On Wednesday, in a series of high-stakes diplomatic episodes around the globe, Trump’s free-wheeling attitude toward foreign policy was on full display, playing out in real time through posts on his Truth Social account.

For his supporters, it was the president’s “art of the deal” in action, using every negotiating tool and tactic at his disposal.

For critics, it was another day of disruption for its own sake – with little apparent concern for the risks involved or the potential consequences.

Wednesday began with news that the US is directly negotiating with Hamas leaders for the release of American hostages still in Gaza. Contacting a group designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US since 1997 represents a dramatic shift away from decades of US policy.

The Biden administration relied on intermediaries during its attempts to end the Gaza war. And Trump previously condemned Hamas for committing “atrocities against humanity” during its 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, calling its members “vicious and violent”.

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• China says it is ready for ‘any type of war’ with US

But for Trump, it seems, the old playbook wasn’t working – and he was willing to risk appearing hypocritical, of bypassing US ally Israel, and of sitting down with a designated terror group to advance his deal-making goals.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office responded with a terse statement, saying only that it had “expressed its position” on the talks.

By the end of the day, after meeting in the Oval Office with some previously released American hostages, Trump again turned up the heat on the group. He took to Truth Social to call it “sick and twisted” and issue a “last warning” that if members didn’t release all the hostages there would be “hell to pay”.

“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,” he wrote, “not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”

Laura Blumenfeld, a former senior Israeli-Palestinian policy adviser to the US state department, told the BBC that Trump’s message to Hamas was an ultimatum.

“The deal, though, with these ultimatums is you have to deliver,” she said, “and we saw last month when Trump said you’ve got a high noon deadline on Saturday, release the hostages, or else, there was no or else.

“And Hamas called them out. They said, President Trump, your threats have no meaning.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt had earlier placed the president’s dramatic changes of course into the context of Trump’s larger foreign policy, telling reporters that “dialogue and talking to people around the world” is a part of his “good faith effort to do what’s right for the American people”.

The White House has employed similar logic to Trump’s recent efforts to thaw US relations with Moscow, including dispatching high-level administration officials to Saudi Arabia to meet directly with a Russian delegation.

That dramatic diplomatic about-face accompanied sharp criticism of Ukraine and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, which culminated in Friday’s heated meeting in the Oval Office. An announcement followed this week saying that the US had suspended arms shipments, and another on Wednesday said intelligence-sharing with the war-torn nation was paused.

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Trump’s actions left America’s European allies rattled – and the consequences of that may not yet be fully appreciated. But his efforts to exploit Ukraine’s pressure point – withholding aid and information – appear to have produced the intended result.

Zelensky on Tuesday sent a conciliatory letter to Trump proposing a limited ceasefire, and US and Ukrainian officials resumed talks on Wednesday about a mineral deal to compensate America for aid expenditures.

If Trump’s goal is to encourage Ukraine and Russia to enter peace talks, he has effectively brought Zelensky to heel, even as it remains unclear what concessions he is asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to make during those negotiations.

Sometimes, even with Trump, the pressure points go in the other direction.

A month ago, he announced sweeping new tariffs on Canada and Mexico, only to back away from them at the last moment. This week he allowed those 25% levies to go into effect – at least for a day.

After two days of sharp declines in the US stock market, the White House appeared to dial back the severity of these tariffs somewhat, announcing that it was granting a one-month exemption for automobiles imported from Canada and Mexico.

US car manufacturers warned that the new tariffs could devastate the industry, leading to plant closings within a matter of weeks.

Trump spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday, and offered his own readout – via Truth Social – on what he said was a “somewhat friendly” call, even as he accused the “governor” of Canada of using the trade issue to “stay in power”.

While Zelensky quickly backed down under White House pressure and the Hamas talks are only beginning, Trudeau and the Canadians, for their part, appear to be settling in for a longer fight.

Trump’s convention-breaking playbook may be shaking things up this week, but it’s far from clear if they will deliver the kind of wins he wants.

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

US President Donald Trump has hit China with a second tariff in as many months, which means imports from there now face a levy of at least 20%.

This is his latest salvo against Beijing, which already faces steep US tariffs, from 100% on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 15% on clothes and shoes.

Trump’s tariffs strike at the heart of China’s manufacturing juggernaut – a web of factories, assembly lines and supply chains that manufacture and ship just about everything, from fast fashion and toys to solar panels and electric cars.

China’s trade surplus with the world rose to a record $1tn (£788bn) in 2024, on the back of strong exports ($3.5tn), which surpassed its import bill ($2.5tn).

China has long been the world’s factory – it has thrived because of cheap labour and state investment in infrastructure ever since it opened its economy to global business in the late 1970s.

So how badly could Trump’s trade war hurt China’s manufacturing success?

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

Most tariffs are set as a percentage of the value of the goods, and it’s generally the importer who pays them.

So, a 10% tariff means a product imported to the US from China worth $4 would face an additional $0.40 charge applied to it.

Increasing the price of imported goods is meant to encourage consumers to buy cheaper domestic products instead, thus helping to boost their own economy’s growth.

Trump sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. But economic studies of the impact of tariffs which Trump imposed during his first term in office, suggest the measures ultimately raised prices for US consumers.

Trump has said his most recent tariffs are aimed at pressuring China to do more to stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl to the US.

He also imposed 25% tariffs on America’s neighbours Mexico and Canada, saying its leaders were not doing enough to crack down on the cross-border illegal drug trade.

Yes, analysts say.

Exports have been the “saving grace” of China’s economy and if the taxes linger, exports to the US could drop by a quarter to a third, Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s analytics, told the BBC.

The sheer value of China’s exports – which account for a fifth of the country’s earnings – means that a 20% tariff could weaken demand from overseas and shrink the trade surplus.

“The tariffs will hurt China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis in Hong Kong, told the BBC. “They really need to do much more. They need to do what Xi Jinping has already said – boost domestic demand.”

That is a tall task in an economy where the property market is slumping and disillusioned youth are struggling to find high-paying jobs.

Chinese people have not been spending enough to recharge the economy – and Beijing has just announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost consumption.

While tariffs can slow Chinese manufacturing, they cannot stop or replace it that easily, analysts say.

“Not only is China the big exporter, it is sometimes the only exporter like for solar panels. If you want solar panels you can only go to China,” Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

China had begun pivoting from making garments and shoes to advanced tech such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) long before Trump became president. And that has given China an “early mover” advantage, not to mention the scale of production in the world’s second-largest economy.

Chinese factories can produce high-end tech in large quantities at a low cost, said Shuang Ding, chief China economist at Standard Chartered.

“It’s really difficult to find a replacement… China’s status as a market leader is very difficult to topple.”

China has responded with counter tariffs of 10-15% on US agricultural goods, coal, liquefied natural gas, pick-up trucks, and some sports cars.

And it has targeted US firms in aviation, defence and tech with export restrictions and announced an anti-monopoly investigation against Google.

China has also spent years adapting to tariffs from Trump’s first term. Some Chinese manufacturers have moved factories out of the country, for instance. And supply chains have come to rely more on Vietnam and Mexico by exporting from there to bypass the tariffs.

And yet, Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico would not hurt China too much because Vietnam is a bigger backdoor for Chinese goods, Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

“Vietnam is the key here. If tariffs are imposed on Vietnam, I think it will be very tough,” she said.

What concerns China more than tariffs, analysts says, is US restrictions on advanced chips.

These restrictions have been a major sticking point between the two countries but they have also fuelled China’s determination to invest in homegrown tech that is independent of the West.

It’s why Chinese AI firm DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley and unnerved Washington when it released a chatbot that rivals OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm had reportedly stockpiled Nvidia chips before the US began cutting off China’s access to the most advanced ones.

Although this could “impact China’s competitiveness, I don’t think that would affect China’s status as a manufacturing power,” Mr Ding of Standard Chartered said.

On the other hand, any ground China gains in advanced tech manufacturing will boost its high-value exports.

It happened because of state support, an unrivalled supply chain and cheap labour, analysts say.

“The combination of globalisation, as well as China’s pro-business policies and market potential, helped to attract the initial wave of foreign investors,” Chim Lee, an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told the BBC.

The government then doubled down, investing heavily in building a sprawling network of roads and ports to bring in raw materials and take Chinese-made goods to the world. What also helped was a stable exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the US dollar.

A shift in recent years towards advanced tech has made sure that it will continue to be relevant and ahead of its competitors, analysts say.

China already has plenty of economic clout from being a manufacturing powerhouse. But there is also a political opportunity as Trump’s tariffs upend America’s relationship with the world.

“The door is ajar for China to position itself as an advocate of free trade and a stable global force,” said Mr Cruise of Moody’s.

But that is not easy, given Beijing has been accused of flouting international trade norms, such as imposing a tariff of more than 200% on imports of Australian wine in 2020.

Analysts say China must also look beyond the US, which is still the top destination for its exports. China is the third-biggest market for US exports, after Canada and Mexico.

Chinese trade with Europe, South East Asia and Latin America has been growing, but it’s hard to imagine that the world’s two biggest economies can stop relying on each other.

US President Donald Trump has said that “nobody has ever heard of” the African country of Lesotho – a comment that has “shocked” its government.

It is a small country in southern Africa that almost entirely consists of mountains and is completely surrounded by South Africa.

Here are nine things to know about the country:

The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands, where many villages can only be reached on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.

It is known as the “Kingdom in the Sky” and is the only independent state in the world that lies entirely above 1,000m (3,281ft) in elevation, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its lowest point is at 1,400m.

It is known to have one of the world’s most intimidating airstrips to land on – the Matekane Airstrip has a short runway and with long drops at both ends.

The Business Insider website describes flying from the airport as “essentially the same as when a bird is pushed out of the nest in order to learn to fly”.

Lesotho is completely encircled by South Africa, but separated by the forbidding mountain ranges.

Not much of its land is available for farming, with its population vulnerable to food shortages and relying on income from jobs in South Africa. Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities at home to find work in South Africa.

The people of Lesotho, who number more than two million, share some cultural and language similarities with South Africans. Their language, Sesotho, is also one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. In fact, more people speak it in South Africa – 4.6 million – than in Lesotho.

Resources are scarce in Lesotho – a consequence of the harsh environment of the highland plateau and limited agricultural space in the lowlands.

Its biggest resource is water – known locally as white gold – which is exported to South Africa. Diamonds are another major export.

• Who benefits from Lesotho’s ‘white gold’?

When you think of skiing and snowboarding, you may imagine the snowy slopes of Europe and North America.

But Lesotho has been making itself known on the snowsports scene. It has the highest ski resort in sub-Saharan Africa, one of just a handful on the continent.

Afriski is situated 3,222m above sea level, high up in Lesotho’s Maloti mountains and attracts visitors from Africa and beyond.

• WATCH: Is Lesotho the next top ski resort?

People from Lesotho are referred to as Basotho.

Some of the cultural items associated with the Basotho people are their blankets and the Basotho traditional conical hats, known as the mokorotlo. The hat is a national symbol and appears in the middle of the country’s flag.

The blankets are made from thick wool, with their intricate and colourful patterns each telling a different story of the Basotho people’s history. The Basotho wear them as shawls at special events and give them as gifts.

Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world, with one in five adults living with HIV, and more infections per 100,000 people than most other countries, including neighbouring Namibia, Botswana and Eswatini.

The US government has committed nearly $1bn to help the country deal with HIV since 2006, including for prevention, care and treatment services, according to the US State Department.

Like the United Kingdom, Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy. This means that although it has a royal family, an elected prime minister runs the country.

Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso – the younger brother of current King Letsie III – is close friends with the UK’s Prince Harry.

The pair have set up a charity in Lesotho – Sentebale, which means “forget me not”. The organisation works with local communities in the country at grassroots level, helping young people affected by HIV/Aids.

Prince Harry first went to Lesotho as a 19-year-old and has returned to the country many times since then.

Jeans have long been associated with the American West but nowadays, many of the pairs worn in the US have come from halfway across the world, in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s garment factories have made jeans for iconic American brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler in recent years. As a result, Lesotho has become known as the “denim capital of Africa”.

And it is not just jeans – Lesotho is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest exporters of clothing in general to the US.

Last year, Lesotho exported $237m (£184m) worth of clothes and textiles to the US through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which allows eligible African countries to send some goods to the US without paying taxes.

It is ranked second by value of goods exported under the deal.

Many of Lesotho’s clothing and textile factories are owned by Chinese and Taiwanese migrants.

• WATCH: ‘Our textiles use iconic symbols of Lesotho’

The mountain kingdom has the world’s highest suicide rate, with 87.5 people per 100,000 of the population taking their own life every year, according to the UN World Health Organization.

This is nearly 10 times the global average of nine and more than double the country with the second highest rate, Guyana, which has about 40.

There is no single reason for this shocking statistic – experts point to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the shortage of jobs and the lack of mental health counselling.

• The small African country with the world’s highest suicide rate

The precise significance of US intelligence to Ukraine’s war effort has, for obvious reasons, never been spelled out in detail.

But most analysts agree that it performs two important functions: helping Ukraine to plan offensive operations against Russian forces, and giving Kyiv vital advance warning of threats posed by incoming Russian drones and missiles.

Satellite information and signal intercepts give Ukrainian forces on the frontline a sense of where Russian forces are, their movements and likely intentions.

Without US intelligence, Ukraine will not be able to make such effective use of long-range Western weaponry, like the US-made Himars launchers or Stormshadow missiles supplied by Britain and France.

• What pause in US military aid could mean
• The difficult choices facing Ukraine’s Zelensky
• US pauses intelligence sharing with Ukraine

Aside from military applications, the steady flow of real-time information provided by Washington has also given Ukraine’s military, critical national infrastructure and civilian population valuable advance information on incoming threats.

Ukraine’s air raid sirens and mobile phone alerts are all informed, to a greater or lesser extent, by the early warning data provided by US satellites, which can detect aircraft and missile launches deep inside Russian territory.

Any prolonged interruption in the supply of US intelligence could have a catastrophic impact on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, particularly as the Trump administration has already decided to suspend vital military assistance.

A few months ago, Ukraine was hoping that the supply of additional air defences -especially the US-made Patriot missile defence system – would enable it to extend protection to a greater number of potential targets, including cities and power stations across the country.

But now Ukraine’s supply of Patriot missiles is running out. The latest European pledges to provide short- and medium-range systems will help to counter some threats, but not against Russia’s most dangerous hypersonic ballistic missiles.

It’s clear that the US is using the withholding of military assistance and intelligence as another – blunt – diplomatic lever.

The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said military assistance to Ukraine could resume if Ukraine agrees to participate in US-led diplomatic efforts.

“I think if we can nail down these negotiations and move towards these negotiations… then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause,” he told Fox News.

The director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, told Fox Business the pause “will go away”.

But it’s clear what the White House wants from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in return.

US President Donald Trump has issued what he called a “last warning” to Hamas to release the hostages being held in Gaza.

“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say,” Trump said in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform.

It comes just hours after the White House confirmed it is holding direct talks with Hamas over the hostages.

Washington has until now avoided direct engagement with the group, and there is a longstanding US policy against having direct contact with entities it lists as terrorist organisations.

• Gaza food prices spike after Israel halts aid deliveries
• Stories of the hostages taken by Hamas from Israel

In his social media post, Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released, while not specifying the nature of the support he was sending Israel.

“Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” he added.

“For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.”

He also appeared to threaten civilians: “Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD!”

It’s not the first time Trump has threatened Hamas. In December, he said there would be “all hell to pay” if hostages were not released by the time he took office.

The post came after Trump met with a group of hostages in the White House who had been recently released under the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the US has been negotiating directly with Hamas to try to secure the release of the hostages.

Israel had been consulted prior to the talks, she added.

President Trump believed in doing what was in the best interest of the American people, Leavitt told reporters.

The special envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler’s work was a “good faith effort to do what’s right for the American people”, she added.

“Two direct meetings” have taken place between Hamas and a US official, “preceded by several communications”, a Palestinian source told the BBC.

Israel said there are still 59 hostages being held in Gaza, with up to 24 believed to be alive. US citizens are also among the captives.

News of the talks was first reported by Axios, which said the two sides were meeting in Qatar to discuss the release of US hostages as well as a wider deal to end the war.

A former US deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for the Middle East said the US needs to be “more proactive” about getting its citizens back.

Mick Mulroy, who is also an ex-CIA paramilitary officer, added that “it could complicate the Israelis’ ability to get their citizens back if not tightly coordinated”.

Israel’s prime minister’s office said in a statement it has “expressed its position” regarding the direct talks, but did not provide any further information.

According to reports, Boehler met with Hamas representatives in the Qatari capital, Doha, in recent weeks.

Hamas has had a base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration.

The small but influential Gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia.

Alongside the US and Egypt, Qatar has also played a major role in talks to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Two years ago, on his bank adviser’s suggestion, Rajesh Kumar pulled out his savings – fixed deposits included – and shifted to mutual funds, stocks and bonds.

With India’s stock market booming, Mr Kumar, a Bihar-based engineer, joined millions investing in publicly traded companies. Six years ago, only one in 14 Indian households channelled their savings into the stock market – now, it’s one in five.

But the tide has turned.

For six months, India’s markets have slid as foreign investors pulled out, valuations remained high, earnings weakened and global capital shifted to China – wiping out $900bn in investor value since their September peak. While the decline began before US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements, they have now become a bigger drag as more details emerge.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 share index, which tracks the country’s top 50 publicly traded companies, is on its longest losing streak in 29 years, declining for five straight months. This is a significant slump in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Stock brokers are reporting that their activity has dropped by a third.

“For more than six months now, my investments have been in the red. This is the worst experience in the last decade that I have been invested in stock market,” Mr Kumar says.

Mr Kumar, 55, now keeps little money in the bank, having shifted most of his savings to the stock market. With his son’s 1.8 million-rupee ($20,650; £16,150) private medical college fee due in July, he worries about selling investments at a loss to cover it. “Once the market recovers, I’m thinking of moving some money back to the bank,” he says.

His anxieties reflect those of millions of middle-class Indians who have poured into the stock market from cities big and small – part of a financial revolution.

The go-to investment route is Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), where funds collect fixed monthly contributions. The number of Indians investing through SIPs has soared past 100 million, nearly trebling from 34 million five years ago. Many first-time investors, lured by the promise of high returns, enter with limited risk awareness – often influenced by a wave of social media “finfluencers” on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, a mixed bag of experts and amateurs alike.

