France is proposing a partial one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister have said, as European efforts to bolster support for Kyiv accelerate in the face of uncertain US backing.

On Monday, a day after European leaders rallied around Ukraine at a summit in London, Jean-Noël Barrot said: “Such a truce – on air, sea and energy infrastructure – would allow us to determine whether Vladimir Putin is acting in good faith” and gauge his attitude to “real peace negotiations”.

The French foreign minister continued: “Never has the risk of a war in Europe, in the European Union been so high … The threat keeps getting closer to us, the frontline keeps getting closer to us.”

Barrot’s comments picked up on those of the French president, who suggested France and the UK had agreed on a plan for a short-term partial ceasefire that would not cover ground fighting, with troops to be deployed to Ukraine in a second phase.

Macron told Le Figaro newspaper on Sunday: “There will be no European troops on Ukrainian soil in the coming weeks. The question is how we use this time to try to obtain a truce, with negotiations that will take several weeks.”

But the UK armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, on Monday declined to confirm the idea, saying it was “not a plan we currently recognise”. Various options were on the table and it was “probably not right for me at the moment to comment”.

He said: “No agreement has been made on what a truce looks like. But we are working together with France and our European allies to look at what is the path to how … we create a lasting and durable peace in Ukraine.”

The remarks came after European leaders, the head of Nato, Mark Rutte, and Canadian officials met in London on Sunday after an acrimonious exchange between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump in Washington on Friday.

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who convened the London talks, said afterwards that the leaders had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan that would be presented to the Trump administration, but no details have so far emerged.

The Kremlin, which has rejected the idea of any western troops in Ukraine, said on Monday the results of the summit would allow “the continuation of hostilities”, adding that Zelenskyy must be forced to change his stance and seek peace.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said Friday’s Oval Office clash showed how difficult it would be to reach a settlement on the conflict, and that Russia would continue to negotiate with the US on normalising the countries’ bilateral ties.

Peskov claimed Zelenskyy was responsible for the heated exchanges, describing them as “quite an unprecedented event”. He said the Ukrainian president had “demonstrated a complete lack of diplomatic abilities, to put it mildly”.

Zelenskyy said on Monday he would work with Europe on the terms for a possible peace deal to present to the US, amid growing fears that Trump intends to force Kyiv into a peace deal that gives Russia what it wants.

The Ukrainian president said on Telegram: “In the near future, all of us in Europe will shape our common positions – the lines we must achieve and the lines we cannot compromise on. These positions will be presented to our partners in the United States.”

In a video showing damage from Russian attacks on Ukraine, Zelenskyy said Kyiv “needs strong support from our partners”, with Moscow launching “more than 1,050 attack drones, nearly 1,300 aerial bombs, and more than 20 missiles” in the past week.

Starmer said after Sunday’s meeting that while the US was “not an unreliable ally”, it was clear that “Europe must do the heavy lifting”.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said the continent must urgently rearm to “prepare for the worst”. Trump dismissed European concerns, saying the US should worry less about Putin and more about domestic crime.

Amid calls from Macron for EU countries to raise defence budgets to 3%-3.5% of GDP, German coalition talks have raised the prospect of a huge boom in spending including special defence and infrastructure funds worth hundreds of billions of euros.

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, criticised the London summit, saying European leaders “decided … they want to go on with the war instead of opting for peace” and describing their approach as “bad, dangerous and mistaken”.

Orbán and Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, are likely to challenge and may veto the conclusions of an extraordinary EU summit on Thursday to discuss support for Ukraine, European security guarantees and how to pay for European defence needs.

The former Polish president and Nobel Peace prize winner Lech Wałęsa has signed a letter to Donald Trump expressing “horror and distaste” at his argument with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the White House last week.

The letter, signed by Wałęsa and more than 30 former Polish political prisoners held during the communist era, said that Trump and his vice-president’s demands that Zelenskyy show gratitude were “insulting” in the face of the Ukrainian country’s fight for freedom.

The “atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of that which we remember well from interrogations” by Poland’s communist secret services and regime courts, the signatories said.

“The prosecutors and the judges, working on behalf of the omnipotent Communist party police, also told us that they held all the cards, and we held none,” they said.

“We are shocked that you treated Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the same way,” they said.

Wałęsa, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1983, led the pro-democracy Solidarity movement that led to the collapse of communism in Poland and inspired other countries to shed Moscow’s domination.

He served as democratic Poland’s first popularly elected president from 1990-95.

Other signatories of the letter include Adam Michnik, Bogdan Lis, Seweryn Blumsztajn and Władysław Frasyniuk.

The US embassy in Warsaw told Reuters that questions on the letter should be directed to the White House press office, which did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

A senior US Democrat has hit out at Donald Trump’s attempt to reset relations with Russia following revelations that the president’s administration is retreating from the fight against Russian cyber threats, calling the reported move “a critical strategic mistake”.

