Donald Trump has said the US had “very good and productive discussions” with Vladimir Putin and that “thousands of Ukrainian troops” were surrounded by the Russian army, a claim refuted by the Ukrainian military and independent analysts.

In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump added that there was a “very good chance” the war between Russia and Ukraine could “finally come to an end”.

The US president made his comments after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, held late-night talks with Putin on Thursday to discuss the US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

The White House clarified that Witkoff, not Trump, spoke to Putin on Thursday.

Kyiv has already accepted the proposal, while Putin on Thursday set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to the truce, which includes the condition that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise during the 30-day truce.

Trump appeared to repeat claims made by Putin a day earlier that Russian forces had encircled a large number of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region, where Moscow is on the verge of expelling the Ukrainian army from the land it captured last year.

Trump wrote that there “were thousands of Ukrainian troops completely surrounded by the Russian military, and in a very bad and vulnerable position”.

“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II. God bless them all!!!” Trump added.

Ukraine’s military was quick to dismiss claims that its forces were encircled in the Kursk region.

“Reports of the alleged ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and fabricated by the Russians for political manipulation and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners,” Ukraine’s general staff wrote in a statement published on its media channels.

“Units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine have successfully regrouped, withdrawn to more advantageous defensive positions, and are executing their assigned tasks within the Kursk region … There is no threat of encirclement of our units.”

Ukrainian security sources, independent military analysts, and even pro-Russian Telegram channels have disputed the encirclement claims by Putin and Trump.

Ukrainian authorities have not officially announced a full withdrawal from the Kursk region, but soldiers fighting in the region say a staged withdrawal has been under way for two weeks, and that while many soldiers have faced a dangerous and challenging route to withdraw, they do not believe there is a mass encirclement of troops.

“After seven months, we simply withdrew. There was no encirclement,” one senior security official told the Guardian on Thursday.

Artem Kariakin, a Ukrainian soldier who was previously involved in the Kursk offensive, said: “Trump’s words about the Kursk region have nothing to do with reality.”

Michael Kofman, a military analyst at Carnegie Endowment, described the claims of a mass encirclement as “fiction”.

Some influential Russian pro-war military bloggers have cast doubt in recent days of the encirclement claims by Russian officials, saying none of the signs of such an action have been visible.

Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin had sent Trump a message via Witkoff about his proposal for a ceasefire, adding that it saw grounds for “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached.

Peskov said the “timing of a conversation” between Trump and Putin had yet to be determined.

US intelligence services have reportedly assessed that Putin remains committed to achieving “his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.

The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing an intelligence report circulated among Trump administration policymakers on 6 March, which stated that Putin remains determined to maintain control over Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reiterated on Friday that Russian attempts to set up conditions for the 30-day ceasefire only “complicate and drag out the process”.

“Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down,” Zelenskyy said on X after a call with the secretary of state of the Holy See, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Vladimir Putin has said he has many questions about the proposed US-brokered ceasefire with Ukraine and appeared to set out a series of sweeping conditions that would need to be met before Russia would agree to such a truce.

Speaking at a press conference at the Kremlin alongside the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, Putin said he agreed in principle with US proposals to halt the fighting but said he wanted to address the “root causes of the conflict”.

“The idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it,” Putin said. But he suggested that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the 30-day ceasefire.

Donald Trump responded briefly before a meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, saying Putin had “made a very promising statement, but it was not complete”.

The US president said he was “ready to talk” to Putin. “We will see if Russia agrees, and if not, it will be a very disappointing moment,” he said. “I would like to see a ceasefire from Russia. We hope that Russia will do the right thing.”

Putin claimed Ukraine was seeking a ceasefire because of the battlefield situation, asserting that Russian forces were “advancing almost everywhere” and nearing full control of the Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion last year.

“How will these 30 days of [ceasefire] be used? To continue forced mobilisation in Ukraine? To supply weapons to Ukraine? … These are legitimate questions,” he said.

Ukraine has previously indicated it would continue its mobilisation efforts during any ceasefire.

“We need to discuss this with our American partners – perhaps a call with Donald Trump,” Putin added, thanking the US president for his involvement in the peace negotiations.

By avoiding an outright rejection of Trump’s proposal, Putin appears to be balancing between not openly rebuffing Trump’s push for peace while also imposing his own stringent demands – potentially prolonging negotiations.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dismissed Putin’s ambivalent response to the proposal as “manipulative”.

