European allies have rallied behind Ukraine in a renewed surge of support, insisting that any peace talks with Russia must include Kyiv.

A joint statement issued by the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission came ahead of US President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

A White House official has said that Trump is willing to hold a trilateral meeting which would also include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but, for now, it remains a Trump-Putin summit, as initially requested by the Russian leader.

Zelensky has said any agreements without Kyiv will amount to “dead decisions”.

Trump has previously suggested that he could start by meeting only with Putin, telling reporters he planned to “start off with Russia.” But the US president also said that he believed “we have a shot at” organising a trilateral meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.

Whether Putin would agree to this is unclear – he has refused several opportunities to hold direct talks, and the two leaders have not met face-to-face since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Speaking on Friday, Trump also suggested that there “will be some swapping of territories” in order for Moscow and Kyiv to reach an agreement – to which Zelensky reacted strongly.

“We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated,” he said on Telegram. “Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace.”

“The Russians… still impose the idea of ‘exchanging’ Ukrainian territory for Ukrainian territory, with consequences that guarantee nothing but more convenient positions for the Russians to resume the war,” he added defiantly.

CBS, the BBC’s US media partner, has reported that the White House is trying to sway European allies to accept an agreement that would include Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and keeping the Crimean Peninsula.

The European leaders, in their statement released late on Saturday night, stressed that “international borders must not be changed by force”.

“Ukraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny,” they said, stressing that their nations would continue to support Ukraine diplomatically, militarily and financially.

The leaders also said that a “diplomatic solution” is critical, not just to protect Ukraine – but also Europe’s security.

It’s not just Ukraine that is struggling to be part of the Alaska meeting.

European allies are also worried about their lack of influence over the outcome of any agreement that Trump could reach with Putin.

In a post on X on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron raised concerns about Russia and the US excluding European involvement.

“Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake,” he wrote.

On Sunday, Zelensky thanked the allies for their support.

“The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations,” he said.

Europe has taken a tough approach to Moscow – including imposing sanctions against Russian entities and providing military aid for Ukraine.

Zelensky said he told Macron in a phone call on Saturday that the key was to make sure “the Russians do not get to deceive anyone again”.

“We all need a genuine end to the war and reliable security foundations for Ukraine and other European nations,” the Ukrainian leader said.

US diplomacy with Europe and Ukraine fell to Vice-President JD Vance on Saturday, when he visited the UK and held talks with Foreign Secretary David Lammy as well as two of Zelensky’s top aides.

Thanking Vance for the discussions, Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, stressed the need for Ukraine to be included.

“A reliable, lasting peace is only possible with Ukraine at the negotiating table,” he said. “A ceasefire is necessary – but the frontline is not a border.”

The summit in Alaska, the territory which Russia sold to the US in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents, since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

Nine months later, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

In 2022, the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite not having full control over them.

Moscow has failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough in its full-scale invasion, but occupies large swathes of Ukraine’s eastern territory. Ukrainian offensives, meanwhile, have not been able to push the Russian forces back.

Film critics have delivered a verdict: the new version of War of the Worlds – which stars Ice Cube as a man who must save humanity from an alien invasion without leaving his desk – is bad.

But how bad? Is it just “the worst possible adaptation of HG Wells’s work”? Is it “one of the worst movies of the decade so far”? Or might it actually be “one of the worst movies ever made”?

When the reviews started coming in this week, the internet soon took delight in the film’s 0% critic score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

While some gleefully joined in the mauling, others were attracted to the Prime Video film like moths to a flame.

“I feel like I have to watch this now,” wrote The White Lotus actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, who, as the son of Arnold, has perhaps encountered the odd low-ranking movie.

He’s not the only person to feel the lure of a film with savage reviews – some terrible movies have built cult followings for being so bad they’re good.

Lon Harris, executive producer of the This Week in Startups podcast, stoked the conversation this week when he posted: “Dipping below like 5% on Rotten Tomatoes has basically the same appeal to me as breaking 90%.

“That’s some[thing] I need to experience right there.”

A film with a rock bottom rating is bound to be interesting, Harris tells BBC News.

“A very low score indicates universal agreement. This movie is bad. Now I want to know more… Why does everyone agree? Suddenly, I’m intrigued.

“I watch a lot of movies, there’s so much content coming out, and most of it is bland and forgettable.”

Harris was intrigued enough to watch War of the Worlds, and it duly lived down to his expectations.

“It’s very silly, Ice Cube’s solo performance just reacting to things on his laptop screen verges at times on parody and frequently made me laugh, and there’s a whole subplot involving Amazon drone deliveries that’s so on-the-nose it’s almost unbelievable that they included it,” he says.

It’s not a subtle film. Ice Cube’s government surveillance agent must save both the world and his family from afar, as he watches the alien invasion unfold on his computer screen, a set-up explained by the fact it was made during the pandemic.

It had been sitting on the shelf ever since – until now.

Harris adds: “There’s a charm to watching a movie that’s not slick and polished like most other films you see, where you can sort of see the artists’ hands at work trying their best to cover for their budget issues and production setbacks.

“That’s more interesting than just ‘another alien invasion movie’ to me.”

After its initial battering, one critic has now taken pity on War of the Worlds, having enjoyed watching it.

“Is this movie really that bad?” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Jordan Hoffman on Thursday.

“The answer is… absolutely not. It’s certainly stupid, but it’s also a great deal of fun.”

That write-up, which concluded that the “movie is a mess, but an uproarious one”, was deemed positive by Rotten Tomatoes so has nudged the film’s Tomatometer score up from 0% to the giddy heights of 4% at the time of writing.

Truly atrocious movies are preferable to those that are simply forgettable, according to Timon Singh, who set up the Bristol Bad Film Club a decade ago.

“I’ve seen films where the shot is not even in focus, the crew are walking into frame, the actor’s wig has fallen off – and it’s still an incredibly entertaining film,” he says.

Blockbusters can be “bloated” and “boring”, he adds, plucking out 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight as an example.

“In comparison, Samurai Cop is technically a terrible film, but it’s 90 minutes of pure enjoyable terrible acting, awful fight scenes, and once you’ve seen it, you’re never going to forget it.

“Whereas you’ll probably forget Transformers: The Last Knight while you’re watching it.”

Other films to have gained cult followings include 2003’s The Room, once described as “a trash masterpiece” by the Daily Beast.

However, The Room, made by “bad film auteur” Tommy Wiseau, is perversely enjoyable enough to have a relatively respectable 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Katharine Coldiron, author of Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter, says it’s better to watch a film-maker like Wiseau try hard and fall short, rather than someone going through the motions.

“When a film is earnestly made, and it fails, that’s terrific to watch,” she says.

She says her favourite terrible film is 1983’s Staying Alive, the sequel to disco classic Saturday Night Fever, directed by Sylvester Stallone, which was critically panned despite commercial success.

“All but one of the characters is a sociopath, so the movie works on almost no levels. I love to put it on and yell at it.”

Rotten Tomatoes has its own list of the worst films of all time.

It’s skewed to movies from the past 25 years, because those have the most online reviews, and is of course subject to the flaws of the RT scores.

But here are its top five, all of which have 0% critic ratings.

1. Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

A cliché-crammed moody action thriller, slated for it script, acting and fight sequences.

Starring: Lucy Liu is unconvincing as a sort-of-superhero and Antonio Banderas is a grizzled ex-FBI agent.

Sample review: “An ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem, occasionally surfacing for cliches.” Roger Ebert

2. One Missed Call (2008)

A insipid and ridiculous (but competent) remake of a Japanese horror film about teenage friends who get voicemail messages sent by their future selves at their moments of death.

Starring: A random assortment including Shannyn Sossamon, who went on to join US band Warpaint; Meagan Good, now actor Jonathan Majors’ wife; comedian Margaret Cho; future Modern Family star Ariel Winter; and Ray Wise from Twin Peaks.

Sample review: “A brow-furrowing blend of child abuse and adult trauma.” New York Times

3. Left Behind (2014)

A mixture of Hallmark-style schmaltz, Biblical-themed supernatural mystery and aeroplane disaster drama. And not in a good way.

Starring: Nicolas Cage stuck in his post-Oscar-winning rut.

Sample review: “Left Behind takes the end of the world and turns it not into a nightmare, but a nice long nap.” Washington Post

4. A Thousand Words (2012)

A motormouth book agent mustn’t speak, otherwise a magical tree will die, and so will he. For some reason.

Starring: Eddie Murphy being over-the-top and underwhelming at the same time.

Sample review: “Remember Eddie Murphy? He used to be hilarious.” Movieline

5. Gotti (2018)

This mob misfire was criticised for, among many other things, its sympathetic portrayal of real-life crime boss John Gotti.

Starring: John Travolta showed he’s no Marlon Brando. His wife Kelly Preston played Gotti’s wife.

Sample review: “I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again.” New York Post

“Brazen! It is brazen!” Prof Paul Sereno says down the phone line from Chicago.

He makes no effort to disguise his anger that a rare meteorite from Mars discovered two years ago in the West African nation of Niger ended up being auctioned off in New York last month to an unnamed buyer.

The palaeontologist, who has close connections with the country, believes it should be back in Niger.

This millions-of-years-old piece of the Red Planet, the largest ever found on Earth, fetched $4.3m (£3.2m) at Sotheby’s. Like the buyer, the seller was kept anonymous.

But it is unclear if any of this money went to Niger.

Fragments of extraterrestrial material that have made their way to Earth have long inspired reverence among humans – some ending up as religious objects, others as curiosities for display. More recently, many have become the subject of scientific study.

The trade in meteorites has been compared to the art market, with aesthetics and rarity affecting the price.

At first, there was a sense of awe surrounding the public display of this extraordinary Martian find – less than 400 of the 50,000 meteorites discovered have been shown to come from our planetary neighbour.

The photographs taken at Sotheby’s of the 24.7kg (54lb) rock – appearing in the lights to glow silver and red – compounded this feeling.

But then some people started asking questions about how it ended up under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Not least the government of Niger itself, which, in a statement, “expressed doubts about the legality of its export, raising concerns about possible illicit international trafficking”.

Sotheby’s strongly disputes this, saying the correct procedures were followed, but Niger has now launched an investigation into the circumstances of the discovery and sale of the meteorite, which has been given the scientific and unromantic name NWA 16788 (NWA standing for north-west Africa).

Little has been made public about how it ended up at a world-renowned auction house in the US.

An Italian academic article published last year said that it was found on 16 November 2023 in the Sahara Desert in Niger’s Agadez region, 90km (56 miles) to the west of the Chirfa Oasis, by “a meteorite hunter, whose identity remained undisclosed”.

Meteorites can fall anywhere on Earth, but because of the favourable climate for preservation and the lack of human disturbance, the Sahara has become a prime spot for their discovery. People scour the inhospitable landscape stretching across several countries in the hope of finding one to sell on.

According to the Italian article, NWA 16788, was “sold by the local community to an international dealer” and was then transferred to a private gallery in the Italian city of Arezzo.

The University of Florence’s magazine described the person as “an important Italian gallery owner”.

A team of scientists led by Giovanni Pratesi, mineralogy professor at the university, was able to examine it to learn more about its structure and where it came from. The meteorite was then briefly on display last year in Italy, including at the Italian Space Agency in Rome.

It was next seen in public in New York last month, minus two slices that stayed in Italy for more research.

Sotheby’s said that NWA 16788 was “exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedures.

“As with everything we sell, all relevant documentation was in order at each stage of its journey, in accordance with best practice and the requirements of the countries involved.”

A spokesperson added that Sotheby’s was aware of reports that Niger is investigating the export of the meteorite and “we are reviewing the information available to us in light of the question raised”.

Prof Sereno, who founded the organisation Niger Heritage a decade ago, is convinced Nigerien law was broken.

The academic with the University of Chicago, who has spent years uncovering the country’s vast deposits of dinosaur bones in the Sahara, campaigns to get Niger’s cultural and natural heritage – including anything that has fallen from outer space – returned.

A stunning museum on an island on the River Niger that runs through the capital, Niamey, is being planned to house these artefacts.

“International law says you cannot simply take something that is important to the heritage of a country – be it a cultural item, a physical item, a natural item, an extraterrestrial item – out of the country. You know we’ve moved on from colonial times when all this was okay,” Prof Sereno says.

A series of global agreements, including under the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco, have tried to regulate the trade in these objects. But, according to a 2019 study by international law expert Max Gounelle, when it comes to meteorites, while they could be included, there remains some ambiguity about whether they are covered by these agreements. It is left to individual states to clarify the position.

Niger passed its own law in 1997 aimed at protecting its heritage.

Prof Sereno points to one section with a detailed list of all the categories included. “Mineralogical specimens” are mentioned among the art works, architecture and archaeological finds but meteorites are not specifically named.

In its statement on the Sotheby’s sale, Niger admitted that it “does not yet have specific legislation on meteorites” – a line that the auction house also pointed out. But it remains unclear how someone was able to get such a heavy, conspicuous artefact out of the country without the authorities apparently noticing.

Morocco has faced a similar issue with the huge number of meteorites – more than 1,000 – found within its borders, which include a part of the Sahara.

More than two decades ago the country experienced what author Helen Gordon described as a “Saharan gold rush”, fuelled in part by laxer regulations and a more stable political environment than some of its neighbours.

In her recent book The Meteorites, she wrote that Morocco was “one of the world’s greatest exporters of space rocks”.

Prof Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane has spent much of the past 25 years trying to hold on to some of that extraterrestrial material for her country.

“It’s a part of us, it’s a part of our heritage… it’s part of our identity and it’s important to be proud of the richness of the country,” the geologist tells the BBC.

The professor is not against the trade in meteorites but has been instrumental in the introduction of measures aimed at regulating the business. She admits though that the new rules have not been entirely successful in stemming the flow of the meteorites.

In 2011, Prof Chennaoui was responsible for gathering material in the desert from an observed meteorite fall that turned out to be from Mars.

Later named the Tissint meteorite, it weighed 7kg in all, but now she says only 30g remain in Morocco. Some of the rest is in museums around the world, with the biggest piece on display in London’s Natural History Museum.

Reflecting on the fate of Niger’s Martian meteorite, she says she was not surprised as it is “something that I’m living with for 25 years. It’s a pity, we cannot be happy with this, but it’s the same state in all our countries.”

Prof Sereno hopes that the Sotheby’s sale will prove a turning-point – firstly by motivating the Nigerien authorities to act and secondly “if it ever sees the light of day in a public museum, [the museum] is going to have to deal with the fact that Niger is openly contesting it”.

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Thousands of people gathered in central Dhaka this week celebrating the anniversary of the downfall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the promise of a new future for the country.

In the pouring rain, the head of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, leaders of various political parties and activists stood united as they unveiled plans for a “New Bangladesh”.

Across the country, people waved the national flag in concerts, rallies and special prayer sessions marking what some activists are calling the “second liberation” of this Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people.

But these jubilant scenes did not tell the whole story in the last 12 months.

Rights groups say there have been instances of lynching, mob violence, revenge attacks, and a resurgence of religious extremism which threaten to derail the country’s journey towards democracy.

Meanwhile, the ex-prime minister who was so spectacularly pushed from power watches from the sidelines of exile in neighbouring India, denying her role in the deadly crackdown and refusing to return to face charges that amount to crimes against humanity.

“I think we had a regime change, not a revolution. Fundamentally, misogyny remains intact, male dominance remains unchallenged,” Shireen Huq, a women’s rights activist, tells the BBC.

Ms Huq headed the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission, one of the bodies set up by the interim government to bring social and political changes reflecting the uprising’s goals of democracy and pluralism.

In April this year, the 10-member body submitted its report calling for gender equality – particularly over women’s right to inheritance and to divorce, called for criminalising marital rape and protecting the rights of sex workers, who face abuse and harassment from police and others.

The next month, thousands of Islamist hardliners took to the streets against the proposed recommendations, saying they were anti-Islamic and that “men and women can never be equal”.

The protesters – led by Hefazat-e-Islam, which has a representative on the interim government’s cabinet of advisers – demanded the disbanding of the women’s commission, and its members punished for making those proposals.

Subsequently, no detailed public debate was held on the commission’s proposals.

“I was disappointed that the interim government did not support us enough when we were subjected to lots of abuses by Hefazat-e-Islam,” Ms Huq says.

Yunus’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation.

Activists say the protests were just one example of how the hardliners – who had been pushed to the fringes during Hasina’s tenure – had become emboldened.

They have also objected to girls playing football matches in some parts of the country, women celebrities participating in commercial promotional events, and, in some instances, have harassed women in public places because of how they were dressed.

But it is not just women who have borne the brunt. Hardliners have also vandalised scores of shrines of minorities like the Sufi Muslims in the past year.

But, even as people like Ms Huq look to the future, Bangladesh is still confronting its past.

There’s a groundswell of anger against Hasina’s Awami League-led government, which is accused of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, and brutal suppression of dissent.

“You have a huge constituency of people in Bangladesh who wanted to see not just accountability but vengeance and retribution,” says David Bergman, a journalist and a long-time Bangladesh watcher.

However, he says, “one can’t continue with the injustices that existed in the Awami League period and just replicate them in the current period”.

But that is what Hasina’s Awami League claims is happening. It says hundreds of its supporters have been lynched over the past year – allegations the interim government denies.

Several journalists and supporters of the Awami League have been jailed for months on murder charges. Their bail applications have been repeatedly rejected by courts.

Critics say there is no thorough investigation over those murder accusations, and they have been kept in detention only because of their previous support for the Awami League.

“It takes time for stability to return after a major uprising. We are in a transitional phase,” acknowledged Nahid Islam, a student leader who helped spearhead the protests and acted as an adviser to the interim government until recently.

Islam agrees there are challenges facing the country, but dismisses concerns of growing Islamist influence, saying it was “part of a broader cultural struggle” that has existed for years.

But there are also signs of progress. Many credit the interim government with stabilising the country’s economy and, contrary to fears, the banking sector has survived.

Bangladesh has met its loan obligations, kept food prices largely stable, and maintained robust foreign exchange reserves – currently at $30bn (£22bn) – thanks to remittances and international loans. Exports have also held steady.

Then there are other, less easily measurable things.

Islam argues that, since the fall of Hasina, “a democratic environment has been established, and now everyone can express their views freely”. That is something to be celebrated in a country shaped by a history of political turbulence, military coups, assassinations, and bitter rivalries.

But that is being questioned by some.

The influence of student leaders over the interim government has drawn criticism. They were given the roles in recognition for their leadership in the unprecedented protests which toppled Hasina.

Today, two remain in the cabinet, and critics say some controversial decisions, such as the temporary ban on the Awami League, were made under student pressure.

“The government has at times complied with some of the populist demands, particularly by the students, fearing more threatening protests could otherwise erupt. However, that was the exception rather than the rule,” Mr Bergman says.

Meanwhile, an exiled leader from the Awami League alleges that the party’s supporters are being silenced by not being allowed to contest the next poll – with most of its leaders in exile or in prison.

“The elections will not be inclusive without the participation of the Awami League,” Mohammad Ali Arafat, former minister in Hasina’s cabinet, tells the BBC.

In its latest report, the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) said there had been an alarming rise in mob violence while extra-judicial killings and deaths in custody had persisted in the past year.

“We have overthrown an authoritarian regime, but unless we put an end to the authoritarian practices, we cannot really create a new Bangladesh,” Iftekhar Zaman, the executive director of the TIB, said during the launch of the report earlier this week.

As Bangladesh stands at a crossroads, the next six months will be critical.

Some argue that, if there are no meaningful changes to the chequered political system, the sacrifices of those killed in the uprising could be rendered meaningless.

The findings of a year-long undercover investigation into a violent migrant-smuggling gang were published by BBC News on 5 August – and, as a result, one person has now been arrested in Birmingham.

Here, one of our reporters who assumed a false identity and posed as a migrant, describes how he met one of the gang’s senior members in a secret forest hideout.

I am walking towards the forest near Dunkirk, thinking about the battery in my pocket. I’ve hidden the wires under two T-shirts, but is anything still showing? Is my secret camera working? Is it pointing at the right angle? I have, at most, three hours of battery life left, and I need to get to the smuggler’s secret camp, meet him, and get out safely.