Meet Tarun Sircar, a retired marketing manager, and you get a glimpse of India’s new investor.

When his public provident fund – a government-backed tax-free investment – matured last year, he sought a way to secure his retirement. Burnt by past stock market losses, he turned to mutual funds – this time with an adviser’s help and a buoyant market.

“I’ve put 80% of my savings into mutual funds, keeping just 20% in the bank. Now my adviser warns me – Don’t check your investments for six months, unless you want a heart attack!”

For now, Mr Sircar isn’t entirely sure if moving his retirement fund into the stock market was the right decision. “I’m both ignorant and confident,” he says with wry candour. “Ignorant about what’s happening and why the market is reacting this way, yet confident because Instagram ‘experts’ make investing sound like a fast track to millions. At the same time, I know I might be caught in a web of deception and hype.”

Mr Sircar says he was drawn to the markets by TV shows hyping stocks and excited chatter in WhatsApp groups. “The TV anchors talk up the market and people in my WhatsApp group boast about their stock market gains,” he says.

In his sprawling apartment complex, even teenagers discuss investments – in fact, during a badminton game, a teenager gave him a hot tip on a telecom stock. “When you hear all this around you, you start thinking – why not give it a shot? So I did, and then the markets crashed.”

Mr Sircar lives in hope. “My fingers are crossed. I am sure the markets will recover, and my fund will be back in green.”

There are others who have taken more risks and already lost money. Lured by get-rich-quick videos, Ramesh (name changed), an accounting clerk from a small industrial town in western India, borrowed money to invest in stocks during the pandemic.

Hooked to YouTube influencers, he dived into risky penny stocks and trading in derivatives. This month, after losing over $1,800 – more than his annual salary – he shut his brokerage account and swore off the market.

“I borrowed this money, and now creditors are after me,” he says.

Ramesh is one of 11 million Indians who lost a combined $20bn in futures and options trades before regulators stepped in.

“This crash is unlike the one during the Covid pandemic,” says financial adviser Samir Doshi. “Back then, we had a clear path to recovery with vaccines on the horizon. But with the Trump factor in play, uncertainty looms – we simply don’t know what’s next.”

Fuelled by digital platforms, low-cost brokerages and government-driven financial inclusion, investing has become more accessible – smartphones and user-friendly apps have simplified market participation, drawing a broader, younger audience seeking alternatives to traditional assets.

On the flip side, many new Indian investors need a reality check. “The stock market isn’t a gambling den – you must manage expectations,” says Monika Halan, author and financial educator. “Invest in equity only what you won’t need for at least seven years. If you’re taking on risk, understand the downside: How much could I lose? Can I afford that loss?”

This market crash couldn’t have hit India’s middle class at a worse time. Economic growth is slowing, wages remain stagnant, private investment has been sluggish for years and job creation isn’t keeping pace. Amid these challenges, many new investors, lured by rising markets, are now grappling with unexpected losses.

“In normal times, savers can take short-term setbacks, because they have steady incomes, which keep adding to their savings,” noted Aunindyo Chakravarty, a financial analyst.

“Now, we are in the midst of a massive economic crisis for the middle-class. On the one side, white-collar job opportunities are reducing, and raises are low. On the other, the real inflation faced by middle-class households – as opposed to the average retail inflation that the government compiles – is at its highest in recent memory. A stock market correction at such a time is disastrous for middle-class household finances.”

Financial advisers like Jaideep Marathe believe that some people will start taking money out of the market and move them to safer bank deposits if the volatility continues for another six to eight months. “We are spending a lot of time telling clients not to liquidate their portfolios and to treat this as a cyclical event.”

But clearly, all hope is not lost – most believe that the market is correcting itself from previous highs.

Foreign investor selling has eased since February, suggesting the market downturn may be nearing its end, says veteran market expert Ajay Bagga. Following the correction, valuations for many stock market indices have dipped below their 10-year average, providing some respite.

Mr Bagga expects GDP and corporate earnings to improve, aided by a $12bn income-tax giveaway in the federal budget and falling interest rates. However, geopolitical risks – Middle East and Ukraine conflicts, and Trump’s tariff plans – will keep investors cautious.

In the end, the market meltdown might serve as a hard lesson for new investors.

“This correction is a much-needed wake-up call for those who entered the market just three years ago, enjoying 25% returns – that’s not normal,” says Ms Halan. “If you don’t understand markets, stick to bank deposits and gold. At least you have control.”

EU leaders are gathering in Brussels on Thursday for a special council on defence, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned that the continent was at a “turning point of history”.

As well as rearmament, leaders are expected to discuss how the body can further support Kyiv in the face of US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would suspend aid to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky is invited to the summit.

Nerves have grown increasingly frayed across Europe since Trump and Zelensky’s showdown at the White House last week, and the rhetoric around Thursday’s summit leaves no doubt about the importance EU officials are ascribing to it.

Three years on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin have left many in Europe concerned the continent would not be able to rely on US support for its security.

Washington’s decision on Wednesday to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine did nothing to allay those worries.

• Katya Adler: Fractured Europe seeks credible answers on Ukraine
• Can Europe fill the gap now the US has paused military support for Ukraine?
• How US intelligence impacts Ukraine’s military operation

In a sign of the depth of concern, President Macron said France was open to discussing extending the protection offered by its nuclear arsenal to its European partners, during an address to the nation on Wednesday.

That followed a call from Friedrich Merz, likely to be Germany’s next chancellor, to discuss increased nuclear sharing.

Europe was facing a “clear and present danger on a scale that none of us have seen in our adult lifetime”, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said, while European Council President António Costa said this was a “defining moment for Ukraine and European security”.

In a letter to European leaders, von der Leyen also said the continent had to “meet the moment” and “unleash our industrial and productive power and direct it to the goal of security”.

On Monday, von der Leyen announced an unprecedented defence package – dubbed ReArm Europe – and said that Europe was ready to “massively” boost its defence spending “with the speed and the ambition that is needed”.

Von der Leyen said the three proposals outlined in the ReArm Europe plan would both support Ukraine and “address the long-term need to take much more responsibility” for European security – likely referring to the fact many Europeans feel the continent can no longer automatically rely on the US to come to its aid.

• Allowing countries to increase national deficit levels to give room for more defence spending
• €150bn (£125bn) in loans for defence investment in domains that could benefit the defence of the EU as a whole – for example, air and missile defence, anti-drone systems, and military mobility – helping pool demand, and reduce costs through joint procurement
• Allowing countries to redirect funds earmarked for cohesion policy programmes (policies aimed at levelling the differences between more and less advantaged regions) to defence spending

The European Investment Bank would also be allowed to finance military projects.

According to von der Leyen, the plan could free up a total of €800bn ($860bn; £670bn) in defence expenditure.

Many European leaders have signalled their support for swift, decisive action in regards to the continent’s security.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said the Commission’s plan represented “a fundamental shift”, while Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that the summit would give Europe the opportunity to show “whether it’s just a debate club or whether we can make decisions”.

But dissent from certain European leaders sympathetic to Moscow is expected.

Earlier this week, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said the EU’s “peace through strength” approach was “unrealistic”.

And in a letter to Costa, Hungary’s Viktor Orban demanded that Ukraine not be mentioned in any written conclusions following the summit.

Orban – who has repeatedly attempted to block EU aid to Ukraine and has praised Trump for “standing bravely for peace” – said there was now a “strategic divide… between the majority of Europe and the USA”.

“One side insists on prolonging the war in Ukraine, while the other seeks an end to the conflict,” he added.

Yet Orban left the door open for a “greater probability for cooperation” with other leaders over issues of common security and defence.

While Thursday’s crisis summit is taking place in Brussels, UK Defence Secretary John Healey will be in Washington for discussions with his counterpart Pete Hegseth on the US decision to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Their bilateral meeting will focus on a possible peace plan while efforts continue to bridge a transatlantic rift over Kyiv’s future security.

Perhaps in a final bid to try and achieve unity ahead of the summit, Emmanuel Macron – who has positioned himself at the centre of the EU’s efforts to bridge the gap between Kyiv and Washington – invited Orban to have dinner in Paris on Wednesday evening.

The two leaders met immediately after the French president gave a sombre address to the nation in which he said that France and Europe needed to be ready if the US was no longer by their side.

“We have to be united and determined to protect ourselves,” Macron said. He added that the future of Europe could not be tied to Washington or Moscow, and said that while he “wanted to believe that the US will stay by our side, we have to be ready for this not to be the case”.

The French president plans to hold a meeting of European army chiefs in Paris next week.

Macron said that “decisive steps” would be taken in Brussels, leaving European countries “more ready to defend and protect themselves”.

“The moment calls for unprecedented decisions,” he concluded.

Bangladesh’s interim leader says he felt “dazzled” when asked to take charge after long-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina was driven from power last year.

“I had no idea I’d be leading the government,” Muhammad Yunus told the BBC. “I had never run a government machine before and had to get the buttons right.

“Once that settled down, we started organising things,” the Nobel-prize winning economist said, adding that restoring law and order and fixing the economy were priorities for the country.

It’s unclear if Hasina, who fled into exile in India, and her party will participate in elections Yunus hopes to hold later this year. She is wanted in Bangladesh for alleged crimes against humanity.

• Sheikh Hasina: The pro-democracy icon who became an autocrat
• Bangladesh issues arrest warrant for ex-leader Hasina

“They [the Awami League] have to decide if they want to do it, I cannot decide for them,” said Yunus in an interview with the BBC at his official residence in Dhaka.

“The election commission decides who participates in the election.”

He said: “Peace and order is the most important thing, and the economy. It’s a shattered economy, a devastated economy.

“It’s as if there’s been some terrible tornado for 16 years and we’re trying to pick up the pieces.”

Sheikh Hasina was elected prime minister in 2009 and ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist. Members of her Awami League government ruthlessly cracked down on dissent. There were widespread allegations of human rights violations and the murder and jailing of political rivals while she was prime minister.

A student-led uprising forced Ms Hasina from office in August. At the behest of protesters, Yunus came back to Bangladesh to lead the new interim government.

He says he will hold elections between December 2025 and March 2026, depending on how quickly his government can institute reforms he believes necessary for free and fair elections.

“If reforms can be done as quickly as we wish, then December would be the time that we would hold elections. If you have a longer version of reforms, then we may need a few more months.”

“We are coming from complete disorder,” he said, referring to the violent protests that engulfed Bangladesh last summer. “People getting shot, killed.”

But almost seven months on, people in Dhaka say law and order has not yet been restored, and that things are not getting better.

“Better is a relative term,” he said. “If you are comparing it to the last year for example at the same time, it looks okay.

“What is happening right now, is no different than any other time.”

Yunus blames many of Bangladesh’s current woes on the previous government.

“I am not supporting that these things should happen. I’m saying that, you have to consider, we are not an ideal country or an ideal city that suddenly we made. It’s a continuum of the country that we inherited, a country that’s been running for many, many years.”

Victims of Sheikh Hasina’s brutal regime remain angry. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in recent months, demanding she be prosecuted for the deadly crackdown on student protesters.

A court in Bangladesh has issued a warrant for her arrest, but India has yet to respond.

Now, under Yunus’s leadership, there are questions about the safety of those belonging to Sheikh Hasina’s political party.

In February, several homes of Awami League members, including that of the founder of Bangladesh – Hasina’s late father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – were vandalised and set on fire after her supporters were told she would give an address on YouTube.

In a post on social media, the Awami League accused the interim government of justifying violence.

When asked by the BBC about claims by members of the Awami League that Bangladesh is not safe for them, Yunus was quick to defend his government.

“There’s a court, there’s a law, there’s a police station, they can go and complain, register their complaint,” he said. “You just don’t go to a BBC correspondent to complain, you go to the police station to complain and see whether the law is taking its course.”

The Trump administration’s decision to cut foreign aid and effectively end almost all programmes funded by the US Agency for International Development will have an impact on countries like Bangladesh.

“It is their decision,” says Yunus.

“It’s been helpful. Because they are doing things that we wanted to get done, like fighting corruption and things like that, which we couldn’t afford right away.”

The United States is the third largest supplier of official development assistance to Bangladesh. Last year the US committed $450m in foreign aid.

When asked how it will make up the shortfall, Yunus says “When it happens, we will make do.”

China has warned the US it is ready to fight “any type” of war after hitting back against President Donald Trump’s mounting trade tariffs.

The world’s top two economies have edged closer to a trade war after Trump slapped more tariffs on all Chinese goods. China quickly retaliated imposing 10-15% tariffs on US farm products.

“If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” China’s embassy said on X, reposting a line from a government statement on Tuesday.

It is some of the strongest rhetoric so far from China since Trump became president and comes as leaders gathered in Beijing for the annual National People’s Congress.

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On Wednesday, China’s Premier Li Qiang announced that China would again boost its defence spending by 7.2% this year and warned that “changes unseen in a century were unfolding across the world at a faster pace.” This increase was expected and matches the figure announced last year.

Leaders in Beijing are trying to send a message to people in China that they are confident the country’s economy can grow, even with the threat of a trade war.

China has been keen to portray an image of being a stable, peaceful country in contrast to the US, which Beijing accuses of being embroiled in wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

China may also hope to capitalise on Trump’s actions relating to US allies such as Canada and Mexico, which have also been hit by tariffs, and will not want to ramp up the rhetoric too far to scare off potential new global partners.

The Premier’s speech in Beijing on Wednesday emphasised that China would continue to open up and hoped to attract more foreign investment.

China has, in the past emphasised that it is ready to go to war. Last October, President Xi called for troops to strengthen their preparedness for war as they held military drills around the self-governing island of Taiwan. But there is a difference between military preparedness and a readiness to go to war.

The Chinese embassy in Washington’s post quoted a foreign ministry statement in English from the previous day, which also accused the US of blaming China for the influx of the drug fentanyl

“The fentanyl issue is a flimsy excuse to raise US tariffs on Chinese imports,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

“Intimidation does not scare us. Bullying does not work on us. Pressuring, coercion or threats are not the right way of dealing with China,” he added.

The US-China relationship is always one of the most contentious in the world. This post on X has been widely shared and could be used by the China hawks in Trump’s cabinet as evidence that Beijing is Washington’s biggest foreign policy and economic threat.

Officials in Beijing had been hopeful that US–China relations under Trump could get off to a more cordial start after he invited Xi to his inauguration. Trump also said the two leaders had “a great phone call” just a few days before he entered the White House.

There were reports that the two leaders were due to have another call last month. That did not happen.

Xi had already been battling persistently low consumption, a property crisis and unemployment.

China has pledged to pump billions of dollars into its ailing economy and its leaders unveiled the plan as thousands of delegates attend the National People’s Congress, a rubber-stamp parliament, which passes decisions already made behind closed doors.

China has the world’s second-largest military budget at $245bn but it is far smaller than that of the US. Beijing spends 1.6% of GDP on its military, far less than the US or Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

However, analysts believe China downplays how much it spends on defence.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter.

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A PhD student who has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women “may turn out to be one of the most prolific sexual predators that we’ve ever seen in this country”, according to the lead detective on the case.

Chinese national Zhenhao Zou, 28, attacked two women who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced, his trial at Inner London Crown Court heard.

The University College London (UCL) student filmed nine assaults as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of victims’ belongings including jewellery and clothing.

Judge Rosina Cottage said Zou was a “dangerous and predatory” offender and warned him he faces a “very long” jail term when he is sentenced on 19 June.

The Met Police’s Cdr Kevin Southworth said the video evidence showed there may be as many as 50 further victims, whom they are “desperate to trace”.

“Such is the insidious nature of these offences, I think there is a possibility that many more victim survivors may not even know that he has, in fact, raped them,” he said.

Following the trial and as a result of the media coverage, the Met confirmed that one woman had already been in touch about Zou.

As well as 11 counts of rape, Zou was found guilty of voyeurism, possession of extreme pornographic images and false imprisonment.

The crimes he has been convicted of took place between 2019 and 2024.

Hidden cameras were discovered by the Met Police in his bedroom, as well as ecstasy and an industrial chemical the human body turns into the “date-rape” drug GHB.

Seven of the rapes happened during the pandemic in China. The evidence of those attacks was videos shown to the jury that Zou kept of him having sex with unconscious and semi-conscious women. Police have never identified them.

Four of the rapes took place in London. Two women were identified and gave evidence; the other two rapes were of the same woman, but she has never been tracked down.

Jurors had to watch footage of nine of the rapes during court proceedings, appearing visibly upset and being given regular breaks as the material was shown.

Some of the attacks were filmed at his flats in Bloomsbury and Elephant and Castle, others at an unknown location in China.

The prosecutions relating to attacks in China were possible because foreign nationals who are living in the UK can be charged with an offence committed abroad that is also illegal in the country where it took place.

In his defence, Zou told the jury he had discussed sexual preferences with one of the women he filmed, and she had said she liked “uniform role play”.

“We specifically discussed the kinds of role play I like, which was rape role play,” he said. He told the court this was how the videos came to be made.

The student comes from a wealthy family, and had enough money to afford a Rolex watch, a wardrobe full of designer clothes and cosmetic procedures including a hair transplant and facial surgery.

He paid £4,000 a month in rent.

Zou moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.

The Met Police has launched an appeal to find any other victims.

“If you’re a woman who’s in any way had a one-on-one encounter with this man Zou, then we would like to hear from you,” Cdr Southworth said.

The force said it was particularly keen to hear from women from the Chinese student community who may have met Zou and were living in and around London between 2019 and 2024.

The Met said it would also like to speak to potential victims who may have met Zou while he was living in China. Reports to the force can be made online via the Major Incident Public Portal.

UCL president Dr Michael Spence said:  “We have been appalled by these horrific offences.

“Our thoughts are with the survivors and we wish to pay tribute to the bravery of the women who reported these crimes and gave evidence at the trial.”

Saira Pike from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to the courageous women who came forward to report Zhenhao Zou’s heinous crimes.

“They have been incredibly strong and brave – there is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure today’s verdict.

“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women.”

The jury found Zou guilty of:

• 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim
• Three counts of voyeurism
• 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image
• One count of false imprisonment
• Three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence

He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, and five counts of possession of controlled drugs to commit a sexual offence.