In a statement on Sunday making reference to the Russian leader, New York’s Chuck Schumer – the US Senate’s Democratic minority leader – said Trump was “so desperate to earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin he appears to be giving him a free pass as Russia continues to launch cyber operations and ransomware attacks against critical American infrastructure, threatening our economic and national security”.

Schumer called the administration’s move “a critical strategic mistake” in his statement, which he posted on X.

The criticism comes after the Guardian reported on Friday that Trump’s administration had publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or vital infrastructure in a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments.

Furthermore, on Sunday, the New York Times reported that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had ordered a pause on all of the country’s cyber operations against Russia, including offensive actions. Hegseth’s reported maneuver came as the Trump administration looks to reset Washington’s relations with Moscow ahead of US-led peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded in February 2022.

Meanwhile, Britain and France have announced a rival plan for a “coalition of the willing” to secure a peace deal to end the three-year war.

The order to US Cyber Command to halt offensive operations against Russia was issued before the dramatic public breakdown of relations between the Trump administration and Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskyy, at the White House on Friday.

According to the Record, a cyber-focused US publication that first reported the instruction, Hegseth’s order to the cyber command chief, Gen Timothy Haugh, does not appear to apply to the National Security Agency or its signals intelligence work targeting Russia. The outlet cited sources.

The duration of Hegseth’s order has not been revealed – nor is it known what offensive digital operations are being suspended.

While it is not uncommon for there to be a pause in military operations between countries engaging in diplomatic negotiations, the suspension of US “shadow war” operations invites reciprocation.

It is unclear if a similar suspension has or will be enacted by Russia. On Sunday, a Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, welcomed a Washington-Moscow reset, saying the second Trump presidential administration was rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. “This largely aligns with our vision,” Peskov said.

But speaking to CNN on Sunday about reopening links to Russia, the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, denied reports of the cyber policy change. “That has not been part of our discussions,” Waltz said. “There will be all kinds of carrots and sticks to get this war to an end.”

A US defense official cited by NBC News declined to comment on the decision but said: “There is no greater priority to Secretary Hegseth than the safety of the warfighter in all operations, to include the cyber domain.”

The order does not apply to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for protecting domestic US cyber infrastructure.

The agency reportedly said in a statement that its “mission is to defend against all cyber threats to US Critical Infrastructure, including from Russia”.

“There has been no change in our posture,” the Cisa statement said.

In February, the Pentagon ordered a review of US Cyber Command operations to be fast-tracked, the Record reported, in line with the Trump administration’s belief that the US must become more confrontational in cyberspace in the wake of hacks and espionage campaigns by China.

In its reporting on Friday that the US no longer characterized Russia as a cybersecurity threat, the Guardian pointed to a speech delivered by Liesyl Franz, deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity at the state department, to a UN working group. Franz said the US was concerned by threats posed by some states but only named China and Iran – without mentioning Russia.

Meanwhile, Trump officials have been advocating for stepped-up military actions against Mexican cartel operations to stem the flow of fentanyl into the US – which could draw intelligence resources from Cyber Command.

On Saturday, officials said they were sending roughly an additional 3,000 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump expounded his belief that the US faces other more pressing topics than Russia.

“We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country – So that we don’t end up like Europe!” Trump wrote.

A car has rammed into crowds in the centre of the German city of Mannheim, killing at least two people and injuring several others after police had warned of terrorist threats at regional carnival festivities.

The driver of a black SUV was arrested according to a police spokesperson, and forces across the city were on alert over concerns that other suspects could be at large. Warnings were issued to the public to stay clear of the city centre.

Witnesses described people lying on the ground at the scene near the central pedestrianised Paradeplatz after the car ploughed into the crowd, heading in the direction of a water tower. Attempts were being made to resuscitate at least two people at the scene. Several news sources reported two dead and 25 injured, though this was not immediately confirmed by officials.

Police said it remained unclear whether the driver had driven his vehicle deliberately into the crowds celebrating carnival ahead of the fasting season of Lent. However, the incident follows a string of violent attacks including two other car rammings, in Munich last month and in Magdeburg in December. Mannheim was the scene of a stabbing in May 2024 in which a police officer was killed and five people wounded.

All those attacks were carried out by migrants, fuelling a heated debate over the country’s immigration policy before Germany’s general election last month. The vote was won by the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, who campaigned on promises to tighten border controls, while the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland came second with its best ever result.

Germany’s carnival season culminates in Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), with crowds in fancy dress and parades of floats that typically feature comical and satirical displays of events dominating current affairs. Mannheim held its main parade on Sunday.

Security forces had alerted carnival organisers and the public more than a week ago about warnings published on social media accounts connected to the militant group Islamic State, calling for followers to carry out attacks in the carnival strongholds of the Rhineland, to which Mannheim belongs, and areas in the south, both Catholic regions.

Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, who had been due to attend a popular parade in Cologne on Monday, cancelled her attendance to travel to Mannheim instead, a spokesperson said.

Kasim Timur, 57, who runs a cafe on Paradeplatz, told Spiegel online via telephone: “It breaks one’s heart.” One of his colleagues had reported seeing some of the seriously injured, including children, he said. Another colleague, on her way to work at the cafe, had seen a dark-coloured Ford car racing towards Paradeplatz, he said.

