and an internet connection. Models perform sexual acts which are streamed to viewers around the world, who message them and make requests via intermediaries, also known as monitors.

The next day Isabella, whose real name we are not using, says she started work – even though it is illegal in Colombia for studios to employ webcam models under 18.

She told the BBC World Service there was no written contract detailing how much she would be paid or what her rights were. “They had me streaming without teaching me anything. They said, ’Here’s the camera, let’s go.'”

Isabella says the studio soon suggested she do a livestream from school, so as classmates around her were learning English, she quietly took out her phone and started to film herself at her desk.

She describes how viewers began to ask her to perform specific sexual acts, so she asked her teacher for permission to go to the toilet and, locked in a cubicle, did what the customers had requested.

Her teacher had no idea what was happening, “so I started doing it from other classes”, says Isabella. “I  kept thinking, ‘It’s for my child. I’m doing it for him.’ That gave me the strength.”

The global sexcam industry is booming.

The number of monthly views of webcam platforms globally has more than tripled since 2017, reaching nearly 1.3 billion, in April 2025, according to analytics firm Semrush.

Colombia is now estimated to have more models than any other country – 400,000 – and 12,000 sexcam studios, according to Fenalweb, an organisation representing the country’s adult webcam sector.

These studios film performers and feed the content to global webcam platforms, which broadcast to millions of paying viewers around the world who make requests of models, give tips and buy them gifts.

Many of the models who work in studios do so because they lack privacy, equipment or a stable internet connection at home – often if they’re poor or young and still living with parents.

Performers told the BBC that studios often try to attract people with the promise of making easy money in a country where a third of the population lives in poverty.

• Listen to Colombia’s webcam women on BBC Sounds and watch the documentary on YouTube

Models explained that while some studios are well run and offer performers technical and other support, abuse is rife at unscrupulous operators.

And Colombia’s President, Gustavo Petro, has described studio owners as “slave masters” who trick women and girls, like Isabella, into believing they can earn good money.

The four biggest webcam platforms that stream material from the studios, BongaCams, Chaturbate, LiveJasmin and StripChat, which are based in Europe and the United States, have checks that are supposed to ensure performers are 18 or older. EU and US laws prohibit the distribution of sexually explicit material involving anyone under 18.

But models told the BBC these checks are too easily sidestepped if a studio wants to employ under-age girls.

They say one way of doing this is to “recycle” old accounts of models who are of legal age but no longer perform, and give them to under-age girls.

Isabella says this is how she was able to appear on both Chaturbate and StripChat when she was 17.

“The studio owner said it was no problem that I was under-age,” Isabella, now 18, says.  “She used the account of another woman, and then I started working under that identity.”

Other models the BBC spoke to say they were given fake IDs by studios. One, Keiny, says this enabled her to appear on BongaCams when she was 17.

Milley Achinte, a BongaCams representative in Colombia, told the BBC they do not allow under-18s to perform and they shut accounts that break this rule. She added that the platform checks IDs on a Colombian government website and if a “model contacts us and we are aware that the model left the studio, we give them their password so they can close their account”.

In a statement, Chaturbate said it has “categorically” stopped the use of fake IDs, and models must regularly submit live images of themselves standing next to government-issued photo IDs, which are checked digitally and manually. It said it has “an average of one reviewer to fewer than 10 broadcasters” and any attempt to recycle accounts “would be unsuccessful” because “the age verification process continues as each and every broadcast is constantly reviewed and checked”.

StripChat also sent a statement saying it has a “zero-tolerance policy regarding under-age models” and that performers “must undergo a thorough age verification process”, adding that its in-house moderation team works with third-party verification services to “validate models’ identities”.

It said that recycled accounts cannot be used on its platform, and recent changes to its rules mean that the account holder must be present on every stream. “So, if a model moves to a new account to work independently, the original account tied to them becomes inactive and unusable by the studio.”

LiveJasmin did not respond to the BBC’s requests for comment.

Keiny is now 20 and works from her bedroom at home in Medellín – streaming through another studio which provides a route to big international platforms.

And if it wasn’t for the high-tech equipment – several ring lights, a camera, and a large screen – this could pass for a child’s room. There are about a dozen stuffed animals, pink unicorns and teddy bears.

Viewers “really like it when you look young”, she says.

“Sometimes I think that’s problematic. Some clients ask that you act like an actual child, and that’s not OK.”

She says she got into the business to help her family financially after her parents decided to divorce.

Her father knows what she’s doing and she says he’s supportive.