The cleaners had scrubbed the debating chamber clean before MPs arrived for Wednesday’s session in Serbia’s National Assembly.

Spent smoke bombs, smears of egg yolk and a dusting of white fire extinguisher powder had all been removed from the benches and tables after the mayhem of the previous day.

The police had also been on the scene.

They were gathering evidence for potential criminal charges against the MPs who had plunged the parliament into a fug of pink and black smoke as they unfurled banners accusing the government of corruption.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic labelled the scenes “hooliganism”. He said he was “looking for responsibility, criminal law” to be applied.

Three female MPs were hurt. One of them was hit on the back of the head by an object, although it was unclear who threw it, and another apparently suffered a stroke.

The EU said a parliament should be a place for democratic debate and that it was very concerned.

Opposition party MPs were unabashed.

The co-leader of the Green-Left Front, Radomir Lazovic, had let off a fire extinguisher from his seat in the chamber.

He described the intervention as “a response to the violence that has been perpetrated against the citizens of Serbia for 13 years”.

That covers the period that the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has been in power.

Under the leadership of Vucic – who previously served as deputy prime minister and prime minister – the party has been an election-winning machine.

The SNS has emerged victorious from no fewer than five parliamentary elections since it first formed a governing coalition in 2012.

• Serbian PM quits after months of mass protests
• Fury over Serbia station tragedy prompts first arrests

Its opponents claim that has more to do with the party’s domination of Serbia’s media outlets and state institutions than its policies.

But Vucic has successfully projected an image of strong, effective leadership that appeals to a large proportion of Serbia’s electorate – particularly outside the main urban areas.

He has weathered plenty of protest movements over the years. All of them have fizzled out without dislodging the president or his party.

But the current series of rallies, demonstrations and blockades is presenting an unusually tricky challenge.

The outpouring of outrage started with November’s disaster at Novi Sad railway station – when a concrete canopy collapsed at the recently-renovated facility, killing 15 people.

The station was part of the government’s flagship infrastructure project – the high-speed railway linking the capital, Belgrade, to Budapest in Hungary. The fatal failure at such a high-profile site caused anguish and anger – and stoked suspicions that official corruption was behind the collapse.

Students have been leading the calls for transparency and accountability, holding daily 15-minute vigils for the dead. But workers, ranging from lawyers to farmers, have also been staging strikes and blocking roads.

“Everyone has a reason to be unhappy,” says analyst and journalist Bojan Elek. “Terrible salaries, poor working conditions – everyone had something to add to the huge dissatisfaction that’s in the population.

“But the students have been the key cohesive factor.”

What the students have not been is political. They have kept opposition parties and NGOs away from their increasingly elaborate events, which have seen them take over the city centres of Novi Sad and Nis in recent weeks.

Mr Elek describes this as “a good move” – but notes that “at some point, politics will have to come into play”.

What that might look like is not yet clear. Opposition parties are atomised – with no one single party capable of challenging the SNS, and an absence of a credible coalition.

They have at least been united in their calls for the establishment of a technical government following the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic at the end of January.

This could, they suggest, establish an electoral environment that would reduce the SNS’s domination of the media and state bodies.

Vucic has rejected that idea as an opposition attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected government. He may appoint a replacement prime minister or call fresh elections, even though the previous polls were held as recently as December 2023.

Meanwhile, the protests continue. Students are promising their largest event yet in Belgrade on 15 March.

Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly has told the BBC she takes US President Donald Trump’s remarks on making Canada the 51st state of his country “very seriously”.

“This is not a joke anymore,” Joly told Newsnight. “There’s a reason why Canadians, when they go out on a hockey game, are booing the American national anthem… We’re insulted. We’re mad. We’re angry.”

Her comments come after Trump imposed 25% tariffs on products entering the US from Canada on Tuesday. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called that a “very dumb thing to do” and announced retaliatory tariffs.

However, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Trump would “probably” announce a deal to reduce tariffs on Wednesday.

In response, Joly told the BBC that “at the end of the day, the only one that really takes a decision is President Trump”.

She said no Trump administration secretaries had contacted their Canadian counterparts on Monday or Tuesday about tariffs.

Trump and Trudeau, however, are expected to speak over the phone on Wednesday morning, according to sources who spoke to CNN and the Toronto Star.

Trump announced 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on 4 February, but delayed implementation until 4 March. Canadian energy imports face a 10% tariff.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford implemented a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to three US states, and if tariffs escalated, said he would consider cutting Michigan, New York and Minnesota off from Canadian power.

Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on goods worth more than $800 (£645) from China in February, which doubled in March. China responded with its own tariffs.

The White House said when it introduced the tariffs that it was “taking bold action to hold [the three countries] accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country”.

Fentanyl is linked to tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the US each year.

Trudeau said his country was responsible for less than 1% of fentanyl entering the US.

Canada had introduced new border security measures in December, in response to Trump’s tariff threats before he took office.

“We didn’t want this trade war. We did everything that was required under the executive order to make sure our border was safe and secure,” Joly told the BBC, but said “this is a bogus excuse on the part of the Trump administration against us”.

Joly said Canada was the “canary in the coal mine”, with the Europeans next, and the UK after that. Trump has threatened 25% tariffs on the European Union as well.

She said Canada and the UK should work together: “That’s also why I went to London to make sure that if there are tariffs imposed, we should work on counter-tariffs well.”

Joly said Canada’s public displays of displeasure against the US are not “against the American people. We’re the best friends of the American people”.

She called the tariffs on the US’s biggest trading partner an “existential threat”.

“We cannot let our guard down,” she said. “We need to make sure that we fight back.”

Syria’s foreign minister has told the global chemical weapons watchdog that the new government is committed to destroying any remaining stockpiles produced under ousted president Bashar al-Assad.

Addressing a meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague, Asaad al-Shibani vowed to “put an end to this painful legacy, to bring justice to victims, and to ensure that the compliance with international law is a solid one”.

But he added that Syria would “need the support of the international community”.

Assad’s government denied ever using chemical weapons during the 14-year civil war, but activists accused it of carrying out of dozens of chemical attacks.

In 2013, rockets containing the nerve agent sarin were fired at several rebel-held suburbs in Eastern and Western Ghouta, killing hundreds of people. UN experts confirmed the use of the nerve agent sarin but they were not asked to ascribe any blame.

Assad denied his forces fired the rockets, but he did agree to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and allow a joint OPCW-UN mission to destroy Syria’s declared chemical arsenal. However, questions about the accuracy and completeness of Syria’s declaration remained.

The OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team documented multiple uses of chemical weapons during the war, identifying the Syrian military as the perpetrator of five cases of chemical weapons use in 2017 and 2018.

They included the April 2018 attack on Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta, when a Syrian air force helicopter is believed to have dropped two cylinders filled with highly concentrated chlorine gas on two apartment buildings, killing at least 43 people.

An earlier OPCW fact-finding mission, which was not mandated to identify perpetrators, also found that chemical weapons were used or likely used in 20 other instances.

Last month, OPCW director general Fernando Arias visited Damascus to hold talks with Shibani and interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad in December.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Arias declared that “the evolving political landscape in Syria” provided the international community with “a new and historic opportunity to complete the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons programme”.

He said a team of technical experts from the OPCW would be deployed to Damascus in the coming days and begin planning visits to suspected chemical weapon sites.

Shibani also met the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, in The Hague on Wednesday.

The ICC said their talks “followed up on the prosecutor’s January visit to Damascus, exploring partnerships towards accountability for crimes committed in Syria”.

Syria is not a member of the ICC, but Khan has said the new government could accept the court’s jurisdiction as a first step, as Ukraine has done with respect to the war with Russia.

Six weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump came to a US Capitol controlled by his Republican Party to take a lengthy victory lap.

“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started,” he told the joint session of Congress.

In typical Trumpian hyperbole, he said that “many” believed his to be the most successful start to a presidency in US history. He noted what he said was a change in the national mood toward “pride” and “confidence”. He compared himself to George Washington, and boasted about the size of his electoral victory.

The whirlwind start to his presidency offered plenty of material for Trump to cover, and he didn’t shy away from it.

He ticked through a lengthy list of tangible accomplishments – hundreds of executive orders and actions, a freeze on foreign aid, lower levels of illegal border crossing, and the withdrawal from international organisations and agreements.

He also spoke at length about his ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports and moves to get “woke ideology” out of US schools and the military.

“Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone, it’s gone, and we feel so much better for it, don’t we?”

Meanwhile, Democrats – who filled up half the audience in the House chamber – sat in icy silence, as the president repeatedly blamed them, former President Joe Biden and “radical left lunatics” for all the nation’s ills.

Several dozen responded by holding up small black signs with words like “false” and “lies”.

The president seemed to enjoy putting the “bully” in the presidential bully pulpit.

He needled his political adversaries, mocking their refusal to cheer his remarks, dusting off his “Pocahontas” nickname for Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, and wryly noting that attempts to prosecute him “didn’t work out” for his opponents.

Texas congressman Al Green was not around to see any of that, however.

At the very start of Trump’s speech, the Democrat had harangued the president, his mostly inaudible comments punctuated with repeated thrusts of his cane. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called for decorum and the House Sergeant-at-Arms escorted the congressman from the chamber.

Green would tell reporters outside the Capitol that he was protesting proposed cuts to the government-run Medicaid health insurance for low-income Americans.

• LIVE – latest updates and analysis
• Six takeaways from Trump’s speech

After about half an hour of touting his opening actions, Trump turned to the tasks he still needed to accomplish. That made up the bulk of a speech that stretched for more than an hour and 40 minutes. It was standard presidential address fare, and Trump’s rhetorical flourishes began to blur together.

While he said “small business optimism” was up, he blamed Biden for the current state of the economy – including high egg prices. He promised to “rescue” the economy and make getting “dramatic and immediate relief to working families” his highest priority.

He called out Elon Musk in the audience, and said his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) would reduce inflation by cutting wasteful spending and fraud, prompting him to recite a laundry list of purported examples in foreign aid and other government programmes.

Trump leaned heavily into promises of further progress on immigration enforcement and offered an animated defence of his tariff policies, saying that they were “protecting the soul of our country”, even if most economists warn they will lead to higher prices for American consumers.

The president acknowledged that adding a tax on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China might cause a “disturbance” and that US farmers might feel a “period of indigestion”.

But nothing in his comments suggested that he was backing away from a budding trade war that has roiled the stock market in recent days – in fact, he promised to move forward with reciprocal tariffs on all US trade partners next month.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?

Trump once again promised to balance the budget, prompting a round of applause from Republican legislators. He provided no details about the kind of steep cuts such a promise would require, however.

In fact, he quickly turned to discussing the tax cuts he hopes Congress will enact – including his campaign promises of no taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security. Any of those, if enacted, would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the current nearly $2tn budget deficit.

Foreign policy is rarely front and centre in these presidential addresses, and that was the case this time despite how Trump has shaken up global politics in the first weeks of his second term.

He repeated his desire for an American annexation of Greenland, promised American control of the Panama Canal and only made brief mention of Gaza and the Middle East.

• Why does Trump want Greenland?

The president spoke more extensively about negotiating with Russia for peace in Ukraine. And he took pleasure in reading from a letter he said he’d just received from Volodymyr Zelensky – which was similar to a message the Ukrainian leader posted on X earlier in the day.

“He said: ‘My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence.’

Trump added that Zelensky had said he was ready to sign an agreement on minerals and security “at any time that is convenient for you”.

“I appreciate that,” Trump told the chamber, offering a hint of a possible cooling of the acrimony between the two leaders.

By the time Trump wrapped up and Democrats practically sprinted for the exits, his speech had set a modern record for the longest presidential address to Congress. Much like the first six weeks of Trump’s presidency, there was plenty for his supporters to love, and lots for his critics – at least those who tuned in – to jeer.

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

US President Donald Trump declared “the American Dream is unstoppable” as he addressed a raucous joint session of Congress for the first time since he returned to power.

In the longest presidential speech to lawmakers on record, he outlined his vision for his second term, as Republicans applauded a high-octane six weeks that has reshaped domestic and foreign policy.

Trump was heckled by Democrats and he goaded them in turn during the rowdy primetime address, during which he said his administration was “just getting started”.

The Republican president has moved to slash the federal workforce and crack down on immigration, while imposing tariffs on the US’s biggest trading partners and shaking up the transatlantic alliance over the war in Ukraine.

Here are six of the key takeaways.

Following a second day of market turbulence, Trump played down the potential economic fallout from a trade war he ignited this week, including 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% on Chinese imports.

But in contrast with the ovations that greeted his other policy objectives, many Republicans remained seated, a sign of how Trump’s import taxes have divided his party.

“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again,” he said.

“And it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that. It won’t be much.”

Trump added that reciprocal tariffs tailored to US trading partners would “kick in” on 2 April.

Earlier in the day, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox Business that Trump could announce a trade deal with Mexico and Canada as soon as Wednesday.

• Trump will ‘probably’ cut tariffs, says commerce chief
• What are tariffs, and why is Trump using them?

Trump said he had received an “important letter” from Ukraine’s leader earlier in the day, which appeared to match what Volodymyr Zelensky posted publicly on social media.

Ukraine’s president had said he was now ready to work under Trump’s “strong leadership” to end the war and “come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer”.

“I appreciate that he sent this letter,” Trump told lawmakers.

Zelensky offered the olive branch a day after Trump paused all military aid to the beleaguered US ally.

It followed an acrimonious Oval Office meeting last week when the two leaders argued in front of TV cameras, before cancelling plans to sign a minerals deal that would allow the US to profit from an economic partnership involving Ukraine’s natural resources.

Trump was reportedly hoping to announce during his speech to Congress that the deal had finally been sealed. But it did not materialise.

• Live updates: Trump ‘appreciates’ Zelensky’s message
• Trump and Zelensky’s fraying relationship, in their own words

Despite most of his 99-minute speech focusing on domestic issues, Trump’s worldview also came more sharply into focus.

There are places in the world he wants to expand US influence and others where he wants to withdraw.

Repeating his desire for the US to acquire Greenland, he vowed “we’re going to get it – one way or the other”. And he said his administration would “reclaim” the Panama Canal.

There were several mentions of African countries when he rattled through a long list of aid programmes funded by US taxpayers that he portrayed as ridiculous.

Liberia, Mali, Mozambique and Uganda were all places where he suggested money had been wasted.

But his most pointed remark was about Lesotho, which he said was a country “nobody has ever heard of” despite receiving $8m (£6.2m) to promote LGBT rights.

The government there quickly responded.

“To my surprise, ‘the country that nobody has heard of’ is the country where the US has a permanent mission,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane told the BBC.

• Nine things to know about Lesotho
• Why does Trump want Greenland and what do its people think?

Early on, Trump name-checked his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who was watching from the gallery.

The tech mogul’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) taskforce has moved to fire tens of thousands of federal workers, cut billions of dollars in foreign aid and slash programmes across the US government.

The SpaceX and Tesla boss, wearing a dark suit with a blue tie, stood and acknowledged the cheers from the crowd.

“Thank you, Elon,” the 78-year-old president said. “He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this.”

Musk’s cuts have sparked some angry scenes at town hall meetings and his instructions to federal employees have at times been overruled by members of Trump’s cabinet.

In the chamber, Democratic lawmakers held up signs saying “Musk steals” and “false”.

Doge claims to have saved $105bn already, but that figure can’t be independently verified. Receipts have been published for $18.6bn worth of savings, but accounting errors have been reported by US media outlets that have analysed the figures.

• Young Republicans cheer Trump on from Texas watch party

Within the first five minutes of the address, Al Green of Texas was escorted out of the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms after refusing to comply with the House Speaker’s demands that he stop heckling the president and take his seat.

As Trump spoke, other Democrats held up signs saying: “This is a lie.”

With Republicans in control of the White House, House of Representatives and Senate, Democrats have been largely leaderless as they work to hone their message and counter the blitz of activity from the Trump administration.

Many Democratic women arrived in the House chamber wearing pink pantsuits in protest. Dozens from their party – some of them wearing the words “Resist” printed on the backs of their shirts – exited the chamber during the speech.

“There is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” Trump said, appearing to revel in the partisan rancour.

Democratic leadership chose Elissa Slotkin of Michigan – a first-term senator elected in a battleground state that Trump won in November – to deliver the party’s official response.

She accused Trump of an “unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends” and warned that “he could walk us right into a recession”.

Trump pledged to voters that he would beat inflation on his return to office and he used the speech to say his focus would be to reduce the cost of energy, by opening up the country to new oil and gas drilling.

“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on earth, and by far, and now I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it. It’s called drill, baby, drill.”

The soaring cost of eggs has been headline news in recent weeks, and Trump made clear who he felt was responsible.

“Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control – and we are working hard to get it back down,” he added.

Egg prices rose as the Biden administration directed millions of egg-laying birds to be culled last year amid a bird flu outbreak, though prices have continued rising during the early stages of Trump’s second presidency.

Inflation was slightly elevated at 3% last month, but way down from its peak of 9.1% in 2022.

Only one in three Americans approve of Trump’s handling of cost of living, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey on Tuesday.

• Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress

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

Elissa Slotkin, a US Senate Democrat, gave her party’s response to Trump’s congressional address, taking the new Trump administration to task for bringing with it chaos and recklessness.

Early in her remarks, she attacked the White House on the economy and warned that if Trump was “not careful, he could walk us right into a recession”.

Slotkin also took a shot at the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting project led by Elon Musk, saying change is needed “but doesn’t need to be chaotic or make us less safe”.

Speaking from Michigan before a backdrop of US flags, Slotkin was much more concise and much less animated than the president, who regaled Republicans on the House floor for an hour and 40 minutes.

She made a quick reference to Democrats’ stinging election defeat in November, but then quickly pivoted to Trump.

“Americans made it clear that prices are too high and that government needs to be more responsive to their needs. America wants change,” she said.

“But there is a responsible way to make change, and a reckless way. And, we can make that change without forgetting who we are as a country, and as a democracy.”

Throughout the election, voters frequently said the economy was their number one concern, and Democrats’ defeat was blamed on not addressing it sufficiently.

Weeks into Trump’s presidency, economic concerns remain high, as prices of a number of goods have not dropped, and prices on some items, like eggs, have risen.