“Initially she thought it was someone who had caused an accident and fled the scene,” he said. “Only later did she understand what had happened.” Timur said the city had not yet got over the stabbing attack of less than a year ago. “Now the horror is back,” he told Spiegel. “That is very scary.”

According to media reports, three people were receiving emergency treatment at Mannheim’s University hospital, including two adults and a child. Eight medical trauma teams were on standby ready to attend adults and children, according to the hospital.

Police urged people not to post videos from the attack, or to spread information that had not been officially confirmed, warning of numerous “false reports” related to the attack that were circulating on social media.

It was an unfamiliar sight for Russians watching state TV on Monday morning. For the first time since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, the Oscars made the news.

The state anchor devoted the tightly controlled news bulletin to Anora, the night’s runaway success, spotlighting its cast of Russian actors – chief among them best supporting actor nominee Yura Borisov, who earned global praise for his performance as a brutish yet unexpectedly sensitive Russian bodyguard.

“Borisov didn’t take home a personal Oscar,” the state anchor remarked, “but he earned praise for his talent and professionalism from none other than Robert Downey Jr,” referencing Downey’s speech from the stage in Los Angeles, which lauded Borisov.

Sean Baker’s Anora, a Cinderella-like fairytale of a lapdancer’s whirlwind romance with the free-spending, reckless son of a Russian oligarch, has achieved something few cultural works have managed in recent years: it has been embraced both in the west and in an increasingly nationalistic, militarised Russia.

Anora took home five Oscars on Sunday, and has won acclaim both in Hollywood and Moscow for its sharp, unflinching portrayal of power dynamics and class struggle, earning particular praise for its authentic Russian dialogue. But for some, Anora is a difficult film to celebrate.

At a time when Russian bombs continue to fall on Ukraine, a story steeped in Russian themes and set in a pre-pandemic world – untouched by the invasion – feels, to its critics, unwelcome, like a retreat into a reality where the war doesn’t exist.

“There’s a lot about this film that unsettles me … It’s the third year of full-scale war … And here … not a single word about the war. The feeling of discomfort never quite leaves,” wrote the Ukrainian film producer Alexander Rodnyansky in a post on Instagram.

And perhaps more than anything, it is Borisov’s Oscar nomination that has troubled Ukrainians, who see it as a symbol of cultural normalisation amid Moscow’s aggression.

Before catching Baker’s attention with his raw portrayal of a gruff Russian miner in the Finnish film Compartment No 6, Borisov made his name in Moscow through a string of roles that fed into the Kremlin’s patriotic narrative. Among them was Kalashnikov, a biopic of Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, partially filmed in Crimea after its annexation by Russia in 2014. More recently, on his visits back to Moscow, Borisov has been promoting a new patriotic epic, this time starring as Russia’s most revered poet, Alexander Pushkin.

Neither Borisov nor his Russian co-star Mark Eydelshteyn, who portrays the entitled son of an oligarch in Anora, has publicly voiced support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neither have they spoken out against it, an ambiguity that has allowed both actors to move freely between Russia and the west.

For many, that silence speaks volumes. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, thousands of Russian artists and creatives have fled the country or spoken out at great personal risk.

As Borisov made his way to Los Angeles, Russian security services in Moscow last week arrested the prominent film critic Ekaterina Barabash. She was later charged with spreading “deliberately false information” – the catch-all label for those who oppose the war – and now faces up to a decade in prison.

“No such risks exist for Mr Borisov and Mr Eydelshteyn, who, thanks to the film’s embrace by the Hollywood establishment, are now heroes back home,” wrote Latvian American novelist and screenwriter Michael Idov, who previously worked in Moscow, in a piece for The New York Times.

That Anora’s success came amid the sharpest US-Russia thaw in years – fuelled by the Trump administration and at Ukraine’s cost – was not lost on anyone. “It’s a good night for Anora, two wins already. I imagine Americans are pleased to finally see someone stand up to a powerful Russian,” joked Oscar host Conan O’Brien, referencing the film’s plot, in which Anora goes up against the family of a Russian oligarch.

But for Russian propagandists, the film’s very presence at the Oscars was framed as a victory for Russian culture. “Russian culture can’t be cancelled. Russia itself can’t be cancelled,” wrote Sergei Markov, a prominent pro-Kremlin commentator, in a post on Telegram. “Sooner or later, the west will have to come to terms with Russia.”

Briefing the Israeli press after Benjamin Netanyahu’s order to turn off the aid supply to Gaza, government officials claimed that the Palestinian territory had several months’ worth of food stockpiled from earlier deliveries. However, the announcement led to an immediate jump in prices of basic necessities in Gaza, with residents saying they had doubled.

Aid agencies say the population of Gaza remains highly vulnerable and that the blockade of humanitarian supplies to a civilian population is unacceptable in any circumstances.