Looking back, Keiny thinks she was too young when she started at the age of 17, but even so, she isn’t critical of her former employers.

Instead, she believes they helped her into a job which she says now earns her about $2,000 (£1,500) a month – far more than the minimum wage in Colombia, which is about $300 (£225) a month.

“Thanks to this job, I’m helping my mum, my dad, and my sister – my whole family,” she says.

That point of view is echoed by the studios – some of which are keen to demonstrate they look after their performers.

We visited one of the biggest, AJ Studios, where we were introduced to an in-house psychologist, employed to support models’ mental health. We were also shown a spa which offers pedicures, massages, botox and lip fillers at a “discount” or as prizes for “employees of the month” who may be high earners or people who are collaborative and support fellow models.

But as the country’s president has pointed out, not every performer is treated well or makes good money. And the industry is waiting to see if his new labour law will pave the way for tighter regulations.

Models and studios told the BBC that streaming platforms typically take 50% of the fees paid by viewers, studios take 20-30%, and the models get what’s left. This means that if a show makes $100 (£75), the model would usually get between $20 (£15) and $30 (£22). They explained that unscrupulous studios often take much more.

Models say there have been times when they logged on for sessions of up to eight hours and made as little as $5 (£4) – which can happen if a performance doesn’t have many viewers.

Others say they have been pressured into streaming for up to 18 hours without breaks and fined for stopping to eat or go to the toilet.

These accounts are supported by a report from the campaign group Human Rights Watch, published in December 2024. The author, Erin Kilbride, who did additional research on this story for the BBC, found some people were being filmed in cramped, dirty cubicles infested with bedbugs and cockroaches and were being coerced into performing sexual acts they found painful and degrading.

Sofi, a mother-of-two from Medellín, had been a waitress in a nightclub but, fed up with being insulted by customers, moved into webcam modelling.

But the 26-year-old says a studio she worked for pressured her into carrying out painful and degrading sexual acts, including performing with three other girls.

She explains that these requests were made by customers and agreed to by studio monitors – the staff employed to act as intermediaries between models and viewers.

Sofi says she told the studio she didn’t want to perform these acts, “but they said I had no choice”.

“In the end, I had to do it because it was either that, or they would ban my account,” she adds, explaining that means her account would effectively be closed down.

Sofi continues working in webcam studios because she says a typical salary in Colombia would not be enough to support her and her two children. She is now saving to start a law degree.

It’s not just Colombia that is facing these issues, says Erin Kilbride.

She found that between them, the big four streaming platforms also broadcast material from studios in 10 more countries – Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine, and the US.

And she says she identified “gaps in platform policies and protocols that facilitate or exacerbate human rights abuses”.

When we asked platforms about conditions at the studios they stream, Milley Achinte from BongaCams said she is part of a team of eight women who visit some studios in Colombia “making sure that the models are getting paid, that the rooms are clean, that models are not getting violated”.

StripChat and Chaturbate do not visit studios and said they are not direct employers of performers and therefore do not intervene in the terms set between studios and models. But they both told us they are committed to a safe working environment. StripChat also said it expects studios to ensure “respectful and comfortable working conditions”.

BongaCams, StripChat and Chaturbate all said they have teams to intervene if they believe a model is being forced or coerced to do something.

After two months of waking up at 05:00 to juggle webcamming, secondary school, and caring for her son, Isabella says she was eager to receive her first payment.

But after the platform and the studio took their cut, Isabella explains she was paid just 174,000 Colombian pesos ($42; £31) – far less than she expected. She believes that the studio paid her a much lower percentage than agreed and also stole most of her earnings.

The money was a pittance, she says, adding that she used some of it to buy milk and nappies.  “They deceived me.”

Isabella, who is still at school, only worked as a webcam model for a few months before quitting.

The way she says she was treated at such a young age left her deeply traumatised. She couldn’t stop crying, so her mother arranged for her to see a psychologist.

She and six other former employees of the studio have got together to file an official complaint with the state prosecutor’s office. Collectively, they have accused the studio of exploitation of minors, labour exploitation and economic abuse.

“There are video recordings of me still online, under-age,” she says, explaining she feels powerless when it comes to trying to get them removed. “It’s affected me a lot and I don’t want to think about it any more.”

Nato leaders are meeting in The Hague to decide on ramping up defence spending to 5% of their countries’ economic output, following months of pressure from US President Donald Trump.

“For too long, one ally, the United States, carried too much of the burden,” Secretary General Mark Rutte said in opening remarks in which he praised Trump for his leadership. “That changes today.”