“Grocery and home prices are going up, not down – and he hasn’t laid out a credible plan to deal with either,” she said.

Slotkin also talked about immigration, another topic where Democrats poll worse than Republicans, highlighting a lack of empathy by the Trump administration toward undocumented immigrants.

“The border without actually fixing our broken immigration system is dealing with the symptom not the disease. America is a nation of immigrants,” she said.

She cited the public berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday during a meeting withTrump and Vice-President JD Vance, too.

“That scene in the Oval Office wasn’t just a bad episode of reality TV. It summed up Trump’s whole approach to the world,” she said.

“He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends, like Canada, in the teeth.”

For many, Tuesday night was their first time meeting Slotkin, who won the US Senate seat in the swing state of Michigan last year.

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst, Slotkin became the youngest Democratic woman elected to the Senate at 48, when she won her seat in a state that former Vice-President Kamala Harris lost last November.

Slotkin gave her speech after Trump’s, which is not a traditional State of the Union address but was expected to serve the same purpose.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called Slotkin a “rising star” in the party last week as he announced her as the pick to provide the Democratic Party’s rebuttal. He said she was “great on both economic and national security” topics.

Slotkin is new to the Senate, but she served in Congress as a member of Michigan’s delegation to the House of Representatives. She was first elected in the Democrats’ 2018 wave of success, flipping a Republican seat.

Prior to her political career, she held a variety of government jobs. She held national security positions in Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations.

She served in Bush’s National Security Council, and, under Obama, she served as acting assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs and in the State Department.

The CIA recruited Slotkin, who is fluent in Arabic and Swahili, shortly after she earned a graduate degree in international affairs at Columbia University in New York City. She served three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst.

The moderate Democrat focused her 2024 Senate campaign on lowering costs for Americans, a move that helped propel her to a narrow victory over former Congressman Mike Rogers, even as Trump won the state.

Slotkin is a member of the committees on Armed Forces; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; and Veterans Affairs.

In his address to Congress, which ran for more than an hour and a half, President Donald Trump made a series of claims about the state of the US under his predecessor Joe Biden and the achievements of his first weeks in office.

He returned to key campaign themes including illegal immigration, rising prices and what he called “appalling waste” in government spending.

BBC Verify has looked into the facts behind some of his key claims.

Trump said he inherited an “economic catastrophe” from Biden.

This is misleading. The US economy was growing at an annual rate of 2.3% in the final quarter of 2024 under the previous administration. It expanded by 2.8% over 2024 as a whole according to official US statistics.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that the US growth rate in 2024 was faster than any other nation in the G7.

On rising prices, Trump added “we suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country”.

Inflation under Biden peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 – the highest level since 1981 – so not quite as far back as Trump claimed.

The 2022 peak was in the context of high inflation in the rest of the world in the wake of the Covid pandemic and a global energy shock. The inflation rate had dropped to 3% by the time Trump took office.

Inflation has also been much higher than 9% at several other points in US history, including the 1940s and 1920s.

Trump went on to blame Biden for egg prices, claiming he “let the price of eggs get out of control”.

Prices are high, but this has been linked to a bird flu outbreak in the US.

Egg prices rose under Biden in 2023, and in January a dozen eggs averaged over $5, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). That is 53% above the average for the whole of 2024.

The USDA has said a bird flu outbreak has led to US farmers having to kill millions of chickens, creating egg shortages, and has announced a $1bn (£780m) plan to help combat the issue.

The outbreak started in February 2022 and last year the Biden administration allocated more than $800m to tackle it.

The Trump administration recently fired a number of USDA officials who worked on the government’s response to bird flu as part of cost-cutting measures by the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). They are now reportedly attempting to rehire some of them.

Trump praised Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and claimed the advisory body had found “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” in federal government spending.

No evidence has been provided for this figure.

On its official website, Doge states that it has saved an estimated $105bn, from fraud detection, contract and grant cancellations, real estate lease terminations, asset sales, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.

However, that figure cannot be independently verified as, so far, Doge has only published “receipts” for contract, grant and real estate lease cancellations on the website. These add up to about $18.6bn. We have asked the White House for evidence of the remaining $86bn of savings.

US media outlets have also highlighted some accounting errors. For example, Doge initially listed its largest saving of $8bn from scrapping an immigration agency contract – it later corrected this to $8m.

Speaking about his actions to tackle illegal immigration, Trump said that “as a result, illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded”.

This is true.

In February 2025, 8,326 encounters of migrants at the south-west border with Mexico were recorded by US Border Patrol.

This is the lowest level since monthly records began in 2000.

By comparison, there were 140,641 encounters by US Border Patrol at this border in February last year under Biden.

Numbers fell to 47,316 in December 2024.

Continuing with illegal migration, Trump claimed: “Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States”.

There is no evidence for a figure this high.

Encounters with migrants at the borders – a measure of illegal migration – reached 10 million under Biden but this does not mean this many people stayed in the US.

It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrants have come to the US, as many will have evaded law enforcement agencies, but several estimates put the number at around half what Trump stated.

A report published by the Office of Homeland Security last year estimated the number of illegal immigrants living in the US, as of January 2022, at 11 million.

It says about a fifth of them arrived in 2010 or later but the majority arrived before this time, some as early as the 1980s.

On US aid to Ukraine, Trump claimed: “We’ve spent perhaps $350bn… and they [Europe] have spent $100bn. What a difference that is.”

BBC Verify is unable to find any evidence for Trump’s $350bn claim and some figures suggest Europe has spent more as whole when all aid to Ukraine is included.

The US is, by some margin, the largest single donor to Ukraine. But Europe combined has spent more money than the US, according to the Kiel Institute think tank.

It calculates that between 24 January 2022 and the end of 2024, Europe as a whole spent $138.7bn on Ukraine, while the US spent $119.7bn.

• How much has the US given to Ukraine?
• Fact-checking Elon Musk’s claims in the Oval Office

The US Department of Defense has a higher figure of $182.8bn – taking into account a broader range of US military activity in Europe – but this is still considerably less than Trump’s figure.

We have asked the White House where it comes from.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Two years ago, on his bank adviser’s suggestion, Rajesh Kumar pulled out his savings – fixed deposits included – and shifted to mutual funds, stocks and bonds.

With India’s stock market booming, Mr Kumar, a Bihar-based engineer, joined millions investing in publicly traded companies. Six years ago, only one in 14 Indian households channelled their savings into the stock market – now, it’s one in five.

But the tide has turned.

For six months, India’s markets have slid as foreign investors pulled out, valuations remained high, earnings weakened and global capital shifted to China – wiping out $900bn in investor value since their September peak. While the decline began before US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements, they have now become a bigger drag as more details emerge.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 share index, which tracks the country’s top 50 publicly traded companies, is on its longest losing streak in 29 years, declining for five straight months. This is a significant slump in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Stock brokers are reporting that their activity has dropped by a third.

“For more than six months now, my investments have been in the red. This is the worst experience in the last decade that I have been invested in stock market,” Mr Kumar says.

Mr Kumar, 55, now keeps little money in the bank, having shifted most of his savings to the stock market. With his son’s 1.8 million-rupee ($20,650; £16,150) private medical college fee due in July, he worries about selling investments at a loss to cover it. “Once the market recovers, I’m thinking of moving some money back to the bank,” he says.

His anxieties reflect those of millions of middle-class Indians who have poured into the stock market from cities big and small – part of a financial revolution.

The go-to investment route is Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), where funds collect fixed monthly contributions. The number of Indians investing through SIPs has soared past 100 million, nearly trebling from 34 million five years ago. Many first-time investors, lured by the promise of high returns, enter with limited risk awareness – often influenced by a wave of social media “finfluencers” on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, a mixed bag of experts and amateurs alike.

Meet Tarun Sircar, a retired marketing manager, and you get a glimpse of India’s new investor.

When his public provident fund – a government-backed tax-free investment – matured last year, he sought a way to secure his retirement. Burnt by past stock market losses, he turned to mutual funds – this time with an adviser’s help and a buoyant market.

“I’ve put 80% of my savings into mutual funds, keeping just 20% in the bank. Now my adviser warns me – Don’t check your investments for six months, unless you want a heart attack!”

For now, Mr Sircar isn’t entirely sure if moving his retirement fund into the stock market was the right decision. “I’m both ignorant and confident,” he says with wry candour. “Ignorant about what’s happening and why the market is reacting this way, yet confident because Instagram ‘experts’ make investing sound like a fast track to millions. At the same time, I know I might be caught in a web of deception and hype.”

Mr Sircar says he was drawn to the markets by TV shows hyping stocks and excited chatter in WhatsApp groups. “The TV anchors talk up the market and people in my WhatsApp group boast about their stock market gains,” he says.

In his sprawling apartment complex, even teenagers discuss investments – in fact, during a badminton game, a teenager gave him a hot tip on a telecom stock. “When you hear all this around you, you start thinking – why not give it a shot? So I did, and then the markets crashed.”

Mr Sircar lives in hope. “My fingers are crossed. I am sure the markets will recover, and my fund will be back in green.”

There are others who have taken more risks and already lost money. Lured by get-rich-quick videos, Ramesh (name changed), an accounting clerk from a small industrial town in western India, borrowed money to invest in stocks during the pandemic.

Hooked to YouTube influencers, he dived into risky penny stocks and trading in derivatives. This month, after losing over $1,800 – more than his annual salary – he shut his brokerage account and swore off the market.

“I borrowed this money, and now creditors are after me,” he says.

Ramesh is one of 11 million Indians who lost a combined $20bn in futures and options trades before regulators stepped in.

“This crash is unlike the one during the Covid pandemic,” says financial adviser Samir Doshi. “Back then, we had a clear path to recovery with vaccines on the horizon. But with the Trump factor in play, uncertainty looms – we simply don’t know what’s next.”

Fuelled by digital platforms, low-cost brokerages and government-driven financial inclusion, investing has become more accessible – smartphones and user-friendly apps have simplified market participation, drawing a broader, younger audience seeking alternatives to traditional assets.

On the flip side, many new Indian investors need a reality check. “The stock market isn’t a gambling den – you must manage expectations,” says Monika Halan, author and financial educator. “Invest in equity only what you won’t need for at least seven years. If you’re taking on risk, understand the downside: How much could I lose? Can I afford that loss?”

This market crash couldn’t have hit India’s middle class at a worse time. Economic growth is slowing, wages remain stagnant, private investment has been sluggish for years and job creation isn’t keeping pace. Amid these challenges, many new investors, lured by rising markets, are now grappling with unexpected losses.

“In normal times, savers can take short-term setbacks, because they have steady incomes, which keep adding to their savings,” noted Aunindyo Chakravarty, a financial analyst.

“Now, we are in the midst of a massive economic crisis for the middle-class. On the one side, white-collar job opportunities are reducing, and raises are low. On the other, the real inflation faced by middle-class households – as opposed to the average retail inflation that the government compiles – is at its highest in recent memory. A stock market correction at such a time is disastrous for middle-class household finances.”

Financial advisers like Jaideep Marathe believe that some people will start taking money out of the market and move them to safer bank deposits if the volatility continues for another six to eight months. “We are spending a lot of time telling clients not to liquidate their portfolios and to treat this as a cyclical event.”

But clearly, all hope is not lost – most believe that the market is correcting itself from previous highs.

Foreign investor selling has eased since February, suggesting the market downturn may be nearing its end, says veteran market expert Ajay Bagga. Following the correction, valuations for many stock market indices have dipped below their 10-year average, providing some respite.

Mr Bagga expects GDP and corporate earnings to improve, aided by a $12bn income-tax giveaway in the federal budget and falling interest rates. However, geopolitical risks – Middle East and Ukraine conflicts, and Trump’s tariff plans – will keep investors cautious.

In the end, the market meltdown might serve as a hard lesson for new investors.

“This correction is a much-needed wake-up call for those who entered the market just three years ago, enjoying 25% returns – that’s not normal,” says Ms Halan. “If you don’t understand markets, stick to bank deposits and gold. At least you have control.”

US President Donald Trump has said that “nobody has ever heard of” the African country of Lesotho – a comment that has “shocked” its government.

It is a small country in southern Africa that almost entirely consists of mountains and is completely surrounded by South Africa.

Here are nine things to know about the country:

The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands, where many villages can only be reached on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.

It is known as the “Kingdom in the Sky” and is the only independent state in the world that lies entirely above 1,000m (3,281ft) in elevation, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its lowest point is at 1,400m.

It is known to have one of the world’s most intimidating airstrips to land on – the Matekane Airstrip has a short runway and with long drops at both ends.

The Business Insider website describes flying from the airport as “essentially the same as when a bird is pushed out of the nest in order to learn to fly”.

Lesotho is completely encircled by South Africa, but separated by the forbidding mountain ranges.

Not much of its land is available for farming, with its population vulnerable to food shortages and relying on income from jobs in South Africa. Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities at home to find work in South Africa.

The people of Lesotho, who number more than two million, share some cultural and language similarities with South Africans. Their language, Sesotho, is also one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. In fact, more people speak it in South Africa – 4.6 million – than in Lesotho.

Resources are scarce in Lesotho – a consequence of the harsh environment of the highland plateau and limited agricultural space in the lowlands.

Its biggest resource is water – known locally as white gold – which is exported to South Africa. Diamonds are another major export.

• Who benefits from Lesotho’s ‘white gold’?

When you think of skiing and snowboarding, you may imagine the snowy slopes of Europe and North America.

But Lesotho has been making itself known on the snowsports scene. It has the highest ski resort in sub-Saharan Africa, one of just a handful on the continent.

Afriski is situated 3,222m above sea level, high up in Lesotho’s Maloti mountains and attracts visitors from Africa and beyond.

• WATCH: Is Lesotho the next top ski resort?

People from Lesotho are referred to as Basotho.

Some of the cultural items associated with the Basotho people are their blankets and the Basotho traditional conical hats, known as the mokorotlo. The hat is a national symbol and appears in the middle of the country’s flag.

The blankets are made from thick wool, with their intricate and colourful patterns each telling a different story of the Basotho people’s history. The Basotho wear them as shawls at special events and give them as gifts.

Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world, with one in five adults living with HIV, and more infections per 100,000 people than most other countries, including neighbouring Namibia, Botswana and Eswatini.

The US government has committed nearly $1bn to help the country deal with HIV since 2006, including for prevention, care and treatment services, according to the US State Department.

Like the United Kingdom, Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy. This means that although it has a royal family, an elected prime minister runs the country.

Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso – the younger brother of current King Letsie III – is close friends with the UK’s Prince Harry.

The pair have set up a charity in Lesotho – Sentebale, which means “forget me not”. The organisation works with local communities in the country at grassroots level, helping young people affected by HIV/Aids.

Prince Harry first went to Lesotho as a 19-year-old and has returned to the country many times since then.

Jeans have long been associated with the American West but nowadays, many of the pairs worn in the US have come from halfway across the world, in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s garment factories have made jeans for iconic American brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler in recent years. As a result, Lesotho has become known as the “denim capital of Africa”.

And it is not just jeans – Lesotho is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest exporters of clothing in general to the US.

Last year, Lesotho exported $237m (£184m) worth of clothes and textiles to the US through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which allows eligible African countries to send some goods to the US without paying taxes.

It is ranked second by value of goods exported under the deal.

Many of Lesotho’s clothing and textile factories are owned by Chinese and Taiwanese migrants.

• WATCH: ‘Our textiles use iconic symbols of Lesotho’

The mountain kingdom has the world’s highest suicide rate, with 87.5 people per 100,000 of the population taking their own life every year, according to the UN World Health Organization.

This is nearly 10 times the global average of nine and more than double the country with the second highest rate, Guyana, which has about 40.

There is no single reason for this shocking statistic – experts point to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the shortage of jobs and the lack of mental health counselling.

• The small African country with the world’s highest suicide rate

Leading child doctors have joined calls for a complete ban on smacking children in England, saying there is no evidence it has any positive effect on their wellbeing.

Currently, smacking is unlawful in England, except in cases where it amounts to a “reasonable punishment”.

Now the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) wants that legal defence to be removed, using an amendment to a law which is currently making its way through Parliament.

The Department for Education said the government had no plans to change the law on smacking, but that it was committed to giving every child the best start in life.

Prof Andrew Rowland, RCPCH officer for child protection, said: “Now is the time for this Victorian-era punishment to go.”

If enough MPs backed the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, tabled by Labour MP Jess Asato in January, then the defence of smacking as a “reasonable punishment” would be completely outlawed in England.

Currently, the situation on smacking children is different depending on where you are in the UK.

In Scotland and Wales, corporal – or physical – punishment is illegal, but in England and Northern Ireland the “reasonable punishment” defence still stands.

In England, the defence is included in the Children Act of 2004, but smacking children has been permitted by law since 1860.

Scotland was the first UK country to ban corporal punishment in November 2020, followed by Wales in March 2022.

Prof Rowland said there were 67 countries around the world which had already adopted smacking bans, with a further 20 committing to do so.

The government said it was “looking closely” at the changes made in Scotland and Wales, but had no plans to legislate on smacking at this stage.

A spokesperson said the bill in its current form represented the “single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation”.

“This government has prioritised significant reform of the children’s social care system, driving better child protection and information sharing between education, health and social workers to stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks,” they added.

Parents at a baby sensory group in Sale, Greater Manchester, told the BBC they were all against smacking children, but some were unsure about whether it was right for the government to intervene.

Mum Leanne Casey, said parents “should be able to discipline how they see fit”, but added: “I don’t agree with smacking children though, so if a ban is what it takes then I’d agree that is what you need to do.”

Dad Oli Harrison said he would “never intervene” in another person’s parenting methods, but added that a ban would “probably be beneficial” to avoid it being seen as a “grey area”.

When looking at populations as a whole, Prof Rowland said physical punishment “undoubtedly harms children’s health”.

He said there were no scientific studies which provided robust evidence that smacking had any positive effect on children’s wellbeing.

Calls for a ban on smacking intensified after the death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif.

Sara was murdered in August 2023 after a “campaign of torture” by her father and stepmother which lasted for two years.

Her father, who had fled to Pakistan after the murder, had phoned police in England claiming he had “legally punished” Sara before her death.

It is unlawful in England to assault a child causing actual or grievous bodily harm, or cruelty, but Prof Rowland said academic studies had shown children who were punished physically were at an increased risk of serious physical assault.

