A spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas says the group is postponing the next scheduled release of Israeli hostages, blaming what he says are Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal.

Three hostages held in Gaza are due to be freed on Saturday in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz called the Hamas announcement a “complete violation of the ceasefire agreement”.

Key Israeli ally US President Donald Trump has suggested the ceasefire should be cancelled if “all” the hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday.

“I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday… all of them, not in dribs and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two,” he said.

“I’m speaking for myself,” he stressed. “Israel can override it.”

Seventy-three hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and three others taken a decade earlier, are still being held in Gaza.

If hostages were not released, Trump added, “All hell is going to break out.”

Asked whether he meant retaliation from Israel, he said: “You’ll find out, and they’ll find out too. Hamas will find out what I mean.”

Katz said he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to “prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza and to protect the communities”.

“We will not allow a return to the reality of 7 October,” the Israeli defence minister added.

Hamas’s announcement came shortly before people gathered in Tel Aviv to mark the 24th birthday of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, his second in captivity.

He was taken hostage from the Nova festival on 7 October 2023.

Mia Goldstein, an attendee at the rally for Ohel, told the BBC there should be “immense pressure” to get the rest of hostages out, adding Hamas’s delay was “horrifying”.

Michal Neeman, who took part in a protest in Tel Aviv following the announcement from Hamas, said the hostages “should have been out a few months ago. You see the situation, they are dying there, and their blood is on this government’s hands”.

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said “any delays” to the fragile ceasefire deal would be an issue and all parties involved should adhere to their previously stated agreements and timelines.

Hamas has said the “door remains open” to the exchange going ahead on Saturday if Israel “complies” with its obligations, according to news agency AFP.

Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida accused Israel of delaying the return of displaced Palestinians to the north of Gaza, firing on people and failing to allow in agreed humanitarian aid.

The group’s announcement did not refer to Trump or US policy but it comes after strong remarks made last week by the US president about the US taking ownership of Gaza and redeveloping it.

His proposal included the resettlement of Palestinians outside the territory and was praised as “revolutionary and creative” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The militant group’s statement is the latest in a series of recriminatory actions between the two sides.

Israel delayed by two days allowing displaced Palestinians to return to the north of Gaza, accusing Hamas of reneging on a commitment to free a female Israeli civilian hostage.

Israel also recently briefly delayed buses taking Palestinian prisoners to be released into the occupied West Bank, after expressing anger over the way in which hostages were released through crowds of spectators in Gaza hours earlier.

On Friday, Hamas exceeded by a short time a deadline to release the names of hostages to be freed on Saturday – as required under the ceasefire – prompting concern in Israel. This came after it accused Israel of failing to abide by its commitment to boost the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza –contradicting what had been described by the UN’s humanitarian chief as a “massive surge”.

Since the ceasefire began on 19 January, 16 Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released in exchange for 566 prisoners.

By the end of the first stage of the ceasefire in three weeks’ time, 33 hostages and 1,900 prisoners are expected to have been freed. Israel says eight of the 33 are dead.

Hamas took 251 hostages and killed about 1,200 people when it attacked in October 2023. Israel launched a military campaign in response, killing at least 48,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Why has Hamas announced a delay just days before it is due to release the next group of hostages?

In one of its official statements, released on Telegram, the group called its announcement a “warning” to Israel and said it was giving mediators “ample time to pressure the occupation [Israel] into fulfilling its obligations”.

It said the “door remains open” for the next scheduled releases to go ahead on Saturday.

The group appears to be giving time for the impasse to be resolved.

But what exactly is the impasse?

Hamas lists a series of complaints, from delaying the return of displaced people, continuing to open fire on them and failing to allow the entry of certain types of humanitarian aid.

Other Palestinian officials not connected with Hamas have cited Israel’s reluctance to allow caravans into Gaza to house the vast numbers of Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed.

At a time when the Israeli government is openly discussing ways to encourage civilians to leave Gaza, the failure to give permits for badly needed temporary accommodation is bound to stoke Palestinian fears of expulsion.

Fears exacerbated, almost every day, by Donald Trump.

What began as an apparently off-the-cuff suggestion that most Palestinians should leave while the Gaza Strip is rebuilt has morphed into the president’s demand that all should leave and that the US should take over and run Gaza.

As Trump continues to double down on his incendiary suggestion, Hamas may be wondering whether it’s worth engaging in phase two of the ceasefire talks. What exactly are the talks for?

If Trump is serious, the Palestinians know that it will fall to Israel to make sure that Gaza is devoid of civilians. Depriving them of shelter won’t be enough. It will almost certainly require force.

Now Trump has said that if all the hostages held in Gaza are not returned by Saturday he will propose cancelling the ceasefire and “all hell” will break out.

But he did say he was speaking for himself and “Israel can override it”.

• Jeremy Bowen: Trump’s Gaza plan won’t happen, but will have consequences
• BBC Verify: Can Trump really take ownership of Gaza?
• How 15 months of war have drastically changed life in the territory
• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal
• Israel and the Palestinians: History of the conflict explained

Faced with the possible resumption of war, Hamas may be wondering what incentive there is to release the remaining hostages.

For relatives and friends of the hostages, the current impasse, and Trump’s noisy intervention, is cause for fresh anxiety.

“Each of these statements or announcements, of course, make Hamas more stubborn,” Dudi Zalmanovich told the BBC. His wife’s nephew, Omer Shem Tov, is still being held by Hamas.

“I would prefer him to be less proactive,” Mr Zalmanovich said of Trump.

Israel has its own suspicions about the rationale behind Hamas’s threatened delay.

The spectacle of emaciated hostages being released at the weekend has raised fears that Hamas may not want the world to see others in even worse condition.

On top of the televised scenes of well-armed Hamas fighters parading in broad daylight, and warnings from the former US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, that the group has recruited as many soldiers as it’s lost during the war, not all Israelis believe the ceasefire can – or even should – hold.

It’s too early to say whether this carefully negotiated, staged process is about to collapse – as many have predicted it will – but after a mostly positive start, it’s under increasing strain.

New Zealand has accused the Cook Islands government of a lack of transparency over its plans to strike a partnership deal with China.

The tiny Pacific Island nation’s leader, Mark Brown, is this week making his country’s first ever state visit to Beijing in order to sign the agreement.

However, New Zealand says it was not properly consulted over the plans, leading to what Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has described as a “dispute”.

The Cook Islands is hugely reliant on New Zealand under a longstanding “free association” agreement that provides it with defence and financial support. China’s growing influence in the Pacific has challenged the US and its allies, who have held sway for years.