The Hague summit has been described by several leaders as historic, and Rutte said decisions made on Wednesday would include continued support for Ukraine while pushing for peace.

Only Spain has rejected the target of spending 3.5% on defence by 2035, with a further 1.5% on related projects.

The US president said on Wednesday it was a “great victory for everybody, I think. We will be equalised shortly, and that’s the way it has to be”.

Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo appeared to double down on his government’s of the 5% target, saying Madrid was making an “enormous effort” to reach a target of 2.1%. “The discussion about the percentage is misguided,” he told Spanish radio.

The Belgian government had also expressed reservations, but Prime Minister Bart de Wever told reporters that while it wouldn’t be easy “3.5% within 10 years is a realistic goal”.

The Hague summit, which began with a dinner on Tuesday night hosted by King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, has been scaled back so Wednesday’s set-piece gathering of leaders was due to last only two and a half hours, with a short communique agreed at the end.

Rutte told Nato leaders that they were meeting at a “dangerous moment”, and that the defence alliance’s guarantee of mutual defence – “an attack on one is an attack on all, sends a powerful message”.

As the leaders gathered for the traditional “family photo”, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez appeared to stand by himself at the far end of the group.

Slovakia has also raised concerns about the big hike in defence spending, but President Peter Pellegrini has indicated that Bratislava will not stand in the way.

Trump’s visit to The Hague was his first trip to a Nato summit since 2019 and he was due to meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines afterwards.

However, the US president was more keen to talk about conflict in the Middle East than the war in Ukraine, when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday.

“He’s got a little difficulty, Zelensky, a nice guy,” said Trump. “I’ve spoken to Putin a lot… he volunteered help on Iran. I said do me a favour, help us on Russia, not Iran.”

• The nine Nato countries that missed their defence spending targets
• Could this be the most significant Nato summit since the Cold War?
• Who’s in Nato and how much do they spend on defence?

The US president had earlier appeared to raise questions about the alliance’s mutual defence guarantee, known as Article Five.

“There’s numerous definitions of Article Five, you know that right?” he told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday.

Mark Rutte later sought to quash concerns about Trump’s comments, insisting that his European colleagues should stop worrying about the US commitment to the Western alliance and focus on investing in defence and supporting Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Nato was as relevant and important now as it had ever been: “We live in a very volatile world and today is about the unity of Nato, showing that strength. We’re bigger than we were before, we’re stronger than we were before.”

A Scottish wingsuit flyer has died during a jump in the Swiss Alps.

British champion Liam Byrne, 24, was critically injured on the Gitschen mountain on Saturday after taking off from 7,874ft (2,400m).

Mr Byrne, from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, featured in a 2024 BBC documentary called The Boy Who Can Fly.

He was described as a very experienced wingsuit flyer – which is a type of skydiving which involves wearing a special suit with webbing to allow mid-air lift – and had completed more than 4,000 jumps during his 10-year flying career.

Mr Byrne had told the documentary: “I think I was about 13 when I said to my dad that I wanted to learn to fly like a bird.”

The skydiving instructor explained: “Even at school I would stare out the window at the seagulls flying and always feeling that sense of envy that they have that freedom to just take off and fly away.

“I do wonder why I love flying so much? Maybe my brain is wired differently to other people’s, maybe I deal with fear differently.

“But I know myself well enough to know that an office job scares me far more than the fear of dying from a base jump or wingsuit flight.”

Mr Byrne said no matter how safe he tried to make the sport, he did think about how much it worried his family.

He told the documentary makers that preparation was key to being safe.

“I’ve spent the last decade training to increase the skills and decrease any risk.

“For me I’m about as far from a reckless adrenaline junkie as you can possibly get.

“Preparation is always been at the heart of all my challenges.

“The more I prepare, the more control I have.”

Mr Byrne took to extreme sports from a young age.

At 12 he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, a peak in Tanzania, Africa, standing at 19,341ft (5,895 metres) high.

That adventure led to dog-sledging through the Arctic, scuba diving and multiple big summit climbs.

By the age of 14 he was a licensed paraglider; at 16 he did his first sky dive and by 18 he was pulling on a wingsuit which he described as a “second skin, letting me move through the air in a controlled way”.

Mr Byrne’s parents, Mike and Gillian, confirmed to BBC Scotland News that their son had died.

A family statement said: “We would like to remember Liam not just for the way he left this world, but for how he lived in it.

“Liam was fearless, not necessarily because he wasn’t afraid but because he refused to let fear hold him back.