Oxfam said: “Israel’s decision, to block aid to over 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as Ramadan begins, is a reckless act of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited under international humanitarian law. The government of Israel, as occupying power, has the responsibility to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach the population in Gaza.”

The international court of justice, weighing an allegation of genocide brought against Israel, has instructed Israel to facilitate aid deliveries to Gaza and its remaining population of 2.2 million. The international criminal court said when it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last year that there was reason to believe Israel had used “starvation as a method of warfare”.

Israel has consistently denied allegations by aid organisations during the 15-month military campaign in Gaza that it was using food as a weapon of war, insisting that blockages in supplies were a result of other factors. Sunday’s announcement by Netanyahu’s office made no attempt to disguise the government’s actions or the goal behind them, which is to gain advantage at the negotiating table.

For the duration of the ceasefire, about 600 trucks a day have crossed into Gaza, carrying a total of 57,000 tons of food. This is a similar level to prewar aid deliveries, but aid agencies say that was for a population in a much better physical condition than the undernourished inhabitants now, and that also had the capacity to produce some of its own food.

The situation in Gaza now is far more precarious. Nearly 70% of the buildings across the coastal strip have been destroyed or damaged. In those circumstances, Oxfam called the aid that reached Gaza during the six-week ceasefire “a drop in the ocean”.

In its latest report, in late February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 876,000 Palestinians in Gaza still suffered from emergency levels of food insecurity, and 345,000 were facing catastrophic food insecurity.

Even in the six weeks of the ceasefire, Israel kept tight control of what was allowed in humanitarian shipments. Aid agencies complained that a lot of medical equipment was blocked on the grounds it was “dual use” and that water tankers were also blocked, leaving people dependent on wells, which in the wake of conflict are insufficient for the population’s needs.

There are about 1,500 water access points operating across Gaza, and the UN says water production and supply are at about a quarter of prewar levels.

Health issues remain a primary concern, with an estimated 80% of Gaza’s health infrastructure destroyed by the war and 1,000 medical workers killed. The World Health Organization has estimated there are up to 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza in need of medical evacuation, including 4,500 children.

“The health situation in the Gaza Strip is a catastrophe,” said Amjad al-Shawa, the director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organisations Network. He said that in Gaza City alone there was 180,000 tons of solid waste that Israeli authorities had blocked from being removed, with the result that sewage was overflowing. “That has severe health implications in the conditions now in Gaza,” Shawa said.

Kathleen Spencer Chapman, the external affairs director at Plan International UK, said: “Without the influx of humanitarian aid promised by the ceasefire agreement, thousands more could die from hunger and related diseases alone.”

The family of one of dozens of Uyghurs feared to have been forcibly deported from Thailand to China have condemned the decision as “shameful”. The deportations came despite a UN statement saying those being sent to China faced a “real risk of torture” on their return.

Thailand ignored protests by the UN refugee agency, EU and US in deporting 40 Uyghurs who had been detained in the country for a decade, claiming they had returned voluntarily “to their normal lives” with their families.

However, speaking to the Guardian, the family of one of those thought to have been deported said it was “impossible” that the men would want to be sent back to China.

“Who wants their family to be sent back to a place like that, with no freedoms and where everything is monitored by the government? It’s a lie.

“Their families in China know what hardships they face,” said Mihriman Muhammed, 38, who fled the country in 2014.

There has been exodus of Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang region over the past decade, where China is accused of committing human rights abuses including torture and the incarceration of an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. China denies the accusations.

Muhammed said she and her then husband, Polat, 39, left Korla, the second-largest city in Xinjiang after she was arrested and forced by police to remove her hijab and Polat was banned from attending prayers at a mosque.

While Muhammed, who was pregnant with their second child, and their son made it to Turkey, Polat was arrested and has been detained in Thailand ever since.

“We just wanted a peaceful life where we could raise our children and not be seen as a criminal,” said Muhammed, who shared one of the final exchanges of messages between her now 10-year-old daughter and Polat. Her daughter has never met her father.

“Father, I am 10 years old now without you looking after me,” she wrote. “I promise to come and look after you,” Polat replies. “OK, don’t lie to me, father,” she says. After he insists he will, she replies: “Very well, dear father, I will wait for you. May Allah bring us together.”

“There is no way Polat or his family still living in China would have wanted him to return there. He just wanted to see his children again,” said Muhammed.

Since Polat’s arrest, Muhammed said she has had no information from either the Chinese, Thai or Turkish authorities about his fate. None of the people deported has yet been named, so she is still not certain if he has been sent back.

“It’s shameful for Thailand to send these people to China, even though the family and whole world knows it is an unsafe place for Uyghurs,” she said.

“Everything China has done has been staged. The world should be more careful because after they are deported there is no way back.”

In handwritten letters shared with the Guardian apparently from three other Uyghurs being held in Thailand, the detainees also pleaded not to be sent back to China.

They said they had been asked to sign a document consenting to be voluntarily repatriated but had refused to do so. Returning to China would mean imprisonment or death, one wrote.

Thailand said it had received reassurances from China that the deported Uyghurs would be cared for and not mistreated.