He said a complete ban on smacking would make it easier for the authorities to “draw a line and say there are never any circumstances involved where physical punishment of children is ever legal”.

Other organisations, including the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, have also backed the amendment.

Joanna Barrett, from the charity, said smacking had been associated with “depression, anxiety, increased aggression, and antisocial behaviour”.

She said a legal change was needed “urgently”, adding that “right now we know physical punishment remains a part of childhood for too many young people in England”.

Lynn Perry, chief executive of the Barnardo’s children’s charity, said: “No violence against children is acceptable. And yet children continue to face less legal protection against physical assault than adults.”

“It’s certainly one way of focusing our minds — and wallets! Donald Trump is doing us a favour, we choose to think about it that way. And we may as well look on the bright side. Otherwise these times are too dark.”

The words of a diplomat from a major European country, speaking after Donald Trump turned off the military aid tap to Ukraine on Monday. He asked not to be named, so he can share his thoughts more freely.

The relentlessness, and pace, of change in Washington, can be dizzying. Not only for consumers of news but politicians as well.

Europe is scrambling to react effectively.

There has been a frenzy of diplomatic activity: bilateral, late-night leader phone calls, European huddles in London and in Paris, meetings of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. An emergency security summit of EU leaders is also scheduled this Thursday.

It is a huge moment in European history.

Most European countries believe the security of all of Europe, not only the sovereignty of Ukraine, is at stake — with Russia looking to dismantle the western-facing balance of power, in place since the end of the Cold War.

Washington, which has had Europe’s back in terms of security and defence since World War Two, now appears “not to care about the fate of Europe”, according to the man poised to be the next leader of the continent’s biggest economy, Friedrich Merz of Germany.

But what are all the big-name European meetings and summits actually achieving?

Just a few hours prior to Washington halting military aid to Kyiv, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who is taking a lead in Europe over Ukraine, announced it was time for “action not words”. The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, said Europe must turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine”, with urgent, extra arms deliveries.

Can the continent really act as one, though? Europe is a sum total of different countries with different-sized budgets and diverse domestic politics and priorities.

Europe’s aim in taking this defence action is two-fold:

First, to show Donald Trump that — in the words of the UK prime minister — Europe will now do the “heavy lifting” to defend itself. Europe hopes to persuade Trump to restart his military support of Ukraine, and to keep in place the current US security back-up for Europe as a whole, if he believes they are no longer “freeloading” off the United States.

But also, Europe’s leaders will need to urgently boost their own defences and support for Kyiv anyway, if Donald Trump turns away from Ukraine, and further down the line, from Europe more broadly in security terms.

It’s not only to Washington that Europe feels it has a point to prove.

Russia is watching too.

The various high-profile, big-pledging European emergency meetings must now produce speedy, impressive, practical results, otherwise in the Kremlin’s eyes, Europe looks weak and vulnerable.

Moscow has already gloated about the “splits” it sees in Western unity.

Donald Trump says he trusts Vladimir Putin but he’s been scathing about Nato allies and he called Ukraine’s president a dictator.

Russia knows that, for all Europe’s talk about now determinedly defending itself, any security expert you speak to admits that — at least in the short-to-medium term — Europe still needs the US.

That is why last week in Washington, we saw the French president and the UK prime minister, separately, wooing Donald Trump.

The US has filled the yawning gaps in European defence, left by years of chronic under-investment after the end of the Cold War.

The number of troops in Europe diminished with the end of conscription in most European countries. The US has roughly 100,000 troops and nuclear weapons in various parts of Europe under Nato’s nuclear sharing policy. Many of them are in non-nuclear, major European power Germany, which fears being severely exposed to Russia should Donald Trump withdraw support.

If the UK and France manage to assemble what they call a “coalition of the willing” — European countries that accept to send even a modest number of peacekeeping troops into Ukraine once a ceasefire is agreed — that could stretch European armies and expose gaps in Nato defences.

That is why Poland is unwilling to commit troops to that “coalition”. It says it needs to keep soldiers at home, to defend itself against Russia. It also fervently hopes the US won’t be pulling its troops out of Eastern Europe.

But Europe also relies on the US for military capabilities that ensure the smooth running of operations. These are known as “enablers”.

Ukraine leans heavily on US intelligence, for example, to maintain a strong hand against Russia.

But on Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that the US had cut off intelligence-sharing with Kyiv, in a move that could seriously affect the Ukrainian military’s ability to target Russian forces.

Any European peacekeeping or “reassurance” force in Ukraine would need US support to establish an air shield over Ukraine. Europe lacks air-to air refuelling capabilities, as well as munitions that could take out air defences in Russia if necessary.

These enablers “can’t be bought in a hurry at the local cash-and-carry”, as one European politician put it to me.

This is why the UK, France and others in Europe are so very keen to keep the US on board for as long and as much as possible.

“Some of my esteemed European colleagues should probably hold back from tweeting in anger,” one frustrated diplomat from a high-profile nation told me.

We were discussing European outrage at the treatment of Ukraine’s president by the US president and vice-president at the Oval Office on Friday.

“Real leadership is not about letting off steam online. It’s about finding the right words to constructively move forward, however complicated the situation.

“Do we need continued US support in Ukraine and Europe? Do we have more in common with the US than with China? Those are the fundamental questions we need to keep in mind.”

Another fundamental question for Europe is, of course, how much cash is needed and how fast to credibly boost defence.

On Ukraine, Europe could arguably quite easily replace current US support, if it put its mind to it.

Germany is the largest donor of military aid to Ukraine after the US. If other European powers followed its lead, it says, Ukraine defence would be covered for the foreseeable future.

Berlin and other northern European countries express resentment against France, for example, which they say, talks big about defending Ukraine – and is strong in leadership and strategy – but has in fact donated relatively little.

As for broader defence spending, the EU Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen declared on Tuesday that “Europe is in an era of re-armament”.

She suggested the EU alone could mobilise a total of 800bn euros for defence spending by:

1. Using its joint budget more creatively
2. Providing 150bn euros in loans to benefit the defence of the EU as a whole — so, for example, in air and missile defence, anti-drone systems, and military mobility
3. Suspending EU fiscal rules to allow individual EU countries to spend more on defence

EU leaders will debate her proposals and others at their summit on Thursday – including whether frozen Russian assets in Europe could be used in funding for Ukraine.

But potential and very public European splits loom large. Many fuelled by member states’ domestic politics.

Hungary, close to Russia and Donald Trump’s administration, is a spoke in the wheel of pretty much every EU debate to help Ukraine. Brussels fears Slovakia is going the same way.

Countries near Russia’s borders do not need to explain to voters why defence spending needs to be high. Tiny, exposed Baltic nations Estonia and Lithuania already spend over 3% of GDP on defence. They want to raise that to 5% in the near future.

Meanwhile, big European economies Italy and Spain, geographically much further from Russia, fail to spend the Nato minimum requirement of 2% of GDP on defence.

In Germany, France and the UK, according to a study by the London-based Focaldata research group, most voters want to maintain or reduce defence spending, preferring their government to focus on other voter priorities.

But Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte is warning Europeans to wake up and smell the coffee brewing in Washington and Moscow.

European nations need to spend more than 3% of GDP now to effectively wean the continent off its deep reliance on the US, he says.

If Donald Trump pulls out of Europe altogether, never mind Ukraine, that would mean spending 4-6% of GDP, according to defence experts: a political, social and economic earthquake Europe’s leaders hope they will not have to face.

US President Donald Trump has hit China with a second tariff in as many months, which means imports from there now face a levy of at least 20%.

This is his latest salvo against Beijing, which already faces steep US tariffs, from 100% on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 15% on clothes and shoes.

Trump’s tariffs strike at the heart of China’s manufacturing juggernaut – a web of factories, assembly lines and supply chains that manufacture and ship just about everything, from fast fashion and toys to solar panels and electric cars.

China’s trade surplus with the world rose to a record $1tn (£788bn) in 2024, on the back of strong exports ($3.5tn), which surpassed its import bill ($2.5tn).

China has long been the world’s factory – it has thrived because of cheap labour and state investment in infrastructure ever since it opened its economy to global business in the late 1970s.

So how badly could Trump’s trade war hurt China’s manufacturing success?

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

Most tariffs are set as a percentage of the value of the goods, and it’s generally the importer who pays them.

So, a 10% tariff means a product imported to the US from China worth $4 would face an additional $0.40 charge applied to it.

Increasing the price of imported goods is meant to encourage consumers to buy cheaper domestic products instead, thus helping to boost their own economy’s growth.

Trump sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. But economic studies of the impact of tariffs which Trump imposed during his first term in office, suggest the measures ultimately raised prices for US consumers.

Trump has said his most recent tariffs are aimed at pressuring China to do more to stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl to the US.

He also imposed 25% tariffs on America’s neighbours Mexico and Canada, saying its leaders were not doing enough to crack down on the cross-border illegal drug trade.

Yes, analysts say.

Exports have been the “saving grace” of China’s economy and if the taxes linger, exports to the US could drop by a quarter to a third, Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s analytics, told the BBC.

The sheer value of China’s exports – which account for a fifth of the country’s earnings – means that a 20% tariff could weaken demand from overseas and shrink the trade surplus.

“The tariffs will hurt China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis in Hong Kong, told the BBC. “They really need to do much more. They need to do what Xi Jinping has already said – boost domestic demand.”

That is a tall task in an economy where the property market is slumping and disillusioned youth are struggling to find high-paying jobs.

Chinese people have not been spending enough to recharge the economy – and Beijing has just announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost consumption.

While tariffs can slow Chinese manufacturing, they cannot stop or replace it that easily, analysts say.

“Not only is China the big exporter, it is sometimes the only exporter like for solar panels. If you want solar panels you can only go to China,” Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

China had begun pivoting from making garments and shoes to advanced tech such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) long before Trump became president. And that has given China an “early mover” advantage, not to mention the scale of production in the world’s second-largest economy.

Chinese factories can produce high-end tech in large quantities at a low cost, said Shuang Ding, chief China economist at Standard Chartered.

“It’s really difficult to find a replacement… China’s status as a market leader is very difficult to topple.”

China has responded with counter tariffs of 10-15% on US agricultural goods, coal, liquefied natural gas, pick-up trucks, and some sports cars.

And it has targeted US firms in aviation, defence and tech with export restrictions and announced an anti-monopoly investigation against Google.

China has also spent years adapting to tariffs from Trump’s first term. Some Chinese manufacturers have moved factories out of the country, for instance. And supply chains have come to rely more on Vietnam and Mexico by exporting from there to bypass the tariffs.

And yet, Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico would not hurt China too much because Vietnam is a bigger backdoor for Chinese goods, Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

“Vietnam is the key here. If tariffs are imposed on Vietnam, I think it will be very tough,” she said.

What concerns China more than tariffs, analysts says, is US restrictions on advanced chips.

These restrictions have been a major sticking point between the two countries but they have also fuelled China’s determination to invest in homegrown tech that is independent of the West.

It’s why Chinese AI firm DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley and unnerved Washington when it released a chatbot that rivals OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm had reportedly stockpiled Nvidia chips before the US began cutting off China’s access to the most advanced ones.

Although this could “impact China’s competitiveness, I don’t think that would affect China’s status as a manufacturing power,” Mr Ding of Standard Chartered said.

On the other hand, any ground China gains in advanced tech manufacturing will boost its high-value exports.

It happened because of state support, an unrivalled supply chain and cheap labour, analysts say.

“The combination of globalisation, as well as China’s pro-business policies and market potential, helped to attract the initial wave of foreign investors,” Chim Lee, an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told the BBC.

The government then doubled down, investing heavily in building a sprawling network of roads and ports to bring in raw materials and take Chinese-made goods to the world. What also helped was a stable exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the US dollar.

A shift in recent years towards advanced tech has made sure that it will continue to be relevant and ahead of its competitors, analysts say.

China already has plenty of economic clout from being a manufacturing powerhouse. But there is also a political opportunity as Trump’s tariffs upend America’s relationship with the world.

“The door is ajar for China to position itself as an advocate of free trade and a stable global force,” said Mr Cruise of Moody’s.

But that is not easy, given Beijing has been accused of flouting international trade norms, such as imposing a tariff of more than 200% on imports of Australian wine in 2020.

Analysts say China must also look beyond the US, which is still the top destination for its exports. China is the third-biggest market for US exports, after Canada and Mexico.

Chinese trade with Europe, South East Asia and Latin America has been growing, but it’s hard to imagine that the world’s two biggest economies can stop relying on each other.

After years of speculation, Tesla could finally be making its India debut.

The American electric vehicle (EV) giant has begun hiring for a dozen jobs in Delhi and Mumbai. It is also reportedly hunting for showrooms in both cities.

Asia’s third largest economy offers an interesting growth opportunity for Tesla’s futuristic cars as its global EV sales plummet and competition from Chinese manufacturers gets more intense.

But there’s a million-dollar question – can Tesla compete in India’s price-sensitive market?

Tata Motors currently holds pole position in India’s EV market – with over 60% market share. MG Motors – jointly owned by India’s JSW and a Chinese firm – is second at 22%. They are followed by Mahindra and Mahindra.

EVs made by these companies cost less than half of what consumers will have to shell out – around $40,000 (£31,637) – for just the base model of Tesla. It will, therefore, be seen as a luxury car, competing with higher-end EVs made by Hyundai, BMW and Mercedes.

Simply in volume terms, this will make India a tiny market for Tesla chief Elon Musk, unless the company introduces a low-cost model specifically for the country.

Besides price, India’s road conditions could pose a challenge.

Tesla cars have very low ground clearance – or the distance between the lowest point of the car’s undercarriage and the ground. This will make adapting to Indian roads difficult. To operate in the country, existing models may have to be re-engineered – which would drive up manufacturing costs.

Will Tesla do this just for one developing market where it could have only a small presence?

“It’s been a challenge even with other global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) at the high end with small volumes. You can’t justify these major engineering changes,” Hormazd Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India magazine, told the BBC.

Also, amidst all the hype, it is easy to forget that EV sales still make up less than 3% of overall passenger vehicle sales in India. Even critical ancillary infrastructure, like charging stations, have taken years to come up. While they have picked up pace, there are only around 25,000 charging stations across India.

In effect, Tesla will be jostling for space in a very small, albeit growing, EV market.

But at a policy level, India appears to be making every effort to woo the carmaker.

The country has outlined an ambitious national vision to go electric. It plans to have 30% of private cars, 70% of commercial cars, 40% of buses and 80% of two and three-wheelers go electric by 2030. Most provincial governments have also established their own EV policies to incentivise demand and supply.

Subsidies offered by India on electric cars are also the highest among major economies, according to HSBC Securities. They amount to as much as 46% of the price of the country’s top-selling electric car model.

It’s no surprise then that passenger EV sales have grown astronomically by over 2,000% in less than five years – going from a low base of 4,700 annually to a 100,000 cars.

“The price difference between regular cars and EVs has reduced a lot, making customers rethink their choice,” says Jyoti Gulia, founder of JMK Research.

In April last year, India also cut import taxes on EVs for global carmakers which committed to investing $500m (£400m) and starting local production within three years.

Tesla and other imported electric vehicles costing over $35,000 (£27,550) can now enjoy a lower import duty of 15% on up to 8,000 vehicles. This came after Musk complained that high import duties had prevented the firm from launching its cars in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

“It’s quite clever, as it forces a global player to localise – which is the way the game works: come and build in India,” says Sorabjee.

The proposed policy could put Indian domestic carmakers at a disadvantage, however, given that the investment requirement for foreign players is “not significant” compared to Indian players in this segment, an HSBC research paper warns.

Import duty of 15% is also “much lower” than the tax on comparable combustion engine cars in India which also pay an additional road tax, according to HSBC.

Domestic EV players say having a “level playing field” is important, but appear unperturbed by Tesla’s impending entry for now.

“We welcome competition,” Rajesh Jejurikar, Mahindra and Mahindra’s Executive Director and CEO, told the BBC. His company feels that more players will strengthen India’s existing EV ecosystem and is working to improve the appeal of their offerings.

Critical issues like “range anxiety” – the worry whether an EV’s battery charge will be enough to complete a journey – have been addressed through “robust battery integration and rigorous real-world testing across diverse road conditions”, says Mr Jejurikar, adding that the brand is deploying cutting-edge technology into their product.

It will be hard to beat Tesla’s edge in this area though, and coupled with sturdier batteries and a better user interface, it will certainly differentiate Tesla cars from others in the market, says Sorabjee.

What might also give Tesla tailwind is the rising share of premium vehicles in the Indian auto market. As a global brand with a perceived “cool quotient”, owning a Tesla will be a status symbol for the young, aspirational Indian population.

But none of this – India’s EV policy or the growing demand for premium cars among India’s affluent – has yet led to a commitment from Tesla to put manufacturing dollars into an EV facility.

For now, it appears the carmaker will only ship units from its factories abroad.

When that changes will depend on a lot of things – how quickly India’s affluent consumer base widens, and what tariff structures look like once India completes trade negotiations with the US.

President Donald Trump has already voiced displeasure over Tesla potentially building a factory in India to avoid high tariffs. In an interview with Fox News recently, he said that this would be “unfair” to the US.

Could Trump’s ‘America First’ policy diminish Musk’s appetite for starting manufacturing units in India then?

The question is moot, but for now it does look like India will first get glitzy Tesla showrooms for its rich, rather than job-creating Tesla factories for its under-employed masses.

US actor Jesse Eisenberg has been awarded Polish citizenship by President Andrzej Duda, after telling the story of the Jewish population during World War Two in his Oscar-winning film A Real Pain.

Eisenberg wrote, directed and starred in the film, about two American cousins who travel to Poland to honour their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, who was based on Eisenberg’s own great aunt.

He told the citizenship ceremony: “While we were filming this movie in Poland, and I was walking the streets and starting to get a little more comfortable in the country, something so obvious occurred to me, which is that my family had lived in this place for far longer than we lived in New York.

“And of course, the history ended so tragically.”

He continued: “In addition to that tragedy of history is also the tragedy that my family didn’t feel any connection any more to Poland, and that saddened me and confirmed for me that I really wanted to try to reconnect as much as possible.

“And I really hope that tonight in this ceremony and this amazing honour is the first step of me, and on behalf of my family, reconnecting to this beautiful country.”