“He chased life in a way that most of us only dream of and he soared.

“Skydiving and base jumping was more than just a thrill for Liam – it was freedom.

“It was where he felt most alive.”

The statement added: “Liam was more than just an adventurer. He was a son, brother, grandson, cousin and friend. He was a source of laughter and strength.

“He inspired all of us and made life better with his bold spirit and kind heart.

“We will miss Liam’s wild energy and contagious laugh.

“Though he has now flown beyond our reach, he will always be with us.”

The 2024 BBC documentary featured Mr Byrne’s dad, Mike, a builder and former Royal Marine Commando.

In one emotional scene, he watches his son take off on a training jump and said: “I have buried him 10 times already in my head.”

But Mike goes on to say he knew the joy wingsuit jumping gave Liam.

He added: “He was an amazing kid growing up – anything I suggested he would be up for.

“I was massively inspired by him. I wish I could be more like him.”

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland and the Cantonal Police of Uri said the fatal wingsuit incident was being investigated.

A statement said three wingsuit pilots had jumped shortly before noon on Saturday, and the accident happened shortly afterwards.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) confirmed it was supporting the family of a British man who died in Switzerland.

Over the past year, Dilara’s next-door neighbour has threatened her father with a knife and damaged their property.

Dilara says she also smashed her sister’s car windscreen with a hammer.

“I’m just scared,” says the 17-year-old beauty therapy student, who lives with her family in south London, “it doesn’t feel like a home to me anymore”.

She says she struggled when doing her GCSEs last year as noise from the neighbour kept her awake – and the issue is still affecting her college studies.

“I’m really tired,” she says, adding that sometimes she can’t make it to school because she’s so exhausted.

Sixty-six people have contacted Your Voice, Your BBC News telling us how they have dealt with relentless noise, vandalism, death threats and even physical assaults by neighbours. It comes after we reported on a couple plagued by anti-social behaviour earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the housing ombudsman told us complaints about such issues had doubled over the last five years and authorities needed to work more collaboratively to protect people.

Dilara’s father Ecevit, 50, says when he told their neighbour to turn the music down at 04:00 one morning in January, she came out with a knife.

The incident left him “shaking”. The neighbour was arrested but released on bail and was back home the next day.

The neighbour pleaded guilty to threatening “a person with a blade/sharply pointed article in a public place” and will be sentenced in July. But the anti-social behaviour has continued.

Last month, she allegedly smashed the car windscreen of one of Ecevit’s other daughters. The neighbour has now been charged.

Melissa, 25, who needs the car to get to work, says she was in “shock” when she discovered what had happened.

The family believe their housing association, Wandle, has failed to act over the numerous cases of anti-social behaviour, despite much of it being recorded on cameras.

“What is it going to take for them to actually take action and do something to safeguard us and to protect us? Do they expect her to kill us? How is it not enough?” Melissa asks.

Dilara says the windscreen incident has “really affected” her and that, along with other members of her family, she now suffers with anxiety.

Cihan, 29, the eldest daughter in the family says: “There’s no real action. There’s no real urgency, it’s just brushed under the carpet.”

Anne Waterhouse, chief executive of Wandle, said the housing association was “deeply sorry about the distress caused to the resident enduring this unacceptable level of anti-social behaviour”.

“Our community safety team has been working with the impacted family, the police, the local authority and several external agencies to resolve the serious anti-social behaviour issues being experienced.”

Ms Waterhouse added that Wandle was currently assessing whether the family’s property would “benefit from enhanced security during this difficult time”.

But the family say their neighbour has also been failed by the system.

“It’s also a failure for someone who is clearly very vulnerable and is struggling with their mental health. And you know she deserves all the help that she needs, as well as considering my family’s safety,” Cihan says.

A Met Police spokesperson said the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team was aware of a “pattern of behaviour” and was working to support the family, as well as liaising with housing associations and mental health services.

Exclusive data from the housing ombudsman shows the number of complaints about how social landlords have dealt with anti-social behaviour in England have increased by 119% over four years – from 552 in 2020, to 1,207 in 2024.

The watchdog found many social landlords were failing to protect tenants from anti-social behaviour.

Richard Blakeway, the housing ombudsman for England, says in about “two out of three cases” he looks at involving anti-social behaviour “something has gone wrong”.

“In some of the most serious cases, really losing sight of the issues, losing sight of the victim, and the impact of that is deeply shocking,” he says.

Others contacted us with similar stories – including Cheryl, in Shoreham-by-Sea, who says four years of complaints about her neighbour have resulted in little action from the authorities.