This is perhaps the most dangerous and most important moment for me, the culmination of many months working on this investigation with the team.

There is a small team of high-risk advisers watching my back. With gang members monitoring everyone who enters the forest, I worry my advisers may end up exposing me rather than protecting me. But they play it perfectly and keep a low profile.

I’m using a false name. My clothes are similar to those worn by other people trying to get a ride on a small boat to England. Scuffed, old shoes. A big, warm, dirty, jacket. A backpack that I’ve spent time trying to make look worn, as if I have travelled long, hard miles to get here.

I keep going over my cover story in my head. The excuses I might need to get away quickly. The possible scenarios. We have planned and planned, but I know nothing ever goes exactly as expected in the field.

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I am an Arabic-speaking man and have gone undercover before – but each time is different, and carries different risks.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a long time in northern France, trying to understand and expose the people smugglers’ complicated and shadowy operations. It was not an easy decision to infiltrate a violent criminal network.

I’m entering a world ruled by money, power and silence. But I’m not just curious – I also believe the gangs are not as untouchable as they seem and that I can play a role in exposing them and perhaps helping to stop them.

Inside the forest, my nervousness fades. I am “Abu Ahmed” now – my false identity. I don’t even feel like I’m acting a part.

I’m new in town, a Syrian refugee whose asylum bid was rejected by Germany. I’m scared, desperate, a little lost and at the beginning of an uncertain journey.

I walk down a path to the smugglers’ camp trying to remember the way I came in.

When the smuggler, Abdullah, meets me, he is friendly but he says he needs to leave immediately. I try to sound weary. I must persuade him to wait, to talk to me quickly, while my battery is still working. Then, I can get out of there.

Abdullah suspects nothing and seems entirely at ease. But I know the smugglers have guns and knives and there is only one path that leads in and out of the camp.

A day later, away from the forest, I see online that there has been another fatal shooting there.

One of the most difficult things during my time undercover, in the weeks before I meet Abdullah, is keeping track of the phone numbers. Gang members change them often, and sometimes you can lose months of work in a second. At times I’ve lost hope, seeing everything fall apart. But I keep learning.

I spend a lot of time meeting people waiting for small boats around Calais or Boulogne, asking them which gang they are using, which phone numbers they have. Early mornings are spent at train stations, food distribution centres, or on the edge of forests and beaches. Sometimes I just watch, trying to melt into a crowd, to overhear conversations, to spot glances and gestures and to see who leads and who follows.

I must be careful. I move from place to place in different cars over the weeks, and generally try to disappear into the background. I don’t want to do or say anything that could bring me to the attention of the smugglers. They have so many eyes and ears here, and if they become suspicious, it could be dangerous for me.

Am I scared? Not too often. I have engaged with even more dangerous groups in the past. But I am worried I could make a mistake, forget a detail, and blow my cover. Or at least one of my covers.

I switch phones too, contacting smugglers using different names and back stories to try to piece together who works where and what they do. I label each phone. I have French, German, Turkish and Syrian numbers. It is slow work. I’m careful to make sure I’m in the right place whenever I make a call, in case the smuggler asks me to turn on my video or send a pin showing my location.

The smugglers always ask me, “Where did you get the number?” And, “Who is with you? Where are you staying? How did you get to France?”

Now Abdullah does the same, asking me to send photos showing my journey to the forest from a bus stop in Dunkirk.

Does he suspect me?

In person in the forest, Abdullah appears friendlier than most of the smugglers I have encountered. I notice he seems keen to make all his passengers feel at ease, always responding to calls. He strikes me as ambitious.

Over time, I learn some of the gang’s vocabulary. Migrants are “nafar”. The junior smugglers are “rebari”. The forest is always “the jungle”.

And now it is time for me to leave the jungle and to head back towards my team who are waiting, anxiously, at a nearby supermarket.

As I leave the forest and get to the road, I’m no longer “Abu Ahmed”. I’m a journalist again, tortured by questions.

Did the camera work? Did I manage to film Abdullah confirming his role as a smuggler? Is anyone following me now?

The walk back seems even longer.

An Indian tycoon’s sudden death in June has triggered a fierce inheritance battle at an Indian automotive giant.

Sunjay Kapur, 53, suffered a heart attack on 12 June while playing polo in Surrey in the UK. He was an heir to Sona Comstar, a $3.6bn (£2.7bn) business empire he inherited from his father. The company, among India’s top auto component makers, has a global footprint with 10 plants spread across India, China, Mexico and the US.

A polo enthusiast, Kapur moved in the elite social circles of Indian capital Delhi, and reportedly shared a friendship with Prince William. He was married three times – first to designer Nandita Mahtani, then to 90s Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor, before marrying Priya Sachdev, a former model and entrepreneur, in 2017.

But weeks after his death, the question of succession has made Kapur and his family the subject of media speculation.

At the centre of it is Kapur’s mother Rani Kapur, former chairperson of Sona Comstar.

On 24 July, Rani Kapur sent a letter to the board of Sona Comstar, raising questions about her son’s death and appointments made by the company after that.

In the letter, which the BBC has seen, she alleged that Kapur’s death was under “highly suspicious and unexplained circumstances”.

The coroner’s office in Surrey told the BBC that after a postmortem, it had determined that Kapur died of natural causes. “The investigation has been closed,” the office said.

Rani Kapur also claims to have been coerced into signing key documents while under mental and emotional distress from her son’s death.

“It is unfortunate that while the family and I are still in mourning, some people have chosen this as an opportune time to wrest control and usurp the family legacy,” she wrote.

She also asked Sona Comstar’s board to postpone its annual general meeting (AGM) – which was set for 25 July – to decide on a new director who would be a representative of the family.

Rani Kapur didn’t specify who she meant by “some people”, but Sona Comstar held the AGM the next day anyway and appointed Sunjay’s wife Priya as a non-executive director.

In her letter, Rani Kapur claimed she was the sole beneficiary of her late husband’s estate in a will left behind in 2015 which included a majority stake in Sona Group, including Sona Comstar.

The company has strongly denied Rani Kapur’s claims and said that she has had “no role, direct or indirect, in Sona Comstar since at least 2019”.

The board also said it had no compulsion to defer to her notice and that the AGM was conducted “in full compliance with the law”. The company has issued a legal notice to Rani Kapur, asking her to stop spreading “false, malicious and damaging” statements.

The BBC has contacted Sona Comstar, Rani Kapur and Priya Sachdev with questions.

Public shareholders, including banks, mutual funds and financial institutions, hold 71.98% of Sona Comstar, which is listed on Indian exchanges as Sona BLW.

The remaining 28.02% is held by promoters via a company called Aureus Investments Pvt Ltd.

According to the company’s filings, Sunjay Kapur was the sole beneficiary of the RK Family Trust, which controls the promoters’ stake in Sona Comstar via Aureus Investments.

“Looking at the company structure, at this point of time, Rani Kapur doesn’t feature as a registered shareholder so won’t have any voting rights. But there is the matter of the RK Family Trust and Aureus investments. We can’t really know if Rani holds any direct interest there till the agreement is made public,” says Tushar Kumar, a corporate litigator at India’s Supreme Court.

The Kapur family’s feud isn’t an isolated case.

Some 90% of listed companies in India are family-controlled, yet only 63% have a formal succession plan in place, according to a PwC survey.

Kavil Ramachandran of the Indian School of Business says most Indian family businesses operate with “significant ambiguity about specifics”.

“One such [area] is who owns how much and who inherits and when,” he adds.

Experts say family involvement without meritocracy and absence of formal agreements complicate matters.

“On the demise of the patriarch (or even before), disputes arise, both on ownership and on management, and too much water would have flowed under the bridge for issues to be resolved amicably,” said Ketan Dalal, who advises several Indian business families on ownership structures.

India Inc. is strewn with bitter succession battles that repeatedly grab headlines.

Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, was once embroiled in a very public power struggle with his younger brother over the sprawling Reliance empire after their father Dhirubhai Ambani died in 2002 without leaving a will. It was their mother, Kokilaben, who brokered peace years later.

More recently, family feuds have erupted at the Raymond Group, India’s most famous textiles company, and among the Lodha brothers, whose company built the Trump tower in Mumbai.

All of this has often come at a great cost to Indian shareholders.

“Anyone who has kept infinite control in their hands has suffered. In the end it’s the company that suffers, the stock prices go down and [so does] the perception of how the company will do in the future,” says Sandeep Nerlekar, founder and managing director of legacy planning firm Terentia.

But some families are now once bitten, twice shy.

The Bajaj family, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates, faced internal wrangling over succession until a court stepped in during the 2000s to resolve the dispute.

The patriarch mapped out a succession plan for the group, dividing responsibilities between his sons and cousin. As per the company’s statement, the group now operates through consensus via a family council.

Last year, one of India’s oldest business houses, the locks-to-real estate Godrej Group, announced an uncharacteristically amicable separation of their multi-billion dollar business.

“Families need to work on succession planning with governance structures like a good board that has teeth. They should be given some control so that the business can grow long term. Also you need to allow the next generation to take the lead well in time and the patriarch should take the time to groom them so that family issues don’t happen,” says Mr Nerlekar.

The likes of Mukesh Ambani appear to have taken that seriously, having begun grooming his three children well in advance.

Mr Ramachandran says that succession is not something that can be decided “overnight”.

“Preparing both the family and the operating team over a planned transition period is crucial.”

US President Donald Trump had been in office scarcely a week when a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app called DeepSeek jolted Silicon Valley.

Overnight, DeepSeek-R1 shot to the top of the Apple charts as the most downloaded free app in the US.

The firm said at the time its new chatbot rivalled ChatGPT. Not only that. They asserted it had cost a mere fraction to develop.

Those claims – and the app’s sudden surge in popularity – wiped $600bn (£446bn) or 17% off the market value of chip giant Nvidia, marking the largest one-day loss for a single stock in the history of the US stock market.

Several other tech stocks with exposure to AI were caught in the downdraft, too.

DeepSeek also cast doubt on American AI dominance. Up until then, China had been seen as having fallen behind the US. Now, it seemed as though China had catapulted to the forefront.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen referred to the arrival of DeepSeek-R1 as “AI’s Sputnik moment,” a reference to the Soviet satellite that had kicked off the space race between the US and the USSR more than a half century earlier.

It has now been six months since DeepSeek stunned the world.

Today, China’s breakthrough app has largely dropped out of the headlines. It’s no longer the hot topic at happy hour here in San Francisco. But DeepSeek hasn’t disappeared.

DeepSeek challenged certain key assumptions about AI that had been championed by American executives like Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

“We were on a path where bigger was considered better,” according to Sid Sheth, CEO of AI chip startup d-Matrix.

Perhaps maxing out on data centres, servers, chips, and the electricity to run it all wasn’t the way forward after all.

Despite DeepSeek ostensibly not having access to the most powerful tech available at the time, Sheth told the BBC that it showed that “with smarter engineering, you actually can build a capable model”.

The surge of interest in DeepSeek took hold over a weekend in late January, before corporate IT personnel could move to stop employees from flocking to it.

When organisations caught on the following Monday, many scrambled to ban workers from using the app as worries set in about whether user data was potentially being shared with the People’s Republic of China, where DeepSeek is based.

But while exact numbers aren’t available, plenty of Americans still use DeepSeek today.

Certain Silicon Valley start-ups have opted to stick with DeepSeek in lieu of more expensive AI models from US firms in a bid to cut down on costs.

One investor told me for cash-strapped firms, funds saved by continuing to use DeepSeek are helping to pay for critical needs such as additional headcount.

They are, however, being careful.

In online forums, users explain how to run DeepSeek-R1 on their own devices rather than online using DeepSeek’s servers in China – a workaround they believe can protect their data from being shared surreptitiously.

“It’s a good way to use the model without being concerned about what it’s exfiltrating” to China, said Christopher Caen, CEO of Mill Pond Research.

DeepSeek’s arrival also marked a turning point in the US-China AI rivalry, some experts say.

“China was seen as playing catch-up in large language models until this point, with competitive models but always trailing the best western ones,” policy analyst Wendy Chang of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told the BBC.

A large language model (LLM) is a reasoning system trained to predict the next word in a given sentence or phrase.

DeepSeek changed perceptions when it claimed to have achieved a leading model for a fraction of the computational resources and costs common among its American counterparts.

OpenAI had spent $5bn (£3.7bn) in 2024 alone. By contrast, DeepSeek researchers said they had developed DeepSeek-R1 – which came out on top of OpenAI’s o1 model across multiple benchmarks – for just $5.6m (£4.2m).

“DeepSeek revealed the competitiveness of China’s AI landscape to the world,” Chang said.

American AI developers have managed to capitalize on this shift.

AI-related deals and other announcements trumpeted by the Trump administration and major American tech companies are often framed as critical to staying ahead of China.

Trump’s AI czar David Sacks noted the technology would have “profound ramifications for both the economy and national security” when the administration unveiled its AI Action Plan last month.

“It’s just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI,” Sacks said.

DeepSeek has never managed to quell concerns over the security implications of its Chinese origins.

The US government has been assessing the company’s links to Beijing, as first reported by Reuters in June.

A senior US State Department official told the BBC they understood “DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations”.

DeepSeek did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment but the company’s privacy policy states that its servers are located in the People’s Republic of China.

“When you access our services, your Personal Data may be processed and stored in our servers in the People’s Republic of China,” the policy says. “This may be a direct provision of your Personal Data to us or a transfer that we or a third-party make.”

Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI models.

These were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified – released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era.

“You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week,” said d-Matrix’s Sheth.

“DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry’s mindset,” Sheth told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale.”

But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and well.

Just days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.

A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI talent.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay packages.

The fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings season.

Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek’s arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world’s most valuable company in history.

“The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring,” said Mill Pond Research’s Caen.

We are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power.

In other words, DeepSeek’s shake-up of the status quo hasn’t lasted.

And what about DeepSeek itself?

“DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum,” said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

That’s due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she said.

Zhang notes that the company’s next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips.

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He is France’s last newspaper hawker; maybe the last in Europe.

Ali Akbar has been pounding the pavement of Paris’s Left Bank for more than 50 years, papers under the arm and on his lips the latest headline.

And now he is to be officially recognised for his contribution to French culture. President Emmanuel Macron – who once as a student himself bought newspapers from Mr Akbar – is to decorate him next month with the Order of Merit, one of France’s highest honours.

“When I began here in 1973 there were 35 or 40 of us hawkers in Paris,” he says. “Now I am alone.

“It became too discouraging. Everything is digital now. People just want to consult their telephones.”

These days, on his rounds via the cafés of fashionable Saint-Germain, Mr Akbar can hope to sell around 30 copies of Le Monde. He keeps half the sale price, but gets no refund for returns.

Back before the Internet, he would sell 80 copies within the first hour of the newspaper’s afternoon publication.

“In the old days people would crowd around me looking for the paper. Now I have to chase down clients to try to sell one,” he says.

Not that the decline in trade remotely bothers Mr Akbar, who says he keeps going for the sheer joy of the job.

“I am a joyous person. And I am free. With this job, I am completely independent. There is no-one giving me orders. That’s why I do it.”

The sprightly 72-year-old is a familiar and much-loved figure in the neighbourhood. “I first came here in the 1960s and I’ve grown up with Ali. He is like a brother,” says one woman.

“He knows everyone. And he is such fun,” says another.

Ali Akbar was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and made his way to Europe in the late 1960s, arriving first in Amsterdam where he got work on board a cruise liner.

In 1972 the ship docked in the French city of Rouen, and a year later he was in Paris. He got his residency papers in the 1980s.

“Me, I wasn’t a hippy back then, but I knew a lot of hippies,” he says with his characteristic laugh.

“When I was in Afghanistan on my way to Europe I landed up with a group who tried to make me smoke hashish.

“I told them sorry, but I had a mission in life, and it wasn’t to spend the next month sleeping in Kabul!”

In the once intellectual hub of Saint-Germain he got to meet celebrities and writers. Elton John once bought him milky tea at Brasserie Lipp. And selling papers in front of the prestigious Sciences-Po university, he was acquainted with generations of future politicians – like President Macron.

So how has the legendary Left Bank neighbourhood changed since he first held aloft a copy of Le Monde and flogged it (with a shout)?

“The atmosphere isn’t the same,” he laments. “Back then there were publishers and writers everywhere – and actors and musicians. The place had soul. But now it is just tourist-town.

“The soul has gone,” he says – but he laughs as he does.

US President Donald Trump has nominated State Department spokeswoman and former Fox News host Tammy Bruce to be the US deputy representative to the United Nations.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Bruce, who has been working at the US State Department since he took office in January, has done a “fantastic job” in the role.

Before joining government, Bruce was a Fox News conservative contributor for more than 20 years, and has authored several books that are critical of liberals, including “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda”.

It is unclear when she will take over the role if her nomination is confirmed by the Senate.

“I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Tammy Bruce, a Great Patriot, Television Personality and Bestselling Author, as our next Deputy Representative of the United States to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Saturday.

“Since the beginning of my Second Term, Tammy has been serving with distinction as Spokesperson of the State Department, where she did a fantastic job,” he continued, adding that she will represent the US “brilliantly”.

As spokeswoman, Bruce has defended several controversial US foreign policy decisions – ranging from Trump’s immigration crackdown to sending private military contractors to distribute aid in Gaza.

Trump’s nominee for UN ambassador, Mike Waltz, has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

The current acting ambassador to the UN is Dorothy Shea, a career diplomat who was the deputy ambassador in 2024.

South Korea’s military says North Korea has begun removing some of the loudspeakers used to broadcast propaganda across the border between the two countries.

North Korea’s move appears to be a positive reaction to the overtures from newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who had campaigned on improving inter-Korean ties.

South Korea dismantled some of its own loudspeakers earlier this week. It had halted broadcasts along the demilitarised zone shortly after Lee took office in June – prompting a similar response from its neighbour.

South Korean broadcasts had often featured K-pop songs and news reports while the North played unsettling noises, such as howling animals.

In a statement on Saturday, South Korea’s military said it had “detected North Korean troops dismantling propaganda loudspeakers in some parts along the front line from this morning”.

It added: “It remains to be confirmed whether the devices have been removed across all regions, and the military will continue to monitor related activities.”

The speaker broadcasts had been suspended on previous occasions. But after a six-year pause, they resumed in June 2024 in response to Pyongyang’s campaign of sending rubbish-filled balloons to the South.

Residents living along the border had complained that their lives have been blighted by noise coming from both sides, sometimes in the middle of the night.

Seoul claimed the broadcasts could be heard as much as 10km (six miles) across the border in the day and up to 24km (15 miles) at night.

But speaking after South Korea suspended its broadcasts in June, organisations advocating to improve the human rights of North Koreans criticised the move.

Ties between North and South Korea had deteriorated under President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was more hawkish towards Pyongyang.

Yoon was impeached and removed from his post for briefly placing South Korea under martial law in December, citing supposed threats from anti-state forces and North Korea sympathisers.

Reuniting with the South had always been a key, if increasingly unrealistic, part of the North’s ideology since the inception of the state – until its current leader, Kim Jong Un, abandoned the idea in 2024.

Both countries are technically still at war since the Korean War ended in 1953 without a peace treaty.

He sang wistfully of the English town that shaped his life.

Ed Sheeran grew up in Framlingham in Suffolk and its rolling hills and magnificent castle inspired his hit single, Castle on the Hill. It was the homeplace he pined for.

So when he recently described himself as “culturally Irish,” the singer faced social media criticism on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Sheeran replied that he had two paternal Irish grandparents, an Irish parent, an Irish passport, and a childhood filled with Irish summer holidays. Ireland was the place where his musical taste was formed, he said. “I can be allowed to feel a connection to a place half my family is from.”

Yet he was accused of being Irish “when it suits him” by one poster.

Another wrote on X: “I’ve seen B*Witched live and have watched a couple of Gaelic football games, which I think gives me an even more legitimate claim to be culturally Irish than Ed Sheeran.”

The mainstream press expressed perplexity at his embrace of an Irish cultural identity “despite being born and raised in England”.

Not everyone agrees.