Eisenberg was inspired to make A Real Pain after the death of his great aunt Doris at the age of 106 in 2019. She grew up in Poland but fled to the US in 1938. Other family members who remained in Poland were killed during the Holocaust.

President Duda said: “I am delighted that people from across the ocean acknowledge their heritage, recognise that their ancestors hail from the Republic [of Poland] and seek to forge a connection with our country.”

Eisenberg was nominated for an Oscar for writing the film, while his co-star Kieran Culkin won the award for best supporting actor.

A new part of the immune system has been discovered and it is a goldmine of potential antibiotics, scientists have said.

They’ve shown a part of the body known to recycle proteins has a secret mode that can spew out an arsenal of bacteria-killing chemicals.

The researchers in Israel say it transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection.

And gives a new place to look for antibiotics to tackle the growing problem of superbugs that resist our current drugs.

The discovery centres on the proteasome – a tiny structure that is found in every cell of the body.

Its main role is to chop up old proteins into smaller chunks so they can be recycled to make new ones.

But a series of experiments, detailed in the journal Nature, shows the proteasome detects when a cell has been infected by bacteria.

It then changes structure and role. It starts transforming old proteins into weapons that can rip open the outer layer of bacteria to kill them.

Prof Yifat Merbl, from the Weizmann Institute of Science, told me: “This is really exciting, because we never knew that this was happening.

“We discovered a novel mechanism of immunity that is allowing us to have a defense against bacterial infection.

“It’s happening throughout our body in all the cells, and generates a whole new class of potential natural antibiotics.”

The research team went through a process they called “dumpster diving” to find these natural antibiotics.

They were tested on bacteria growing in the laboratory and on mice with pneumonia and sepsis. The researchers said they were getting results comparable to some established antibiotics.

And when the researchers took cells in the laboratory and disabled the proteasome they were far easier to infect with bacteria like Salmonella.

Prof Daniel Davis, the head of life sciences and an immunologist at Imperial College London, said the findings were “extremely provocative and very interesting” as they changed our understanding of how our body fights infection.

“What’s really exciting about this, is it’s a totally undiscovered process by which anti-germ molecules are made inside our cells, it feels profoundly important and surprising.”

But he cautioned that turning this into a new source of antibiotics is an idea that “still needs to be tested” and that will take time.

More than a million people a year are estimated to die from infections that are resistant to drugs like antibiotics.

But despite the need, there has been a lack of research into developing new antibiotics to keep up with demand.

Against that bleak background, having somewhere new to look is a source of optimism for some scientists.

Dr Lindsey Edwards, a senior lecturer in microbiology at King’s College London, told the BBC: “It’s a potential goldmine for new antibiotics, that’s quite exciting.

“In previous years it’s been digging up soil [to find new antibiotics], it is wild that it’s something we have within us, but comes down to having the technology to be able to detect these things.”

She also says there could be fewer issues with developing them into drugs because they are already products of the human body so the “safety side of it might be a lot easier”.

Pope Francis was well-rested and woke up just after 08:00 local time (07:00 GMT) on Wednesday, the Vatican said.

The Vatican said the Pontiff – who has been in hospital since February to receive treatment for pneumonia – spent the night on “non-invasive mechanical ventilation” and is now back on a high-flow oxygen mask.

He is free from fever, “always alert, co-operative with therapies and well-oriented”, the Vatican said in a statement. On Tuesday evening, they had said the Pope was stable after suffering two episodes of respiratory failure the day before.

Meanwhile, the Pope’s traditional Wednesday audience with Catholics has been cancelled for the third week.

The Vatican has published a text instead, but it contains no current references and appears to have been written some time ago.

The Pope will also be unable to participate in events planned to mark Ash Wednesday which is the first day of Lent, the six-week period that leads up to Easter.

In Rome, Catholics will take part in a procession to the Santa Sabina Basilica where the Pope would normally attend and say mass. This year the service will be taken instead by one of the Cardinals.

He does not have any planned visitors and there is no mention of him doing any work in hospital, even reading, as there was previously.

After Monday’s episodes, the Pope had begun using an oxygen mask and ventilator to assist his breathing.

It was the second time the mechanical intervention had been used, after spending two days on the ventilator following an “isolated” breathing crisis involving vomiting on Friday, the Vatican said.

In Tuesday’s update, the Holy See said Pope Francis had switched back to high-flow oxygen therapy.

During the day, he alternated prayer and rest. On Tuesday morning, he received the Eucharist, it added.

He has been unable to deliver his traditional Angelus prayer in person on each of the last three Sundays.

The 88-year-old was admitted to hospital on 14 February after experiencing breathing difficulties for several days.

He was first treated for bronchitis before being diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs.

The pontiff is particularly susceptible to pneumonia, an infection of the lungs that can be caused by bacteria, viruses or fungi, after he contracted pleurisy – an inflammation of the lungs – as a young man and had a partial lung removal.

Vatican sources stress, as they have all along, that the Pope’s condition remains complex – his doctors remain cautious – and he is not out of danger.

The US and Israel have rejected an Arab plan for the post-war reconstruction of the Gaza Strip that would allow the 2.1 million Palestinians living there to stay in place.

The proposal, endorsed by Arab leaders at a summit in Cairo, is their alternative to President Donald Trump’s idea for the US to take over Gaza and permanently resettle its population.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas welcomed the Arab plan, which calls for Gaza to be governed temporarily by a committee of independent experts and for international peacekeepers to be deployed there.

But both the White House and Israeli foreign ministry said it failed to address realities in Gaza and stood by Trump’s vision.

The summit took place amid growing concern that Gaza’s fragile ceasefire deal could collapse after the six-week first phase expired last Saturday.

Israel has blocked aid from entering the territory to pressure Hamas to accept a new US proposal for a temporary extension of the truce, during which more hostages held in Gaza would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has insisted the second phase should begin as agreed, leading to an end of the war and a full Israeli troop withdrawal.

The $53bn (£41bn) Arab plan for rebuilding Gaza once the war ends was presented by Egypt at an emergency Arab League summit on Tuesday.

A statement endorsing the plan stressed “the categorical rejection of any form of displacement of the Palestinian people”, describing such an idea as “a gross violation of international law, a crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing”.

The plan envisages reconstruction taking place over three phases and taking five years, during which some 1.5 million displaced Gazans would be moved into 200,000 prefabricated housing units and 60,000 repaired homes.

In the first phase, which would last six months and cost $3bn, millions of tonnes of rubble and any unexploded ordnance would be cleared.

The second phase, lasting two years and costing $20bn, would see housing and utilities rebuilt. An airport, two seaports and an industrial zone would be built during the third phase, which would take another two years and cost $30bn.

The Arab plan also proposes that an “administrative committee” made up of independent Palestinian technocrats run post-war Gaza for a transitional period while “working towards empowering the Palestinian Authority to return”.

Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US, UK and others – took full control of Gaza in 2007, ousting forces from the Fatah-dominated PA in violent clashes a year after winning parliamentary elections. The PA was left governing parts of the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the PA, told the summit that he welcomed the Arab plan and urged Donald Trump to support it.

Hamas said it appreciated “the Arab position rejecting attempts to displace our people”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any future role in Gaza for Hamas or the PA.

However, Israel’s foreign ministry swiftly rejected the Arab League’s statement endorsing the Egyptian plan, saying it “fails to address the realities of the situation following 7 October 2023, remaining rooted in outdated perspectives”.

“Now, with President Trump’s idea, there is an opportunity for the Gazans to have free choice based on their free will. This should be encouraged!” it added.

“Instead, Arab states have rejected this opportunity, without giving it a fair chance, and continue to level baseless accusations against Israel.”

White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes said the Arab plan did “not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordnance.”

“President Trump stands by his vision to rebuild Gaza free from Hamas. We look forward to further talks to bring peace and prosperity to the region.”

Trump proposed last month that the US would “own” Gaza and relocate its population, so that it could be rebuilt and turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

He said the displaced Palestinians would have no right of return because they would have “much better housing” in Egypt, Jordan and other countries.

The Assistant Secretary General of the Arab League, Hossam Zaki, told the BBC on Wednesday that Trump’s approach was unacceptable.

“It is based on the forced displacement of Palestinians out of their homes and of their land. This is against international law and, we have said this time and again, this is not a way to treat this man-made crisis,” he said.

“This is a war that has been waged by Israel partly with the aim of driving Palestinians out of their territory,” he added.

He also described the Israeli foreign ministry’s response to the Arab plan as “against humanity and against morals”.

Palestinians fear a repeat of the Nakba – the Arabic word for “catastrophe” – when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven from their homes before and during the war that followed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Many of those refugees ended up in Gaza, where they and their descendants make up three-quarters of the population. Another 900,000 registered refugees live in the West Bank, while 3.4 million others live in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the UN.

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.

More than 48,400 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of Gaza’s population has also been displaced multiple times. Almost 70% of buildings are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

Dozens of people in the Sudanese state of North Darfur are feared dead following heavy shelling on a camp for displaced people.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) attacked a crowded market at Abu Shouk, a camp on the outskirts of the city of el-Fasher, for roughly two hours on Tuesday evening, a local official told the BBC.

The camp is home to over half a million displaced people and the assault on its market is the second in three days.

El-Fasher is the last major town in Darfur under army control and has been under siege by the RSF for almost a year.

Tuesday’s attack on Abu Shouk took place at the busiest time of day. The camp’s population are mostly Muslims, who are observing the holy month of Ramadan, and many were out shopping at the market, preparing to break their fast for the day.

The shelling caused several injuries, ranging from mild to severe, Dr Ibrahim Nadyan, a medic at el-Fasher’s last functioning hospital, told the BBC.

Abu Shouk was also shelled by the RSF on Sunday, in an attack that that killed six civilians, local health volunteers said.

The RSF has not commented on either Sunday or Tuesday’s attack.

Since it erupted in April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions from their homes and left many facing famine.

Both the RSF and the army have been accused of committing atrocities, with the RSF accused of committed a genocide in Darfur against the region’s non-Arabic groups.

The conflict has split the country, with the army controlling the north and the east, while the RSF holds most of the Darfur region in the west and parts of the south.

In recent weeks, the army has retaken parts of Khartoum and surrounding areas from the RSF.

Food prices in Gaza have risen sharply and aid food parcels could soon run out after Israel blocked the entry of humanitarian aid, the UN’s humanitarian agency said.

OCHA’s partners reported that flour and vegetable prices had more than doubled in some cases, with Gazans telling the BBC the same.

If the blockade continued, “at least 80 community kitchens may soon run out of stock” and remaining food parcels that “will support 500,000 people, will soon run out”, OCHA said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to stop aid at the weekend, accusing Hamas of stealing supplies and refusing a US proposal to extend the Gaza ceasefire. A Hamas spokesman said the halt was “cheap blackmail”.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling the humanitarian situation in Gaza “catastrophic” and expressing deep concern at Israel’s action.

“A halt on goods and supplies entering Gaza, such as that announced by the government of Israel would risk violating international humanitarian law,” the statement read. “Humanitarian aid should never be contingent on a ceasefire or used as a political tool.”

The ministers said it was vital that the ceasefire was sustained, all hostages held by Hamas were released, and continued flows of aid were ensured.

Thousands of aid trucks had surged into Gaza each week under the ceasefire deal that started on 19 January.

After the ceasefire’s first phase expired on Saturday night, Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of stealing aid “to finance its terror machine”.

Hamas has previously denied stealing humanitarian aid in Gaza.

Netanyahu also said Hamas was refusing to accept a six-week ceasefire extension, under different terms from those previously agreed, as proposed by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff.

After the halt of aid in response, OCHA said on Tuesday that some community kitchens which remain operational “will need to start to adjust meal content or reduce the number of meals prepared to cope with anticipated shortages”.

Partners would also “be forced to reduce food rations”. While they are distributing previously dispatched food parcels, remaining supplies are expected to run out.

Abu Qais Aryan, from Khan Younis, told BBC Arabic the cost of basic goods doubled over Sunday night. Prices had already doubled or tripled since the war began, he said.

Other residents said the price of a 1kg (2.2lb) of tomatoes rose overnight from five shekels ($1.38; £1.07) to 10, and a 1kg of cucumbers from six to 17 shekels.

“We could barely afford to buy a kilo of tomatoes just to satisfy our hunger,” said one man, Issam, adding that people could not buy food “because there is no cash liquidity”.

Issa Meit, from Gaza City, said there was a shortage of goods and very high consumption, and he was “very afraid that prices will increase again”.

“The recent decision is unfair as it wrongs our children. How will our children live in light of these high prices that will increase in an arbitrary way?” he said.

Some blamed merchants for hiking prices, saying they were exploiting the situation.

Merchant Mahmoud Abu Mohsen told BBC Arabic he raised prices because the wholesalers he purchases from did as well.

“For example, I used to buy sugar for five shekels, three shekels, or four shekels, but now I buy sugar for six shekels, meaning I don’t make more than a small profit,” he said. “The news that Netanyahu announced is what caused a stir among the people.”

A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Caroline Seguin, told the BBC on Wednesday that in Gaza City, the price of just over 2lb (900g) of sugar had risen from just over $1 (78p) to $5.

In Khan Younis and Gaza City, the cost of a carton of 30 eggs had shot up around 150%, she added.

“The news has created uncertainty and fear, causing food prices to spike,” Ms Seguin said in an earlier statement. “Israel is once again blocking an entire population from receiving aid, using it as a bargaining chip. This is unacceptable, outrageous, and will have devastating consequences.”

Qatar and Egypt, which helped mediate the ceasefire along with the US, condemned Israel’s move.

Qatar’s foreign ministry called the decision “a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement” and “international humanitarian law” in a statement.

Egypt’s foreign ministry accused Israel of using starvation as “a weapon against the Palestinian people”.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said in a video briefing that “Hamas has hoarded for months and months of supplies. They have enough food to fuel an obesity epidemic.”

“The supplies are there but Hamas doesn’t share,” he added.

A month ago, OCHA said more than a million people – roughly half of Gaza’s population – had received food assistance since the ceasefire began.

All aid, not just food, is affected by the blockade.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) said that inside Gaza, it had some medicine in reserve for its clinics and assistive devices for people with disabilities, in addition to hygiene kits.

“However, we don’t currently have high aid reserves as most items entering were for immediate distribution,” the charity said.

Ms Seguin said even though it appeared MSF’s medical supplies would last for a few months, “it doesn’t mean that we haven’t been consistently running short of essentials”.

The main concern for the health system, she said, was fuel for generators at hospitals to ensure ventilators and other critical medical equipment continued to work.

She said “the consequences will be at the cost of the people in Gaza”.

The ceasefire aimed to end 15 months of conflict, which erupted after Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took another 251 hostage in its attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Israel responded with an air and ground campaign in Gaza that killed at least 48,405 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The true story of a British couple who spent four months adrift on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean, after their boat was sunk by a whale, has been named the best book of last year at a prestigious ceremony.

Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love, by Sophie Elmhirst, won the £30,000 Gold Prize at the Nero Book Awards, on Wednesday.

It tells the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, who sold their Derbyshire bungalow to build a boat and set sail for New Zealand, in 1972, but had to survive at sea for 118 days after it sank.

Author Bill Bryson, who chaired the judges, called it “an enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit”.

The Baileys set off in search of adventure in 1972 but struck disaster the following year, en route to the Galapagos Islands.

After the whale cracked a hole in their boat’s hull, they had time to deploy their 4ft (1.2m) life raft and rescue a small amount of rations.

Maralyn crafted a fishing line, using a safety pin from a first-aid kit and a piece of string, and survived on raw fish, turtles and small sharks.

She also invented card and word games and made dominoes out of scraps of paper, to keep their minds occupied.

Elmhirst, a journalist, came across the Baileys on a website dedicated to castaway stories, and set about researching their journey using Maralyn’s diary and books Maurice published after their rescue.

Her book won the Nero Book Awards Non-Fiction category in January and has now won the overall Gold Prize for Book of the Year 2024.

Bryson said: “Impressively novelistic in its narrative approach, it is a gripping retelling of a true but forgotten story.

“It is a story of a marriage as much as of an adventure at sea, one that subtly explores the dynamics of a relationship under the greatest imaginable stress.”

Elmhirst’s writing was “understated but powerful, immersing the reader intimately in the unfolding drama and the horror of struggling to survive against the odds with very few resources”, he added.

The other judges were novelist Bernardine Evaristo and journalist Emily Maitlis.

“We unanimously agreed that Maurice and Maralyn is a non-fiction work that reaches the highest literary eminence,” Bryson added.

The Nero Book Awards are the successors to the Costa Book Awards and were founded in 2023.

The Nero Book Awards winners:

• Gold Prize and Non-Fiction: Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love, by Sophie Elmhirst
• Fiction: Lost in the Garden, by Adam S Leslie
• Debut Fiction: Wild Houses, by Colin Barrett
• Children’s Fiction: The Twelve, by Liz Hyder

On Wednesday, in a series of high-stakes diplomatic episodes around the globe, Trump’s free-wheeling attitude toward foreign policy was on full display, playing out in real time through posts on his Truth Social account.

For his supporters, it was the president’s “art of the deal” in action, using every negotiating tool and tactic at his disposal.

For critics, it was another day of disruption for its own sake – with little apparent concern for the risks involved or the potential consequences.

Wednesday began with news that the US is directly negotiating with Hamas leaders for the release of American hostages still in Gaza. Contacting a group designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US since 1997 represents a dramatic shift away from decades of US policy.

The Biden administration relied on intermediaries during its attempts to end the Gaza war. And Trump previously condemned Hamas for committing “atrocities against humanity” during its 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, calling its members “vicious and violent”.

• Fact-checking Trump’s address to Congress
• China says it is ready for ‘any type of war’ with US

But for Trump, it seems, the old playbook wasn’t working – and he was willing to risk appearing hypocritical, of bypassing US ally Israel, and of sitting down with a designated terror group to advance his deal-making goals.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office responded with a terse statement, saying only that it had “expressed its position” on the talks.

By the end of the day, after meeting in the Oval Office with some previously released American hostages, Trump again turned up the heat on the group. He took to Truth Social to call it “sick and twisted” and issue a “last warning” that if members didn’t release all the hostages there would be “hell to pay”.