“We value our partnership with New Zealand and we expect the same respect,” Brown said at a press conference last week. He was due to travel to China on Monday.

“Disagreements, although difficult, are an inevitable part of international relations but they should never define the entirety of our engagement.”

He has denied any dispute, saying “engagement has been consistent, respectful and open” and that the Cook Islands has the right to forge its own path as a self-governing country.

China’s foreign ministry said that both countries were important partners and that it was ready to work with the Cook Islands to “achieve new progress”.

“The China-Cook Islands relationship is not targeted at any third party and should not be subject to or be disrupted by any third party,” said spokesman Guo Jiakun.

Beijing has had diplomatic ties with the Cook Islands since 1997 and is one of its development partners.

• Cook Islands country profile
• Climate change leaves future of Pacific Islands tourism ‘highly uncertain’

Under their 60-year-old agreement, the Cook Islands is self governing in “free association” with New Zealand. The two countries are expected to consult each other over issues of defence and security. Brown says the new agreement with China will cover areas including infrastructure, trade and tourism.

Deep deep-sea mining is also expected to be part of the deal. Brown believes that mining valuable minerals on the seabed could be a game-changer for the Cook Islands, creating huge economic wealth.

However, the practice, in which China is a major player, is controversial, and critics believe it will exacerbate climate change – to which the Cook Islands are already vulnerable.

Luxon said on Monday that while New Zealand had “very good relations between the Cook Islands and its people”, in this case there had not been transparency.

Asked at a press conference whether he would consider putting aid to the Cook Islands on hold, as it recently did for Kiribati due to a diplomatic snub, Luxon said he would wait to see what was in the deal.

Under the free association agreement Cook Islanders can live, work and access healthcare as New Zealand citizens – benefits some fear they could lose if relations between the two countries further sour.

There has also been criticism from some that Brown and his government did not consult the public about the China deal first – something Tina Browne, the leader of the Democratic Party, has described as “insane”.

Both she and fellow opposition leader Teariki Heather, from the Cook Islands United Party, say they have lost confidence in Brown’s leadership.

That is despite his recent U-turn on a controversial proposal to introduce a separate passport for Cook Island citizens, while also allowing them to retain New Zealand citizenship. Wellington rejected the plan last year.

The Cook Islands is not the first Pacific Island nation to strengthen its ties with China. The Solomon Islands signed a security pact with Beijing in 2022, while countries including Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea also have close relations.

When a prominent Saudi trans woman posted her suicide note on X, her friends and followers were devastated. The note, viewed by millions, said a lawyer in the US – where she had been trying to claim asylum – had persuaded her into returning home to a family and country that would not accept her identity.

The BBC World Service has identified this man as Bader Alomair, who has worked at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC, evidence suggests. He is linked to controversial returns from the United States of several other Saudi students – including two later accused of committing murder during their time at university.

Mr Alomair has not responded to the allegations raised in our investigation.

Eden Knight was from one of the Middle Eastern kingdom’s most respected families. After moving to Virginia in 2019 on a Saudi government scholarship to study at George Mason University, Eden made the decision in early 2022 to transition from presenting as a man to presenting as a woman, by wearing feminine clothes and taking female sex hormones.

Eden found a community on X and Discord where she felt accepted and started to grow a following online. In one post, she shared a picture of her Saudi ID photo next to her new feminine look and the post went viral.

Being transgender in Saudi Arabia is not tolerated by either society or the government – we have spoken to several transgender Saudis, now living outside the kingdom, who told us about the harassment, and in some cases violence, they had experienced.

Returning to Saudi Arabia could therefore have been difficult for Eden. We understand her student visa expired at around the time of her viral tweet so she decided to seek asylum in the US in order to stay there permanently.

Eden said she was messaged by an old friend who put her in contact with an American private investigator Michael Pocalyko. He offered to help with her asylum claim, and mend the relationship with her family – according to another friend, Hayden, who Eden was living with in Georgia at the time.

Other friends have shared messages with us from Eden, which say Mr Pocalyko told her she needed to move from Georgia to Washington DC in order to lodge her claim.

According to the final message she posted on X, in late October 2022, the private investigator met Eden off the train in the US capital. He was accompanied by a Saudi lawyer named Bader, she wrote.

“I genuinely was optimistic and believed this could work,” Eden said in her final post. She said Bader put her up in a nice apartment near Washington DC and took her sightseeing.

But over time it seems she began to question his motives. Eden wrote to friends, in messages shared with the BBC, that Bader was “detransitioning” her. She told them that Bader tried to throw out all of her feminine clothing and told her to stop hormone therapy.

Eden also told friends that Bader advised her she could not apply for asylum in the US and that she must return to Saudi Arabia to do this. A US immigration expert said such advice would be incorrect.

In December 2022, Eden messaged friends to say: “I am going [back to Saudi] with a lawyer and wishing for the best.” Her suicide note on X makes clear that the lawyer in question was someone called “Bader”.

It was not long before Eden was telling friends that returning was a mistake.

She messaged them to say her parents had taken her passport and the government had instructed her to close her X account. Eden told friends she had evidence her parents had hired people to get her back to Saudi Arabia, though she never shared that evidence.

“The lawyer that was helping me with asylum was working with my parents behind my back,” she told one of them.

Over the next few months, Eden’s friends say, she lost any hope of escaping Saudi Arabia.

She worked in a junior position at a tech company and in public assumed her original male identity. Eden messaged a friend to say she was trying to continue taking female hormones, but that her parents repeatedly confiscated them. Eden told friends that she suffered constant verbal abuse, and sent the friends a video – which we have seen – that she secretly recorded of a family member shouting that she had been brainwashed by Western ideas.

Eden took her own life on 12 March 2023.

We wanted to find “Bader” – the lawyer who Eden accused of detransitioning her and persuading her home, to ask him more about the events running up to her death.

We searched for lawyers of that name in the DC area, and one came up: Bader Alomair. There was limited information about him online, but an outdated directory for professionals working in Riyadh gave his full name in Arabic – which in turn led us to an inactive Facebook account showing a photo of him at Harvard Law School.

In texts Eden sent to friends, she mentioned her lawyer had been Harvard-educated.

Then, a source shared a crucial photo – taken by Eden from the apartment Mr Alomair had installed her in. We were able to geolocate it to a residential block on the outskirts of Washington DC.

One person there told us he had known Eden and had seen her with Mr Alomair.

He said Eden owned feminine clothing, jewellery and make-up, but would have to hide it when Mr Alomair came over. He made her cut her hair and told her not to shave, the witness said.