She says loud music, shouting, abuse and other forms of disquiet have made her life a misery.

“I don’t sleep. It’s like sharing a house with these people, and it affects every part of everything. I can’t go out,” she adds. “My routine revolves around them, so I sneak in and out when it’s quiet, because it’s been dangerous if I don’t.”

Cheryl says she installed cameras around her house because she feels unsafe.

Another neighbour of Cheryl says anti-social behaviour is impacting her life too.

They both say they have been let down by the woman’s landlord, Adur & Worthing Councils. Cheryl says she has been told not to contact them anymore, with the council calling her claims “vexatious”.

The council tells us recent complaints from Cheryl are “unfounded” and “hundreds of hours of officer time have been put into understanding the situation and providing support where it is required”. This has led to an “improved situation”, it says.

In a statement, the council cited “two independent ASB [anti-social behaviour] Case Reviews led by two other councils, both of which have supported the actions we have taken in this case.”

The BBC has seen video footage showing multiple instances of shouting, swearing and drinking outside Cheryl’s flat, which is above the woman’s.

We put all of Cheryl’s allegations to her neighbour, who did not want to be interviewed but disputed Cheryl’s claims and said she felt harassed because she was being filmed. She also told us she was vulnerable.

Sussex Police said it had received “multiple reports of anti-social behaviour between neighbours” since 2021. It said a 61-year-old woman had been issued with a Community Protection Notice, and in August 2024 was ordered to complete a community resolution for a public order offence.

In a statement, the force told us it “understands the impacts of anti-social behaviour on victims and all reports are taken seriously”. It said it had “engaged with all parties involved, including the local authority, to identify a satisfactory resolution”.

Cheryl says the impact of living in this situation has been devastating and she has spent time in hospital after a suicide attempt.

“It’s heartbreaking. It doesn’t feel safe, life is hell. It’s horrible. It’s not a way to live.”

Many people who contacted us said they felt ignored by the authorities and isolated as no official body has taken ownership of the issue.

Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations, said persistent anti-social behaviour caused “deep distress” but stressed housing associations treated it seriously.

“Many have dedicated, specialist teams whose role it is to manage such cases, to liaise with victims and alleged perpetrators, and to mediate swift resolutions.”

Mr Blakeway, the housing ombudsman, said there were laws in place to protect people but there could be a “breakdown” in “cooperation between different agencies”.

In many of the cases we have heard about, we were told that people on both sides aren’t getting the support they need.

“Social landlords need more support from mental health services, who will be under their own pressures,” Mr Blakeway said. “But then social landlords themselves also need to recognise that they need to develop skills to handle mental health issues effectively themselves.”

When he isn’t preaching the word of God, Reverend Joo Yeong-bong is raising dogs for slaughter.

Business is not going well though. In fact, it’s on the brink of becoming illegal.

“Since last summer we’ve been trying to sell our dogs, but the traders just keep hesitating,” Mr Joo, 60, tells the BBC. “Not a single one has shown up.”

In 2024, the South Korean government implemented a nationwide ban on the sale of dog meat for consumption. The landmark legislation, which was passed last January, gives farmers like Mr Joo until February 2027 to shutter their operations and sell off their remaining animals.

But many say that isn’t enough time to phase out an industry which has propped up livelihoods for generations – and that authorities still haven’t come up with adequate safeguards for farmers or the estimated half a million dogs in captivity.

Even those who support the ban, including experts and animal rights advocates, have flagged issues around its enforcement – including the difficulty of rehoming dogs that, having been saved from the kill floor, now face the increasingly likely threat of euthanasia.

Midway through the grace period, dog farmers are finding themselves with hundreds of virtually unsellable animals, farms that can’t be closed, and little means of putting food on the table.

“People are suffering,” says Mr Joo, who is also president of the Korean Association of Edible Dogs, a group representing the industry. “We’re drowning in debt, can’t pay it off, and some can’t even… find new work.

“It’s a hopeless situation.”

Chan-woo has 18 months to get rid of 600 dogs.

After that, the 33-year-old meat farmer – who we agreed to anonymise for fear of backlash – faces a penalty of up to two years in prison.

“Realistically, even just on my farm, I can’t process the number of dogs I have in that time,” he says. “At this point I’ve invested all of my assets [into the farm] – and yet they are not even taking the dogs.”

By “they”, Chan-woo doesn’t just mean the traders and butchers who, prior to the ban, would buy an average of half a dozen dogs per week.