China’s embassy in Thailand said those who had been repatriated were illegal border crossers “not refugees”.

It said those who had returned would be assisted with reintegration into their former lives “as soon as possible” and would be given “employment support and vocational training”. Vocational training is a term which has been associated with the Chinese authorities’ detention camps and forced labour transfer programmes.

The family of one of dozens of Uyghurs feared to have been forcibly deported from Thailand to China have condemned the decision as “shameful”. The deportations came despite a UN statement saying those being sent to China faced a “real risk of torture” on their return.

Thailand ignored protests by the UN refugee agency, EU and US in deporting 40 Uyghurs who had been detained in the country for a decade, claiming they had returned voluntarily “to their normal lives” with their families.

However, speaking to the Guardian, the family of one of those thought to have been deported said it was “impossible” that the men would want to be sent back to China.

“Who wants their family to be sent back to a place like that, with no freedoms and where everything is monitored by the government? It’s a lie.

“Their families in China know what hardships they face,” said Mihriman Muhammed, 38, who fled the country in 2014.

There has been exodus of Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang region over the past decade, where China is accused of committing human rights abuses including torture and the incarceration of an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. China denies the accusations.

Muhammed said she and her then husband, Polat, 39, left Korla, the second-largest city in Xinjiang after she was arrested and forced by police to remove her hijab and Polat was banned from attending prayers at a mosque.

While Muhammed, who was pregnant with their second child, and their son made it to Turkey, Polat was arrested and has been detained in Thailand ever since.

“We just wanted a peaceful life where we could raise our children and not be seen as a criminal,” said Muhammed, who shared one of the final exchanges of messages between her now 10-year-old daughter and Polat. Her daughter has never met her father.

“Father, I am 10 years old now without you looking after me,” she wrote. “I promise to come and look after you,” Polat replies. “OK, don’t lie to me, father,” she says. After he insists he will, she replies: “Very well, dear father, I will wait for you. May Allah bring us together.”

“There is no way Polat or his family still living in China would have wanted him to return there. He just wanted to see his children again,” said Muhammed.

Since Polat’s arrest, Muhammed said she has had no information from either the Chinese, Thai or Turkish authorities about his fate. None of the people deported has yet been named, so she is still not certain if he has been sent back.

“It’s shameful for Thailand to send these people to China, even though the family and whole world knows it is an unsafe place for Uyghurs,” she said.

“Everything China has done has been staged. The world should be more careful because after they are deported there is no way back.”

In handwritten letters shared with the Guardian apparently from three other Uyghurs being held in Thailand, the detainees also pleaded not to be sent back to China.

They said they had been asked to sign a document consenting to be voluntarily repatriated but had refused to do so. Returning to China would mean imprisonment or death, one wrote.

Thailand said it had received reassurances from China that the deported Uyghurs would be cared for and not mistreated.

China’s embassy in Thailand said those who had been repatriated were illegal border crossers “not refugees”.

It said those who had returned would be assisted with reintegration into their former lives “as soon as possible” and would be given “employment support and vocational training”. Vocational training is a term which has been associated with the Chinese authorities’ detention camps and forced labour transfer programmes.

China is preparing countermeasures against fresh US import tariffs that are set to take effect on Tuesday, China’s state-backed Global Times reported, with American agricultural exports likely to be targeted.

Donald Trump last week threatened China with an extra 10% duty, resulting in a cumulative 20% tariff, while accusing Beijing of not having done enough to halt the flow of fentanyl into America, something China said was tantamount to “blackmail”.

“China is studying and formulating relevant countermeasures in response to the US threat of imposing an additional 10% tariff on Chinese products under the pretext of fentanyl,” Global Times reported on Monday, citing an anonymous source.

“The countermeasures will likely include both tariffs and a series of non-tariff measures, and US agricultural and food products will most likely be listed,” the report added.

The US has long been vulnerable to China targeting its agricultural exports in times of trade tensions.

China remains the biggest market for US agriculture products despite a decline in imports since 2018 when Beijing placed tariffs of up to 25% on soya beans, beef, pork, wheat, corn and sorghum in retaliation for duties on Chinese goods imposed by Trump.

The world’s top agricultural importer and second-largest economy brought in $29.25bn of US agriculture products in 2024, a 14% drop from a year earlier.

Global Times, which is owned by the newspaper of the governing Communist party, People’s Daily, was first to report the steps China planned to take in response to the European Union imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles last year.

Trump’s announcement left Beijing with less than a week to come up with countermeasures or strike a deal. The proposed extra levies also coincide with the start to China’s annual meeting of parliament, a political set-piece event at which Beijing is expected to roll out its 2025 economic priorities.

Analysts say Beijing still hopes to negotiate a truce with the Trump administration, but with no signs of any trade talks yet the prospect of a rapprochement is fading.

“A China-US trade war is not inevitable, but Trump’s decision to impose tariffs now is a bad decision,” said Wang Dong, executive director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding at Peking University.