We repeatedly tried to contact Mr Alomair, but he did not respond. When we visited the address listed on his DC Bar registration, we saw a man matching photos of him get into an SUV and drive away.

We followed, noting the car’s unusual number plate – its code indicated the car was issued by the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC, and that the vehicle’s owner was embassy staff.

Mr Alomair’s role in the embassy was to support Saudi students in the US – a lawyer who previously worked with him told us.

We discovered news articles highlighting instances of Mr Alomair helping those left homeless by a hurricane in Florida, for example. But we also discovered his assistance had extended to more controversial situations.

On 13 October 2018, two Saudi students were questioned by US police over the death of an aspiring rapper in North Carolina – stabbed, reportedly after an altercation with the pair.

Some two months later, Abdullah Hariri and Sultan Alsuhaymi were charged with murder, but by then had left the US.

Just four days after the stabbing, Mr Hariri was on a flight back to Saudi Arabia, an email shared with us suggests. It includes details of the flights home which our source told us Mr Alomair organised for both Mr Hariri and Mr Alsuhaymi.

Neither student has ever commented publicly on the case.

Mr Alomair was sent an invoice for the flights a month later, another email shows, which our source says he would have needed to get reimbursement from the Saudi embassy.

Another source says he has worked with him to represent dozens of other Saudi students in the US against charges ranging from speeding to drink-driving.

“Bader would come to the meetings with an Arabic form headed by the Saudi embassy for students to sign [which] promised to pay back legal fees to the Saudi government once they returned home.”

The source told us the students would appear at their first hearing but vanish before any subsequent hearings, though we do not know if Mr Alomair had any role in this.

In 2019, the FBI warned that Saudi officials likely facilitated the escape of Saudi citizens from US legal proceedings.

“The FBI assesses that Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officials almost certainly assist US-based Saudi citizens to avoid legal issues, undermining the US judicial process. This assessment is made with high confidence.”

Sources have told us Mr Alomair continues to live and work in the US. He owns multiple commercial properties around Washington DC and in August 2024 appears to have set up a new law firm in Virginia, where he is a named partner.

Michael Pocalyko, Bader Alomair and the Saudi embassy in Washington DC did not respond to our questions.

We contacted Eden’s family to ask if they wanted to take part in this story but they did not respond.

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

President Donald Trump has ordered a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US in a major expansion of existing trade barriers.

The tariffs, which will increase the costs of importing the metals into the US, come despite warnings of retaliation from some political leaders in Canada – America’s biggest supplier of the metals – as well as other countries.

US businesses dependent on the imports have also raised concerns, but Trump has said his plans will boost domestic production.

He warned there would be no exceptions, saying he was “simplifying” the rules, which are set to come into effect on 4 March.

“This is a big deal, the beginning of making America rich again,” Trump said.

“Our nation requires steel and aluminium to be made in America, not in foreign lands,” he added.

When asked if tariffs could increase prices for consumers, the US president responded: “Ultimately it will be cheaper.”

“It’s time for our great industries to come back to America…this is the first of many,” he added, suggesting other tariffs could focus on pharmaceuticals and computer chips.

The US is the world’s largest importer of steel, counting Canada, Brazil and Mexico as its top three suppliers.

Canada alone accounted for more than 50% of aluminium imported into the US last year. If the tariffs come into force, they are expected to have the most significant impact on Canada.

Late on Monday, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Francois-Phillippe Champagne, said the tariffs were “totally unjustified”.

“Canadian steel and aluminium support key industries in the US from defence, shipbuilding, energy to automotive,” Champagne said. “This is making North America more competitive and secure.”

Ahead of the announcement, Ontario premier Doug Ford, whose province is home to much of Canada’s steel production, accused Trump of “shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk”.

The lobby group for Canadian steel makers called on the Canadian government to retaliate against the US “immediately”, while Kody Blois, a leading MP from Canada’s governing Liberal Party, said his country was looking for ways to reduce its trade relationship with the US.

“This is completely upending what has been a very strong partnership,” he told BBC Newshour ahead of the official order.

Meanwhile, share prices of the major US steel-makers rose on Monday in anticipation of the order, with the price of Cleveland-Cliffs jumping nearly 20%. Prices for steel and aluminium also jumped.

The response in much of the rest of the market was muted, reflecting questions about how serious Trump is about his plans, given his track record of postponing tariffs, or negotiating exemptions to the rules.

In 2018, during his first term, Trump announced tariffs of 25% on steel and 15% on aluminium, but eventually negotiated carve-outs for many countries including Australia, Canada and Mexico.

“This is sort of a replay of 2018,” said Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College.

“The biggest question is the uncertainty over whether this is a bargaining tactic or whether he just doesn’t want to talk with other countries and really wants to help out the steel industry in that way.”

Last week, the Trump ordered import duties of 25% on all Canadian and Mexican products, only to delay that plan for 30 days. He also brought in new US levies of 10% on all Chinese goods coming into the US, prompting retaliation from China.

A tariff is a domestic tax levied on goods as they enter a country, proportional to the value of the import.

The prospect of higher tariffs being introduced on imports to the US has been concerning many world leaders because it will make it more expensive for companies to sell goods in the world’s largest economy.

The taxes are a central part of Trump’s economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

But there are also concerns about the effect in the US, where many manufacturers inside the US use steel and aluminium in their products and now face the likelihood of added costs.

Industry groups from construction to can-makers warned about the hit.

In Trump’s first term, the tariffs, despite many exemptions, raised the average price of steel and aluminium in the US by 2.4% and 1.6% respectively, according to the US International Trade Commission.

Stephen Moore, who advised Trump’s campaign on economic issues in 2016 and is currently a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank based in Washington, said he did not think tariffs on steel and aluminium were effective way to create jobs, noting the experience of the first term.

He said while Trump was “deadly serious” about trade, he thought the plan was “about getting the rest of the world’s attention”.

“Just about everything Donald Trump does in Washington is a negotiating tactic,” he said.

Trump officials said the latest moves were aimed at stopping countries such as China and Russia from avoiding tariffs by routing low-cost products through other countries.

The US president said he was introducing new standards that require steel to be “melted and poured” and aluminium to be “smelted and cast” in North America.

Nick Iacovella, a spokesman for Coalition for a Prosperous America, which represents steel-makers and supports the tariffs, said his group is most concerned about a surge of steel imports from Mexico, above levels agreed in 2019.

But he noted that Canada sends far more goods to the US than it imports – a trade deficit that has been a key issue for Trump.

“There are still imbalances with the Canadian and United States trading relationship that should be addressed,” he said.