To Ros Scanlon, programmer for the Irish Cultural Centre in London, it shouldn’t surprise or offend anyone. It reflects her own experience as a second-generation Irish person in the UK.

“He’s owning his Irish heritage, saying he is proud of his cultural background,” says Ros. “That doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t like or love being British, that is part of him too.”

Certainly it is much easier to speak of an Irish identity in Britain now that there is peace in Northern Ireland.

As the Belfast South MP, Claire Hanna, who is now leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, told parliament during a St Patrick’s Day debate in 2022: “Many are moving on from the traditional binaries of the past and embracing the ‘or both’ part of the Good Friday agreement, not feeling that they have to decide between being British and Irish if they do not wish to do so.”

Sheeran’s declaration raises this point once again, and prompts the deeper question of what cultural “Irishness” really is today.

Professor Linda Connolly, director of sociology at Maynooth University in County Kildare, argues that Ed Sheeran’s statement is about an idea of identity that is bigger than where you were born or what you write on a census form.

“Ed Sheeran is stating quite clearly that culturally he is Irish in Britain, and not just British and Irish in terms of citizenship alone,” she argues. “This applies to many second-generation Irish living in Britain.”

In Northern Ireland, Irishness can mean many things, not least because it is fraught with so much painful history.

For many unionists, staunch political loyalty to Britain and the Monarchy, sits alongside a deep attachment to the land they have lived on for hundreds of years. Symbols like the Celtic harp and the Shamrock are seen by many as belonging to both traditions.

There are unionists who cheer for an Irish rugby team but would never dream of singing the anthem of the Republic – a new song, Ireland’s Call, was written for the 1995 World Cup.

It is a complex and evolving set of choices, with frequent arguments. Promotion of the Irish language is bitterly opposed by a vocal section of Unionism. For most Catholics their Irish identity was historically something to be defended in a Unionist dominated state.

It was an identity that helped bind them to their co-religionists on the rest of the island, particularly in the fields of Gaelic sport and culture.

But as politics has changed there is less preoccupation with religious background, a greater sense of belonging to an international culture.

And this is without even beginning to speak of an identity that is demonstrably northern Irish with its shared dry humour.

Everyone has their own menu of what being “culturally Irish” means – for me, it’s about humour, about a love of words and music, and a refusal to take ourselves, or anybody else, too seriously.

It can also mean a sense of a particular landscape, either one you loved, or were glad to escape – or for second or third – generation Irish, a landscape of brief immersion on summer holidays from England. That was the world of “the streams, the rolling hills/Where his brown eyes were waiting” evoked by Shane MacGowan of the Pogues.

But there are as many definitions of “culturally Irish” as there are Irish people, or people who want to be Irish. It runs a wide spectrum of styles, influences, opinions and genres – from Oasis (born in Manchester to Irish parents), the rappers Kneecap, novelist Sally Rooney, the Irish actress of Nigerian descent Demi Isaac Oviawe, the London-born playwright Martin McDonagh of The Banshees of Inisherin fame.

The core members of The Beatles all had Irish grandparents or great grandparents, prompting John Lennon to tell a concert in Dublin: “We’re all Irish.”

That was in 1963 – some 62 years before Ed Sheeran’s declaration.

There are many voices too from the Irish Protestant tradition in Ulster – the singer Van Morrison and the novelist Jan Carson, who has written about growing up in an evangelical Christian home, and says she now feels “much more ease and comfort with an Irish identity than a British one”.

Ed Sheeran is himself a product of blended traditions. His grandfather was a Belfast Protestant who married a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland at a time of sectarian intolerance.

Today, it is undoubtedly easier these days for a big mainstream star like Sheeran to embrace an Irish cultural identity in Britain than it would have been several decades ago.

I think of the powerful song Nothing But the Same Old Story by Paul Brady, about an Irishman in Britain during the 1970s, amid the ongoing IRA campaign: “In their eyes, we’re nothing but a bunch of murderers.”

Ros Scanlon credits Irish cultural figures for much of the changed atmosphere, including legendary BBC presenter Terry Wogan and musicians such as U2, Thin Lizzy, Sinead O’Connor, the Pogues “and now Ed Sheeran!”

Yet all of these icons are building on the foundations laid by the unacknowledged millions who came to Britain over many centuries.

The generation of Ed Sheeran’s parents and grandparents were the Irish people who built Britain’s roads and housing estates, the railways above and below ground.

The famous ballad ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’ remembers how they “sweated blood and they washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer”. Irish nurses were fundamental to the staffing of the NHS.

In those days, most Irish immigrants found expression of their culture in the ballrooms of places like Kilburn in northwest London, or the Astoria in Manchester, or the Irish pubs which often catered to clientele from a specific county. Bouts of hostility encouraged newcomers to stick together.

But the extraordinary cross-fertilisation of the two cultures goes much further back – how could it not, given the colonial history and the proximity of both islands?

For two millennia there are records of the Irish trading, settling, and inter-marrying in Britain; they shared a common language with western Scotland and the Isle of Man, and a Druidic culture with the rest of Britain.

Monks from Ireland helped spread and then restore Christianity during the so-called Dark Ages. Sometimes it worked the other way: Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick, was a Brit.

One of the bestselling songwriters of early 19th century Britain was Irishman Thomas Moore. His story typifies the often complex nature of cultural relationships: he was a champion of Irish liberty, but his great song “The Minstrel Boy” – written for rebels fighting Britain – is played by the band of the Irish Guards at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day.

Nowadays, for second or third generation people, the country of their ancestors has never been more reachable. Cheap airfares have changed the nature of how Irish culture in Britain has evolved, says Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Professor of Irish history at the University of Sheffield.

“The physical distance between Ireland and Britain has diminished in the Ryanair era… It seems to me also that Irish migration to Britain is now more likely to be temporary – people may come for a few years, then go home – whereas previously it was a more permanent departure.”

I should declare an interest. I am Irish. Living in Britain. I was born here while my father was a real-life cultural import, acting in the West End in J.M. Synge’s landmark drama, The Playboy of the Western World, a story from the west of Ireland, which won rave reviews from London audiences.

We went home after the play ended and I was brought up in Ireland. But I returned to work for the BBC. I have spent more than three decades as a correspondent for the BBC, and I have lived outside Ireland for longer than I did in the country.

What does that make me? My identity is made of many parts. I am Irish. I am a Londoner. I am also a Cork, Kerry and Waterford person.

The Irish language and music is an essential part of my cultural makeup. But I also cherish how that music is connected to the music of Scotland and North America, and I reckon one of the greatest songs of Irish exile was written by Englishman, Ralph McTell: “And the only time I feel alright is when I’m into drinking/ It sort of eases the pain of it and levels out my thinking… It’s a long way from Clare to here.”

My attachment to South Africa has shaped me in enduring and indelible ways too. Identity is also a story of deep and loving relationships, whether in Ireland, London, the African continent or France, to name but three important ones.

My feelings about identity are also inextricably linked to my experiences as a war reporter. I spent too many years witnessing ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity often carried out because of hatred of a different identity.

The great writer, James Joyce, rejected any identity built around “nationality, language, religion” and defiantly vowed to “fly by those nets”.

He was writing about a different, much narrower Ireland of the early 20th century. But the policing of identity – who you are allowed to be – is disturbingly present in many societies, and many guises.

So, if somebody asks me to narrow my identity to a single label, I refuse, because it is mine, not to be explained or justified. And if it shifts tomorrow, that is my business.

The nature of identity is evolving – in Ireland it is absorbing the influences of other cultures, but also influencing those cultures.

Professor Nic Dháibhéid hopes the prominence of Irish cultural identities in Britain will prompt a greater interest in the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, particularly among the under-25s who, as she sees it, “will have no memory of the Troubles, and so there is an even greater need to ensure that there is good mutual understanding between the people on our two islands.”

The big British audiences for Kneecap, to take an example, didn’t happen because young people had a sudden awakening about the problems of life in nationalist west Belfast. Kneecap connected with a much wider youth disillusionment: they are rapping in the Irish language but it’s the challenge to the establishment that resonates with some among the young.

It is important to recognise that the cultural influence can be polarising. Kneecap’s public statements and political stances have divided people.

One member of the band, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.

“The Kneecap phenomenon is real, as is the Derry Girls one,” says Professor Nic Dhábhéid, also referencing the show inspired by the screenwriter Lisa McGee’s upbringing in the city in the 1990s.

Professor Nic Dhábhéid is one of the historians chosen by the UK government to oversee the writing of a “public” history of the Troubles. She cautions that despite the progress made, the old battle of identities is far from finished, citing the tensions caused by Brexit.

“A decade ago, the narrative was one of reconciliation… I’m not convinced that we’re in the reconciliation space right now,” she argues.

Which makes Ed Sheeran’s honest expression of identity all the more moving.

It was not one of aggressive cultural nationalism: he wasn’t talking about what my identity should be, or yours. It was a statement of what he feels.

I am the father of two children who grew up in Britain. I watch them navigate the challenges and opportunities of different and overlapping identities, encouraging them to follow James Joyce’s advice and fly past any barriers others put in their way.

That, for me, is the way to a future without bitterness.

Each morning, Rosa Chamami wakes to flames licking at cardboard scraps in a makeshift stove in her yard.

The boxes she brought home once held 800,000 high-tech solar panels. Now, they fuel her fire.

Between 2018 and 2024, those panels were installed at Rubí and Clemesí, two massive solar plants in Peru’s Moquegua region, about 1,000 kilometres south of the capital, Lima. Together, they form the country’s largest solar complex – and one of the biggest in Latin America.

From her home in the small settlement of Pampa Clemesí, Rosa can see the rows of panels glowing under white floodlights. The Rubí plant is just 600 metres away.

Yet her home – and the rest of her village – remains in total darkness, unconnected to the grid the plant feeds into.

None of Pampa Clemesí’s 150 residents have access to the national power grid.

A few have solar panels donated by Rubí’s operator, Orygen, but most can’t afford the batteries and converters needed to make them work. At night, they use torches – or simply live in the dark.

The paradox is striking: the Rubí solar power plant produces around 440 GWh a year, enough to supply electricity to 351,000 homes. Moquegua, where the plant is located, is an ideal site for solar energy, receiving over 3,200 hours of sunshine annually, more than most countries.

And that contradiction becomes even sharper in a country currently experiencing a renewable energy boom.

In 2024 alone, electricity generation from renewables grew by 96%. Solar and wind power depend heavily on copper due to its high conductivity – and Peru is the world’s second-largest producer.

“In Peru, the system was designed around profitability. No effort was made to connect sparsely populated areas,” explains Carlos Gordillo, an energy expert at the University of Santa María in Arequipa.

Orygen says it has fulfilled its responsibilities.

“We’ve joined the government project to bring electricity to Pampa Clemesí and have already built a dedicated line for them. We also completed the first phase of the electrification project, with 53 power towers ready to operate,” Marco Fragale, Orygen’s executive director in Peru, told BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish-language service.

Fragale adds that nearly 4,000 metres of underground cable were installed to provide a power line for the village. The $800,000 investment is complete, he says.

But the lights still haven’t come on.

The final step – connecting the new line to individual homes – is the government’s responsibility. According to the plan, the Ministry of Mines and Energy must lay about two kilometres of wiring. Work was slated to begin in March 2025, but hasn’t started.

BBC News Mundo tried to contact the Ministry of Mines and Energy but received no response.

Rosa’s tiny house has no sockets.

Each day, she walks around the village, hoping someone can spare a bit of electricity to charge her phone.

“It’s essential,” she says, explaining she needs the device to stay in touch with her family near the border with Bolivia.

One of the few people who can help is Rubén Pongo. In his larger home – with patios and several rooms – a group of speckled hens fight for rooftop space between the solar panels.

“The company donated solar panels to most villagers,” he says. “But I had to buy the battery, the converter, and the cables myself – and pay for installation.”

Rubén owns something others only dream of: a fridge. But it only runs for up to 10 hours a day, and on cloudy days, not at all.

He helped build the Rubí plant and later worked in maintenance, cleaning the panels. Today, he manages the warehouse and is driven to work by the company, even though the plant is just across the road.

Crossing the Pan-American Highway on foot is prohibited by Peruvian law.

From his rooftop, Rubén points to a cluster of glowing buildings in the distance.

“That’s the plant’s substation,” he says. “It looks like a little lit-up town.”

Residents began settling in Pampa Clemesí in the early 2000s. Among them is Pedro Chará, now 70. He’s watched the 500,000-panel Rubí plant rise almost on his doorstep.

Much of the village is built from discarded materials from the plant. Pedro says even their beds come from scrap wood.

There’s no water system, no sewage, no rubbish collection. The village once had 500 residents, but due to scarce infrastructure, the majority left – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Sometimes, after waiting so long, fighting for water and electricity, you just feel like dying. That’s it. Dying,” he says.

Rosa hurries to her aunt’s house, hoping to catch the last of the daylight. Tonight, she’s cooking dinner for a small group of neighbours who share meals.

In the kitchen, a gas stove heats a kettle. Their only light is a solar-powered torch. Dinner is sweet tea and fried dough.

“We eat only what we can keep at room temperature,” says Rosa.

Without refrigeration, protein-rich foods are hard to store.

Fresh produce requires a 40-minute bus ride to Moquegua – if they can afford it.

“But we don’t have money to take the bus every day.”

With no electricity, many in Latin America cook with firewood or kerosene, risking respiratory illness.

In Pampa Clemesí, residents use gas when they can afford it — wood when they can’t.

They pray by torchlight for food, shelter, and water, then eat in silence. It’s 7pm, their final activity. No phones. No TV.

“Our only light is these little torches,” Rosa says. “They don’t show much, but at least we can see the bed.”

“If we had electricity, people would come back,” Pedro says. “We stayed because we had no choice. But with light, we could build a future.”

A soft breeze stirs the desert streets, lifting sand. A layer of dust settles on the lampposts on the main plaza, waiting to be installed. The wind signals that dusk is coming – and that soon, there will be no light.

For those without solar panels, like Rosa and Pedro, the darkness stretches on until sunrise. So does their hope that the government will one day act.

Like so many nights before, they prepare for another evening without light.

But why do they still live here?

“Because of the sun,” Rosa replies without hesitation.

“Here, we always have the sun.”

US Vice President JD Vance is taking his holiday in the UK – a trip which will include visits to the Cotswolds, Scotland and, to kick it all off, a few days staying with Foreign Secretary David Lammy at his grace-and-favour country home, Chevening House in Kent.

It would seem an unlikely friendship on the face of it. One grew up in north London, the other in rust-belt Ohio.

One is a left-wing advocate of multi-culturalism, the other a conservative who has, albeit jokingly, referred to the UK as “the first truly Islamist country” with a nuclear bomb.

Yet, despite their differences Lammy and Vance appear to be the best of friends.

As he settled in for a brief chat with the media in the drawing room at Chevening alongside the foreign secretary, Vance spoke warmly of their relationship.

“I have to say that I really have become a good friend, and David has become a good friend of mine,” he said. “Our families enjoy each other’s company very much, which always helps.”

Chevening is set in 3,000 acres of land, including a maze and lake, which was the first destination for the two families on Friday morning, for a spot of fishing.

Vance joked this activity put “a strain on the special relationship” with his children all catching carp, while the foreign secretary came away empty-handed.

Lammy didn’t seem bitter, telling the vice president he was “delighted” to welcome him and his family to 115-room Chevening, which he described as “my home”.

Strictly speaking, the 17th century manor house belongs to the nation, but cabinet ministers, particularly foreign secretaries, are allowed to use it for family getaways or meetings with foreign dignitaries.

The vice president seemed suitably impressed with his friend’s weekend retreat.

Vance acknowledged the two men come from “different political spectrums” but said Lammy had been “kind enough to make time on a visit to [Washington] DC, we got to know each other a little bit then”.

Since that first meeting, when Lammy was in opposition and Vance had just been elected to the US Senate, they have met regularly including at the new Pope’s inauguration in May.

Last week, Lammy told the Guardian he, Vance and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner bonded over drinks in the Villa Taverna, the US ambassador’s residence in Rome.

“I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and he completely relates to Angela. So it was a wonderful hour and a half,” he said. “I was probably the shyest of the three.”

He said that, like Vance, Rayner and himself were “not just working-class politicians, but people with dysfunctional childhoods”.

Lammy’s parents split up during his teens. His father went to the US and Lammy never saw him again.

Vance told the story of his own upbringing – including an absent father and a mother with a drug addiction – in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

Despite their trickier starts in life, both ended up at prestigious US colleges. Lammy studied at Harvard, where he met and befriended Barack Obama. Vance went to Harvard’s rival Yale – “not quite as good,” Lammy joked at Chevening.

The two men have also bonded over their Christian faith. Vance converted to Catholicism as an adult and attended Mass with Lammy when he visited Washington DC earlier this year.

The pair have something else in common, although neither want to to draw attention to it: their previous less-than-flattering comments about Donald Trump.

JD Vance’s past verdict – “reprehensible”, “an idiot”, “I never liked him”.

And Lammy’s? “A tyrant” and “a woman-hating, neo Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

Be it political expediency or a genuine change of heart, both have since revised their opinions.

But how far do personal relations matter, when there are so many other factors at play – be it national self interest in the case of tariffs, or differences of opinion such as over the situation in Gaza?

Bronwen Maddox the CEO of the Chatham House international affairs think tank says they do, “particularly under this administration”.

“Trump has deliberately personalised these things,” she adds.

That is why Lammy – despite his natural affiliation with the Democratic Party in the US – was tasked with building bridges with their Republican opponents, even before the general election.

Although that might have appeared a tall order, Chair of Republicans Overseas Greg Swenson says his party tend to feel fonder towards the UK than the Democrats.

Vance and Trump have criticised the UK in the past, but Swenson says it “comes from a good place”.

“Both want what’s best for the UK… you never want to see your friend make a mistake.”

However, if Lammy thinks his friendship with Vance is exclusive he may be disappointed.

The vice president is also meeting Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage has hinted that he may be as well.

In between meeting UK politicians, Vance will be squeezing in a trip to the Cotswolds – something that may infuriate those Americans, such as TV chat show host Ellen DeGeneres, who fled to the area specifically to escape Trump and his acolytes.

There have also been reports that singer-rapper couple Beyonce and Jay-Z have been house-hunting in the area.

Explaining the appeal of the region to wealthy Americans, writer Plum Sykes told the BBC’s PM programme it combines the desire for countryside with the need for glamour.

“Americans can’t go to Wales and survive in the same way they can in the Cotswolds where you can get a matcha latte and go to a gyrotonics class.

“The business of the private jet people at Cotswolds airport has gone through the roof.”

Vance is reported to be staying in a house, very close to Diddly Squat – the farm and pub belonging to broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson.

That sets up the possibility of an awkward encounter between the two. Clarkson has previously lambasted Vance, with “a bearded god-botherer” being among his more printable insults.

But a friendship might still flower, after all forming unlikely relationships seems to be as fashionable as the Cotswolds at the moment.

Calm in a can. Relaxation after a few sips.

That’s what some drinks companies are promising with beverages formulated specifically to help you chill out.

Lucy and Serena swear by them. They’re good friends who, like many, are juggling careers, the chaos of having small children, trying to stay fit, and everything else in between.

“These drinks aren’t going to get rid of all my worries and anxieties,” Serena says, “but if they give me a little boost – then I’ll take it.”

Lucy finds them really useful too, especially when she’s feeling a bit overwhelmed.

“If I get that low-level panic, then with a drink of Trip or something like it, I can bring it back round.”

But after an advert by one of the industry’s best-known brands was banned for suggesting its drinks helped with stress and anxiety, there have been questions about whether drinks of this kind are quite as effective as they make out.

BBC News has spoken to nutritionists and dietitians who are sceptical the small amounts of supplements the drinks contain could really bring about that sense of zen.

One psychologist has suggested that we might actually “create our own calm” when we set aside time for ourselves with something that feels like a treat.

The “functional beverage” market – that’s drinks with additional health benefits – is booming, with British supermarkets seeing sales jump by 24.5% in the last 12 months, according to one market research firm. Almost 30% of UK households now buy these functional drinks, Worldpanel by Numerator says.