He’s also referring to the animal rights activists and authorities who in his view, having fought so hard to outlaw the dog meat trade, have no clear plan for what to do with the leftover animals – of which there are close to 500,000, according to government estimates.

“They [the authorities] passed the law without any real plan, and now they’re saying they can’t even take the dogs.”

Lee Sangkyung, a campaign manager at Humane World for Animals Korea (Hwak), echoes these concerns.

“Although the dog meat ban has passed, both the government and civic groups are still grappling with how to rescue the remaining dogs,” he says. “One area that still feels lacking is the discussion around the dogs that have been left behind.”

A foreign press spokesperson from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Mafra) told the BBC that if farm owners gave up their dogs, local governments would assume ownership and manage them in shelters.

Rehoming them, however, has proven challenging.

Since weight equals profit in the dog meat industry, farms tend to favour larger breeds. But in South Korea’s highly urbanised society, where many people live in apartment complexes, aspiring pet owners often want the opposite.

There is also a social stigma associated with dogs that come from meat farms, Mr Lee explains, due to concerns of disease and trauma. The issue is further complicated by the fact that many are either pure or mixed tosa-inu, a breed that is classified as “dangerous” in South Korea and requires government approval to keep as a pet.

Meanwhile, rescue shelters are already overcrowded.

This perfect storm of obstacles points to a perverse irony: that countless so-called rescue dogs, with nowhere else to go, now face the prospect of being euthanised.

“It’s just unbelievable,” says Chan-woo.

“Since the law was made according to the demands of these groups, I assumed they had also worked out a solution for the dogs – like they would take responsibility for them. But now I hear that even the animal rights groups say euthanasia is the only option.”

Cho Hee-kyung, head of the Korean Animal Welfare Association, conceded in September 2024 that while rights groups would try to rescue as many animals as possible, there would “be dogs left over”.

“If remaining dogs become ‘lost and abandoned animals’ then it’s heartbreaking but they will be euthanised,” she said.

The government sought to temper these concerns weeks later, saying that euthanising animals was “certainly” not part of their plan.

More recently, Mafra told the BBC it was investing about 6bn Korean won ($4.3m; £3.2m) annually to expand animal shelters and support private facilities, and would offer up to 600,000 Korean won per dog ($450; £324) to farmers who shut their businesses early.

Hwak, however, says they have lobbied Mafra “hard” to have a clear rescue component in its phase-out plan.

They also point out that, while Hwak has rehomed almost 2,800 dogs from South Korean meat farms since 2015, animal welfare charities shouldn’t be expected to absorb the huge number that have proliferated over the years.

Chun Myung-Sun, director of the Office of Veterinary Medical Education at Seoul National University, agrees that the government’s plan for leftover dogs is largely lacking.

“There needs to be a concrete discussion about how to ‘dispose’ of the dogs,” she says.

“Both adoption and euthanasia should be on the table. [But] if we’ve gone to the effort of rescuing dogs from cruel slaughter only to euthanise them, it’s understandable that people would feel heartbroken and angry.”

Some have looked for solutions further afield, sending the animals overseas to more willing adopters in countries like Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2023, a team from Hwak rescued some 200 dogs from a farm in Asan city – all of which have since been sent to Canada and the US.

The former owner of that farm, 74-year-old Yang Jong-tae, told the BBC that as he watched the rescuers loading his dogs into their trucks, he was astonished by the level of compassion they showed.

“When I saw how they handled the animals – like they were handling people, so gently and lovingly – it really moved me,” he said.

“We don’t treat them like that. For us, raising dogs was just a way to make a living. But those people from the animal group treated the dogs like they were individuals with dignity, and that really touched my heart.”

Mr Yang hastened to add, however, that he disapproves of the ban on dog meat farming.

“If dog meat is banned because dogs are animals, then why is it okay to eat other animals like cows, pigs or chicken?” he said. “It’s the same thing. These things exist in nature for people to live on.”

Eating dog is not the same as eating other meats, according to Ms Chun. She points out that dog meat carries more risk from a food safety and hygiene perspective – especially in South Korea, where it has not been integrated into the formal, regulated meat production system.

The meat is also consumed in countries such as China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, parts of northeastern India and several countries in Africa, according to Humane World for Animals.

But while consumption rates have fluctuated throughout Korea’s history, it has become increasingly taboo in South Korea in recent years.

A government poll from 2024 found only 8% of respondents said they had tried dog meat in the previous 12 months – down from 27% in 2015. About 7% said they would keep eating it up until February 2027, and about 3.3% said they would continue after the ban came into full effect.