He added: “I don’t think they’re planning to take a one-size-fits-all hammer approach to this, but I think early on, in the beginning at least right now, I do think what the president is saying … [is] both of those countries [Canada and Mexico] are abusing their relationship with the US and we’re going to do something about it.”

Yu Hyuk was just nine years old when he started begging on the streets of North Hamgyong, one of the poorest provinces in North Korea, nestled along the northern border with China and Russia.

Besides begging, he ran errands for soldiers and sold foraged mushrooms. Sometimes he stole food out of sheer hunger: once he snatched a lunchbox that sat unattended at an underground station. Inside was a scoop of spoiled rice.

This was just “part of everyday life” for many North Koreans, he says, adding that his own life was so consumed with survival that it left little room for dreams.

But dream he did. Later on this year, the 25-year-old will debut in the US as a member of a K-pop boy band.

1Verse (pronounced “universe”) is made up of five members: Hyuk, Seok who is also from North Korea, Aito from Japan, and Asian Americans Kenny and Nathan – all prefer to go by their first names. They are set to make history as the first K-pop boy band to debut with North Korean defectors.

Hyuk was born in a seaside village in Kyongsong county and raised by his father and grandmother, after his parents broke up when he was just four.

Later, his mother fled the North to settle in the South and reached out to him in an attempt to get him to join her. But he refused as he was close to his father and did not want to leave him.

Hyuk says his family was “not extremely poor” to begin with, but the situation quickly deteriorated after his parents separated. His father didn’t want to work and his grandmother was too old, so Hyuk was left to his own devices to survive.

Eventually, his father persuaded him to join his mother, and in 2013 Hyuk escaped from North Korea.

It took months for him to arrive in the South, after going through several countries. He has chosen not to reveal specifics of the route, as he fears putting other future defectors at risk.

Once in the South, he lived with his mother for just a year, before moving to a boarding school with his mum’s financial support. However, he struggled to cope with South Korea’s fiercely competitive education system, as Hyuk had barely finished primary school before his defection.

Writing was the one thing he found solace in, he says.

He started with short poems alluding to his past life in North Korea. “I couldn’t openly share what I’d been through, but I still wanted to make a record of it.”

At first, Hyuk believed his story couldn’t be understood by others, but was encouraged by friends and teachers in his school’s music club – and eventually found his passion in rap.

Growing up, music had been a luxury, let alone K-pop which was something he had barely heard of. But now, he channelled his thoughts of feeling lonely and of missing his father into music, referring to himself as “the loneliest of the loners” – a line in Ordinary Person, a rap song he composed as a part of a pre-debut project.

Hyuk graduated from high school aged 20. Afterwards, he worked part-time at restaurants and factories to support himself.

But it was in 2018 when he was featured in an educational TV programme that his luck changed. His unique background and rapping talent caught the eye of music producer Michelle Cho, who was formerly from SM Entertainment, the agency behind some of K-pop’s biggest acts. She offered him a spot in her agency, Singing Beetle.

“I didn’t trust Michelle for about a year because I thought she was cheating me,” Hyuk says, adding that defectors are often targeted by scams in the South.

But gradually he realised that Ms Cho was “investing way too much time and money” for it to be anything but genuine.

Kim Seok, 24, also defected and arrived in the South in 2019, though his experience was vastly different to that of Seok’s.

Coming from a relatively better-off family, Seok lived close to the border with China and had access to K-pop and K-drama through smuggled USBs and SD cards.

Due to safety reasons, we are unable to reveal much more about his life in the North and how he came to the South.

Both boys were described by Ms Cho as “blank canvases”, adding that she had never encountered trainees quite like them.

Unlike Aito and Kenny, who had been immersed in music and dance from an early age, Hyuk and Seok were complete beginners.

“They had absolutely no grasp of pop culture,” she said.

But their ability to “endure physical challenges” astonished Ms Cho. They pushed through gruelling hours of dance practice with such determination that she was worried they were “overdoing it”.

Apart from music and dance lessons, their training also covered etiquette and engaging in discussions, to prepare them for media interviews.

“I don’t think they were used to questioning things or expressing their opinion,” says Ms Cho. “At first, when a trainer asked the reasoning behind their thoughts, the only response was, ‘Because you said so last time’.”

But after more than three years, Hyuk has made remarkable progress, she says.

“Now, Hyuk questions many things. For example, if I ask him to do something, he’ll reply ‘Why? Why is it necessary?’ Sometimes, I regret what I’ve done,” says Ms Cho chuckling.

But what do the other two boys think of their bandmates?

“I was kind of afraid at first because North Korea has a hostile relationship with Japan. I thought North Koreans would be scary, but that turned out not to be true,” says Aito, who at 20 is the youngest of the four.

Kenny, who spent much of his life in the US, adds that there were also small cultural differences that have taken him time to get used to.

“Korean culture is very [communal] in that you eat together… that was a culture shock [to me]”, he said. “I usually don’t like eating with people, I prefer Netflix in my ear. But their joy comes from being collective.”

Late last year, the band added a fifth member, Nathan, an American of mixed Laotian and Thai heritage to the group.

They aim to debut in the US later this year – a decision that the label hopes could attract more American fans.

Dozens of K-pop groups make their debut each year and only a few, typically those managed by major labels, become popular.

So it’s still too early to say if 1Verse will go on to resonate with audiences. But Hyuk has big dreams, hoping that it might be possible one day for his fellow North Koreans to listen to his songs.

With human rights activists often sending leaflets and USBs containing K-culture content via balloons and bottles towards the North, this may prove to be less of a pipe dream than it sounds, though Hyuk also has his worries.

To avoid being seen as a vocal critic of North Korea, he refers to his homeland as “the upper side” in interviews and avoids mentioning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim has in recent years been ratcheting up his crackdown on the inflow of K-culture. Since 2020, the consumption and distribution of such content has become a crime punishable by death.

A rare video obtained by BBC Korean last year, believed to be filmed in 2022, shows two teenage boys publicly sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for watching and distributing K-dramas.

One academic says it would cause a “stir” in North Korea should 1Verse’s music become a hit.

“If a North Korean defector openly embraced their identity and went on to become a world-class activist, I think that would cause a stir in the North,” said Ha Seung-hee, an academic specialising in music and media at Dongguk University’s Institute of North Korean Studies.

But his main motivation, Hyuk says, is to prove that defectors can be a success.

“Many defectors see an insurmountable gap between themselves and K-pop idols. It is hardly a career option for us,” said Hyuk.

“So if I succeed, other defectors might be encouraged [to] have even bigger dreams. That’s why I am trying my hardest.”