So, what’s actually in them that’s supposed to help you feel more mellow or give your health a boost? Well, that’s where things can get complicated, as each brand takes a different approach.

Along with Trip’s Mindful Blend, other companies like Rheal, Grass&Co, Goodrays and supermarket own-brands, advertise that their drinks contain supplements including:

• Lion’s Mane extract – a type of mushroom found in east Asian countries
• L-theanine – an amino acid found primarily in green and black tea
• Ashwagandha – a herb cultivated in areas of Asia, Africa, and Europe
• Magnesium – a mineral the human body needs to function properly

These supplements are all commonly found in many health and wellbeing products and are associated with enhancing mood, boosting energy, supporting cognition, and helping with stress.

But how robust is the evidence for that? It’s tricky because there are many studies of varying credibility each suggesting different levels of efficacy.

Trip’s advert, which suggested its ingredients were stress and anxiety busters, breached the Advertising Standards Agency’s (ASA) code, with the ASA ruling that Trip’s claims their drinks could “prevent, treat or cure disease” were a step too far.

Trip told BBC News the ruling related to “a single page on the website” and it has made the “changes requested”. It says it’s confident it’s ingredients permit the use of the word “calm” which is “widely and lawfully used by many brands”.

Dietitian Reema Patel is concerned the amount of supplement in these drinks may not give consumers the emotional balance, feelings of calm, or stress relief that is advertised across the industry. She highlights a growing body of evidence around the funghi Lion’s Mane, but says there are no conclusive findings about whether it can have any impact – as yet.

“The research is still very much in its infancy,” she says. “In one of the more advanced clinical trials, a small number of participants were given 1800mg – that’s at least four times more than what is in some of these drinks.”

Studies suggest women are more likely to consume these kinds of supplements, but they’re not always front and centre in the research.

The lack of research that includes female participants is partly down to menstrual cycles and fluctuating hormones, making it more “complicated to track”, Ms Patel explains.

But these drinks can make a good alternative to drinking alcohol she says, and she has clients who have made the switch from having a wine or a gin and tonic every night to opening a can of one of these drinks to help them unwind.

“I think you can take a lot of the claims with a pinch of salt, but they are definitely giving people that other option.”

Dr Sinead Roberts, a performance nutritionist, says supplements can make a difference, but they tend to work for certain groups of people in specific circumstances – such as high-performing athletes who want that extra edge, or people who are deficient in a certain nutrient – not necessarily for the general population.

If you enjoy the taste, “crack on”, Dr Roberts says, but if you want to reduce stress and anxiety you’re probably best saving your £2 or £3 and putting it towards a “therapy session or a massage at the end of the month”.

“A trace of Lion’s Mane or Ashgawanda in a fizzy drink is not going to make any difference,” she adds.

Emily May, 25, first discovered these drinks at Glastonbury a couple of years ago. She’s not overly bothered about trying to reach a state of zen through them – she just likes the taste.

“I’m ADHD,” Emily says, “so I would definitely need a lot more than one of those drinks to calm me down.”

There is a fine line between advertising that a product will give you a feeling of calm and quiet, and claiming these kinds of drinks will help with mental health problems.

Psychologist Natasha Tiwari says mental health and well-being are “increasingly conflated” in the wellness sector, creating a “toxic mix”.

There can be a positive – yet temporary – change in mood and consumers might feel a buzz, she says, not because of the ingredients necessarily, but because “everything around the experience of the product is real”.

“So you’ve bought a drink which, let’s say, is a little bit pricier than the alternatives in the market. Therefore you make a commitment to sit down quietly and enjoy it nicely,” she says. “You look at the branding – which is lovely and calming – you’re processing your environment in the moment, and then actually what you’re experiencing truly is a calm moment in your otherwise busy day. That’s not fake.”

And it’s that little window of peace that Lucy and Serena yearn for – and for a few minutes a fizzy drink in a can gives them that, whether the science really agrees, or not.

BBC News contacted all the brands mentioned in this article. Grass&Co told us it’s their mission “to deliver high-strength natural adaptogen and vitamin-packed blends formulated by experts… which are supported by approved health claims.”

Hee-kyung giggles as she steps into Seoul’s new “warm-hearted convenience store”.

At 29, she is perhaps not the person most would have imagined wanting to take advantage of the South Korean capital’s latest efforts to combat loneliness.

But Hee-Kyung visits every day to grab the free instant ramen noodles and spend hours chatting with other visitors and social workers.

“I tell myself, ‘another day, another escape from feeling lonely’,” Hee-kyung says.

A teenage runaway, she no longer talks to anyone from her family. The friends she has she met online, through the shared love of K-pop group SuperJunior, and they live far away. Currently unemployed, she has no work mates to chat to.

She lives alone, and whiles away the time watching cute animal videos on her phone as she lies on the floor.

“I have no other place to go if it weren’t for [the store].”

Hee-Kyung is one of 20,000 people to visit the four stores since they were opened in March. The city had been expecting just 5,000 in the first year.

This particular location, in the city’s north-eastern district of Dongdaemun, sees around 70 to 80 visitors each day.

Most are in their 40s and 50s, but Hee-Kyung is far from being the only young person to access the store’s services.

A 2022 study revealed an estimated 130,000 young people in the city – those aged between 19 and 39 – are either socially isolated or shut in. That same study also found the share of single-person households in the capital had reached nearly 40% – that alarmed a government that has been trying to reverse plummeting birth and marriage rates.

The day the BBC visited, around a dozen visitors – men and women, young and old – were sitting on benches or burrowed into beanbags, watching a film together.

“We have movie days to encourage low-level bonding,” whispers Kim Se-heon, the manager of the city’s Loneliness Countermeasure Division.

The stores are designed to offer a warm, cafe-like atmosphere. In one corner, an older woman closed her eyes as she sank into the automatic massage chair that hummed. In another, there are stacks of noodles.

“Ramen is a symbol of comfort and warmth in South Korea,” Kim explains.

While waiting for the noodles to cook, visitors are asked to fill out a brief survey on their mood and living conditions.

These are just a handful of the growing number of socially isolated people that the city is trying to reach.

The change South Korea has undergone is seismic: in a generation, it has gone from a war-torn agrarian society to a developed economy.

A few decades ago, it was common to see large families with six to eight children, living under the same roof. But years of migration to cities have shrunk families and turned places like Seoul into sprawling metropolises.

Unaffordable housing, rising costs and gruelling working hours have led more and more young people to reject marriage or parenthood, or both. On the other end is an ageing population that feels neglected by children who are racing to keep up.

“You know the saying that the least tasty meal is the one you are having alone? I ask older people who come in if they were eating okay. They would tear up, just being asked that question,” says Lee In-sook, the counsellor at the store.

After a divorce and her grown-up children leaving home, she understands how it feels to be alone.

The first time Hee-kyung – who is around the age of In-sook’s daughter – arrived at the store, she immediately caught her eye.

Like many visitors, Hee-kyung was quiet on the first day, barely speaking to others. The second time she came, she began to speak to In-sook.

It was the growing number of “lonely deaths” that worried Seoul officials enough to act. Older people were dying alone at home, and their bodies were not discovered until days or weeks later.

That mission soon expanded to tackling loneliness itself. But Seoul is not the first to do this.

In 2018, the UK appointed a Minister for Loneliness. Japan followed the example, establishing an agency to address the problem which it said had become more pronounced in the Covid-19 pandemic.

The phenomenon of withdrawing from society altogether is common enough in Japan that it has a name: hikikomori. In South Korea too, a rising number of young people have been voluntarily cutting themselves off from a highly competitive and exacting society.

“Perhaps it was the pandemic that led to this,” muses Lee Yu-jeong, who manages one of Seoul’s anti-loneliness programmes.

She points out how her children remain buried in their smartphones when their friends visit. “People today express how difficult it is to have a network of friends. Loneliness has become something that needs to be tackled as a society.”

The first step was opening a hotline for people who need someone to speak to. A nationwide survey in 2023 found that a third of Korean adults have either no one to ask for help with housework or speak to when feeling sad.

Its counselors offer a 40-minute call to discuss any topic. Park Seung-ah has been making three calls a day from her cubicle.

“I was surprised to see that many young people wanted these sessions. They want to share the burden on their chest but there is often a power dynamic with parents or their friends. So they come to us.”

The “warm-hearted convenience stores” followed swiftly, a physical location where the lonely were welcome.

The Dongdaemun location was picked due to its proximity to low-income housing, where residents live in tiny, subdivided apartments alone.

Sohn, 68, visits the store once a week to watch films, and to escape his cramped home.

“[The stores] should have opened before I was born. It’s good to spend even just two to three hours,” he says.

Sohn has spent more than five decades of his life caring for his mother, who suffered a brain aneurism when he was a child. As a result, he never married or had children.

The cost of the dedication became clear when she died.

Penniless and walking with a cane since suffering a brain haemorrhage himself several years ago, he says there aren’t many places for him.

“Places cost money, going to the cinema costs money,” he says.

The stores were created specially to welcome those who aren’t welcome in other places, explains store manager Lee Bo-hyun.

They go beyond a bit of room and a film – offering air-conditioning during the hottest summer months to those on low incomes who cannot afford it at home.

It is also supposed to be a space where the lonely can sidestep the stigma of asking for help. The choice of name – “convenience stores” – was a deliberate attempt to distance them from psychiatric clinics, important in a country where there is still a stigma against asking for help for mental health – especially among older residents.

And yet, some of their reservations can still be seen when they walk through the door for the first time, compounded by their experience of isolation.

Visitors are often uncomfortable speaking to another person or eating together initially, store manager Lee says.

“The typical loneliness, if that repeats for days, months, and half year, that is now more than a feeling,” Lee explains.

“Those folks start to avoid places with people. So many people ask us if they can take the ramen to go because they won’t eat with others.”

Lee would tell them that they don’t need to talk. They can simply sit at the same table and have noodles.

It has been months since Hee-kyung was one of the quiet new arrivals.

So, has it made a difference? In-sook recalls a conversation she was having with a local paper. When she brought up her daughter, she felt a sudden pang and her voice broke.

“I am going to hug you,” Hee-kyung declared.

She walked over from the other side of the room and embraced In-sook.

Convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson allegedly tried to repeatedly poison her husband, including with cookies she claimed their daughter had baked him, a court was told.

The Australian woman was last month found guilty of murdering three relatives – and attempting to kill another – with a toxic mushroom-laced beef Wellington.

The 50-year-old was originally charged with three counts of attempted murder against her estranged husband Simon Patterson, but these charges were dropped without explanation on the eve of her trial.

The details of the allegations, which Patterson denied, were suppressed to protect the proceedings, but can now be made public for the first time.

Three people died in hospital in the days after the lunch on 29 July 2023: Patterson’s former in-laws, Don Patterson, 70, and Gail Patterson, 70, as well as Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, 66.

Local pastor Ian Wilkinson – Heather’s husband – recovered after weeks of treatment in hospital.

In lengthy pre-trial hearings last year, Mr Patterson had detailed what he suspected was a years-long campaign to kill him with tainted food – including one episode which had left him so ill he spent weeks in a coma and his family was twice told to say their goodbyes.

In a quiet moment during the early days of Patterson’s trial, her estranged husband choked up as he explained his sorrow to a near empty courtroom.

Mr Patterson’s parents and his aunt had been killed, and his uncle almost died too, after eating the toxic meal prepared by his wife. He had narrowly avoided the same fate, pulling out of the lunch gathering the day before.

“I have a lot to grieve,” he said to the judge, sitting in the witness box as the jury prepared to return from a break.

“The legal process has been very difficult… especially the way it’s progressed in terms of the charges relating to me and my evidence about that – or non-evidence now, I guess.”

“I’m sitting here, half thinking about the things I’m not allowed to talk about and… I don’t actually understand why. It seems bizarre to me, but it is what it is.”

What he wasn’t allowed to talk about – the elephant in the room throughout the trial – was his claim that Patterson had been trying to poison him long before the fatal lunch that destroyed his family on 29 July 2023.

Mr Patterson gave evidence during pre-trial hearings, which are a standard part of the court process and allow judges to determine what evidence is admissible – or allowed to be presented to a jury.

As the charges relating to Mr Patterson were dropped, his evidence on the matter was excluded from the raft of information presented at the nine-week trial this year.

But he had explained that, as far as he knows, it all began with a Tupperware container of Bolognese penne in November 2021.

Mr Patterson and his wife had separated in 2015 – though they still aren’t divorced – and he thought they remained on amicable terms.

Under questioning from Patterson’s lawyer, Mr Patterson confirmed he had noticed “nothing untoward” in their relationship at that point: “If by ‘nothing untoward’, you mean anything that would make me think she would try and kill me, correct.”

But after eating that meal, he began suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea, and spent a night in hospital.

“I had the idea I got sick from Erin’s food. I did not give it too much thought,” he said in his police statement, according to The Age newspaper.

Months later, in May 2022, he fell ill again after eating a chicken korma curry prepared by Patterson on a camping trip in the rugged mountains and alpine scruff of Victoria’s High Country region.

“While Erin was preparing food I was getting the fire going so I didn’t watch her prepare it,” he told the court.

Within days, he was in a coma in a Melbourne hospital, and a large part of his bowel was surgically removed in a bid to save his life.

“My family were asked to come and say goodbye to me twice, as I was not expected to live,” he said in a 2022 Facebook post, reported by The South Gippsland Sentinel Times two years ago.

In September 2022, while visiting a stunning, isolated stretch of Victorian coastline, he would become desperately unwell again after eating a vegetable wrap.

At first, he felt nausea and diarrhoea coming on, the court heard, before his symptoms escalated. He started slurring his speech, gradually lost control of his muscles, and began “fitting”.

“By the end of the journey [to hospital], all I could move was my neck, my tongue and lips,” he told the court.

A family friend who was a doctor, Christopher Ford, suggested Mr Patterson start a food diary so they could try to figure out what was making him so sick.

“I couldn’t understand why these things kept on happening to him in such a way that he had essentially three near-death experiences,” Dr Ford told the court.

Mr Patterson returned to see him in February 2023, five months before the fatal lunch, revealing he’d come to believe his estranged wife was responsible.

He told Dr Ford about a batch of cookies supposedly baked by his daughter, which he feared were treats tainted – possibly with antifreeze chemicals – by his wife, who had called repeatedly to check whether he had eaten any.

The court would hear investigators never figured out what Patterson had allegedly been feeding him, though they suspected rat poison may have been used on at least one occasion, and had found a file on Patterson’s computer with information about the toxin.

After this discovery, Mr Patterson changed his medical power of attorney, removing his wife, and quietly told a handful of family members of his fears.

The court heard that his father Don Patterson responded diplomatically, but his sister Anna Terrington told the pre-trial hearings she had believed her brother, and was anxious when she learned about the lunch Patterson had planned.

Ms Terrington called her parents the night before to warn them.

“Dad said, ‘No, we’ll be ok’,” she said.

Five days later, she gathered in a Melbourne hospital chapel alongside her brother and other worried relatives. Down the hall, deteriorating in their beds, were Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson.

Ruth Dubois, the Wilkinsons’ daughter, told the pre-trial hearings Simon Patterson had assembled the group to tell them he suspected his previous grave illnesses were the work of his wife.

“[He said] he had stopped eating food that Erin had prepared, because he suspected Erin had been messing with it,” she said.

“He was really sorry that he hadn’t told our family before this… but he thought he was the only person she was targeting, and that they’d be safe.”

It was also revealed that Patterson had visited a local tip the afternoon of the lunch at her house, though it is unknown what, if anything, she disposed of there.

The jury heard that she had travelled to the same dump days after the lunch to get rid of a food dehydrator used to prepare the meal, but the judge ruled they couldn’t be told about the first visit.

Other bizarre evidence which was ultimately left out of the trial included a 2020 post to a poisons help forum on Facebook, in which Patterson claimed her cat had eaten some mushrooms under a tree and had vomited, alongside pictures of fungi.

Patterson had never owned a cat, prosecutors said, arguing the post was evidence of a long-standing interest in the poisonous properties of mushrooms.

On Friday, Justice Christopher Beale set down a sentencing hearing for 25 August, where those connected to the case will have the opportunity to give victim impact statements.

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As American as apple pie, Kentucky bourbon was booming after the last Great Recession ended. But as the economy has waned post-Pandemic – and with multiple trade wars on the horizon – the market may be drying up.

Although the whiskey, which is traditionally made with corn and aged in charred oak barrels, has roots going all the way back to the 18th century, it wasn’t until 1964 that it became an iconic piece of Americana, when Congress passed a law declaring it a “distinctive product of the United States”.

But drinking trends come and go, and by the end of the 20th century, bourbon was considered a bit old fashioned – pun intended.

“You often see these kind of generational shifts where people don’t want to drink what their parents drink,” said Marten Lodewijks, the US president of IWSR, which collects alcoholic beverage data and provides industry analysis.

Then, as the world recovered from the 2008 recession, drinkers seemed to rediscover this classic spirit, for a few different reasons.

For starters, the price point was good, which made it attractive for bar managers to purchase and incorporate into cocktails and for younger drinkers to sample. Then, in 2013, a law was passed in Kentucky that made it easier for companies to purchase and resell vintage bottles, opening up a high-end collectible market. Add to that the rise in mid-century nostalgia fuelled by shows like Mad Men, and bourbon was due for a full-blown Renaissance.

Sales of bourbon grew by 7% worldwide between 2011-2020, which is more than three times the growth of the decade prior, according to industry data company ISWR.

Soon, some bourbon distillers were becoming quasi-celebrities, and people were starting to buy up bourbon bottles not to drink, but as an investment.

“Everyone was going crazy over the bourbon market, and treating like a commodity, like a stock,” recalls Robin Wynne, a general manager and beverage director for Little Sister in Toronto, Canada, who has been a bar manager for about 25 years.

“People would go in as a prospector, to flip bottles for two to three times the value.”

But like most market bubbles, this one was bound to burst. The pandemic’s lockdowns tanked bar sales, and inflation has made many would-be bourbon drinkers choose less expensive options – or forgo drinking all together. Amongst Gen-Z, many 20-somethings are drinking less than their older siblings and parents did at their age.

Those factors have contributed to declining alcohol sales, with bourbon sales specifically slowing down to just 2% between 2021-2024, according to ISWR data.

President Donald Trump’s global tariffs have been the final straw. The EU has announced retaliatory tariffs against US goods, including Kentucky bourbon and Californian wine, although implementation has been delayed for six months.

Meanwhile, most provinces in Canada have stopped importing American alcoholic beverages in retaliation. The country accounts for about 10% of Kentucky’s $9bn (£6.7bn) whiskey and bourbon business.

“That’s worse than a tariff, because it’s literally taking your sales away, completely removing our products from the shelves … that’s a very disproportionate response,” Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Brown-Forman, which produces Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, said back in March when Canadian provinces announced their plan to stop buying US booze.

Trump has said that tariffs will boost made-in-American businesses.

But Republican Senator Rand Paul, who represents Kentucky, said the tariffs will hurt local businesses and consumers in his home state.

“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in May.

These economic pressures have created a growing list of casualties.

Liquor giant Diageo, reported that sales of Bulleit, a Kentucky distillery that makes bourbon, rye and whiskey, where down 7.3% this fiscal year.

Wild Turkey – a Kentucky bourbon owned by Campari – sales were down 8.1% over the past six months.

While big, international brands will likely be able to weather the storm, the sales hit has led to a growing list of casualties.

In July, LMD Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – just one month after opening the Luca Mariano Distillery in Danville, Kentucky.

This spring, Garrard County Distilling went into receivership.

And in January, Jack Daniel’s parent company closed a barrel-making plant in Kentucky.

The bottom of the barrel has not yet been reached, warned Mr Lodewijks.

“I’d be extraordinarily surprised if there weren’t more bankruptcies and more consolidation,” he said.

In part, bourbon has become a victim of its own success – the rise in bourbon sales, and the growth of the premium market, helped fuel many small distilleries. Because bourbon must age in barrels for years, what’s on the market today was predicted a few years ago, which means that there is currently an oversupply, which is driving down prices.