“Trump and his advisers may think that imposing tariffs at this time is to put pressure on China, sending a signal, but this will backfire and China will inevitably respond strongly.”

Authorities in Paris have created a dedicated car-sharing lane during rush-hour on its notorious ring road as part of efforts to reduce congestion and pollution on one of Europe’s busiest motorways.

Paris city hall began the trial scheme on Monday, restricting the outside lane of the périphérique to passenger vehicles carrying at least two people from 7am to 10.30am and 4pm to 8pm. The lane will also be available to public transport, taxis, the emergency services and vehicles used by disabled people.

After a first “learning phase”, artificial intelligence will be used to identify vehicles that should not be in the lane and send a message instructing them to move over. After 1 May, fines of €135 will be imposed on those drivers who fail to comply.

Officials said the measure built on restrictions brought in last October reducing the maximum speed on the ring road from 70kph to 50kph, a move that is reported to have reduced traffic jams, pollution and accidents.

“The périphérique is the busiest urban motorway in Europe and a real health scandal. The half a million people who live here and there along it are exposed to pollution levels that are still too high, with 30% of children suffering asthma,” Dan Lert, a deputy Paris mayor in charge of ecological transition, told Le Monde.

However, the pilot sparked anger among critics who said it would worsen the situation on a road used by an estimated 1.5m vehicles daily.

Pierre Chasseray, of the organisation 40 millions d’automobilistes (40 million motorists), said it was a “totally stupid decision”. “For those using the périphérique it will waste even more time, create more jams and is yet another measure against motorists,” Chasseray said.

The organisation, which has launched a petition against the measure, claimed the scheme imposed “a new form of discrimination” on drivers.

“Rather than improve the flow of traffic this measure risks creating even more congestion and a new form of discrimination,” said Philippe Nozière, its president. “Those who cannot car-share will find themselves forced to use lanes that are even more congested to the detriment of their time and comfort.”

“The creation of a lane reserved for carpoolers will only lead to traffic jams on the other lanes and will undoubtedly worsen the already chaotic situation on the ring road,” added Nozière.

Valérie Pécresse, of the centre-right Les Républicains (LR) party and president of the Île-de-France region, has written to Paris’s socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, demanding city hall stop the experiment after three months if it results in massive jams. City hall has said the dedicated lane will be marked by signs that can be turned off in the event of bad congestion.

The périphérique restriction is part of a programme of measures city hall has introduced to tackle pollution and improve air quality since 2014. These have included promoting public transport, establishing a network of bike lanes, pedestrianising areas of the capital and restricting vehicles with high emissions from access to the city.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s most prominent reformist, has resigned from the government, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official.

He implied the move was endorsed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, although he did not name him in his resignation letter as he stepped down as vice-president for strategic affairs.

His departure, a hammer blow to the still relatively new government of President Masoud Pezeshkian, follows the impeachment of the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, as Iranian conservatives go on the offensive using the continued decline in the national currency as a reason to demand a change of course.

The double removals pushed the Iranian stock market into a further tailspin as Iranian businesses sensed that the political path to reopening commerce with the west was fast being shut down by conservatives that never reconciled themselves to Pezeshkian’s victory.

Donald Trump’s decision to try to restore maximum economic sanctions against Tehran has undercut those Iranian reformists seeking to come to a new global agreement covering the oversight of its nuclear programme.

Zarif – who resigned before, in August, only to return to government shortly after – has faced incessant criticism for his American-born children allegedly being dual Iranian-US citizens.

His critics, many of them opponents of talks with the US over its nuclear programme, have claimed his appointment breaches a 2022 law that debars individuals with ties to the west from holding senior positions.

The nationality of his children, dating to his period as a diplomat based in the US, was one reason why the vice-president tried to step down previously shortly after joining Pezeshkian’s administration in August 2024.

Zarif, who was Iran’s top diplomat between 2013 and 2021 in the government of the moderate president Hassan Rouhani, had campaigned alongside Pezeshkian for the presidency on a near-joint ticket. Zarif has been a lightning rod for criticism of the reformist government led by those who lost the presidential election.

The then-foreign minister became known on the international stage during lengthy negotiations for the 2015 nuclear accord formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The agreement led to the lifting of western sanctions in return for independent UN-led inspections to ensure Iran’s nuclear programme was purely for civilian use.

The deal was torpedoed three years later when, during Trump’s first term as president, the US pulled out of the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

But, in his resignation note, Zarif implied his latest departure from government was not voluntary. It was said a high-ranking official had instructed Pezeshkian to return him to university. Pezeshkian refused, instead asking the official to directly relay the instruction to Zarif.

After a meeting with the official in question, the vice-president for strategic affairs reluctantly agreed to submit his resignation.

Zarif has always been seen as the most articulate exponent of Iranian foreign policy to western audiences. A career diplomat, he has repeatedly called for the foreign ministry to be given clearer authority over international relations, and not to be contradicted by the independent foreign policy led by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Earlier on Saturday, the Iranian parliament had voted by 182 votes to dismiss Hemmati, who was also previously governor of the Iranian central bank. He had been in office for only six months and 12 days, the fastest impeachment in the history of the Iranian revolution dating to 1979.