Neha Satpute and Akshay Pise felt ready to welcome their first child.

Having worked in the US for more than a decade, the Indian couple who are engineers on H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers, expected their son – due on 26 February – to be born an American citizen.

Employed at a large tech firm with a supportive parental leave policy, they had carefully built their life in San Jose, California.

But President Donald Trump recently threw a wrench in their American dream by announcing a rule that would deny automatic US citizenship to children born to temporary foreign workers. Until now, birthright citizenship had been a given regardless of parents’ immigration status.

A federal judge in Maryland has blocked the order, extending an initial two-week block imposed by a Seattle court. This means the ruling cannot take effect until the case is resolved in court, although there remains a possibility of a higher court overturning any decision.

The looming uncertainty, along with the multiple lawsuits and legal challenges, have left Akshay, Neha and thousands of others in limbo.

“This impacts us directly,” says Akshay. “If the order takes effect, we don’t know what comes next – it’s uncharted territory.” Their biggest question: What nationality will their child have?

Their concern is valid, says New York-based immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta: “US law has no provision for granting non-immigrant status to a person born here.”

With their baby’s due date fast approaching, they consulted their doctor about an early delivery. The advice? If all goes well, they could induce labour in the 40th week, but they’ve chosen to wait.

“I want the natural process to take its course,” says Neha. Akshay adds: “My priority is a safe delivery and my wife’s health. Citizenship comes second.”

Dr Satheesh Kathula, president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), reached out to obstetricians of Indian origin in the US after media reports of families seeking early C-sections. Except for “a few instances in New Jersey”, most doctors reported no such inquiries.

“In a country with strict medical laws, I strongly advise against preterm C-sections just for citizenship,” said the Ohio-based doctor. “Our physicians are ethical and won’t perform them unless medically necessary.”

US citizenship is highly coveted, especially by skilled H-1B visa holders. Indians are the second-largest immigrant group in the US.

Immigration policy analyst Sneha Puri warns that a birthright citizenship order would hit Indians hard – more than five million Indians in the US hold non-immigrant visas.

“If enforced, none of their future US-born children would get citizenship,” she told the BBC.

South Asian parents-to-be are flooding online groups with concerns about the order’s impact and next steps.

Trump’s executive order says it does not affect the ability of the children of lawful permanent residents to obtain documentation of US citizenship.

But Indians in the US face the longest wait of any foreign nationality to receive a green card conferring lawful permanent residency.

Current US rules mean that the number of green cards given to people of any one country cannot exceed 7% of the total number of green cards awarded.

Indians receive 72% of H-1B visas annually. According to the Cato Institute, Indians made up 62% of the employment-based backlog of people waiting for green cards – that’s 1.1 million – in 2023. Indians receiving employment-based green cards today applied back in 2012.

In his report, Cato’s director of immigration studies David Bier warns: “New Indian applicants face a lifetime wait, with 400,000 likely to die before getting a green card.”

In contrast, most other immigrants get permanent residency within a year, speeding their path to citizenship.

If implemented, Trump’s executive order would also affect undocumented migrants in the US, whose US-born children had previously automatically gained citizenship – and who could then go on to sponsor their parents to apply for a green card when they turn 21.

Pew Research estimates 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US as of 2022, making them the third-largest group. In contrast, the Migration Policy Institute puts the number at 375,000, ranking India fifth. Unauthorised immigrants make up 3% of the US population and 22% of the foreign-born population.

The main concern for Indians on H-1B or O visas is their children’s quality of life.

Such visa-holders must leave the US periodically to have their visas stamped in a US embassy abroad. Those who return to India for this purpose frequently face delays in getting an appointment for this purpose.

These immigrants don’t want their US-born children to endure the same bureaucratic struggles.

Waiting in the green card queue for several years, Akshay is aware of the ease US citizenship brings.

“We have been here for more than 10 years. As I see my parents getting older, it’s very important for me to have citizenship. Travelling becomes tricky for us with coordinating visa stamping timings, and now with my baby it might be more difficult,” he said.

Many physicians in the US oppose Trump’s decree, highlighting the role foreign skilled workers play in providing vital services.

Dr Kathula says Indian doctors in rural areas such as North and South Dakota are crucial. “Without them, healthcare would collapse. Now, they’re in limbo about starting families,” he said.

He is calling for the process of getting a green card to be sped up and for these workers’ children to be granted birthright citizenship because of their parents’ contributions to America.

Trump’s order has also heightened anxiety among Indians on student and work visas, already aware of their precarious legal status. The one guarantee – their US-born children’s citizenship – is now in doubt.

San Jose resident Priyanshi Jajoo, expecting a baby in April, is searching for clarity on potential changes. “Do we need to contact the Indian consulate for a passport? Which visa applies? There’s no information online,” she said.

Counting the days until her son’s arrival, Neha said the uncertainty was an additional source of anxiety.

“Pregnancy is stressful enough, but we thought after a decade here it would get easier – then this happens on top of everything,” she said.

Her husband Akshay adds, “As legal, tax-paying immigrants, our baby deserves US citizenship – it’s been the law, right?”

The inner core of Earth may have changed shape in the past 20 years, according to a group of scientists.

The inner core is usually thought to be shaped like a ball, but its edges may actually have deformed by 100m or more in height in places, according to Prof John Vidale who led the research.

Earth’s core is the beating heart of our planet as it produces a magnetic field that protects life from burning up in the Sun’s radiation.

The inner core spins independently from the liquid outer core and from the rest of the planet. Without this motion, Earth would die and become more like barren Mars which lost its magnetic field billions of years ago.

The change in shape could be happening where the edge of the solid inner core touches the extremely hot liquid metal outer core.

The research is published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. The scientists were originally trying to find out why the inner core may have slowed down to a slower pace than Earth’s rotation before speeding back up again in 2010.

Understanding how the Earth’s core works is essential to understanding the magnetic field that protects the planet, and whether that could weaken or stop.

The inside of our planet is an extremely mysterious place. The core is about 4,000 miles from the Earth’s surface and, despite best efforts, scientists have so far been unable to reach it.

So, to try to unlock its secrets, some researchers measure the shockwaves caused by earthquakes as they ripple through the planet.

The way the waves travel reveals what type of material they moved through, including in the inner core, and help to paint a picture of what lies beneath our feet.

The new analysis looked at seismic wave patterns from earthquakes that repeated in the same location between 1991 and 2023. That helped to show how the inner core is changing over time.

Prof Vidale, an earth scientist at the University of Southern California, found more evidence to back up the theory that during those years the inner core slowed down around 2010.

But his team also found the evidence of the inner core’s changing shape.