But while these economic conditions are harsh, Mr Lodewijks said that history has shown how tough times can create innovation. Scotch whisky used to be fairly simple, a blend of middle-of-the road tipples. But when sales declined in the second part of the 20th centuries, distillers started aging their excess bottles, which helped create the market we have now for premium, aged Scotch whisky.

In Canada, where bourbon imports have slowed to a trickle, local distilleries have started experimenting with bourbon-making methods to give Canadian whiskey a similar taste.

“The tariff war has really done a positive for the Canadian spirits business,” noted Mr Wynne.

“We’ve got lots of grains to make these whiskeys without having to rely on the States.”

President Vladimir Putin has presented US President Donald Trump’s special envoy with an award to pass on to a senior CIA official whose son was killed fighting with Russia in Ukraine.

Putin gave the Order of Lenin to Steve Witkoff during his trip to Moscow this week to discuss a plan to end the Ukraine war, sources familiar with the matter told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

Michael Gloss, 21, who was killed in Ukraine last year, was the son of Juliane Gallina, who is the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation.

Reports of the award emerged as it was confirmed that Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russian foreign ministry has publicly acknowledged posthumously bestowing the Order of Lenin, a Soviet-era award recognising outstanding civilian service, on Gloss.

It is unclear what was done with the award. The White House, the CIA and Witkoff did not respond to requests for comment.

Gloss’ death first emerged in Russian media reports in April.

A CIA statement later that month said Gloss had been suffering from mental health problems, adding that his death was not a national security issue.

Gloss was never an employee of the CIA, a person familiar with the matter told CBS.

Sources also told CBS that the Kremlin did not initially appear to be aware of the family background of Gloss, who enlisted with Russian forces in autumn 2023.

Gloss had shared selfies in Moscow’s Red Square on social media last year. His posts had expressed support for Russia in what he called “the Ukraine Proxy war” and dismissed media coverage of the conflict as “western propaganda”.

An obituary for Gloss published in November 2024 said he was “killed in Eastern Europe” on 4 April that year.

The CIA’s statement about his death four months ago said that Ms Gallina and her family had suffered “an unimaginable personal tragedy”.

Gloss’s father, Iraq war veteran Larry Gloss, told the Washington Post in an interview this April that their son had struggled for most of his life with mental illness.

“Our biggest fear while we were waiting for him to be repatriated was that someone over there [in Moscow] would put two and two together and figure out who his mother was, and use him as a prop,” Larry Gloss said.

The enthralling 2-2 draw for the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy between England and India provided a dramatic start to the new World Test Championship cycle.

It was an epic contest, each of the five Tests going into the final day, four in fact into the final session, providing some of the best individual and collective performances the five-day format has seen in recent years.

The scoreline scoffed at projections made by former cricketers and pundits before the series, a majority of whom had predicted an easy win – if not a clean sweep – for England.

Setting aside England’s home advantage, experts argued India’s pre-series struggles made them easy targets – and with good reason.

Whitewashed 0-3 at home by New Zealand, followed by a 3-1 drubbing by Australia down under in two preceding series, India looked vulnerable and wobbly.

A spate of sudden retirements and fitness issues left India without four key players – R Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Mohammed Shami. Their absence was expected to place immense pressure on young Shubman Gill, leading the side in his first series as captain.

India’s squad had undeniable talent, but its inexperience – especially in batting under challenging conditions – was a concern.

KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, and Rishabh Pant were seasoned campaigners in England, but Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudarshan, Karun Nair, Washington Sundar, and Abhimanyu Easwaran had never played at this level there before.

Gill’s modest overseas batting record fuelled doubts about his suitability for captaincy. Added worries over pace ace Jasprit Bumrah’s fitness further dimmed India’s prospects.

Losing the first Test at Headingley from a winning position, as England chased 373 in the fourth innings, confirmed pundits’ doubts.

But India recovered from this setback in style to win the next Test at Edgbaston by a whopping 336 runs.

The swift turnaround came not from luck but skill and relentless determination – qualities that defined India’s performance for the rest of the series.

The three Tests that followed were bitterly fought, both teams raising the intensity and skill levels, matching each other blow-for-blow.

This sparked frequent heated clashes but also unforgettable acts of heroism, with players from both sides battling fatigue and injury to keep their teams in the fight.

Some aspects of what kept India in the fight right through the neck-and-neck contest comes through in the stats.

Three batters – Gill, Rahul and Jadeja – topped 500 runs in the series. England had one, Joe Root.

There were 12 centuries made by India, England had nine.

Mohammed Siraj with 23 was the highest wicket-taker from either side. The only bowler to take 10 wickets in a match was Akash Deep.

Failures were scant, heroes were plenty, but the pillars of India’s extraordinary show in the series were Gill and Siraj.

Gill, in Bradmanesque form, made 754 runs, 430 of them coming in one Test.

He failed by a mere 20 runs to break Sunil Gavaskar’s record series aggregate, and was also second to Don Bradman (810) for highest runs made in a series by a captain.

To be mentioned alongside Bradman and Gavaskar testifies to Gill’s achievement and potential. His prolific scoring earned his team’s full respect, and after a hesitant start, he quickly grew in confidence, showing fine temperament and smart tactics in tough situations.

Siraj, who since his 2021 debut had lived in the shadows of Bumrah and Shami, emerged so spectacularly that he instantly entered cricket folklore.

Feisty and indefatigable, he bowled with a lion’s heart – steaming in at full tilt, sparing his body no mercy, embracing the spearhead’s role in Bumrah’s absence, and inspiring the other pacers to bowl out of their skins – earning universal awe and admiration.

Siraj’s 23 wickets came at an average of 32.43, with an economy rate of 4.02 and a strike rate of 48.43 – hardly earth-shattering figures.

In India’s two victories, he was the decisive force. At Edgbaston, his six wickets in the first innings (seven overall) swung the match firmly in India’s favour. At the Oval, he took nine wickets – four in the first innings and five in the second – turning the match on its head.

How India held their nerve for 25 days under immense pressure – driven by willpower, ambition, and skill – culminating in a thrilling final 56-minute comeback at the Oval to win and level the series, is one of Test cricket’s most riveting tales.

It also marked this Indian young team’s transition from apprehension and misgivings one of rich promise fuelled by ambition and excellence.

The future looks rosy.

Mexico has said US military would not be entering its territory following reports that President Donald Trump had directed the Pentagon to target Latin American drug cartels.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday. “We co-operate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out.”

The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump had secretly signed a directive to begin using military force on foreign soil.

In a statement to the BBC, the White House did not address the directive but said that Trump’s “top priority is protecting the homeland”.

The reported directive appears to follow an executive order signed by Trump earlier this year formally designating eight drug cartels as terrorist entities – six of which are Mexican.

• From Mexico cartel safe house to US streets: BBC tracks deadly fentanyl targeted by Trump tariffs
• How does fentanyl get into the US?

Speaking to reporters, Sheinbaum said the Mexican government was informed that an order on the cartels was coming, and “that it had nothing to do with the participation of any military personnel”.

“It is not part of any agreement, far from it. When it has been brought up, we have always said ‘No’,” she said.

Earlier this year, Sheinbaum told reporters that Trump’s decision to designate cartels as terrorists “cannot be an opportunity for the US to invade our sovereignty”.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the designation would help the US target cartels, including through intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense.

“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organisations, not simply drug dealing organisations,” Rubio said.

The New York Times report says the directive signed by Trump provides “an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations” against cartels, both at sea and on foreign soil.

In recent months, Mexico has worked with the US to curb the illegal flow of both migrants and drugs through the US-Mexico border.

June saw the lowest border crossings on record, according to data by the US Customs and Border Protections, and last week, US Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson said fentanyl seizures at the border were down by over half.

In a post on X, Johnson celebrated the collaboration between Sheinbum and Trump, writing that their leadership had resulted in cartels “going bankrupt and our countries are safer because of it”.

Elon Musk’s AI video generator has been accused of making “a deliberate choice” to create sexually explicit clips of Taylor Swift without prompting, says an expert in online abuse.

“This is not misogyny by accident, it is by design,” said Clare McGlynn, a law professor who has helped draft a law which would make pornographic deepfakes illegal.

According to a report by The Verge, Grok Imagine’s new “spicy” mode “didn’t hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos” of the pop star without being asked to make explicit content.

The report also said proper age verification methods – which became law in July – were not in place.

XAI, the company behind Grok, has been approached for comment.

XAI’s own acceptable use policy prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”.

“That this content is produced without prompting demonstrates the misogynistic bias of much AI technology,” said Prof McGlynn of Durham University.

“Platforms like X could have prevented this if they had chosen to, but they have made a deliberate choice not to,” she added.

This is not the first time Taylor Swift’s image has been used in this way.

Sexually explicit deepfakes using her face went viral and were viewed millions of times on X and Telegram in January 2024.

Deepfakes are computer-generated images which replace the face of one person with another.

In testing the guardrails of Grok Imagine, The Verge news writer Jess Weatherbed entered the prompt: “Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys”.

Grok generated still images of Swift wearing a dress with a group of men behind her.

This could then be animated into short video clips under four different settings: “normal”, “fun”, “custom” or “spicy”.

“She ripped [the dress] off immediately, had nothing but a tasselled thong underneath, and started dancing, completely uncensored, completely exposed,” Ms Weatherbed told BBC News.

She added: “It was shocking how fast I was just met with it – I in no way asked it to remove her clothing, all I did was select the ‘spicy’ option.”

Gizmodo reported similarly explicit results of famous women, though some searches also returned blurred videos or with a “video moderated” message.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the results of the AI video generations.

Ms Weatherbed said she signed up to the paid version of Grok Imagine, which cost £30, using a brand new Apple account.

Grok asked for her date of birth but there was no other age verification in place, she said.

Under new UK laws which entered into force at the end of July, platforms which show explicit images must verify users’ ages using methods which are “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair”.

“Sites and apps that include Generative AI tools that can generate pornographic material are regulated under the Act,” the media regulator Ofcom told BBC News.

“We are aware of the increasing and fast-developing risk GenAI tools may pose in the online space, especially to children, and we are working to ensure platforms put appropriate safeguards in place to mitigate these risks,” it said in a statement.

Currently, generating pornographic deepfakes is illegal when used in revenge porn or depicts children.

Prof McGlynn helped draft an amendment to the law which would make generating or requesting all non-consensual pornographic deepfakes illegal.

The government has committed to making this amendment law, but it is yet to come into force.

“Every woman should have the right to choose who owns intimate images of her,” said Baroness Owen, who proposed the amendment in the House of Lords.

“It is essential that these models are not used in such a way that violates a woman’s right to consent whether she be a celebrity or not,” Lady Owen continued in a statement given to BBC News.

“This case is a clear example of why the Government must not delay any further in its implementation of the Lords amendments,” she added.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Sexually explicit deepfakes created without consent are degrading and harmful.

“We refuse to tolerate the violence against women and girls that stains our society which is why we have passed legislation to ban their creation as quickly as possible.”

When pornographic deepfakes using Taylor Swift’s face went viral in 2024, X temporarily blocked searches for her name on the platform.

At the time, X said it was “actively removing” the images and taking “appropriate actions” against the accounts involved in spreading them.

Ms Weatherbed said the team at The Verge chose Taylor Swift to test the Grok Imagine feature because of this incident.

“We assumed – wrongly now – that if they had put any kind of safeguards in place to prevent them from emulating the likeness of celebrities, that she would be first on the list, given the issues that they’ve had,” she said.

Taylor Swift’s representatives have been contacted for comment.

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This searing biography of Prince Andrew crackles with scandals about sex and money on almost every page, two subjects that have always caused problems for the royals.

Andrew Lownie’s book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, is an unrelentingly unflattering portrait of Prince Andrew. It depicts him as arrogant, self-seeking and in denial about his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The author’s best-selling biographies have a habit of changing the reputation of famous figures, such as establishing the Nazi intrigues around the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII.

Although in the case of Entitled, he hasn’t so much cemented Prince Andrew’s reputation, as put it in concrete boots and thrown it in the river. It is hard to see how he might come back from this.

This account, more than 450 pages, is said to have taken four years to research, involving hundreds of interviews. And for anyone thinking they have heard much of this story before, it is the extra and sometimes unexpected, throwaway details that will make this a fascinating read.

Like comedian Billy Connolly and Sir Elton John being at Prince Andrew’s stag night. Or film maker Woody Allen being at the same dinner with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s house in Manhattan.

This detail tallies with a piece in the New York Times this week that quotes a birthday greeting written by Allen to Epstein, which references “even royalty” being at one of Epstein’s dinners.

To rapidly lose some mid-life weight, when he was going out with a younger woman, the book records that Prince Andrew lived on a crash diet of “stewed prunes for breakfast, raw vegetables for lunch and soup for supper”.

About their academic ability, the book says that Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson passed two O-levels at their respective expensive private schools. Andrew had to re-take exams the following year before going on to take A-levels.

Now in disgrace, Prince Andrew is claimed to spend his time, when not riding or golfing, cooped up watching aviation videos and reading thrillers, with The Talented Mr Ripley said to be his favourite. It is about a con-man taking on the identity of a wealthy playboy.

There are some more gentle anecdotes about him, such as when he was a helicopter pilot and ferried a group of soldiers from a rifle range and decided to put down on the Sandringham estate.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was in residence, was said to have looked at the guns being toted by these unexpected arrivals. “You can put those in there if you like,” she said, pointing to an umbrella stand.

But the biography is much more crowded with anecdotes about his rudeness and his acute lack of self awareness, not to mention a prodigious number of quick-fire affairs.

It is claimed he swore at and insulted staff, bawling someone out as an “imbecile” for not using the Queen Mother’s full title. Protection officers were despatched to collect golf balls and private jets seemed to be hired as casually as an Uber on a night out.

The Paris-based journalist Peter Allen, among the sources for the book, says many of Andrew’s problems reflect on his “flawed character”.

“He’s been afforded every type of privilege, all his life, while displaying very poor judgement and getting into highly compromising situations.”

Known as “Baby Grumpling” in his early years, Andrew was claimed to have moved people from jobs because one was wearing a nylon tie, and another because he had a mole on his face.

Diplomats, whose cause Andrew was meant to be advancing, nicknamed him “His Buffoon Highness” because of all the gaffes.

There are details of his unhappy knack of getting involved with all the wrong people in his money-making ventures, from Libyan gun runners and relations of dictators to a Chinese spy.

“This book appears to seal the fate of Andrew if he was ever hoping to be reinstated officially into the working royals,” says royal commentator Pauline Maclaran.

“The public will be wanting to see some clear action on the King’s part I think – particularly as Andrew’s connections to Epstein are raked over again,” says Prof Maclaran.

If this seems like a torrent of bad news, the book also raises some deeper questions about what lies behind Prince Andrew’s character.

There are suggestions of an often lonely and isolated figure, obsessed with sex but much weaker at relationships. Sources from his time in the navy saw his “bombastic” exterior as concealing a much more vulnerable and socially awkward figure, whose upbringing had made him unsure how to behave.

He showed authentic courage when he flew helicopters in the Falklands war and he was remembered as being willing to “muck in” during that stressful time, when crews were living on canned food rather than fine dining.

On his fascination for sex, an unnamed source claims Andrew lost his virginity at the age of 11, which the same source likens to a form of abuse.

One of his former naval colleagues went from seeing Andrew as “immature, privileged, entitled” to having a more sympathetic view of a character of “loneliness and insecurity”, a public figure who was uncertain about how he fitted in with other people, and had ended up with the “wrong sort of friends”.

Top of that list must be Jeffrey Epstein. Lownie’s book offers meticulous detail of the connections between Prince Andrew and the US financier and sex offender, establishing links that went back to the early 1990s, earlier than had previously been established.

It is also strong on the unbalanced nature of their relationship, with a friend of Andrew’s describing the prince’s dealings with Epstein as “like putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse”.

Epstein’s sleazy and abusive world, with its mix of easy money and exploitative sex, was ultimately a form of blackmail operation, claims Lownie’s book. It gave him something to hold over the many powerful people who came into his orbit.

The book is a reminder of the scale and seediness of Epstein’s exploitation of girls. It is also an account of the destruction that followed.

The famous photograph showing Virginia Giuffre with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London was supposedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew is the only one of them not to be either dead or in prison.

And Lownie’s sources cast doubt on whether Epstein did take his own life, questioning the medical evidence and the series of unfortunate gaps in supervision in the jail where he was being held.

After his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview and the court case with Virginia Giuffre – which he settled with a rejection of any wrongdoing – Prince Andrew has been pushed out of public life, no longer a “working royal”.

Historian Ed Owens says it is almost six years since that Newsnight interview, but Prince Andrew is still appearing in news stories “for all the wrong reasons”.

“This isn’t good for the monarchy,” he says, even though “King Charles and Prince William have sought to limit the reputational damage Andrew can have on ‘brand Windsor’,” says Owens.

• What do we know about the Epstein files?
• Prince Andrew to pay own costs or move out of Windsor mansion
• Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies

Standing loyally beside Prince Andrew has been Sarah Ferguson, who describes their relationship as being “divorced to each other, not from each other”, still living together at Royal Lodge.

The book depicts her as being in an endless loop of binge spending, debt and then convoluted deals, sponsorships and freebies, to try to get her finances on track, before the cycle begins again.

But there is no doubting her remarkable capacity to keep bouncing back and to keep on plugging away, when others would have been down and out years ago.

She has a sense of fun that appeals to people. The book tells how successful she was at boosting sales as an ambassador for Waterford Wedgwood, then owned by Tony O’Reilly. She was described by staff as “brilliant at working a room, fresh, chic and wasn’t stuffy”.

The book is already riding high in the best-seller charts and royal commentator Richard Palmer says it raises difficult topical questions.

“It puts Andrew back at the front and centre of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at a time when Donald Trump is facing serious questions about his own friendship with the late paedophile,” says Palmer.

“It’s a scandal that just won’t go away for the Royal Family, even though they’ve tried to distance themselves from Andrew,” he says.

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“We are not happy with these men in this hotel because we fear for our children,” Orla Minihane tells me. “If that makes me far-right then so be it.”

Orla has lived near Epping since she was a child and describes herself as a “very boring woman who has worked in the City of London for 25 years”. Last year she joined Reform UK and hopes to stand as a local candidate for the party.

On a busy road leading to the Essex town, The Bell Hotel, now fortified, is one of more than 200 across the country where the government houses asylum seekers.

In the last month a series of protests, sometimes totalling several hundred people from both sides – and on one occasion up to 2,000 according to Essex Police – have taken place over the use of hotels for asylum seekers. About 20 more were planned for Friday and Saturday this week.

The latest round of demonstrations began at the 80-room Bell in July, after a man living in the hotel was arrested, and subsequently charged, with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity. Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and is in custody.

The case has sparked a wider conversation about the effect of housing asylum seekers in hotels in communities across Britain.

“Before there were women and children in the hotel – there was a little bit of crime, most people got on with it,” Orla says. “But now it’s the fact that it’s all men. It’s not a balanced culture.”

The protests have been promoted on social media under red, white and blue banner text with slogans such as “Protect Our Community”, “Safety of Women and Children Before Foreigners” and “All Patriots Welcome”.

We have identified far-right activists at some of the protests and activists who oppose them are watching what is happening closely.

The activist group Stand Up To Racism sees this as far-right organisations “stirring up racist violence” and trying to repeat the violence that flared after the murders of three young girls in Southport.

However, the protests are often organised by people with little experience of street campaigning, including mothers with families and professional careers, like Orla. That they are getting involved suggests that in some communities, with hotels close by, there is a shift in the public mood about Britain’s asylum hotels.

Outside The Bell, which is surrounded by steel fencing and guarded by a 24/7 security team, one of its residents, Wael, from Libya, is a year into his asylum claim and waiting for his fourth Home Office interview.

“I spoke with one of the protesters,” Wael says. “Everything’s good. Epping is nice. We can sit and stay. People respect us.

“I want to learn English and work. In a car wash or something. I will not stay here and take food. I have a dream – to make money and play football and have fun with my time. It’s a small dream.”

Wael is happy to talk, give his name and have his picture taken. But two other young Iraqi Kurds who are staying at The Bell, and allowed to freely come and go, are more cautious and less positive.