Since the ban was announced, 623 of South Korea’s 1,537 dog farms have closed.

“As society and culture have evolved, South Korean society has now made the decision to stop producing dog meat,” Ms Chun says.

And yet for many it remains the cornerstone of an industry on which they’ve built their lives.

Every member of the dog meat trade the BBC spoke to expressed uncertainty about how they would support themselves now that their longtime livelihood has been deemed illegal.

Some say they have resigned themselves to lives of poverty, noting that they were born during the Korean War and knew how to live hungry. Others suggested that the trade could go underground.

Many agree, however, that for younger farmers the crackdown is particularly worrying.

“Young people in this industry are really facing a bleak reality,” Mr Joo says. “Since they can’t sell the dogs, they can’t shut down quickly either. They’re stuck, with no way forward or back.”

Chan-woo recalls that when he started working in the industry a decade ago, at 23, “The perception of dog meat wasn’t that negative”.

“Still,” he adds, “There were some comments from people around me, so even back then I was aware that it wasn’t something I could do for the rest of my life.”

The ban came quicker than he expected – and since its announcement, he says, “Making a living has become incredibly uncertain”.

“All we’re hoping for now is that the grace period can be extended so that the process [of dealing with the remaining dogs] can happen more gradually.”

Many others are hoping for the same. But as the dog meat industry is pulled out from under the feet of those who’ve come to depend upon it, Mr Joo can’t help but speculate on a grim thought: that some farmers may not be able to endure the uncertainty for much longer.

“Right now, people are still holding on, hoping something might change – maybe the grace period will be extended,” he says. “But by 2027, I truly believe something terrible will happen.

“There are so many people whose lives have completely unravelled.”

The US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the country’s nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months, according to an early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the attack.

The Islamic Republic’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated in Saturday’s bombings, sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

The White House said the “flat-out wrong” assessment was leaked by “a low-level loser in the intelligence community”.

President Donald Trump again declared the nuclear sites in Iran “completely destroyed” and accused the media of “an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history”.

• Live: Follow the latest updates on Iran
• Decoy flights and seven B-2 stealth bombers – how US says it hit Iran’s nuclear sites
• Watch: How successful have the US strikes on Iran been?

The US has 18 intelligence agencies, which sometimes produce conflicting reports based on their mission and area of expertise. For example, the American intelligence community is still not in agreement over the origins of Covid-19.

It is possible future intelligence reports will include more information showing a different level of damage to the facilities.

According to CBS, officials familiar with the report warned it was an early assessment that could change as more information becomes available about the sites. It is also not clear at what confidence level the findings included in the report were made.

The US struck three nuclear facilities in Iran – Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan – with “bunker buster” bombs capable of penetrating 18m (60ft) of concrete or 61m (200ft) of earth before exploding.

But sources familiar with the Pentagon’s intelligence assessment say Iran’s centrifuges are largely “intact” and the impact was limited to above-ground structures.

Entrances to two nuclear facilities were sealed off, and some infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, but much of the facilities, which are deep underground, escaped the brunt of the blasts.

The anonymous sources told US media it is estimated that the attack only set Iran back “a few months, tops”, and that any resumption of its nuclear programme may be based on how long it takes the country to dig out and make repairs.

Sources also confirmed to CBS that some of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was moved before the strikes, according to the intelligence assessment.

The US 30,000lb (14,000kg) Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb was thought to be the only weapon capable of destroying Iran’s underground enrichment facilities.

Tehran has always said its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

In the hours that followed Saturday’s strikes, Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that it would take time to assess the damage to the facilities.

But he added that “all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction”. Satellite images showed six fresh craters clustered around two entry points at the Fordo nuclear sites, as well as grey dust and debris.

It is unclear from the images, however, how much damage the sites sustained below the surface.

Hassan Abedini, the deputy political director of Iran’s state broadcaster, claimed the three sites targeted by the US had been evacuated a “while ago”, and that Iran “didn’t suffer a major blow because the materials had already been taken out”.

US officials, on the other hand, hailed the mission as a success, as have Israeli officials.

In a statement on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said that “based on everything we have seen – and I’ve seen it all – our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons”.

“Anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission,” Hegseth said.

US Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC the Trump administration was using vague terms to declare victory – when it’s still unclear what the bombing mission accomplished.

He added that the administration hasn’t said whether the strikes destroyed Iran’s ability to weaponise its uranium, its uranium-enriching centrifuges or depleted its stockpile, which he said would be enough to create nine nuclear weapons.