It appears to be happening at the boundary of the inner and outer core, where the inner core is close to melting point. The liquid flow of the outer core as well as pull from an uneven gravity field may cause deformation.

Prof Hrvoje Tkalcic from Australian National University, who was not involved in the study, said the paper provides “an interesting concept that should be explored further”.

He said it could allow scientists “to make more informed estimates of some important material properties, such as the viscosity of the inner core, which is one of the least known quantities in modern science”.

Over time the liquid outer core is freezing into the solid inner core, but it will be billions of years before it becomes completely solid.

It would almost certainly mean the end of life on Earth, but by then the planet is already likely to have been swallowed by the Sun.

Prof Vidale’s work is part of investigations by experts around the world exploring and arguing over what happens in the core.

“In science, we generally try to look at things until we understand them,” Prof Vidale says.

“In all likelihood, this finding doesn’t affect our daily lives one iota, but we really want to understand what’s happening in the middle of the Earth,” he adds.

It is possible that the changes are connected to changes in Earth’s magnetic field.

“The magnetic field has had jerks at various times in the past few decades, and we’d like to know if that is related to what we’re seeing at the inner core boundary,” he said.

Prof Vidale urged caution about hyping the findings into ideas that the core is going to stop rotating any time soon.

He also added that there are still lots of uncertainties.

“We’re not 100% sure we’re interpreting these changes correctly,” saying that the boundaries of scientific knowledge are always changing and, like many if not all researchers, he has been wrong in the past.

A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk offered $97.4bn to take over OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

The billionaire’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, confirmed he submitted the bid for “all assets” of the tech company to its board on Monday.

The offer is the latest twist in a longstanding battle between Musk, the world’s richest man and right hand to US President Donald Trump, and Open AI chief executive Sam Altman over the future of the start-up at the centre of the AI boom.

In response to the bid, Altman posted on Musk’s social media platform X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

OpenAI is widely credited with helping bring artificial intelligence tools into the mainstream and sparking huge investment in the sector.

Musk and Altman co-founded the start-up in 2015 as a non-profit company, but the relationship has soured since the Tesla and X boss departed the firm in 2018.

Altman is said to be restructuring the company to become a for-profit entity, stripping it of its non-profit board – a move Musk argues means the company has abandoned its founding mission of developing AI for the benefit of humanity.

But OpenAI argues its transition into a for-profit firm is required to secure the money needed for developing the best artificial intelligence models.

The bid to take over OpenAI bid is being backed by Musk’s AI company xAI, as well as several private equity firms, including Baron Capital Group and Valor Management.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was. We will make sure that happens,” Musk said in a statement.

The offer tabled at $97.4bn is much lower than the $157bn the company was valued at in its latest funding round in October last year. Talks over a further funding round reportedly value it now at $300bn.

In a statement, Mr Toberoff said the consortium would be “prepared to consider matching or exceeding” any potential higher bid.

“As the co-founder of OpenAI and the most innovative and successful tech industry leader in history, Musk is the person best positioned to protect and grow OpenAI’s technology,” Musk’s attorney added on his behalf and other investors.

The creator of ChatGPT is also teaming up with another US tech giant, Oracle, along with a Japanese investment firm and an Emirati sovereign wealth fund to build $500bn of artificial intelligence infrastructure in the US.

The new company, called The Stargate Project, was announced at the White House by President Donald Trump who billed it “the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history” and said it would help keep “the future of technology” in the US.

Musk, despite being a top advisor to Trump, has claimed the venture does not “actually have the money” it has pledged to invest, though he has also not provided any details or substantiation for the comments.

Police in Austria have issued a European arrest warrant for a woman they believe posed as a shaman to defraud victims out of large sums of money.

Police said they discovered cash, jewellery and gold worth over 10m euros (£8.3 million) at the woman’s house in Mödling, near Vienna.

They said the suspect is a 44-year-old Austrian citizen named only as Mariana M, who went by the name Amela.

Her 29 year-old son has been arrested and is in custody in the town of Wiener Neustadt.

Police say they believe Mariana M may have defrauded people in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Police say Mariana M told one victim that a “close relative had been cursed and that she foresaw her death. In order to break this alleged curse, the accused then demanded 730,000 euros for ‘cleansing rituals'”.

They said after the victim had handed over the money to the accused in several instalments, the suspect broke off contact. Another woman then informed the victim by telephone that the “shaman” had fallen into a severe coma as a result of the ritual.

Director of Police in Lower Austria, Franz Popp, said: “In a world in which many people are looking for answers to the essential questions of life, profiteers have established themselves who claim to possess supernatural powers.”

“They exploit the trust of their victims who are in emotional or financial distress and are looking for help and support,” he added.

Police have appealed to any other victims to contact the Lower Austrian State Office of Criminal Investigation.

Santorini has been hit by a powerful, shallow 5.3 magnitude earthquake, which is the strongest to strike the Greek island during recent seismic activity in the area.

The tremors were felt in Athens on Monday evening and measured a focal depth of 17km (10.6 miles).

Residents of the neighbouring island Amorgos remain on high alert after the latest tremor, which followed a moderate 5.0 magnitude earthquake between the islands on Sunday evening.

The tourist hotspot has been rocked by seismic activity since January and more than 12,800 quakes have been detected by the University of Athens’ Seismological Laboratory.

Some residents have been seen patrolling dangerous areas to deter tourists from taking photos on cliffs.

Landslides have occurred in many parts of Santorini due to the frequency and intensity of the tremors and experts have not ruled out a major earthquake.

Seismologists were optimistic about the intensity of the quakes starting to subside, but are now concerned they are worsening.

A state of emergency will remain in place on Santorini until at least 3 March.

Sunday’s quake was preceded by three smaller ones of more than 4.0 magnitude, while the three on Monday morning were also more than 4.0.

Inspections found no damage to buildings in Santorini or Amorgos.

No injuries have been reported as a result of the earthquakes, which have numbered in the thousands since 26 January, but more than 11,000 people have left the islands.

Schools will remain closed on Santorini, Amorgos and several other islands on Monday and Tuesday.

A team of the Special Disaster Response Unit has set off for Amorgos from Patras with a special earthquake rescue vehicle, and technical teams are expected to inspect the electricity network on the island.

Kostas Papazachos, a professor of seismology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, told Greek broadcaster ERT that the authorities had to allow for the situation to continue for most or all of February.

“Let’s hope that we will slowly move towards a gradual de-escalation,” he said.

“We will have to be a little patient and see. Let’s hope that after a couple of weeks the phenomenon will start to subside.”