They tell me a gang of youths in masks and on motorbikes, has just shouted expletives at them. Shortly afterwards I catch sight of the bikers nearby.

One of the asylum seekers says that living in a hotel room 24 hours a day is messing with his mind. When I ask about their dealings with the Home Office they hurry inside The Bell.

Shortly afterwards a passing driver yells, “Burn it down”.

Last summer in the wake of the Southport murders, that is what some protesters tried to do at other hotels.

This summer, there have been isolated clashes, when activists on each side of the argument, anti-fascists and hard-right, have faced each other, or the police.

Often the migrants have watched from the sidelines, penned up behind the fencing, or filming from upstairs windows.

The police have largely kept control, sometimes facing criticism for their methods, including the false claim that Essex Police used buses to transport pro-migrant activists to a protest in Epping. For now, arrest numbers are way below those in 2024.

I ask Orla, who made an impassioned speech at a recent protest, why she is so aggrieved by the asylum hotel.

She says friends have described their daughters being “grabbed” by young, non-white men in the area. She has seen shoplifting, she says, in the local Marks & Spencer.

“Everyone knows they are asylum seekers,” Orla says, “Epping is very white.”

She adds of the hotel’s occupants: “You know they are coming for freebies and when they come here they abuse the privilege. It’s ridiculous.”

Asylum seekers would say they are seeking protection by coming to the UK, although some are ultimately judged not to be eligible for asylum status.

Last month Stand Up To Racism claimed Orla had shared a stage with an alleged member of a neo-Nazi group at a hotel protest. She told BBC News she had “no idea” who he was, and he says he has since left the group.

Asylum seekers are not normally allowed to work in the UK. Successive governments have judged that paying for their accommodation and food is preferable to allowing them to compete with British workers in the jobs market, offering an incentive to come here.

In June, the government warned some asylum seekers may be illicitly working as food delivery drivers.

Sixteen miles south of Epping, residents in Canary Wharf, east London, live in gleaming glass towers and traditional East End houses alongside another asylum hotel. It is a very different place but many locals share similar opinions.

Asylum seekers recently arrived during the small hours at the wharf-side four-star Britannia International – 610 rooms, but, according to a former staff member, no longer the “luxury hotel” described in some reports. Rumours that they were coming triggered protests by local residents, many of them office workers in the Canary Wharf business district.

Outside the hotel, Chengcheng Cul, who is Chinese, draws a distinction between his “legal migration” to the UK, and “illegal asylum seekers”.

“If people can come over the Channel illegally, and easily, what encourages decent people to come legally, pay their tax, and get involved in this society? Is this setting a good example? This country has opened the border to illegal migrants.”

Lorraine Cavanagh, who works for charities on the Isle of Dogs, echoes the concerns in Epping. “I don’t know who they are.

“They are unidentified men who can walk around and do what they want to do with no consequences,” she says.

That comment, “I don’t know who they are”, lies at the heart of the opposition to asylum seekers in these communities.

It can be very hard to establish basic facts about the young men in the hotels, the system that put them there, or the impact they might have on locals.

While growing in number, asylum seekers who come by small boats across the English Channel are a small proportion of total immigration to the UK, and in 2024, just over a third of all asylum seekers.

The government has contracted out the task of accommodating them to three companies: Serco, Clearsprings and Mears. They buy up rooms in houses and in hotels, usually taking them over completely.

Ministers regularly talk about their ambition to “smash the gangs”, but say less about the hotels. The government won’t confirm where they are because of concerns they might be attacked.

Madeleine Sumption from the Migration Observatory points out there is a problem publishing information about small groups of asylum seekers when it might identify them by age or sex, a long-standing approach for public bodies.

We know how many hotel places are being used in each region – the vast majority are in the south of England. They cost £5.77m a day for the government to provide. The estimated cost over the decade to 2029 has spiralled from £4.5bn in 2019 to £15.3bn.

But there are no specific figures for the age and sex of hotel occupants, no details about their countries of origin, or their claim for sanctuary in the UK.

So when local communities allege crime rates go up when asylum hotels are opened, or raise fears about the hotels being full of only single adult males, it is often impossible to prove the point either way.

There were 35 sexual and violent offences reported in Epping town in May. In the same month, the year before, when there were no asylum seekers at The Bell, 28 sexual and violent offences were reported. In May 2023, the hotel was being used by the Home Office for migrant families. The number of reported offences was 32.

But how many of these offences involved asylum seekers? The police do not publish statistics about exactly where crimes happen or who is reported to have committed them.

So in many ways, we don’t know “who they are”.

Orla believes more information would help reduce tension and is furious at the government’s handling of the asylum system.

“If you conceal the truth and you act as if you are hiding something, people are going to be angry,” she says. “If they said there are 70 in the Bell Hotel, five are from Sudan, five from somewhere else, I think most people would feel better.”

Epping Forest District Council’s Conservative Leader, Chris Whitbread recently said that “it is important to be transparent” about asylum hotel information.

In a recent report, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Bolt, criticised how the Home Office deals with asylum hotels. “It is clear that the Home Office still has a long way to go to build trust and confidence in its willingness to be open and honest about its intentions and performance,” he wrote.

The Home Office says it removed 6,000 people from hotels in early 2025 and has already closed 200 hotels. In its manifesto, Labour pledges to close them all by the next election.

On the other side of the political divide from the anti-migrant campaigners, in north London outside a meeting “to organise against the right wing”, Sabby Dhalu from the protest group Stand Up To Racism wants the government to work more closely with councils so that their residents are better informed.

This should include “explaining why these people are here, where they come from, what’s happening in those countries,” she says. “That they’re in the process of seeking asylum and going through the application process. Settling them in with the community.”

“I think you’ve got far right organisations that are determined to repeat the events of last year,” she added.

“And because for their own cynical reasons, they want to stir up racist violence, and in order to build their own political organisations.”

That said, she feels that voices on the right are “whipping up” and weaponising a wider feeling of discontent among the public over Labour’s cuts to public spending, and that the government is “making silly concessions” to the right in doing so.

Stopping the boats is a challenge which haunts the government, as it did the Conservatives. The Home Office has managed to cut the asylum claim backlog, currently standing at 79,000, but the claimants keep coming and the cost of accommodation is soaring. There is a feeling the government is struggling to cope and ignoring the views of communities.

Many are in agreement that having more than 200 hotels, full of asylum seekers often waiting for lengthy periods for decisions on their applications, is not a sustainable situation.

Whether or not the current protests continue, the government will have to find a solution.

European allies have rallied behind Ukraine in a renewed surge of support, insisting that any peace talks with Russia must include Kyiv.

A joint statement issued by the leaders of the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission came ahead of US President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

A White House official has said that Trump is willing to hold a trilateral meeting which would also include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but, for now, it remains a Trump-Putin summit, as initially requested by the Russian leader.

Zelensky has said any agreements without Kyiv will amount to “dead decisions”.

Trump has previously suggested that he could start by meeting only with Putin, telling reporters he planned to “start off with Russia.” But the US president also said that he believed “we have a shot at” organising a trilateral meeting with both Putin and Zelensky.

Whether Putin would agree to this is unclear – he has refused several opportunities to hold direct talks, and the two leaders have not met face-to-face since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Speaking on Friday, Trump also suggested that there “will be some swapping of territories” in order for Moscow and Kyiv to reach an agreement – to which Zelensky reacted strongly.

“We will not reward Russia for what it has perpetrated,” he said on Telegram. “Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace.”

“The Russians… still impose the idea of ‘exchanging’ Ukrainian territory for Ukrainian territory, with consequences that guarantee nothing but more convenient positions for the Russians to resume the war,” he added defiantly.

CBS, the BBC’s US media partner, has reported that the White House is trying to sway European allies to accept an agreement that would include Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and keeping the Crimean Peninsula.

The European leaders, in their statement released late on Saturday night, stressed that “international borders must not be changed by force”.

“Ukraine has the freedom of choice over its own destiny,” they said, stressing that their nations would continue to support Ukraine diplomatically, militarily and financially.

The leaders also said that a “diplomatic solution” is critical, not just to protect Ukraine – but also Europe’s security.

It’s not just Ukraine that is struggling to be part of the Alaska meeting.

European allies are also worried about their lack of influence over the outcome of any agreement that Trump could reach with Putin.

In a post on X on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron raised concerns about Russia and the US excluding European involvement.

“Europeans will also necessarily be part of the solution, as their own security is at stake,” he wrote.

On Sunday, Zelensky thanked the allies for their support.

“The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations,” he said.

Europe has taken a tough approach to Moscow – including imposing sanctions against Russian entities and providing military aid for Ukraine.

Zelensky said he told Macron in a phone call on Saturday that the key was to make sure “the Russians do not get to deceive anyone again”.

“We all need a genuine end to the war and reliable security foundations for Ukraine and other European nations,” the Ukrainian leader said.

US diplomacy with Europe and Ukraine fell to Vice-President JD Vance on Saturday, when he visited the UK and held talks with Foreign Secretary David Lammy as well as two of Zelensky’s top aides.

Thanking Vance for the discussions, Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelensky’s office, stressed the need for Ukraine to be included.

“A reliable, lasting peace is only possible with Ukraine at the negotiating table,” he said. “A ceasefire is necessary – but the frontline is not a border.”

The summit in Alaska, the territory which Russia sold to the US in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents, since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

Nine months later, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

In 2022, the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite not having full control over them.

Moscow has failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough in its full-scale invasion, but occupies large swathes of Ukraine’s eastern territory. Ukrainian offensives, meanwhile, have not been able to push the Russian forces back.

Film critics have delivered a verdict: the new version of War of the Worlds – which stars Ice Cube as a man who must save humanity from an alien invasion without leaving his desk – is bad.

But how bad? Is it just “the worst possible adaptation of HG Wells’s work”? Is it “one of the worst movies of the decade so far”? Or might it actually be “one of the worst movies ever made”?

When the reviews started coming in this week, the internet soon took delight in the film’s 0% critic score on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

While some gleefully joined in the mauling, others were attracted to the Prime Video film like moths to a flame.

“I feel like I have to watch this now,” wrote The White Lotus actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, who, as the son of Arnold, has perhaps encountered the odd low-ranking movie.

He’s not the only person to feel the lure of a film with savage reviews – some terrible movies have built cult followings for being so bad they’re good.

Lon Harris, executive producer of the This Week in Startups podcast, stoked the conversation this week when he posted: “Dipping below like 5% on Rotten Tomatoes has basically the same appeal to me as breaking 90%.

“That’s some[thing] I need to experience right there.”

A film with a rock bottom rating is bound to be interesting, Harris tells BBC News.

“A very low score indicates universal agreement. This movie is bad. Now I want to know more… Why does everyone agree? Suddenly, I’m intrigued.

“I watch a lot of movies, there’s so much content coming out, and most of it is bland and forgettable.”

Harris was intrigued enough to watch War of the Worlds, and it duly lived down to his expectations.

“It’s very silly, Ice Cube’s solo performance just reacting to things on his laptop screen verges at times on parody and frequently made me laugh, and there’s a whole subplot involving Amazon drone deliveries that’s so on-the-nose it’s almost unbelievable that they included it,” he says.

It’s not a subtle film. Ice Cube’s government surveillance agent must save both the world and his family from afar, as he watches the alien invasion unfold on his computer screen, a set-up explained by the fact it was made during the pandemic.

It had been sitting on the shelf ever since – until now.

Harris adds: “There’s a charm to watching a movie that’s not slick and polished like most other films you see, where you can sort of see the artists’ hands at work trying their best to cover for their budget issues and production setbacks.

“That’s more interesting than just ‘another alien invasion movie’ to me.”

After its initial battering, one critic has now taken pity on War of the Worlds, having enjoyed watching it.

“Is this movie really that bad?” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Jordan Hoffman on Thursday.

“The answer is… absolutely not. It’s certainly stupid, but it’s also a great deal of fun.”

That write-up, which concluded that the “movie is a mess, but an uproarious one”, was deemed positive by Rotten Tomatoes so has nudged the film’s Tomatometer score up from 0% to the giddy heights of 4% at the time of writing.

Truly atrocious movies are preferable to those that are simply forgettable, according to Timon Singh, who set up the Bristol Bad Film Club a decade ago.

“I’ve seen films where the shot is not even in focus, the crew are walking into frame, the actor’s wig has fallen off – and it’s still an incredibly entertaining film,” he says.

Blockbusters can be “bloated” and “boring”, he adds, plucking out 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight as an example.

“In comparison, Samurai Cop is technically a terrible film, but it’s 90 minutes of pure enjoyable terrible acting, awful fight scenes, and once you’ve seen it, you’re never going to forget it.

“Whereas you’ll probably forget Transformers: The Last Knight while you’re watching it.”

Other films to have gained cult followings include 2003’s The Room, once described as “a trash masterpiece” by the Daily Beast.

However, The Room, made by “bad film auteur” Tommy Wiseau, is perversely enjoyable enough to have a relatively respectable 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Katharine Coldiron, author of Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter, says it’s better to watch a film-maker like Wiseau try hard and fall short, rather than someone going through the motions.

“When a film is earnestly made, and it fails, that’s terrific to watch,” she says.

She says her favourite terrible film is 1983’s Staying Alive, the sequel to disco classic Saturday Night Fever, directed by Sylvester Stallone, which was critically panned despite commercial success.

“All but one of the characters is a sociopath, so the movie works on almost no levels. I love to put it on and yell at it.”

Rotten Tomatoes has its own list of the worst films of all time.

It’s skewed to movies from the past 25 years, because those have the most online reviews, and is of course subject to the flaws of the RT scores.

But here are its top five, all of which have 0% critic ratings.

1. Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (2002)

A cliché-crammed moody action thriller, slated for it script, acting and fight sequences.

Starring: Lucy Liu is unconvincing as a sort-of-superhero and Antonio Banderas is a grizzled ex-FBI agent.

Sample review: “An ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem, occasionally surfacing for cliches.” Roger Ebert

2. One Missed Call (2008)

A insipid and ridiculous (but competent) remake of a Japanese horror film about teenage friends who get voicemail messages sent by their future selves at their moments of death.

Starring: A random assortment including Shannyn Sossamon, who went on to join US band Warpaint; Meagan Good, now actor Jonathan Majors’ wife; comedian Margaret Cho; future Modern Family star Ariel Winter; and Ray Wise from Twin Peaks.

Sample review: “A brow-furrowing blend of child abuse and adult trauma.” New York Times

3. Left Behind (2014)

A mixture of Hallmark-style schmaltz, Biblical-themed supernatural mystery and aeroplane disaster drama. And not in a good way.

Starring: Nicolas Cage stuck in his post-Oscar-winning rut.

Sample review: “Left Behind takes the end of the world and turns it not into a nightmare, but a nice long nap.” Washington Post

4. A Thousand Words (2012)

A motormouth book agent mustn’t speak, otherwise a magical tree will die, and so will he. For some reason.

Starring: Eddie Murphy being over-the-top and underwhelming at the same time.

Sample review: “Remember Eddie Murphy? He used to be hilarious.” Movieline

5. Gotti (2018)

This mob misfire was criticised for, among many other things, its sympathetic portrayal of real-life crime boss John Gotti.

Starring: John Travolta showed he’s no Marlon Brando. His wife Kelly Preston played Gotti’s wife.

Sample review: “I’d rather wake up next to a severed horse head than ever watch Gotti again.” New York Post

“Brazen! It is brazen!” Prof Paul Sereno says down the phone line from Chicago.

He makes no effort to disguise his anger that a rare meteorite from Mars discovered two years ago in the West African nation of Niger ended up being auctioned off in New York last month to an unnamed buyer.

The palaeontologist, who has close connections with the country, believes it should be back in Niger.

This millions-of-years-old piece of the Red Planet, the largest ever found on Earth, fetched $4.3m (£3.2m) at Sotheby’s. Like the buyer, the seller was kept anonymous.

But it is unclear if any of this money went to Niger.

Fragments of extraterrestrial material that have made their way to Earth have long inspired reverence among humans – some ending up as religious objects, others as curiosities for display. More recently, many have become the subject of scientific study.

The trade in meteorites has been compared to the art market, with aesthetics and rarity affecting the price.

At first, there was a sense of awe surrounding the public display of this extraordinary Martian find – less than 400 of the 50,000 meteorites discovered have been shown to come from our planetary neighbour.

The photographs taken at Sotheby’s of the 24.7kg (54lb) rock – appearing in the lights to glow silver and red – compounded this feeling.

But then some people started asking questions about how it ended up under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Not least the government of Niger itself, which, in a statement, “expressed doubts about the legality of its export, raising concerns about possible illicit international trafficking”.

Sotheby’s strongly disputes this, saying the correct procedures were followed, but Niger has now launched an investigation into the circumstances of the discovery and sale of the meteorite, which has been given the scientific and unromantic name NWA 16788 (NWA standing for north-west Africa).

Little has been made public about how it ended up at a world-renowned auction house in the US.

An Italian academic article published last year said that it was found on 16 November 2023 in the Sahara Desert in Niger’s Agadez region, 90km (56 miles) to the west of the Chirfa Oasis, by “a meteorite hunter, whose identity remained undisclosed”.

Meteorites can fall anywhere on Earth, but because of the favourable climate for preservation and the lack of human disturbance, the Sahara has become a prime spot for their discovery. People scour the inhospitable landscape stretching across several countries in the hope of finding one to sell on.

According to the Italian article, NWA 16788, was “sold by the local community to an international dealer” and was then transferred to a private gallery in the Italian city of Arezzo.

The University of Florence’s magazine described the person as “an important Italian gallery owner”.

A team of scientists led by Giovanni Pratesi, mineralogy professor at the university, was able to examine it to learn more about its structure and where it came from. The meteorite was then briefly on display last year in Italy, including at the Italian Space Agency in Rome.

It was next seen in public in New York last month, minus two slices that stayed in Italy for more research.

Sotheby’s said that NWA 16788 was “exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedures.

“As with everything we sell, all relevant documentation was in order at each stage of its journey, in accordance with best practice and the requirements of the countries involved.”

A spokesperson added that Sotheby’s was aware of reports that Niger is investigating the export of the meteorite and “we are reviewing the information available to us in light of the question raised”.

Prof Sereno, who founded the organisation Niger Heritage a decade ago, is convinced Nigerien law was broken.

The academic with the University of Chicago, who has spent years uncovering the country’s vast deposits of dinosaur bones in the Sahara, campaigns to get Niger’s cultural and natural heritage – including anything that has fallen from outer space – returned.

A stunning museum on an island on the River Niger that runs through the capital, Niamey, is being planned to house these artefacts.

“International law says you cannot simply take something that is important to the heritage of a country – be it a cultural item, a physical item, a natural item, an extraterrestrial item – out of the country. You know we’ve moved on from colonial times when all this was okay,” Prof Sereno says.

A series of global agreements, including under the UN’s cultural organisation Unesco, have tried to regulate the trade in these objects. But, according to a 2019 study by international law expert Max Gounelle, when it comes to meteorites, while they could be included, there remains some ambiguity about whether they are covered by these agreements. It is left to individual states to clarify the position.

Niger passed its own law in 1997 aimed at protecting its heritage.

Prof Sereno points to one section with a detailed list of all the categories included. “Mineralogical specimens” are mentioned among the art works, architecture and archaeological finds but meteorites are not specifically named.

In its statement on the Sotheby’s sale, Niger admitted that it “does not yet have specific legislation on meteorites” – a line that the auction house also pointed out. But it remains unclear how someone was able to get such a heavy, conspicuous artefact out of the country without the authorities apparently noticing.

Morocco has faced a similar issue with the huge number of meteorites – more than 1,000 – found within its borders, which include a part of the Sahara.

More than two decades ago the country experienced what author Helen Gordon described as a “Saharan gold rush”, fuelled in part by laxer regulations and a more stable political environment than some of its neighbours.

In her recent book The Meteorites, she wrote that Morocco was “one of the world’s greatest exporters of space rocks”.

Prof Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane has spent much of the past 25 years trying to hold on to some of that extraterrestrial material for her country.