“When they say obliterate the programme, they’re not even saying whether it’s obliterated the centrifuges and the ability to create uranium in the future or whether it is obliterating the stockpile,” Sherman told the BBC.

“All indications, including Vice-President Vance’s statement, indicate that we don’t think we got the stockpile,” he said, noting images that show trucks going to one of the facilities days before the strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that since hostilities with Iran began on 13 June, Israel has been successful in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as well as destroying its missiles arsenal.

“We have removed two immediate existential threats to us – the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu said in video remarks issued by his office.

A report in Saudi news outlet Al Hadath, citing an unnamed Israeli source, said that Israel believes most of Iran’s enriched uranium is buried under the rubble.

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on secret nuclear weapons development, said the damage Iran sustained by the US attacks will mean “it will take significant time, investment and energy” for it to restore its nuclear programme.

In a post on X, Albright added that Iran is “under intense scrutiny and observation from the United States and Israel”, and it risks further attacks if it tries to rebuild.

On Monday, Iran retaliated against the US airstrikes by launching a missile attack on Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which is home to thousands of US troops.

That attack was largely intercepted, and no casualties or injuries were reported.

Since Iran’s retaliation, an Iran-Israel ceasefire – brokered by President Trump and Qatari mediators – is in place.

Protesters in Venice are claiming an “enormous victory” after US tech billionaire Jeff Bezos and his wedding guests were forced to “run away” from the city centre, moving their main celebration to another location.

The venues for the three-day party to mark the wedding of one of the world’s richest men to TV presenter Lauren Sanchez were never officially revealed.

But the lavish celebrations were supposed to culminate in an event on Saturday at the sumptuous Scuola Grande della Misericordia.

A local official in Venice has now confirmed to the BBC that the guests will gather instead at the Arsenale, further from the centre.

Activists are triumphant, even as a city councillor denounced their protests as “ridiculous”.

“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari, from a group calling itself No Space for Bezos, told the BBC.

“We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world – all the billionaires – out of the city.”

The wedding kicks off later this week, and has a star-studded guest list of the rich and famous that is rumoured to include Kim Kardashian, Mick Jagger and Leonardo diCaprio, as well as several of the Trumps.

Private jets are expected to jam up Venice airport, with private yachts taking over the harbour; five hotels have been booked out in their entirety and there are reports of former US Marines being hired to provide security.

The A-list mega-event has attracted protest from a variety of groups, from locals fighting over-tourism in Venice to climate change activists and those who oppose Bezos’ support for Donald Trump.

As well as “No Space for Bezos” posters plastered across the city in recent days, there have been protest banners strung from bridges over the canals.

On Monday, activists from a group calling itself Everyone Hates Elon unfurled a giant image of Bezos in Piazza San Marco, protesting against the super-rich with the slogan: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding then you can pay more tax.”

“Our protest isn’t about the wedding itself – it’s about what it represents,” Greenpeace campaigner Simona Abbate, who was there, told the BBC.

“This isn’t just a celebration of two people getting married, it’s a display of a lifestyle that’s simply unsustainable. The richest live in excess, while others endure the consequences of a climate emergency they didn’t create.”

The activists have been heavily criticised by city officials, who argue that such high-rolling visitors are an important source of income.

“These protesters behave as if they own Venice but they don’t,” Simone Venturini, a city councillor for economic development told the BBC. “No one gets to decide who gets married here.”

He said the groups were “a tiny minority” and not representative of the city.

“This event involves just 200 carefully selected guests and will bring major economic benefits to the city,” the local politician said, adding that all events were being hosted in privately-owned venues.

But the issue of over-tourism is a serious one in Venice, as it is across southern Europe, where protesters say locals are being priced out of a beautiful city by too many visitors. Climate change is also putting this city-on-the-water at major risk of flooding.

Local authorities introduced a five-euro daily tourist tax to enter the city but activists say it hasn’t stopped a single person from coming.

With the first wedding guests expected to arrive on Thursday, some activists had been planning to launch themselves into canals near the key venues, along with inflatable alligators. They wanted to try to block the path of the rich and famous, stop their fun – and make their point.

That wet protest has been called-off, but No Space for Bezos still plans to project its feelings onto a city building later this week and on Saturday evening they’re calling on people to join a march in a final show of protest.

“Bezos comes to Venice only for the party, that’s the problem: this vision of Venice not as a city anymore but like a big theme park where you can hire pieces or all of it and just do your private thing,” Tommaso Cacciari said.

“He’s sending the message that all the city is a background for a party of billionaires.”