He said the possibility of a major earthquake had not been completely ruled out.

Meanwhile the cruise ship Viking Star, with 893 passengers and 470 crew, docked at the port of Souda in Crete early on Monday morning.

It was due to be the first cruise ship of the season in Santorini. The ship changed its route mainly to avoid cable car overcrowding in Santorini during the seismic activity.

The previous strongest quake since the activity started was a 5.2 magnitude on Thursday. Six and above is considered severe.

Greece is one of Europe’s most earthquake-prone countries, but scientists are puzzled by the current “clusters” of quakes which have not been linked to a major shock.

Santorini is on what is known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc, which is a chain of islands created by volcanoes, but the last major eruption was in the 1950s.

Greek authorities have said the recent tremors were related to tectonic plate movements, not volcanic activity.

Scientists cannot predict the exact timing, size or location of earthquakes.

From 26 January to 8 February 2025, the Seismology Laboratory (SL) of the University of Athens registered more than 12,800 earthquakes in the Santorini-Amorgos zone.

The US justice department has told prosecutors to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, instructed federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to drop all charges on Monday.

In a memo, he said the indictment could impact the upcoming mayoral election and it had “restricted” Adams’ ability to address “illegal immigration and violent crime” in the city.

Adams is accused of accepting illegal campaign funds and gifts from Turkish businessmen in exchange for his influence as mayor. He pleaded not guilty to five charges of bribery, conspiracy and campaign finance violations in September.

“You are directed, as authorised by the Attorney General, to dismiss the pending charges,” Bove’s memo to prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have not indicated whether they intend to drop the case as requested. Any decision to do so will need to be formally submitted to the court and approved by a judge.

The memo adds that the case may be reviewed again after the November 2025 mayoral election, but it says no further “investigate steps” should be taken until then.

It also says prosecutors should “take all steps within your power to cause Mayor Adams’ security clearance to be restored”.

Bove, who recently worked as Trump’s defence lawyer during his criminal trial last year, wrote that the justice department “reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based,” and “in no way calls into question the integrity and efforts” of the prosecutors who brought the case.

The memo followed a reported meeting between Adams’ lawyers and federal prosecutors in New York.

• Foreign bribes, cheap flights: What is Eric Adams accused of?
• New York City Mayor Eric Adams indicted on federal charges
• Trump administration sues Chicago over ‘sanctuary city’ laws

Adams, a Democrat, has recently moved to build a closer relationship with Trump and his administration. He attended the presidential inauguration last month and also flew to Florida for a meeting.

In recent weeks, the 64-year-old mayor has directed city law enforcement to co-operate with federal immigration authorities on fresh New York City raids. Critics say this undermines local sanctuary city laws, which direct city leaders to not co-operate with authorities unless they are aiming to arrest dangerous criminals.

Adams has denied speaking to President Trump about his case.

The justice department memo also alleges Adams was targeted by the department during former President Joe Biden’s time in office. Bove did not provide any evidence for this.

Professor Stephen Gillers, an expert on legal ethics at New York University Law School, told NBC News that Bove’s memo ordering the case to be dropped was “a baseless and offensive slur against the former US attorney and the lawyers who worked on the Adams case”.

The mayor’s lawyer, meanwhile, said it was a victory for his client.

“As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent – and he would prevail. Today he has,” Alex Spiro said.

The Manhattan US Attorney’s office, which brought the case, is yet to comment.

President Trump’s sweeping set of tariffs are intended, in part, to protect American industries, raise money and – as we’ve seen – be used as a bargaining chip.

The Republican has already imposed tariffs on imports from China, announced plans for a 25% duty on all steel and aluminium imports, and threatened to place 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. We don’t yet know how far he will go, but if what is already on the table comes to pass then it would raise average tariffs to their highest since the 1940s, signalling a new chapter for global trade.

Since the end of World War Two in 1945, tariffs have been broadly viewed as leading to higher consumer prices, less choice and – amidst the inevitable retaliation – backfiring on the industries they were meant to protect. But are we turning our backs on this era?

I hosted a debate with two economic experts in trade policy to unpick the implications of Trump’s policies on America and the world, and explore differing views on who among us might be the biggest winners or losers.

Meredith Crowley is Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge. She believes tariffs could lead to a much heavier economic burden on the lowest income people.

Jeff Ferry is Chief Economist Emeritus at the Coalition for A Prosperous America. He believes tariffs can trigger growth and rebuild the US manufacturing industry.

Dharshini David (DD): President Trump described tariffs as ‘the most beautiful word in the dictionary’ – which is really intriguing. What’s the attraction for him?

Jeff Ferry (JF): I think Trump has made it pretty clear that he thinks tariffs are a ‘beautiful’ thing for several reasons.

Firstly, because they can revive and rebuild the US manufacturing industry. He also sees the US is running a huge trade deficit. In 2024, we had a record goods trade deficit of $1.2 trillion which means the rest of the world, and particularly trade surplus countries, is generating large amounts of revenue by selling to the US market. This gives the US a powerful negotiating tool and we’ve seen him use that, regarding drugs and immigration with Canada and Mexico in the last few days.

Meredith Crowley (MC): My presumption is that what is really concerning Trump is the decline in manufacturing jobs within the United States over the last 40 years.

He observed that lots of jobs that used to exist in the US have migrated to other lower wage countries like Mexico and China and I think his hope would be that by imposing tariffs he could stimulate the creation of jobs.

DD: We know countries are thinking of retaliatory measures as well. To what extent will these measures impact Trump’s economic goals?

JF: There is no doubt that a tariff policy, coupled with an investment and growth strategy policy and a national security policy, will grow the US economy and do a better job of delivering productivity growth than we’ve seen in the last 25 years, which frankly have been abysmal by traditional US standards.

500 years of history shows that the economics profession, in its obsession with short term equilibrium, has done a disservice to not just American workers and the American people, but actually, to British people and British workers – and workers in many countries.

DD: In the post-war era, we saw the tearing down of trade barriers and the idea that globalisation was good. Are we now seeing a backlash against this?

JF: We are seeing a historic shift away from the post WW2 consensus, which stemmed from the period when America was way ahead of the rest of the world – and America was very worried about the Communist threat.

So what you call ‘free trade,’ and I would call the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate consensus, was designed for America to support and even subsidise the growth of European economies and other economies.

We’ve now moved to a new stage where it’s well known the US economy started to falter in the 1970s, and China has risen to become the world’s number one manufacturing power basically through exploiting all the rules in the system.

We need a new system.

MC: I have a different diagnosis of what happened in recent history.