Despite the presence of Pezeshkian in the parliament in a display of solidarity, Hemmati failed to fend off the vote of no confidence and was dismissed from his position. The Iranian parliament is dominated by hardliners mainly elected in 2024, and has never reconciled itself to the surprise election of Pezeshkian to the presidency later in the summer.

Pezeshkian, deeply aware that his government was likely to be undermined by society’s unelected officials, had continually emphasised the need for consensus – but the events of the past 48 hours suggests he failed.

Explaining his resignation, Zarif did not identify the person with whom he met, saying instead: “Yesterday, I went to meet him at the invitation of the head of the judiciary. Referring to the country’s conditions, he recommended that I return to university to prevent further pressure on the government, and I immediately accepted.”

The resignation brought no relief to the Iranian stock market, which plunged further in the red.

Zarif expressed his resentment at his treatment. He said: “Although I faced the most ridiculous insults, slanders and threats against myself and my family in the past six months, and even within the government, I spent the most bitter 40 years of service, I persevered in the hope of serving.

“I have not been and will not be one to run away from hardships and difficulties in the path of serving this land and country, and in the past 40 or so years, I have endured so many insults and slanders for the small role I have played in advancing national interests, from ending the Iran-Iraq war to finalising the nuclear file, and I have held my breath to prevent the interests of the country from being damaged by a flood of lies and distortions.”

He added: “I hope that by stepping aside, the excuses for obstructing the will of the people and the success of the government will be removed.”

Azar Mansouri, the head of the Reformists Front, an alliance of smaller parties, said she did not know of any way Iran’s economic problems could be lifted without ending economic sanctions, and taking the steps necessary to be removed from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that oversees global transparency in financial transactions.

Conservatives have pointed to the humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by Trump in his recent Oval Office encounter as a warning to those in Iran who believe it is possible to negotiate with the US president.

Opponents of Hemmati, led by the conservative Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, admit his dismissal is part of a wider campaign against the government, including Hemmati’s efforts to reconnect the Iranian economy to the west by removing Iran from the FATF blacklist.

Abolfazl Abu Torabi, the MP for Najafabad, told an Iranian newspaper recently: “I believe that the problems of the foreign exchange market in the country will not be solved by impeaching the minister of economic affairs and finance. This is a fact. It is the government’s approach that needs to be reformed, because according to a report by the parliamentary research centre, economic growth has decreased by 1% over the past six months.” He claimed Hemmati’s attitude had led to inflationary expectations.

Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, said on Sunday that government spending could be separated from gross domestic product reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by the billionaire businessman Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) could possibly cause an economic downturn.

“You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”

Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because changes in taxes, spending, deficits and regulations by the government can affect the path of overall growth. GDP reports already include extensive details on government spending, offering a level of transparency for economists.

Musk’s efforts to downsize federal agencies could result in the layoffs of tens of thousands of federal workers, whose lost income could potentially reduce their spending, affecting businesses and the economy at large.

The commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Musk’s arguments made on Friday on X that government spending doesn’t create value for the economy.

“A more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending,” Musk wrote on his social media platform. “Otherwise, you can scale GDP artificially high by spending money on things that don’t make people’s lives better.”

The argument as articulated so far by Trump administration officials appears to play down the economic benefits created by some forms of government spending that can shape an economy’s trajectory.

“If the government buys a tank, that’s GDP,” Lutnick said on Sunday. “But paying 1,000 people to think about buying a tank is not GDP. That is wasted inefficiency, wasted money. And cutting that, while it shows in GDP, we’re going to get rid of that.”

The US commerce department’s bureau of economic analysis published its most recent GDP report on Thursday, showing that the economy grew at an annual rate of 2.3% in the final three months of last year.

The report makes it possible to measure the forces driving the economy, showing that the gains at the end of last year were largely driven by greater consumer spending and an upward revision to federal government spending related to defense. Still, the federal government’s component of the GDP report for all of 2024 increased at 2.6%, slightly lower than overall economic growth last year of 2.8%.

In the GDP report, government spending accounts for almost one-fifth of people’s personal income, which totaled more than $24.6tn last year. This includes social security payments, benefits for military veterans, Medicare and Medicaid and other programs. But the report also measures the amount of people’s personal incomes that are paid in taxes to the government.

The government is not always a contributor to GDP growth and can subtract from it, which is what happened in 2022 as pandemic-related aid expired.

Lutnick said that the Trump administration would balance the federal budget with spending cuts, saying that would help growth and reduce the interest rates paid by consumers.

He also predicted that the US would have “the best economy anybody’s ever seen”.

Republicans in red states across the US have been pushing a slew of anti-LGBTQ+ measures targeting same-sex marriages with an aim of ultimately securing a supreme court ban on the federally protected right.