“It’s a part of us, it’s a part of our heritage… it’s part of our identity and it’s important to be proud of the richness of the country,” the geologist tells the BBC.

The professor is not against the trade in meteorites but has been instrumental in the introduction of measures aimed at regulating the business. She admits though that the new rules have not been entirely successful in stemming the flow of the meteorites.

In 2011, Prof Chennaoui was responsible for gathering material in the desert from an observed meteorite fall that turned out to be from Mars.

Later named the Tissint meteorite, it weighed 7kg in all, but now she says only 30g remain in Morocco. Some of the rest is in museums around the world, with the biggest piece on display in London’s Natural History Museum.

Reflecting on the fate of Niger’s Martian meteorite, she says she was not surprised as it is “something that I’m living with for 25 years. It’s a pity, we cannot be happy with this, but it’s the same state in all our countries.”

Prof Sereno hopes that the Sotheby’s sale will prove a turning-point – firstly by motivating the Nigerien authorities to act and secondly “if it ever sees the light of day in a public museum, [the museum] is going to have to deal with the fact that Niger is openly contesting it”.

• Sotheby’s returns Buddha jewels to India after uproar
• Meteorite smugglers anger scientists
• Nasa Mars rover: Meteorite to head home to Red Planet
• Antarctic meteorites yield global bombardment rate
• A fireball, a driveway and a priceless meteorite

An Indian tycoon’s sudden death in June has triggered a fierce inheritance battle at an Indian automotive giant.

Sunjay Kapur, 53, suffered a heart attack on 12 June while playing polo in Surrey in the UK. He was an heir to Sona Comstar, a $3.6bn (£2.7bn) business empire he inherited from his father. The company, among India’s top auto component makers, has a global footprint with 10 plants spread across India, China, Mexico and the US.

A polo enthusiast, Kapur moved in the elite social circles of Indian capital Delhi, and reportedly shared a friendship with Prince William. He was married three times – first to designer Nandita Mahtani, then to 90s Bollywood star Karisma Kapoor, before marrying Priya Sachdev, a former model and entrepreneur, in 2017.

But weeks after his death, the question of succession has made Kapur and his family the subject of media speculation.

At the centre of it is Kapur’s mother Rani Kapur, former chairperson of Sona Comstar.

On 24 July, Rani Kapur sent a letter to the board of Sona Comstar, raising questions about her son’s death and appointments made by the company after that.

In the letter, which the BBC has seen, she alleged that Kapur’s death was under “highly suspicious and unexplained circumstances”.

The coroner’s office in Surrey told the BBC that after a postmortem, it had determined that Kapur died of natural causes. “The investigation has been closed,” the office said.

Rani Kapur also claims to have been coerced into signing key documents while under mental and emotional distress from her son’s death.

“It is unfortunate that while the family and I are still in mourning, some people have chosen this as an opportune time to wrest control and usurp the family legacy,” she wrote.

She also asked Sona Comstar’s board to postpone its annual general meeting (AGM) – which was set for 25 July – to decide on a new director who would be a representative of the family.

Rani Kapur didn’t specify who she meant by “some people”, but Sona Comstar held the AGM the next day anyway and appointed Sunjay’s wife Priya as a non-executive director.

In her letter, Rani Kapur claimed she was the sole beneficiary of her late husband’s estate in a will left behind in 2015 which included a majority stake in Sona Group, including Sona Comstar.

The company has strongly denied Rani Kapur’s claims and said that she has had “no role, direct or indirect, in Sona Comstar since at least 2019”.

The board also said it had no compulsion to defer to her notice and that the AGM was conducted “in full compliance with the law”. The company has issued a legal notice to Rani Kapur, asking her to stop spreading “false, malicious and damaging” statements.

The BBC has contacted Sona Comstar, Rani Kapur and Priya Sachdev with questions.

Public shareholders, including banks, mutual funds and financial institutions, hold 71.98% of Sona Comstar, which is listed on Indian exchanges as Sona BLW.

The remaining 28.02% is held by promoters via a company called Aureus Investments Pvt Ltd.

According to the company’s filings, Sunjay Kapur was the sole beneficiary of the RK Family Trust, which controls the promoters’ stake in Sona Comstar via Aureus Investments.

“Looking at the company structure, at this point of time, Rani Kapur doesn’t feature as a registered shareholder so won’t have any voting rights. But there is the matter of the RK Family Trust and Aureus investments. We can’t really know if Rani holds any direct interest there till the agreement is made public,” says Tushar Kumar, a corporate litigator at India’s Supreme Court.

The Kapur family’s feud isn’t an isolated case.

Some 90% of listed companies in India are family-controlled, yet only 63% have a formal succession plan in place, according to a PwC survey.

Kavil Ramachandran of the Indian School of Business says most Indian family businesses operate with “significant ambiguity about specifics”.

“One such [area] is who owns how much and who inherits and when,” he adds.

Experts say family involvement without meritocracy and absence of formal agreements complicate matters.

“On the demise of the patriarch (or even before), disputes arise, both on ownership and on management, and too much water would have flowed under the bridge for issues to be resolved amicably,” said Ketan Dalal, who advises several Indian business families on ownership structures.

India Inc. is strewn with bitter succession battles that repeatedly grab headlines.

Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, was once embroiled in a very public power struggle with his younger brother over the sprawling Reliance empire after their father Dhirubhai Ambani died in 2002 without leaving a will. It was their mother, Kokilaben, who brokered peace years later.

More recently, family feuds have erupted at the Raymond Group, India’s most famous textiles company, and among the Lodha brothers, whose company built the Trump tower in Mumbai.

All of this has often come at a great cost to Indian shareholders.

“Anyone who has kept infinite control in their hands has suffered. In the end it’s the company that suffers, the stock prices go down and [so does] the perception of how the company will do in the future,” says Sandeep Nerlekar, founder and managing director of legacy planning firm Terentia.

But some families are now once bitten, twice shy.

The Bajaj family, one of the country’s biggest conglomerates, faced internal wrangling over succession until a court stepped in during the 2000s to resolve the dispute.

The patriarch mapped out a succession plan for the group, dividing responsibilities between his sons and cousin. As per the company’s statement, the group now operates through consensus via a family council.

Last year, one of India’s oldest business houses, the locks-to-real estate Godrej Group, announced an uncharacteristically amicable separation of their multi-billion dollar business.

“Families need to work on succession planning with governance structures like a good board that has teeth. They should be given some control so that the business can grow long term. Also you need to allow the next generation to take the lead well in time and the patriarch should take the time to groom them so that family issues don’t happen,” says Mr Nerlekar.

The likes of Mukesh Ambani appear to have taken that seriously, having begun grooming his three children well in advance.

Mr Ramachandran says that succession is not something that can be decided “overnight”.

“Preparing both the family and the operating team over a planned transition period is crucial.”

As American as apple pie, Kentucky bourbon was booming after the last Great Recession ended. But as the economy has waned post-Pandemic – and with multiple trade wars on the horizon – the market may be drying up.

Although the whiskey, which is traditionally made with corn and aged in charred oak barrels, has roots going all the way back to the 18th century, it wasn’t until 1964 that it became an iconic piece of Americana, when Congress passed a law declaring it a “distinctive product of the United States”.

But drinking trends come and go, and by the end of the 20th century, bourbon was considered a bit old fashioned – pun intended.

“You often see these kind of generational shifts where people don’t want to drink what their parents drink,” said Marten Lodewijks, the US president of IWSR, which collects alcoholic beverage data and provides industry analysis.

Then, as the world recovered from the 2008 recession, drinkers seemed to rediscover this classic spirit, for a few different reasons.

For starters, the price point was good, which made it attractive for bar managers to purchase and incorporate into cocktails and for younger drinkers to sample. Then, in 2013, a law was passed in Kentucky that made it easier for companies to purchase and resell vintage bottles, opening up a high-end collectible market. Add to that the rise in mid-century nostalgia fuelled by shows like Mad Men, and bourbon was due for a full-blown Renaissance.

Sales of bourbon grew by 7% worldwide between 2011-2020, which is more than three times the growth of the decade prior, according to industry data company ISWR.

Soon, some bourbon distillers were becoming quasi-celebrities, and people were starting to buy up bourbon bottles not to drink, but as an investment.

“Everyone was going crazy over the bourbon market, and treating like a commodity, like a stock,” recalls Robin Wynne, a general manager and beverage director for Little Sister in Toronto, Canada, who has been a bar manager for about 25 years.

“People would go in as a prospector, to flip bottles for two to three times the value.”

But like most market bubbles, this one was bound to burst. The pandemic’s lockdowns tanked bar sales, and inflation has made many would-be bourbon drinkers choose less expensive options – or forgo drinking all together. Amongst Gen-Z, many 20-somethings are drinking less than their older siblings and parents did at their age.

Those factors have contributed to declining alcohol sales, with bourbon sales specifically slowing down to just 2% between 2021-2024, according to ISWR data.

President Donald Trump’s global tariffs have been the final straw. The EU has announced retaliatory tariffs against US goods, including Kentucky bourbon and Californian wine, although implementation has been delayed for six months.

Meanwhile, most provinces in Canada have stopped importing American alcoholic beverages in retaliation. The country accounts for about 10% of Kentucky’s $9bn (£6.7bn) whiskey and bourbon business.

“That’s worse than a tariff, because it’s literally taking your sales away, completely removing our products from the shelves … that’s a very disproportionate response,” Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Brown-Forman, which produces Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, said back in March when Canadian provinces announced their plan to stop buying US booze.

Trump has said that tariffs will boost made-in-American businesses.

But Republican Senator Rand Paul, who represents Kentucky, said the tariffs will hurt local businesses and consumers in his home state.

“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in May.

These economic pressures have created a growing list of casualties.

Liquor giant Diageo, reported that sales of Bulleit, a Kentucky distillery that makes bourbon, rye and whiskey, where down 7.3% this fiscal year.

Wild Turkey – a Kentucky bourbon owned by Campari – sales were down 8.1% over the past six months.

While big, international brands will likely be able to weather the storm, the sales hit has led to a growing list of casualties.

In July, LMD Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – just one month after opening the Luca Mariano Distillery in Danville, Kentucky.

This spring, Garrard County Distilling went into receivership.

And in January, Jack Daniel’s parent company closed a barrel-making plant in Kentucky.

The bottom of the barrel has not yet been reached, warned Mr Lodewijks.

“I’d be extraordinarily surprised if there weren’t more bankruptcies and more consolidation,” he said.

In part, bourbon has become a victim of its own success – the rise in bourbon sales, and the growth of the premium market, helped fuel many small distilleries. Because bourbon must age in barrels for years, what’s on the market today was predicted a few years ago, which means that there is currently an oversupply, which is driving down prices.

But while these economic conditions are harsh, Mr Lodewijks said that history has shown how tough times can create innovation. Scotch whisky used to be fairly simple, a blend of middle-of-the road tipples. But when sales declined in the second part of the 20th centuries, distillers started aging their excess bottles, which helped create the market we have now for premium, aged Scotch whisky.

In Canada, where bourbon imports have slowed to a trickle, local distilleries have started experimenting with bourbon-making methods to give Canadian whiskey a similar taste.

“The tariff war has really done a positive for the Canadian spirits business,” noted Mr Wynne.

“We’ve got lots of grains to make these whiskeys without having to rely on the States.”

US President Donald Trump had been in office scarcely a week when a new Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) app called DeepSeek jolted Silicon Valley.

Overnight, DeepSeek-R1 shot to the top of the Apple charts as the most downloaded free app in the US.

The firm said at the time its new chatbot rivalled ChatGPT. Not only that. They asserted it had cost a mere fraction to develop.

Those claims – and the app’s sudden surge in popularity – wiped $600bn (£446bn) or 17% off the market value of chip giant Nvidia, marking the largest one-day loss for a single stock in the history of the US stock market.

Several other tech stocks with exposure to AI were caught in the downdraft, too.

DeepSeek also cast doubt on American AI dominance. Up until then, China had been seen as having fallen behind the US. Now, it seemed as though China had catapulted to the forefront.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen referred to the arrival of DeepSeek-R1 as “AI’s Sputnik moment,” a reference to the Soviet satellite that had kicked off the space race between the US and the USSR more than a half century earlier.

It has now been six months since DeepSeek stunned the world.

Today, China’s breakthrough app has largely dropped out of the headlines. It’s no longer the hot topic at happy hour here in San Francisco. But DeepSeek hasn’t disappeared.

DeepSeek challenged certain key assumptions about AI that had been championed by American executives like Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

“We were on a path where bigger was considered better,” according to Sid Sheth, CEO of AI chip startup d-Matrix.

Perhaps maxing out on data centres, servers, chips, and the electricity to run it all wasn’t the way forward after all.

Despite DeepSeek ostensibly not having access to the most powerful tech available at the time, Sheth told the BBC that it showed that “with smarter engineering, you actually can build a capable model”.

The surge of interest in DeepSeek took hold over a weekend in late January, before corporate IT personnel could move to stop employees from flocking to it.

When organisations caught on the following Monday, many scrambled to ban workers from using the app as worries set in about whether user data was potentially being shared with the People’s Republic of China, where DeepSeek is based.

But while exact numbers aren’t available, plenty of Americans still use DeepSeek today.

Certain Silicon Valley start-ups have opted to stick with DeepSeek in lieu of more expensive AI models from US firms in a bid to cut down on costs.

One investor told me for cash-strapped firms, funds saved by continuing to use DeepSeek are helping to pay for critical needs such as additional headcount.

They are, however, being careful.

In online forums, users explain how to run DeepSeek-R1 on their own devices rather than online using DeepSeek’s servers in China – a workaround they believe can protect their data from being shared surreptitiously.

“It’s a good way to use the model without being concerned about what it’s exfiltrating” to China, said Christopher Caen, CEO of Mill Pond Research.

DeepSeek’s arrival also marked a turning point in the US-China AI rivalry, some experts say.

“China was seen as playing catch-up in large language models until this point, with competitive models but always trailing the best western ones,” policy analyst Wendy Chang of the Mercator Institute for China Studies told the BBC.

A large language model (LLM) is a reasoning system trained to predict the next word in a given sentence or phrase.

DeepSeek changed perceptions when it claimed to have achieved a leading model for a fraction of the computational resources and costs common among its American counterparts.

OpenAI had spent $5bn (£3.7bn) in 2024 alone. By contrast, DeepSeek researchers said they had developed DeepSeek-R1 – which came out on top of OpenAI’s o1 model across multiple benchmarks – for just $5.6m (£4.2m).

“DeepSeek revealed the competitiveness of China’s AI landscape to the world,” Chang said.

American AI developers have managed to capitalize on this shift.

AI-related deals and other announcements trumpeted by the Trump administration and major American tech companies are often framed as critical to staying ahead of China.

Trump’s AI czar David Sacks noted the technology would have “profound ramifications for both the economy and national security” when the administration unveiled its AI Action Plan last month.

“It’s just very important that America continues to be the dominant power in AI,” Sacks said.

DeepSeek has never managed to quell concerns over the security implications of its Chinese origins.

The US government has been assessing the company’s links to Beijing, as first reported by Reuters in June.

A senior US State Department official told the BBC they understood “DeepSeek has willingly provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations”.

DeepSeek did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment but the company’s privacy policy states that its servers are located in the People’s Republic of China.

“When you access our services, your Personal Data may be processed and stored in our servers in the People’s Republic of China,” the policy says. “This may be a direct provision of your Personal Data to us or a transfer that we or a third-party make.”

Earlier this week, OpenAI reignited talk about DeepSeek after releasing a pair of AI models.

These were the first free and open versions – meaning they can be downloaded and modified – released by the American AI giant in five years, well before ChatGPT ushered in the consumer AI era.

“You can draw a straight line from DeepSeek to what OpenAI announced this week,” said d-Matrix’s Sheth.

“DeepSeek proved that smaller, more efficient models could still deliver impressive performance—and that changed the industry’s mindset,” Sheth told the BBC. “What we’re seeing now is the next wave of that thinking: a shift toward right-sized models that are faster, cheaper, and ready to deploy at scale.”

But to others, for the major American players in AI, the old approach appears to be alive and well.

Just days after releasing the free models, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5. In the run-up, the company said it significantly ramped up its computing capacity and AI infrastructure.

A slew of announcements about new data centre clusters needed for AI has come as American tech companies have been competing for top-tier AI talent.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has ploughed billions of dollars to fulfil his AI ambitions, and tried to lure staff from rivals with $100m pay packages.

The fortunes of the tech giants seemed more tethered than ever to their commitment to AI spending, as evidenced by the series of blowout results revealed this past tech earnings season.

Meanwhile, shares of Nvidia, which plunged just after DeepSeek’s arrival, have rebounded – touching new highs that have made it the world’s most valuable company in history.

“The initial narrative has proven a bit of a red herring,” said Mill Pond Research’s Caen.

We are back to a future in which AI will ostensibly depend on more data centres, more chips, and more power.

In other words, DeepSeek’s shake-up of the status quo hasn’t lasted.

And what about DeepSeek itself?

“DeepSeek now faces challenges sustaining its momentum,” said Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

That’s due in part to operational setbacks but also to intense competition from companies in the US and China, she said.

Zhang notes that the company’s next product, DeepSeek-R2, has reportedly been delayed. One reason? A shortage of high-end chips.

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The findings of a year-long undercover investigation into a violent migrant-smuggling gang were published by BBC News on 5 August – and, as a result, one person has now been arrested in Birmingham.

Here, one of our reporters who assumed a false identity and posed as a migrant, describes how he met one of the gang’s senior members in a secret forest hideout.

I am walking towards the forest near Dunkirk, thinking about the battery in my pocket. I’ve hidden the wires under two T-shirts, but is anything still showing? Is my secret camera working? Is it pointing at the right angle? I have, at most, three hours of battery life left, and I need to get to the smuggler’s secret camp, meet him, and get out safely.

This is perhaps the most dangerous and most important moment for me, the culmination of many months working on this investigation with the team.

There is a small team of high-risk advisers watching my back. With gang members monitoring everyone who enters the forest, I worry my advisers may end up exposing me rather than protecting me. But they play it perfectly and keep a low profile.

I’m using a false name. My clothes are similar to those worn by other people trying to get a ride on a small boat to England. Scuffed, old shoes. A big, warm, dirty, jacket. A backpack that I’ve spent time trying to make look worn, as if I have travelled long, hard miles to get here.

I keep going over my cover story in my head. The excuses I might need to get away quickly. The possible scenarios. We have planned and planned, but I know nothing ever goes exactly as expected in the field.

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I am an Arabic-speaking man and have gone undercover before – but each time is different, and carries different risks.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a long time in northern France, trying to understand and expose the people smugglers’ complicated and shadowy operations. It was not an easy decision to infiltrate a violent criminal network.

I’m entering a world ruled by money, power and silence. But I’m not just curious – I also believe the gangs are not as untouchable as they seem and that I can play a role in exposing them and perhaps helping to stop them.

Inside the forest, my nervousness fades. I am “Abu Ahmed” now – my false identity. I don’t even feel like I’m acting a part.

I’m new in town, a Syrian refugee whose asylum bid was rejected by Germany. I’m scared, desperate, a little lost and at the beginning of an uncertain journey.

I walk down a path to the smugglers’ camp trying to remember the way I came in.

When the smuggler, Abdullah, meets me, he is friendly but he says he needs to leave immediately. I try to sound weary. I must persuade him to wait, to talk to me quickly, while my battery is still working. Then, I can get out of there.

Abdullah suspects nothing and seems entirely at ease. But I know the smugglers have guns and knives and there is only one path that leads in and out of the camp.

A day later, away from the forest, I see online that there has been another fatal shooting there.

One of the most difficult things during my time undercover, in the weeks before I meet Abdullah, is keeping track of the phone numbers. Gang members change them often, and sometimes you can lose months of work in a second. At times I’ve lost hope, seeing everything fall apart. But I keep learning.

I spend a lot of time meeting people waiting for small boats around Calais or Boulogne, asking them which gang they are using, which phone numbers they have. Early mornings are spent at train stations, food distribution centres, or on the edge of forests and beaches. Sometimes I just watch, trying to melt into a crowd, to overhear conversations, to spot glances and gestures and to see who leads and who follows.