“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,” he wrote, “not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.”

Laura Blumenfeld, a former senior Israeli-Palestinian policy adviser to the US state department, told the BBC that Trump’s message to Hamas was an ultimatum.

“The deal, though, with these ultimatums is you have to deliver,” she said, “and we saw last month when Trump said you’ve got a high noon deadline on Saturday, release the hostages, or else, there was no or else.

“And Hamas called them out. They said, President Trump, your threats have no meaning.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt had earlier placed the president’s dramatic changes of course into the context of Trump’s larger foreign policy, telling reporters that “dialogue and talking to people around the world” is a part of his “good faith effort to do what’s right for the American people”.

The White House has employed similar logic to Trump’s recent efforts to thaw US relations with Moscow, including dispatching high-level administration officials to Saudi Arabia to meet directly with a Russian delegation.

That dramatic diplomatic about-face accompanied sharp criticism of Ukraine and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, which culminated in Friday’s heated meeting in the Oval Office. An announcement followed this week saying that the US had suspended arms shipments, and another on Wednesday said intelligence-sharing with the war-torn nation was paused.

• Six takeaways from Trump’s big speech
• Lesotho shocked by Trump’s remarks that ‘nobody has heard of the country’
• Young Republicans cheer Trump on from Texas watch party

Trump’s actions left America’s European allies rattled – and the consequences of that may not yet be fully appreciated. But his efforts to exploit Ukraine’s pressure point – withholding aid and information – appear to have produced the intended result.

Zelensky on Tuesday sent a conciliatory letter to Trump proposing a limited ceasefire, and US and Ukrainian officials resumed talks on Wednesday about a mineral deal to compensate America for aid expenditures.

If Trump’s goal is to encourage Ukraine and Russia to enter peace talks, he has effectively brought Zelensky to heel, even as it remains unclear what concessions he is asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to make during those negotiations.

Sometimes, even with Trump, the pressure points go in the other direction.

A month ago, he announced sweeping new tariffs on Canada and Mexico, only to back away from them at the last moment. This week he allowed those 25% levies to go into effect – at least for a day.

After two days of sharp declines in the US stock market, the White House appeared to dial back the severity of these tariffs somewhat, announcing that it was granting a one-month exemption for automobiles imported from Canada and Mexico.

US car manufacturers warned that the new tariffs could devastate the industry, leading to plant closings within a matter of weeks.

Trump spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday, and offered his own readout – via Truth Social – on what he said was a “somewhat friendly” call, even as he accused the “governor” of Canada of using the trade issue to “stay in power”.

While Zelensky quickly backed down under White House pressure and the Hamas talks are only beginning, Trudeau and the Canadians, for their part, appear to be settling in for a longer fight.

Trump’s convention-breaking playbook may be shaking things up this week, but it’s far from clear if they will deliver the kind of wins he wants.

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

US President Donald Trump has issued what he called a “last warning” to Hamas to release the hostages being held in Gaza.

“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say,” Trump said in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform.

It comes just hours after the White House confirmed it is holding direct talks with Hamas over the hostages.

Washington has until now avoided direct engagement with the group, and there is a longstanding US policy against having direct contact with entities it lists as terrorist organisations.

• Gaza food prices spike after Israel halts aid deliveries
• Stories of the hostages taken by Hamas from Israel

In his social media post, Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released, while not specifying the nature of the support he was sending Israel.

“Release all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you,” he added.

“For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance.”

He also appeared to threaten civilians: “Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD!”

It’s not the first time Trump has threatened Hamas. In December, he said there would be “all hell to pay” if hostages were not released by the time he took office.

The post came after Trump met with a group of hostages in the White House who had been recently released under the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the US has been negotiating directly with Hamas to try to secure the release of the hostages.

Israel had been consulted prior to the talks, she added.

President Trump believed in doing what was in the best interest of the American people, Leavitt told reporters.

The special envoy for hostages, Adam Boehler’s work was a “good faith effort to do what’s right for the American people”, she added.

“Two direct meetings” have taken place between Hamas and a US official, “preceded by several communications”, a Palestinian source told the BBC.

Israel said there are still 59 hostages being held in Gaza, with up to 24 believed to be alive. US citizens are also among the captives.

News of the talks was first reported by Axios, which said the two sides were meeting in Qatar to discuss the release of US hostages as well as a wider deal to end the war.

A former US deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for the Middle East said the US needs to be “more proactive” about getting its citizens back.

Mick Mulroy, who is also an ex-CIA paramilitary officer, added that “it could complicate the Israelis’ ability to get their citizens back if not tightly coordinated”.

Israel’s prime minister’s office said in a statement it has “expressed its position” regarding the direct talks, but did not provide any further information.

According to reports, Boehler met with Hamas representatives in the Qatari capital, Doha, in recent weeks.

Hamas has had a base in Doha since 2012, reportedly at the request of the Obama administration.

The small but influential Gulf state is a key US ally in the region. It hosts a major American air base and has handled many delicate political negotiations, including with Iran, the Taliban and Russia.

Alongside the US and Egypt, Qatar has also played a major role in talks to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Two years ago, on his bank adviser’s suggestion, Rajesh Kumar pulled out his savings – fixed deposits included – and shifted to mutual funds, stocks and bonds.

With India’s stock market booming, Mr Kumar, a Bihar-based engineer, joined millions investing in publicly traded companies. Six years ago, only one in 14 Indian households channelled their savings into the stock market – now, it’s one in five.

But the tide has turned.

For six months, India’s markets have slid as foreign investors pulled out, valuations remained high, earnings weakened and global capital shifted to China – wiping out $900bn in investor value since their September peak. While the decline began before US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements, they have now become a bigger drag as more details emerge.

India’s benchmark Nifty 50 share index, which tracks the country’s top 50 publicly traded companies, is on its longest losing streak in 29 years, declining for five straight months. This is a significant slump in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets. Stock brokers are reporting that their activity has dropped by a third.

“For more than six months now, my investments have been in the red. This is the worst experience in the last decade that I have been invested in stock market,” Mr Kumar says.

Mr Kumar, 55, now keeps little money in the bank, having shifted most of his savings to the stock market. With his son’s 1.8 million-rupee ($20,650; £16,150) private medical college fee due in July, he worries about selling investments at a loss to cover it. “Once the market recovers, I’m thinking of moving some money back to the bank,” he says.

His anxieties reflect those of millions of middle-class Indians who have poured into the stock market from cities big and small – part of a financial revolution.

The go-to investment route is Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs), where funds collect fixed monthly contributions. The number of Indians investing through SIPs has soared past 100 million, nearly trebling from 34 million five years ago. Many first-time investors, lured by the promise of high returns, enter with limited risk awareness – often influenced by a wave of social media “finfluencers” on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, a mixed bag of experts and amateurs alike.

Meet Tarun Sircar, a retired marketing manager, and you get a glimpse of India’s new investor.

When his public provident fund – a government-backed tax-free investment – matured last year, he sought a way to secure his retirement. Burnt by past stock market losses, he turned to mutual funds – this time with an adviser’s help and a buoyant market.

“I’ve put 80% of my savings into mutual funds, keeping just 20% in the bank. Now my adviser warns me – Don’t check your investments for six months, unless you want a heart attack!”

For now, Mr Sircar isn’t entirely sure if moving his retirement fund into the stock market was the right decision. “I’m both ignorant and confident,” he says with wry candour. “Ignorant about what’s happening and why the market is reacting this way, yet confident because Instagram ‘experts’ make investing sound like a fast track to millions. At the same time, I know I might be caught in a web of deception and hype.”

Mr Sircar says he was drawn to the markets by TV shows hyping stocks and excited chatter in WhatsApp groups. “The TV anchors talk up the market and people in my WhatsApp group boast about their stock market gains,” he says.

In his sprawling apartment complex, even teenagers discuss investments – in fact, during a badminton game, a teenager gave him a hot tip on a telecom stock. “When you hear all this around you, you start thinking – why not give it a shot? So I did, and then the markets crashed.”

Mr Sircar lives in hope. “My fingers are crossed. I am sure the markets will recover, and my fund will be back in green.”

There are others who have taken more risks and already lost money. Lured by get-rich-quick videos, Ramesh (name changed), an accounting clerk from a small industrial town in western India, borrowed money to invest in stocks during the pandemic.

Hooked to YouTube influencers, he dived into risky penny stocks and trading in derivatives. This month, after losing over $1,800 – more than his annual salary – he shut his brokerage account and swore off the market.

“I borrowed this money, and now creditors are after me,” he says.

Ramesh is one of 11 million Indians who lost a combined $20bn in futures and options trades before regulators stepped in.

“This crash is unlike the one during the Covid pandemic,” says financial adviser Samir Doshi. “Back then, we had a clear path to recovery with vaccines on the horizon. But with the Trump factor in play, uncertainty looms – we simply don’t know what’s next.”

Fuelled by digital platforms, low-cost brokerages and government-driven financial inclusion, investing has become more accessible – smartphones and user-friendly apps have simplified market participation, drawing a broader, younger audience seeking alternatives to traditional assets.

On the flip side, many new Indian investors need a reality check. “The stock market isn’t a gambling den – you must manage expectations,” says Monika Halan, author and financial educator. “Invest in equity only what you won’t need for at least seven years. If you’re taking on risk, understand the downside: How much could I lose? Can I afford that loss?”

This market crash couldn’t have hit India’s middle class at a worse time. Economic growth is slowing, wages remain stagnant, private investment has been sluggish for years and job creation isn’t keeping pace. Amid these challenges, many new investors, lured by rising markets, are now grappling with unexpected losses.

“In normal times, savers can take short-term setbacks, because they have steady incomes, which keep adding to their savings,” noted Aunindyo Chakravarty, a financial analyst.

“Now, we are in the midst of a massive economic crisis for the middle-class. On the one side, white-collar job opportunities are reducing, and raises are low. On the other, the real inflation faced by middle-class households – as opposed to the average retail inflation that the government compiles – is at its highest in recent memory. A stock market correction at such a time is disastrous for middle-class household finances.”

Financial advisers like Jaideep Marathe believe that some people will start taking money out of the market and move them to safer bank deposits if the volatility continues for another six to eight months. “We are spending a lot of time telling clients not to liquidate their portfolios and to treat this as a cyclical event.”

But clearly, all hope is not lost – most believe that the market is correcting itself from previous highs.

Foreign investor selling has eased since February, suggesting the market downturn may be nearing its end, says veteran market expert Ajay Bagga. Following the correction, valuations for many stock market indices have dipped below their 10-year average, providing some respite.

Mr Bagga expects GDP and corporate earnings to improve, aided by a $12bn income-tax giveaway in the federal budget and falling interest rates. However, geopolitical risks – Middle East and Ukraine conflicts, and Trump’s tariff plans – will keep investors cautious.

In the end, the market meltdown might serve as a hard lesson for new investors.

“This correction is a much-needed wake-up call for those who entered the market just three years ago, enjoying 25% returns – that’s not normal,” says Ms Halan. “If you don’t understand markets, stick to bank deposits and gold. At least you have control.”

EU leaders are gathering in Brussels on Thursday for a special council on defence, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned that the continent was at a “turning point of history”.

As well as rearmament, leaders are expected to discuss how the body can further support Kyiv in the face of US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday that he would suspend aid to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky is invited to the summit.

Nerves have grown increasingly frayed across Europe since Trump and Zelensky’s showdown at the White House last week, and the rhetoric around Thursday’s summit leaves no doubt about the importance EU officials are ascribing to it.

Three years on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration’s overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin have left many in Europe concerned the continent would not be able to rely on US support for its security.

Washington’s decision on Wednesday to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine did nothing to allay those worries.

• Katya Adler: Fractured Europe seeks credible answers on Ukraine
• Can Europe fill the gap now the US has paused military support for Ukraine?
• How US intelligence impacts Ukraine’s military operation

In a sign of the depth of concern, President Macron said France was open to discussing extending the protection offered by its nuclear arsenal to its European partners, during an address to the nation on Wednesday.

That followed a call from Friedrich Merz, likely to be Germany’s next chancellor, to discuss increased nuclear sharing.

Europe was facing a “clear and present danger on a scale that none of us have seen in our adult lifetime”, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said, while European Council President António Costa said this was a “defining moment for Ukraine and European security”.

In a letter to European leaders, von der Leyen also said the continent had to “meet the moment” and “unleash our industrial and productive power and direct it to the goal of security”.

On Monday, von der Leyen announced an unprecedented defence package – dubbed ReArm Europe – and said that Europe was ready to “massively” boost its defence spending “with the speed and the ambition that is needed”.

Von der Leyen said the three proposals outlined in the ReArm Europe plan would both support Ukraine and “address the long-term need to take much more responsibility” for European security – likely referring to the fact many Europeans feel the continent can no longer automatically rely on the US to come to its aid.

• Allowing countries to increase national deficit levels to give room for more defence spending
• €150bn (£125bn) in loans for defence investment in domains that could benefit the defence of the EU as a whole – for example, air and missile defence, anti-drone systems, and military mobility – helping pool demand, and reduce costs through joint procurement
• Allowing countries to redirect funds earmarked for cohesion policy programmes (policies aimed at levelling the differences between more and less advantaged regions) to defence spending

The European Investment Bank would also be allowed to finance military projects.

According to von der Leyen, the plan could free up a total of €800bn ($860bn; £670bn) in defence expenditure.

Many European leaders have signalled their support for swift, decisive action in regards to the continent’s security.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said the Commission’s plan represented “a fundamental shift”, while Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said that the summit would give Europe the opportunity to show “whether it’s just a debate club or whether we can make decisions”.

But dissent from certain European leaders sympathetic to Moscow is expected.

Earlier this week, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said the EU’s “peace through strength” approach was “unrealistic”.

And in a letter to Costa, Hungary’s Viktor Orban demanded that Ukraine not be mentioned in any written conclusions following the summit.

Orban – who has repeatedly attempted to block EU aid to Ukraine and has praised Trump for “standing bravely for peace” – said there was now a “strategic divide… between the majority of Europe and the USA”.

“One side insists on prolonging the war in Ukraine, while the other seeks an end to the conflict,” he added.

Yet Orban left the door open for a “greater probability for cooperation” with other leaders over issues of common security and defence.

While Thursday’s crisis summit is taking place in Brussels, UK Defence Secretary John Healey will be in Washington for discussions with his counterpart Pete Hegseth on the US decision to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Their bilateral meeting will focus on a possible peace plan while efforts continue to bridge a transatlantic rift over Kyiv’s future security.

Perhaps in a final bid to try and achieve unity ahead of the summit, Emmanuel Macron – who has positioned himself at the centre of the EU’s efforts to bridge the gap between Kyiv and Washington – invited Orban to have dinner in Paris on Wednesday evening.

The two leaders met immediately after the French president gave a sombre address to the nation in which he said that France and Europe needed to be ready if the US was no longer by their side.

“We have to be united and determined to protect ourselves,” Macron said. He added that the future of Europe could not be tied to Washington or Moscow, and said that while he “wanted to believe that the US will stay by our side, we have to be ready for this not to be the case”.

The French president plans to hold a meeting of European army chiefs in Paris next week.

Macron said that “decisive steps” would be taken in Brussels, leaving European countries “more ready to defend and protect themselves”.

“The moment calls for unprecedented decisions,” he concluded.

US President Donald Trump has said that “nobody has ever heard of” the African country of Lesotho – a comment that has “shocked” its government.

It is a small country in southern Africa that almost entirely consists of mountains and is completely surrounded by South Africa.

Here are nine things to know about the country:

The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands, where many villages can only be reached on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.

It is known as the “Kingdom in the Sky” and is the only independent state in the world that lies entirely above 1,000m (3,281ft) in elevation, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its lowest point is at 1,400m.

It is known to have one of the world’s most intimidating airstrips to land on – the Matekane Airstrip has a short runway and with long drops at both ends.

The Business Insider website describes flying from the airport as “essentially the same as when a bird is pushed out of the nest in order to learn to fly”.

Lesotho is completely encircled by South Africa, but separated by the forbidding mountain ranges.

Not much of its land is available for farming, with its population vulnerable to food shortages and relying on income from jobs in South Africa. Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities at home to find work in South Africa.

The people of Lesotho, who number more than two million, share some cultural and language similarities with South Africans. Their language, Sesotho, is also one of South Africa’s 11 official languages. In fact, more people speak it in South Africa – 4.6 million – than in Lesotho.

Resources are scarce in Lesotho – a consequence of the harsh environment of the highland plateau and limited agricultural space in the lowlands.

Its biggest resource is water – known locally as white gold – which is exported to South Africa. Diamonds are another major export.

• Who benefits from Lesotho’s ‘white gold’?

When you think of skiing and snowboarding, you may imagine the snowy slopes of Europe and North America.

But Lesotho has been making itself known on the snowsports scene. It has the highest ski resort in sub-Saharan Africa, one of just a handful on the continent.

Afriski is situated 3,222m above sea level, high up in Lesotho’s Maloti mountains and attracts visitors from Africa and beyond.

• WATCH: Is Lesotho the next top ski resort?

People from Lesotho are referred to as Basotho.

Some of the cultural items associated with the Basotho people are their blankets and the Basotho traditional conical hats, known as the mokorotlo. The hat is a national symbol and appears in the middle of the country’s flag.

The blankets are made from thick wool, with their intricate and colourful patterns each telling a different story of the Basotho people’s history. The Basotho wear them as shawls at special events and give them as gifts.

Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence in the world, with one in five adults living with HIV, and more infections per 100,000 people than most other countries, including neighbouring Namibia, Botswana and Eswatini.

The US government has committed nearly $1bn to help the country deal with HIV since 2006, including for prevention, care and treatment services, according to the US State Department.

Like the United Kingdom, Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy. This means that although it has a royal family, an elected prime minister runs the country.

Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso – the younger brother of current King Letsie III – is close friends with the UK’s Prince Harry.

The pair have set up a charity in Lesotho – Sentebale, which means “forget me not”. The organisation works with local communities in the country at grassroots level, helping young people affected by HIV/Aids.

Prince Harry first went to Lesotho as a 19-year-old and has returned to the country many times since then.

Jeans have long been associated with the American West but nowadays, many of the pairs worn in the US have come from halfway across the world, in Lesotho.