Over the past 40 years, it’s clear more protection is very popular. Between 1981 and 1994, the US restricted imports of automobiles from Japan and that ultimately had two consequences.

One, it raised the price of automobiles for Americans. Two, in the long run, it led to investment by Japanese manufacturers in the US, and today, the US has a vibrant automobile industry. You could support US industry much more directly by having direct government support.

Trump has now created uncertainty that Canadian manufacturers will have access to the US market in the future. And because Trump made good on his threats in 2018 to impose tariffs on China, major corporations might be revising plans to expand operations in Canada or Mexico to serve the US market. There will be a pullback on real economic activity in those trading partners.

DD: Meredith, Trump has acknowledged there may be ‘a little pain’ for Americans in the short term because as you mentioned, tariffs tend to mean higher prices.

MC: A study on what happened in round one of Trump’s tariffs on China in 2018 showed, in the first two years, that most of the cost increase was absorbed by importers and distributors and it didn’t get passed on to consumers. The price increases though, tend to come more gradually.

Once you realise the tariff is in place permanently, the manufacturer realises everyone’s going to have to pay it and they gradually raise their prices.

One of the concerns economists have is people who buy a lot of goods rather than services tend to be lower income people. So when you put a tariff on things like kids’ trainers, backpacks and clothing, these kinds of consumer items, you’re really placing a much heavier tax burden on the lowest income people in the country, rather than somebody who’s spending their money on vacations and private education for children.

DD: Jeff, are you concerned about a global trade war that could backfire on Trump’s aims?

JF: We have been in a trade war since 2001, since China entered the world trading community. The trade war is long-standing. Now America is taking action and a lot of people are throwing up their hands, not because they are concerned about a trade war, but because they’re concerned they might lose a valuable market for their own products.

But I want to go back to consumer prices.

People focus purely on the negative. The purpose of the tariff is to stimulate domestic industry, so on the positive side, you create brand new investments in domestic industry. On the negative side you get a price increase. So it depends critically on the numbers in both cases.

What we know from round one of Trump’s tariffs, between 2018 and 2019, is the price of tariff goods went up, such as steel, but companies committed to building new factories like steel mills which have hired several hundreds of people – great blue collar jobs for people who generally speaking do not have a college degree.

The current phase of globalisation which began around 1990 was just a huge mistake. The idea that the US could compete with Mexico on salaries, particularly to manufacturing workers, was just crazy.

DD: Lets get Meredith’s view on this. Would you agree that for higher wage economies, frankly, globalisation has not been a great idea since the 1990s?

MC: I understand Jeff’s point, that the only concern of the president should be the wellbeing of Americans. But, between 1990 and 2023, the number of people around the world living in extreme poverty on less than $2.15 (£1.75) a day fell from two billion to around 700 million. Over a billion people exiting poverty because of increasing globalisation is an astounding achievement of humanity.

It is completely clear to everyone that within American society the benefits of globalisation have not been equal and so there is a real need within the US to think about how do we improve the wellbeing of less skilled people, and how do we get jobs into the economy to help them.

Where I differ with Trump is I think there are more effective tools. You need an industrial policy or subsidies to production. American productivity is so high because we are constantly investing in labour saving technology but the consequence is that the less skilled have been left behind and their lives are materially worse than they were thirty years ago.

JF: I agree one hundred percent with Meredith.

DD: This is fascinating. If we see the kind of trade barriers that Trump wants to put in place, what does that mean for this issue of equality?

MC: Once you start putting barriers between countries you create a lot of opportunity for what in the economics world we call monopoly profits. Once you limit entry, the existing producers get to jack up their prices and exploit consumers.

If the US goes into a trade war with China, what’s going to happen to imports from countries the US isn’t interested in having a trade war with?

If the US and China deepen their trade war, this could affect the supply chain participation of sub-Saharan African countries with the US and China, meaning it is going to be one of the areas of the world that bears some of the brunt of this trade war.

So the spillover effects could be very, very negative.

DD: Jeff, is this a price worth paying? What kind of impact could we see on growth?

JF: I don’t think of it as a price worth paying, I think of it as an evolution of the world system where hopefully we’ll get higher growth everywhere. And this is where I differ with the mainstream economics view which focuses far too much on trade and on minor productivity gains.

The world has grown through the success of industries. The US prosperity from 1900 to 1970 was due largely to the automobile industry. What you saw was huge productivity gains as Henry Ford and all his successors invented and developed mass production. You saw wage increases and spending increases and we had the most prosperous economy in the world.

So what we need is industrial growth and when you look at a national security framework, we cannot be dependent on China for as many goods as we are today. We are far too dependent on China here in the United States, Europe is far too dependent on China. So what’s the resolution? Well the resolution is pretty obvious – we need to make certain goods here in the US.

British pop star Ed Sheeran was stopped from busking in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru on Sunday, with police saying he didn’t have the necessary permissions.

A video showing a local police officer unplugging Sheeran’s microphone on Bengaluru’s Church Street – a crowded shopping and entertainment area – has since gone viral.

Officials told the ANI news agency a request from Mr Sheeran’s team to busk on the road was rejected to avoid congestion in the area.

But Sheeran insisted on Instagram that “we had permission to busk, by the way. Hence, us playing in that exact spot was planned out before. It wasn’t just us randomly turning up. All good though. See you at the show tonight.”

The incident took place ahead of his scheduled Mathematics Tour concert at NICE Grounds in Bengaluru.

Fans criticised the police intervention online, with one saying: “We live in an uncleocracy. And there’s nothing uncles love more than to stop young people from having fun,” referring to the number of vague rules that govern the use of public spaces in India.

However PC Mohan, a local MP from the ruling BJP party, said “even global stars must follow local rules – no permit, no performance!”

Sheeran is in India for the second year in a row on a 15-day tour, having already played in Pune Hyderabad and Chennai and with more concerts scheduled for Shillong in India’s north-east and the capital Delhi.

At his Bengaluru show, Sheeran surprised fans by singing two hit local songs in the Telugu language with singer Shilpa Rao on stage.

He previously collaborated with Indian singer and actor Diljit Dosanjh during the latter’s concert in Birmingham last year.

While in India he has also collaborated with sitar musician Megha Rawoot on a version of his hit song Shape of You.

Demand for live music concerts has been increasing in India, with Sheeran’s biggest-ever tour of the country coming close on the heels of Dua Lipa’s recent performance in Mumbai and Coldplay’s multi-city tour.

With growing disposable incomes, India is an emerging player in the “concert economy”, a recent Bank of Baroda report said, with live concerts set to be worth $700-900m (£550-730m).