I must be careful. I move from place to place in different cars over the weeks, and generally try to disappear into the background. I don’t want to do or say anything that could bring me to the attention of the smugglers. They have so many eyes and ears here, and if they become suspicious, it could be dangerous for me.

Am I scared? Not too often. I have engaged with even more dangerous groups in the past. But I am worried I could make a mistake, forget a detail, and blow my cover. Or at least one of my covers.

I switch phones too, contacting smugglers using different names and back stories to try to piece together who works where and what they do. I label each phone. I have French, German, Turkish and Syrian numbers. It is slow work. I’m careful to make sure I’m in the right place whenever I make a call, in case the smuggler asks me to turn on my video or send a pin showing my location.

The smugglers always ask me, “Where did you get the number?” And, “Who is with you? Where are you staying? How did you get to France?”

Now Abdullah does the same, asking me to send photos showing my journey to the forest from a bus stop in Dunkirk.

Does he suspect me?

In person in the forest, Abdullah appears friendlier than most of the smugglers I have encountered. I notice he seems keen to make all his passengers feel at ease, always responding to calls. He strikes me as ambitious.

Over time, I learn some of the gang’s vocabulary. Migrants are “nafar”. The junior smugglers are “rebari”. The forest is always “the jungle”.

And now it is time for me to leave the jungle and to head back towards my team who are waiting, anxiously, at a nearby supermarket.

As I leave the forest and get to the road, I’m no longer “Abu Ahmed”. I’m a journalist again, tortured by questions.

Did the camera work? Did I manage to film Abdullah confirming his role as a smuggler? Is anyone following me now?

The walk back seems even longer.

This searing biography of Prince Andrew crackles with scandals about sex and money on almost every page, two subjects that have always caused problems for the royals.

Andrew Lownie’s book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, is an unrelentingly unflattering portrait of Prince Andrew. It depicts him as arrogant, self-seeking and in denial about his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The author’s best-selling biographies have a habit of changing the reputation of famous figures, such as establishing the Nazi intrigues around the Duke of Windsor, the former Edward VIII.

Although in the case of Entitled, he hasn’t so much cemented Prince Andrew’s reputation, as put it in concrete boots and thrown it in the river. It is hard to see how he might come back from this.

This account, more than 450 pages, is said to have taken four years to research, involving hundreds of interviews. And for anyone thinking they have heard much of this story before, it is the extra and sometimes unexpected, throwaway details that will make this a fascinating read.

Like comedian Billy Connolly and Sir Elton John being at Prince Andrew’s stag night. Or film maker Woody Allen being at the same dinner with Prince Andrew at Epstein’s house in Manhattan.

This detail tallies with a piece in the New York Times this week that quotes a birthday greeting written by Allen to Epstein, which references “even royalty” being at one of Epstein’s dinners.

To rapidly lose some mid-life weight, when he was going out with a younger woman, the book records that Prince Andrew lived on a crash diet of “stewed prunes for breakfast, raw vegetables for lunch and soup for supper”.

About their academic ability, the book says that Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson passed two O-levels at their respective expensive private schools. Andrew had to re-take exams the following year before going on to take A-levels.

Now in disgrace, Prince Andrew is claimed to spend his time, when not riding or golfing, cooped up watching aviation videos and reading thrillers, with The Talented Mr Ripley said to be his favourite. It is about a con-man taking on the identity of a wealthy playboy.

There are some more gentle anecdotes about him, such as when he was a helicopter pilot and ferried a group of soldiers from a rifle range and decided to put down on the Sandringham estate.

Queen Elizabeth II, who was in residence, was said to have looked at the guns being toted by these unexpected arrivals. “You can put those in there if you like,” she said, pointing to an umbrella stand.

But the biography is much more crowded with anecdotes about his rudeness and his acute lack of self awareness, not to mention a prodigious number of quick-fire affairs.

It is claimed he swore at and insulted staff, bawling someone out as an “imbecile” for not using the Queen Mother’s full title. Protection officers were despatched to collect golf balls and private jets seemed to be hired as casually as an Uber on a night out.

The Paris-based journalist Peter Allen, among the sources for the book, says many of Andrew’s problems reflect on his “flawed character”.

“He’s been afforded every type of privilege, all his life, while displaying very poor judgement and getting into highly compromising situations.”

Known as “Baby Grumpling” in his early years, Andrew was claimed to have moved people from jobs because one was wearing a nylon tie, and another because he had a mole on his face.

Diplomats, whose cause Andrew was meant to be advancing, nicknamed him “His Buffoon Highness” because of all the gaffes.

There are details of his unhappy knack of getting involved with all the wrong people in his money-making ventures, from Libyan gun runners and relations of dictators to a Chinese spy.

“This book appears to seal the fate of Andrew if he was ever hoping to be reinstated officially into the working royals,” says royal commentator Pauline Maclaran.

“The public will be wanting to see some clear action on the King’s part I think – particularly as Andrew’s connections to Epstein are raked over again,” says Prof Maclaran.

If this seems like a torrent of bad news, the book also raises some deeper questions about what lies behind Prince Andrew’s character.

There are suggestions of an often lonely and isolated figure, obsessed with sex but much weaker at relationships. Sources from his time in the navy saw his “bombastic” exterior as concealing a much more vulnerable and socially awkward figure, whose upbringing had made him unsure how to behave.

He showed authentic courage when he flew helicopters in the Falklands war and he was remembered as being willing to “muck in” during that stressful time, when crews were living on canned food rather than fine dining.

On his fascination for sex, an unnamed source claims Andrew lost his virginity at the age of 11, which the same source likens to a form of abuse.

One of his former naval colleagues went from seeing Andrew as “immature, privileged, entitled” to having a more sympathetic view of a character of “loneliness and insecurity”, a public figure who was uncertain about how he fitted in with other people, and had ended up with the “wrong sort of friends”.

Top of that list must be Jeffrey Epstein. Lownie’s book offers meticulous detail of the connections between Prince Andrew and the US financier and sex offender, establishing links that went back to the early 1990s, earlier than had previously been established.

It is also strong on the unbalanced nature of their relationship, with a friend of Andrew’s describing the prince’s dealings with Epstein as “like putting a rattlesnake in an aquarium with a mouse”.

Epstein’s sleazy and abusive world, with its mix of easy money and exploitative sex, was ultimately a form of blackmail operation, claims Lownie’s book. It gave him something to hold over the many powerful people who came into his orbit.

The book is a reminder of the scale and seediness of Epstein’s exploitation of girls. It is also an account of the destruction that followed.

The famous photograph showing Virginia Giuffre with Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell in London was supposedly taken by Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew is the only one of them not to be either dead or in prison.

And Lownie’s sources cast doubt on whether Epstein did take his own life, questioning the medical evidence and the series of unfortunate gaps in supervision in the jail where he was being held.

After his disastrous BBC Newsnight interview and the court case with Virginia Giuffre – which he settled with a rejection of any wrongdoing – Prince Andrew has been pushed out of public life, no longer a “working royal”.

Historian Ed Owens says it is almost six years since that Newsnight interview, but Prince Andrew is still appearing in news stories “for all the wrong reasons”.

“This isn’t good for the monarchy,” he says, even though “King Charles and Prince William have sought to limit the reputational damage Andrew can have on ‘brand Windsor’,” says Owens.

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Standing loyally beside Prince Andrew has been Sarah Ferguson, who describes their relationship as being “divorced to each other, not from each other”, still living together at Royal Lodge.

The book depicts her as being in an endless loop of binge spending, debt and then convoluted deals, sponsorships and freebies, to try to get her finances on track, before the cycle begins again.

But there is no doubting her remarkable capacity to keep bouncing back and to keep on plugging away, when others would have been down and out years ago.

She has a sense of fun that appeals to people. The book tells how successful she was at boosting sales as an ambassador for Waterford Wedgwood, then owned by Tony O’Reilly. She was described by staff as “brilliant at working a room, fresh, chic and wasn’t stuffy”.

The book is already riding high in the best-seller charts and royal commentator Richard Palmer says it raises difficult topical questions.

“It puts Andrew back at the front and centre of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal at a time when Donald Trump is facing serious questions about his own friendship with the late paedophile,” says Palmer.

“It’s a scandal that just won’t go away for the Royal Family, even though they’ve tried to distance themselves from Andrew,” he says.

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He sang wistfully of the English town that shaped his life.

Ed Sheeran grew up in Framlingham in Suffolk and its rolling hills and magnificent castle inspired his hit single, Castle on the Hill. It was the homeplace he pined for.

So when he recently described himself as “culturally Irish,” the singer faced social media criticism on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Sheeran replied that he had two paternal Irish grandparents, an Irish parent, an Irish passport, and a childhood filled with Irish summer holidays. Ireland was the place where his musical taste was formed, he said. “I can be allowed to feel a connection to a place half my family is from.”

Yet he was accused of being Irish “when it suits him” by one poster.

Another wrote on X: “I’ve seen B*Witched live and have watched a couple of Gaelic football games, which I think gives me an even more legitimate claim to be culturally Irish than Ed Sheeran.”

The mainstream press expressed perplexity at his embrace of an Irish cultural identity “despite being born and raised in England”.

Not everyone agrees.

To Ros Scanlon, programmer for the Irish Cultural Centre in London, it shouldn’t surprise or offend anyone. It reflects her own experience as a second-generation Irish person in the UK.

“He’s owning his Irish heritage, saying he is proud of his cultural background,” says Ros. “That doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t like or love being British, that is part of him too.”

Certainly it is much easier to speak of an Irish identity in Britain now that there is peace in Northern Ireland.

As the Belfast South MP, Claire Hanna, who is now leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, told parliament during a St Patrick’s Day debate in 2022: “Many are moving on from the traditional binaries of the past and embracing the ‘or both’ part of the Good Friday agreement, not feeling that they have to decide between being British and Irish if they do not wish to do so.”

Sheeran’s declaration raises this point once again, and prompts the deeper question of what cultural “Irishness” really is today.

Professor Linda Connolly, director of sociology at Maynooth University in County Kildare, argues that Ed Sheeran’s statement is about an idea of identity that is bigger than where you were born or what you write on a census form.

“Ed Sheeran is stating quite clearly that culturally he is Irish in Britain, and not just British and Irish in terms of citizenship alone,” she argues. “This applies to many second-generation Irish living in Britain.”

In Northern Ireland, Irishness can mean many things, not least because it is fraught with so much painful history.

For many unionists, staunch political loyalty to Britain and the Monarchy, sits alongside a deep attachment to the land they have lived on for hundreds of years. Symbols like the Celtic harp and the Shamrock are seen by many as belonging to both traditions.

There are unionists who cheer for an Irish rugby team but would never dream of singing the anthem of the Republic – a new song, Ireland’s Call, was written for the 1995 World Cup.

It is a complex and evolving set of choices, with frequent arguments. Promotion of the Irish language is bitterly opposed by a vocal section of Unionism. For most Catholics their Irish identity was historically something to be defended in a Unionist dominated state.

It was an identity that helped bind them to their co-religionists on the rest of the island, particularly in the fields of Gaelic sport and culture.

But as politics has changed there is less preoccupation with religious background, a greater sense of belonging to an international culture.

And this is without even beginning to speak of an identity that is demonstrably northern Irish with its shared dry humour.

Everyone has their own menu of what being “culturally Irish” means – for me, it’s about humour, about a love of words and music, and a refusal to take ourselves, or anybody else, too seriously.

It can also mean a sense of a particular landscape, either one you loved, or were glad to escape – or for second or third – generation Irish, a landscape of brief immersion on summer holidays from England. That was the world of “the streams, the rolling hills/Where his brown eyes were waiting” evoked by Shane MacGowan of the Pogues.

But there are as many definitions of “culturally Irish” as there are Irish people, or people who want to be Irish. It runs a wide spectrum of styles, influences, opinions and genres – from Oasis (born in Manchester to Irish parents), the rappers Kneecap, novelist Sally Rooney, the Irish actress of Nigerian descent Demi Isaac Oviawe, the London-born playwright Martin McDonagh of The Banshees of Inisherin fame.

The core members of The Beatles all had Irish grandparents or great grandparents, prompting John Lennon to tell a concert in Dublin: “We’re all Irish.”

That was in 1963 – some 62 years before Ed Sheeran’s declaration.

There are many voices too from the Irish Protestant tradition in Ulster – the singer Van Morrison and the novelist Jan Carson, who has written about growing up in an evangelical Christian home, and says she now feels “much more ease and comfort with an Irish identity than a British one”.

Ed Sheeran is himself a product of blended traditions. His grandfather was a Belfast Protestant who married a Catholic from the Republic of Ireland at a time of sectarian intolerance.

Today, it is undoubtedly easier these days for a big mainstream star like Sheeran to embrace an Irish cultural identity in Britain than it would have been several decades ago.

I think of the powerful song Nothing But the Same Old Story by Paul Brady, about an Irishman in Britain during the 1970s, amid the ongoing IRA campaign: “In their eyes, we’re nothing but a bunch of murderers.”

Ros Scanlon credits Irish cultural figures for much of the changed atmosphere, including legendary BBC presenter Terry Wogan and musicians such as U2, Thin Lizzy, Sinead O’Connor, the Pogues “and now Ed Sheeran!”

Yet all of these icons are building on the foundations laid by the unacknowledged millions who came to Britain over many centuries.

The generation of Ed Sheeran’s parents and grandparents were the Irish people who built Britain’s roads and housing estates, the railways above and below ground.

The famous ballad ‘McAlpine’s Fusiliers’ remembers how they “sweated blood and they washed down mud with pints and quarts of beer”. Irish nurses were fundamental to the staffing of the NHS.

In those days, most Irish immigrants found expression of their culture in the ballrooms of places like Kilburn in northwest London, or the Astoria in Manchester, or the Irish pubs which often catered to clientele from a specific county. Bouts of hostility encouraged newcomers to stick together.

But the extraordinary cross-fertilisation of the two cultures goes much further back – how could it not, given the colonial history and the proximity of both islands?

For two millennia there are records of the Irish trading, settling, and inter-marrying in Britain; they shared a common language with western Scotland and the Isle of Man, and a Druidic culture with the rest of Britain.

Monks from Ireland helped spread and then restore Christianity during the so-called Dark Ages. Sometimes it worked the other way: Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick, was a Brit.

One of the bestselling songwriters of early 19th century Britain was Irishman Thomas Moore. His story typifies the often complex nature of cultural relationships: he was a champion of Irish liberty, but his great song “The Minstrel Boy” – written for rebels fighting Britain – is played by the band of the Irish Guards at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day.

Nowadays, for second or third generation people, the country of their ancestors has never been more reachable. Cheap airfares have changed the nature of how Irish culture in Britain has evolved, says Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid, Professor of Irish history at the University of Sheffield.

“The physical distance between Ireland and Britain has diminished in the Ryanair era… It seems to me also that Irish migration to Britain is now more likely to be temporary – people may come for a few years, then go home – whereas previously it was a more permanent departure.”

I should declare an interest. I am Irish. Living in Britain. I was born here while my father was a real-life cultural import, acting in the West End in J.M. Synge’s landmark drama, The Playboy of the Western World, a story from the west of Ireland, which won rave reviews from London audiences.

We went home after the play ended and I was brought up in Ireland. But I returned to work for the BBC. I have spent more than three decades as a correspondent for the BBC, and I have lived outside Ireland for longer than I did in the country.

What does that make me? My identity is made of many parts. I am Irish. I am a Londoner. I am also a Cork, Kerry and Waterford person.

The Irish language and music is an essential part of my cultural makeup. But I also cherish how that music is connected to the music of Scotland and North America, and I reckon one of the greatest songs of Irish exile was written by Englishman, Ralph McTell: “And the only time I feel alright is when I’m into drinking/ It sort of eases the pain of it and levels out my thinking… It’s a long way from Clare to here.”

My attachment to South Africa has shaped me in enduring and indelible ways too. Identity is also a story of deep and loving relationships, whether in Ireland, London, the African continent or France, to name but three important ones.

My feelings about identity are also inextricably linked to my experiences as a war reporter. I spent too many years witnessing ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity often carried out because of hatred of a different identity.

The great writer, James Joyce, rejected any identity built around “nationality, language, religion” and defiantly vowed to “fly by those nets”.

He was writing about a different, much narrower Ireland of the early 20th century. But the policing of identity – who you are allowed to be – is disturbingly present in many societies, and many guises.

So, if somebody asks me to narrow my identity to a single label, I refuse, because it is mine, not to be explained or justified. And if it shifts tomorrow, that is my business.

The nature of identity is evolving – in Ireland it is absorbing the influences of other cultures, but also influencing those cultures.

Professor Nic Dháibhéid hopes the prominence of Irish cultural identities in Britain will prompt a greater interest in the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, particularly among the under-25s who, as she sees it, “will have no memory of the Troubles, and so there is an even greater need to ensure that there is good mutual understanding between the people on our two islands.”

The big British audiences for Kneecap, to take an example, didn’t happen because young people had a sudden awakening about the problems of life in nationalist west Belfast. Kneecap connected with a much wider youth disillusionment: they are rapping in the Irish language but it’s the challenge to the establishment that resonates with some among the young.

It is important to recognise that the cultural influence can be polarising. Kneecap’s public statements and political stances have divided people.

One member of the band, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terror offence after allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig.

“The Kneecap phenomenon is real, as is the Derry Girls one,” says Professor Nic Dhábhéid, also referencing the show inspired by the screenwriter Lisa McGee’s upbringing in the city in the 1990s.

Professor Nic Dhábhéid is one of the historians chosen by the UK government to oversee the writing of a “public” history of the Troubles. She cautions that despite the progress made, the old battle of identities is far from finished, citing the tensions caused by Brexit.

“A decade ago, the narrative was one of reconciliation… I’m not convinced that we’re in the reconciliation space right now,” she argues.

Which makes Ed Sheeran’s honest expression of identity all the more moving.

It was not one of aggressive cultural nationalism: he wasn’t talking about what my identity should be, or yours. It was a statement of what he feels.

I am the father of two children who grew up in Britain. I watch them navigate the challenges and opportunities of different and overlapping identities, encouraging them to follow James Joyce’s advice and fly past any barriers others put in their way.

That, for me, is the way to a future without bitterness.

President Vladimir Putin has presented US President Donald Trump’s special envoy with an award to pass on to a senior CIA official whose son was killed fighting with Russia in Ukraine.

Putin gave the Order of Lenin to Steve Witkoff during his trip to Moscow this week to discuss a plan to end the Ukraine war, sources familiar with the matter told the BBC’s US partner CBS.

Michael Gloss, 21, who was killed in Ukraine last year, was the son of Juliane Gallina, who is the CIA’s deputy director for digital innovation.

Reports of the award emerged as it was confirmed that Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska next Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.

Neither the Kremlin nor Russian foreign ministry has publicly acknowledged posthumously bestowing the Order of Lenin, a Soviet-era award recognising outstanding civilian service, on Gloss.

It is unclear what was done with the award. The White House, the CIA and Witkoff did not respond to requests for comment.

Gloss’ death first emerged in Russian media reports in April.

A CIA statement later that month said Gloss had been suffering from mental health problems, adding that his death was not a national security issue.

Gloss was never an employee of the CIA, a person familiar with the matter told CBS.

Sources also told CBS that the Kremlin did not initially appear to be aware of the family background of Gloss, who enlisted with Russian forces in autumn 2023.

Gloss had shared selfies in Moscow’s Red Square on social media last year. His posts had expressed support for Russia in what he called “the Ukraine Proxy war” and dismissed media coverage of the conflict as “western propaganda”.

An obituary for Gloss published in November 2024 said he was “killed in Eastern Europe” on 4 April that year.

The CIA’s statement about his death four months ago said that Ms Gallina and her family had suffered “an unimaginable personal tragedy”.

Gloss’s father, Iraq war veteran Larry Gloss, told the Washington Post in an interview this April that their son had struggled for most of his life with mental illness.

“Our biggest fear while we were waiting for him to be repatriated was that someone over there [in Moscow] would put two and two together and figure out who his mother was, and use him as a prop,” Larry Gloss said.