Lesotho’s garment factories have made jeans for iconic American brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler in recent years. As a result, Lesotho has become known as the “denim capital of Africa”.

And it is not just jeans – Lesotho is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest exporters of clothing in general to the US.

Last year, Lesotho exported $237m (£184m) worth of clothes and textiles to the US through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which allows eligible African countries to send some goods to the US without paying taxes.

It is ranked second by value of goods exported under the deal.

Many of Lesotho’s clothing and textile factories are owned by Chinese and Taiwanese migrants.

• WATCH: ‘Our textiles use iconic symbols of Lesotho’

The mountain kingdom has the world’s highest suicide rate, with 87.5 people per 100,000 of the population taking their own life every year, according to the UN World Health Organization.

This is nearly 10 times the global average of nine and more than double the country with the second highest rate, Guyana, which has about 40.

There is no single reason for this shocking statistic – experts point to the abuse of drugs and alcohol, the shortage of jobs and the lack of mental health counselling.

• The small African country with the world’s highest suicide rate

The future of US support for Ukraine is being pushed further into doubt, with National Security Adviser Mike Waltz confirming on Wednesday that the US has paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

“We have, we have taken a step back,” Waltz told reporters when asked about suspending intelligence sharing.

He added that the Trump administration was pausing and reviewing “all aspects of this relationship”.

French President Emmanuel Macron later announced a meeting of European army chiefs in Paris next week, saying in a televised speech that France must be prepared to move forward without US help.

“I want to believe the US will stay at our side, but we must be ready if that is not the case,” Macron said.

Saying that Europe is in a “new era”, Macron called for it to increase its defence spending.

He also said that France, along with Ukraine and others, have prepared a durable peace plan.

The US has shared intelligence with Ukraine since the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

It paused military aid to Kyiv on Monday following a dramatic breakdown in relations in the Oval Office last week, when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was told to leave after an angry meeting with US President Donald Trump.

It remains unclear if the pause on intelligence sharing is partial or complete, and how long it will remain in effect.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe also appeared to confirm the decision in an interview on Fox Business on Wednesday, saying Trump “had a real question about whether President Zelensky was committed to the peace process, and he said ‘let’s pause, I want to give you a chance to think about that’.”

He said the response came swiftly with Zelensky’s statement saying he was ready for peace.

Ratcliffe then added: “On the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, will go away and we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine.”

Waltz also suggested a more conciliatory tone was emerging between the US and Ukraine, adding that the military aid and intelligence sharing pause could be lifted in the near future.

“I think if we can nail down these negotiations and move towards these negotiations, and in fact, put some confidence-building measures on the table, then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause,” he told Fox News.

He also said he had “good talks” with his Ukrainian counterpart about the location and substance of potential negotiations, adding there will be movement in “very short order”.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the military assistance during a press briefing on Wednesday, saying the US has simply paused it and is “reconsidering” funding.

Ukraine has heavily relied on the US for military assistance for the three years since Russia’s invasion, and the decision to pause aid may have a significant effect on the war.

Halting intelligence support, too, would likely have serious consequences on the battlefield.

The information is believed to help Ukraine both strategically understand Moscow’s next moves and also tactically, for example providing information on Russian troop positions for weapons guidance and targeting.

Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence and retired CIA paramilitary officer, told the BBC that cutting off intelligence to Ukraine “will have an immediate impact” on its ability to defend itself.

“There is no way to replace the capabilities that the US intelligence can provide from our European allies,” he said.

“This will likely inspire Russia to push harder on their efforts to take more terrain from Ukraine and away from the negotiating table.”

China has warned the US it is ready to fight “any type” of war after hitting back against President Donald Trump’s mounting trade tariffs.

The world’s top two economies have edged closer to a trade war after Trump slapped more tariffs on all Chinese goods. China quickly retaliated imposing 10-15% tariffs on US farm products.

“If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” China’s embassy said on X, reposting a line from a government statement on Tuesday.

It is some of the strongest rhetoric so far from China since Trump became president and comes as leaders gathered in Beijing for the annual National People’s Congress.

• LIVE: We answer your tariff questions
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• China targets 5% growth as it reels from Trump tariffs

On Wednesday, China’s Premier Li Qiang announced that China would again boost its defence spending by 7.2% this year and warned that “changes unseen in a century were unfolding across the world at a faster pace.” This increase was expected and matches the figure announced last year.

Leaders in Beijing are trying to send a message to people in China that they are confident the country’s economy can grow, even with the threat of a trade war.

China has been keen to portray an image of being a stable, peaceful country in contrast to the US, which Beijing accuses of being embroiled in wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

China may also hope to capitalise on Trump’s actions relating to US allies such as Canada and Mexico, which have also been hit by tariffs, and will not want to ramp up the rhetoric too far to scare off potential new global partners.

The Premier’s speech in Beijing on Wednesday emphasised that China would continue to open up and hoped to attract more foreign investment.

China has, in the past emphasised that it is ready to go to war. Last October, President Xi called for troops to strengthen their preparedness for war as they held military drills around the self-governing island of Taiwan. But there is a difference between military preparedness and a readiness to go to war.

The Chinese embassy in Washington’s post quoted a foreign ministry statement in English from the previous day, which also accused the US of blaming China for the influx of the drug fentanyl

“The fentanyl issue is a flimsy excuse to raise US tariffs on Chinese imports,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

“Intimidation does not scare us. Bullying does not work on us. Pressuring, coercion or threats are not the right way of dealing with China,” he added.

The US-China relationship is always one of the most contentious in the world. This post on X has been widely shared and could be used by the China hawks in Trump’s cabinet as evidence that Beijing is Washington’s biggest foreign policy and economic threat.

Officials in Beijing had been hopeful that US–China relations under Trump could get off to a more cordial start after he invited Xi to his inauguration. Trump also said the two leaders had “a great phone call” just a few days before he entered the White House.

There were reports that the two leaders were due to have another call last month. That did not happen.

Xi had already been battling persistently low consumption, a property crisis and unemployment.

China has pledged to pump billions of dollars into its ailing economy and its leaders unveiled the plan as thousands of delegates attend the National People’s Congress, a rubber-stamp parliament, which passes decisions already made behind closed doors.

China has the world’s second-largest military budget at $245bn but it is far smaller than that of the US. Beijing spends 1.6% of GDP on its military, far less than the US or Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

However, analysts believe China downplays how much it spends on defence.

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US President Donald Trump has hit China with a second tariff in as many months, which means imports from there now face a levy of at least 20%.

This is his latest salvo against Beijing, which already faces steep US tariffs, from 100% on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 15% on clothes and shoes.

Trump’s tariffs strike at the heart of China’s manufacturing juggernaut – a web of factories, assembly lines and supply chains that manufacture and ship just about everything, from fast fashion and toys to solar panels and electric cars.

China’s trade surplus with the world rose to a record $1tn (£788bn) in 2024, on the back of strong exports ($3.5tn), which surpassed its import bill ($2.5tn).

China has long been the world’s factory – it has thrived because of cheap labour and state investment in infrastructure ever since it opened its economy to global business in the late 1970s.

So how badly could Trump’s trade war hurt China’s manufacturing success?

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods imported from other countries.

Most tariffs are set as a percentage of the value of the goods, and it’s generally the importer who pays them.

So, a 10% tariff means a product imported to the US from China worth $4 would face an additional $0.40 charge applied to it.

Increasing the price of imported goods is meant to encourage consumers to buy cheaper domestic products instead, thus helping to boost their own economy’s growth.

Trump sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue. But economic studies of the impact of tariffs which Trump imposed during his first term in office, suggest the measures ultimately raised prices for US consumers.

Trump has said his most recent tariffs are aimed at pressuring China to do more to stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl to the US.

He also imposed 25% tariffs on America’s neighbours Mexico and Canada, saying its leaders were not doing enough to crack down on the cross-border illegal drug trade.

Yes, analysts say.

Exports have been the “saving grace” of China’s economy and if the taxes linger, exports to the US could drop by a quarter to a third, Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s analytics, told the BBC.

The sheer value of China’s exports – which account for a fifth of the country’s earnings – means that a 20% tariff could weaken demand from overseas and shrink the trade surplus.

“The tariffs will hurt China,” Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis in Hong Kong, told the BBC. “They really need to do much more. They need to do what Xi Jinping has already said – boost domestic demand.”

That is a tall task in an economy where the property market is slumping and disillusioned youth are struggling to find high-paying jobs.

Chinese people have not been spending enough to recharge the economy – and Beijing has just announced a slew of stimulus measures to boost consumption.

While tariffs can slow Chinese manufacturing, they cannot stop or replace it that easily, analysts say.

“Not only is China the big exporter, it is sometimes the only exporter like for solar panels. If you want solar panels you can only go to China,” Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

China had begun pivoting from making garments and shoes to advanced tech such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) long before Trump became president. And that has given China an “early mover” advantage, not to mention the scale of production in the world’s second-largest economy.

Chinese factories can produce high-end tech in large quantities at a low cost, said Shuang Ding, chief China economist at Standard Chartered.

“It’s really difficult to find a replacement… China’s status as a market leader is very difficult to topple.”

China has responded with counter tariffs of 10-15% on US agricultural goods, coal, liquefied natural gas, pick-up trucks, and some sports cars.

And it has targeted US firms in aviation, defence and tech with export restrictions and announced an anti-monopoly investigation against Google.

China has also spent years adapting to tariffs from Trump’s first term. Some Chinese manufacturers have moved factories out of the country, for instance. And supply chains have come to rely more on Vietnam and Mexico by exporting from there to bypass the tariffs.

And yet, Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico would not hurt China too much because Vietnam is a bigger backdoor for Chinese goods, Ms Garcia-Herrero said.

“Vietnam is the key here. If tariffs are imposed on Vietnam, I think it will be very tough,” she said.

What concerns China more than tariffs, analysts says, is US restrictions on advanced chips.

These restrictions have been a major sticking point between the two countries but they have also fuelled China’s determination to invest in homegrown tech that is independent of the West.

It’s why Chinese AI firm DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley and unnerved Washington when it released a chatbot that rivals OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm had reportedly stockpiled Nvidia chips before the US began cutting off China’s access to the most advanced ones.

Although this could “impact China’s competitiveness, I don’t think that would affect China’s status as a manufacturing power,” Mr Ding of Standard Chartered said.

On the other hand, any ground China gains in advanced tech manufacturing will boost its high-value exports.

It happened because of state support, an unrivalled supply chain and cheap labour, analysts say.

“The combination of globalisation, as well as China’s pro-business policies and market potential, helped to attract the initial wave of foreign investors,” Chim Lee, an analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, told the BBC.

The government then doubled down, investing heavily in building a sprawling network of roads and ports to bring in raw materials and take Chinese-made goods to the world. What also helped was a stable exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the US dollar.

A shift in recent years towards advanced tech has made sure that it will continue to be relevant and ahead of its competitors, analysts say.

China already has plenty of economic clout from being a manufacturing powerhouse. But there is also a political opportunity as Trump’s tariffs upend America’s relationship with the world.

“The door is ajar for China to position itself as an advocate of free trade and a stable global force,” said Mr Cruise of Moody’s.

But that is not easy, given Beijing has been accused of flouting international trade norms, such as imposing a tariff of more than 200% on imports of Australian wine in 2020.

Analysts say China must also look beyond the US, which is still the top destination for its exports. China is the third-biggest market for US exports, after Canada and Mexico.

Chinese trade with Europe, South East Asia and Latin America has been growing, but it’s hard to imagine that the world’s two biggest economies can stop relying on each other.

A PhD student who has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women “may turn out to be one of the most prolific sexual predators that we’ve ever seen in this country”, according to the lead detective on the case.

Chinese national Zhenhao Zou, 28, attacked two women who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced, his trial at Inner London Crown Court heard.

The University College London (UCL) student filmed nine assaults as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of victims’ belongings including jewellery and clothing.

Judge Rosina Cottage said Zou was a “dangerous and predatory” offender and warned him he faces a “very long” jail term when he is sentenced on 19 June.

The Met Police’s Cdr Kevin Southworth said the video evidence showed there may be as many as 50 further victims, whom they are “desperate to trace”.

“Such is the insidious nature of these offences, I think there is a possibility that many more victim survivors may not even know that he has, in fact, raped them,” he said.

Following the trial and as a result of the media coverage, the Met confirmed that one woman had already been in touch about Zou.

As well as 11 counts of rape, Zou was found guilty of voyeurism, possession of extreme pornographic images and false imprisonment.

The crimes he has been convicted of took place between 2019 and 2024.

Hidden cameras were discovered by the Met Police in his bedroom, as well as ecstasy and an industrial chemical the human body turns into the “date-rape” drug GHB.

Seven of the rapes happened during the pandemic in China. The evidence of those attacks was videos shown to the jury that Zou kept of him having sex with unconscious and semi-conscious women. Police have never identified them.

Four of the rapes took place in London. Two women were identified and gave evidence; the other two rapes were of the same woman, but she has never been tracked down.

Jurors had to watch footage of nine of the rapes during court proceedings, appearing visibly upset and being given regular breaks as the material was shown.

Some of the attacks were filmed at his flats in Bloomsbury and Elephant and Castle, others at an unknown location in China.

The prosecutions relating to attacks in China were possible because foreign nationals who are living in the UK can be charged with an offence committed abroad that is also illegal in the country where it took place.

In his defence, Zou told the jury he had discussed sexual preferences with one of the women he filmed, and she had said she liked “uniform role play”.

“We specifically discussed the kinds of role play I like, which was rape role play,” he said. He told the court this was how the videos came to be made.

The student comes from a wealthy family, and had enough money to afford a Rolex watch, a wardrobe full of designer clothes and cosmetic procedures including a hair transplant and facial surgery.

He paid £4,000 a month in rent.

Zou moved to Belfast in 2017 to study at Queen’s University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.

The Met Police has launched an appeal to find any other victims.

“If you’re a woman who’s in any way had a one-on-one encounter with this man Zou, then we would like to hear from you,” Cdr Southworth said.

The force said it was particularly keen to hear from women from the Chinese student community who may have met Zou and were living in and around London between 2019 and 2024.

The Met said it would also like to speak to potential victims who may have met Zou while he was living in China. Reports to the force can be made online via the Major Incident Public Portal.

UCL president Dr Michael Spence said:  “We have been appalled by these horrific offences.

“Our thoughts are with the survivors and we wish to pay tribute to the bravery of the women who reported these crimes and gave evidence at the trial.”

Saira Pike from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to the courageous women who came forward to report Zhenhao Zou’s heinous crimes.

“They have been incredibly strong and brave – there is no doubt that their evidence helped us to secure today’s verdict.

“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women.”

The jury found Zou guilty of:

• 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim
• Three counts of voyeurism
• 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image
• One count of false imprisonment
• Three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence

He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, and five counts of possession of controlled drugs to commit a sexual offence.

US President Donald Trump said he would temporarily spare carmakers from a new 25% import tax imposed on Canada and Mexico, just a day after the tariffs came into effect.

The announcement by the White House came even as Trump continued to blast Canada for not doing enough to stop drugs from entering the US.

“Nothing has convinced me that it has stopped,” Trump wrote on social media after a phone call with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the economic disruption caused by new trade tariffs.

News of the relief helped to boost US shares, which closed higher after two days of declines that had wiped out gains the S&P 500 had seen since the presidential election in November.

The tariff exemption is for cars made in North America that comply with the continent’s existing free trade agreement.

That deal, which was negotiated by Trump during his first term, sets out rules for how much of a car must be made in each country to qualify for duty-free treatment.

• China says it is ready for ‘any type of war’ with US

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had backed a one-month exemption to the tariffs for the car industry after pleas from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, which have supply chains that stretch across North America.

The new tariffs – which are a tax applied as goods enter the country – were poised to disrupt a third of car production in North America within a week, according to analysts at S&P Global Mobility.

Shares in Ford were up by more than 5% after the announcement, while General Motors shares rose more than 7%. Stellantis shares in the US rose more than 9%.

“The president is open to hearing about additional exemptions,” Ms Leavitt added. “He always has open dialogue and he’ll always do what he believes is right for the American people.”

Ford said in a statement the company will continue to have a “healthy and candid dialogue with the administration” and touted its investment of billions in the United States.

Goods worth billions cross the borders of the US, Canada and Mexico each day and their economies are deeply integrated.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce warned that affordability would be hurt and business relationships would suffer, despite the chances for targeted relief.

“We’ve seen this movie before. President Trump puts tariffs in place and then doles out exemptions one at a time,” said Matthew Holmes, the organisation’s chief of public policy. “That is not how a long-lasting trade alliance is built.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Canadian media that the one-month reprieve for automakers would not alter his plans for retaliation, which have already included a halt to sales of US liquor in the province.

Trump’s moves, and his threats to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on countries around the world, have raised fears of a wider trade war.

As well as Mexico and Canada, he hit goods from China with an additional tariff on Tuesday, raising levies to at least 20% and prompting the country to retaliate against US exports, including agricultural products.

Canada also responded with its own retaliatory import levies on US goods after Washington’s 25% tariffs on its two neighbours came into effect on Tuesday, affecting items including peanut butter, oranges and wine.

Mexico also said it would respond, including with its own tariffs.

“I don’t know where we go with this and how it ends. I just hope that it ends quickly,” said Iowa farmer Bob Hemesath, the board president for lobby group Farmers for Free Trade, which has raised concerns about the tariffs.

Big retailers in the US have already warned the measures will lead to higher prices on goods such as avocados within days, while economists are forecasting economic recessions in Mexico and Canada triggered by the tariffs.

Trump has acknowledged his moves may lead to short-term economic pain in the US, but said he wants to protect US industry and boost manufacturing.

He has cast the tariffs this week against goods from America’s two neighbours, as well as China, as a response to the flow of migrants and fentanyl across the border.

Writing on social media on Wednesday, Trump said he had told Trudeau that the situation was not improving.

“He said that it’s gotten better, but I said, ‘That’s not good enough’,” Trump said.

Trudeau has called called Trump’s claims about drugs a “completely bogus” justification for tariffs on his country.

White House officials have said Trump still intends to move ahead on 2 April with plans for reciprocal tariffs on other countries around the world that he sees as treating the US unfairly.

“There are going to be tariffs – let’s be clear – but what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that maybe he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg on Wednesday.