The recent wave of Republican-led bills targeting same-sex marriage comes amid a second Donald Trump presidency in which his administration has taken on more emboldened attacks against LGBTQ+ communities across the country, as seen through a flurry of executive orders he signed, assailing various LGBTQ+ rights.

Numerous Republican lawmakers across red states have followed suit in both rhetoric and the introduction of bills, sparking concerns across LGBTQ+ and civil rights organizations over their social and political effects.

In Oklahoma in January, a day after Trump’s inauguration, the Republican state senator Dusty Deevers introduced a series of bills targeting LGBTQ+ rights, among them the Promote Child Thriving act.

The Promote Child Thriving act establishes a $500 tax credit per child for a mother and father filing jointly and is escalated to $1,000 if the child was born after the marriage of the parents.

Describing the bill, Deevers said: “There is no greater factor in the wellbeing and future success of a child than whether they grew up in a two-parent household with their mother and father. It’s not even close.”

He added: “I know that not everyone benefits from this act, but everyone should support what is good for kids, and growing up with one’s mother and father is, in the vast majority of cases, the most important factor in a child’s wellbeing.”

In response to Deevers’s bill, the Tulsa-based pastor Randy Lewis of the All Souls Unitarian church told News Channel 8: “I have a non-traditional family – my partner’s kids are not mine, so it would be one of those situations. My kids aren’t biologically my partner’s. We’d be one of those situations [where] we’re eliminated from the grant process.”

Another Republican Oklahoma state senator, David Bullard, introduced a similar bill that would offer a $2,000 child tax credit per child only for married couples with biological children from the marriage.

Explaining the bill to Jenna Ellis, a former lawyer for Trump, Bullard said it was introduced to challenge the supreme court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v Hodges that declared same-sex marriages as legal across the US.

“Really what we want to do is challenge that concept and see if we can get to Obergefell,” Bullard said. “And I think that’s kind of what we’re pushing at all the way around the board with a bill like this, is to actually go straight at Obergefell and say: ‘No, the constitution protects my right, my freedom of speech, my freedom of expression, my freedom of religion to disagree with same-sex marriage.’”

“The reality is we have to push back on Obergefell,” Bullard added.

In response to the introduction of such bills, Sean Meloy, vice-president of political programs at LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, said: “These attacks on fundamental rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, including marriage equality – which was already decided by the highest court and codified into federal law – are hateful distractions from the core issues that Americans want their government to resolve.”

“Stripping away marriage rights for LGBTQ+ couples will not lower food prices, stop corruption or increase economic opportunities,” Meloy continued.

In Idaho, Republican state lawmakers passed a legislative petition last month in which they called on the supreme court to reverse its same-sex marriage ruling. Voting 46-24, the Idaho house passed House Joint Memorial 1, asking the supreme court to “restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman”.

During her floor debate, the bill’s sponsor, the Republican representative Heather Scott, said: “I would ask you to substitute any other issue and ask yourself: ‘Do I want the federal government creating rights for us, for Idahoans,’” adding: “Christians across the nation are being targeted,” the Idaho Capital Sun reports.

In response to Scott, the Idaho House minority leader, Ilana Rubel, said: “It’s deeply upsetting to some of those folks and it makes them not want to live here … These are good, law-abiding people who are feeling like their legislature doesn’t want them here and doesn’t want them to be able to live the full rights that everybody else can.”

Rebecca De León, the communications director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, said: “Far-right extremists know that Idaho is their playground for stripping away people’s rights because resistance isn’t strong here. Let us be clear: the rights of same-sex couples to marry is settled legal precedent that continues to be affirmed by courts across the country. This unnecessary and bigoted memorial is a glaring example of how the Idaho legislature is set on eroding civil liberties.”

In Michigan, the Republican state lawmaker Josh Schriver prompted widespread backlash when he introduced a resolution to “condemn” the supreme court’s 2015 landmark decision. The resolution states: “Marriage … has been defined through time by people of varying cultures and faiths as a union between one man and one woman. Obergefell arbitrarily and unjustly rejected this historical definition of marriage.”

“This is a biological necessity to preserve and grow our human race,” Schriver said about the resolution, BridgeMichigan reports.

In response to Schriver’s resolution, the Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, who is the first out LGBTQ+ person elected to state office in Michigan, took to Instagram and wrote: “Come and get it.”

Condemning the resolution as part of a “long line of strategy of certain politicians who would like to erase the existence of LGBTQ+ people”, Jay Kaplan, the LGBTQ+ project attorney of the ACLU of Michigan, said: “It is a distraction from their apparent inability to introduce legislation or policies that address real issues that people are facing … I think we need to call it out for the stunt that it is. It’s an empty stunt.”

Kaplan added: “Let’s look at the reality with the marriage equality decision. No church, temple or mosque has to perform any religious marriage ceremony. We have a thing called separation of church and state … They are not obligated to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples if they choose not to do so. So that’s not happening, despite what these politicians might be trying to say.

“But, when you decide that you can open a business and you can keep it open to the public, you have to serve the public, and that’s a choice you make … you have to comply with a lot of things, including civil rights laws,” Kaplan said.