“We now have all heard from Putin’s very predictable, very manipulative words in response to the idea of a ceasefire,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “As we have always said, the only one who will drag things out, the only one who will be unconstructive, is Russia.”

Zelenskyy said Putin was “afraid to say directly to President Trump that he wants to continue this war”, accusing the Russian leader of “framing the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will work out at all, or for as long as possible”.

Speaking from the White House, Trump went into further detail on the US negotiations with Russia and Ukraine, saying that a “lot of individual subjects have been discussed”.

Trump indicated that the US and Ukraine had discussed “pieces of land that would be kept and lost, and all of the other elements of a final agreement”, including a power plant. Trump said Ukraine had also brought up Nato membership.

“We’ve been discussing concepts of land because you don’t want to waste time with the ceasefire if it’s not going to mean anything,” Trump said. “So we’re saying: look, this is what you can get, this is what you can’t get. Now we’re going to see if Russia’s there and if not it’s going to be a very disappointing moment for the world.”

Asked whether he had any leverage to compel Russia to agree to a ceasefire, Trump said he did but did not want to go into detail.

Trump said he could do “things financially that would be very bad for Russia” if a ceasefire was not agreed, but did not elaborate on whether he meant new sanctions or tariffs.

David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, said: “It would be wrong for Putin to lay conditions. Our support for Ukraine, and that of other partners, remains ironclad.”

The Russian president had travelled to the Kursk region on Wednesday in a rare battlefield visit, where he spoke with Russian troops who were on the verge of expelling Ukrainian forces from the land it captured last year.

“What will happen in the Kursk region? Will an order be given for the troops stationed there to surrender?” Putin asked. “How the situation along the frontline will be resolved remains unclear.”

Ukraine has not officially confirmed an organised retreat from the Kursk region but Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that “the military command is doing what it should do – saving the maximum number of lives of our soldiers”.

On Thursday, a source in Ukraine’s military who recently left the Kursk region said: “It’s over. The only question now is managing the withdrawal with as few losses as possible.”

But although Ukraine appears to be withdrawing from Kursk, Kyiv has largely stabilised the front in eastern Ukraine, where a Russian offensive has stalled in recent weeks.

Putin’s remarks came hours after Trump’s envoy and close ally, Steve Witkoff, landed in Moscow, where he is expected to meet Putin to push for a ceasefire after Washington’s talks with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.

After those talks, Ukraine said it was ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire and the US said it was putting the proposal to Moscow.

Recent rhetoric from Russian officials has shown little urgency to reach an agreement or make concessions, as Moscow remains on the offensive on the battlefield.

A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, said he had informed the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, that Moscow views the proposed 30-day ceasefire as “nothing more than a short reprieve for Ukrainian forces”.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said on Thursday that Moscow was ready to discuss a US-backed peace initiative “as early as today”. But she indicated that Russia saw little urgency in a halt to fighting, reiterating it would not accept western peacekeepers in Ukraine as a security guarantee and that they would be targeted if deployed.

Ukraine has said it would need some kind of security guarantee in order to sign a lasting ceasefire deal.

Moscow’s continued resistance to European peacekeeping forces – seen by Ukraine as the only viable alternative to Nato membership for guaranteeing its security – presents a big obstacle to a peace acceptable to Kyiv.

Observers believe Putin is determined to put forward a string of maximalist demands before agreeing to any ceasefire, which is likely to prolong negotiations.

Reuters and Bloomberg have reported that Russia, in discussions with the US, has presented a list of such demands to end the war in Ukraine and reset relations with Washington. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, declined to comment on the reports.

These demands could include the demilitarisation of Ukraine, an end to western military aid and a commitment to keeping Kyiv out of Nato. Moscow may also push for a ban on foreign troop deployments in Ukraine and international recognition of Putin’s claims to Crimea and the four Ukrainian regions Russia annexed in 2022.

Putin could also revisit some of his broader demands from 2021, which go beyond Ukraine, including a call for Nato to halt the deployment of weapons in member states that joined after 1997, when the alliance began expanding into former communist countries.

Many in Europe fear these conditions for peace could weaken the west’s ability to increase its military presence and could allow Putin to expand his influence across the continent.

For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page.

Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

Rather than making a play, Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked up the ball, scrawled a fresh set of conditions across it, and lobbed it back – insisting the game could not move forward until the other side played by his rules.

“The idea itself is the right one, and we definitely support it,” Putin said, sitting alongside his longtime ally Alexander Lukashenko at a press conference in the Kremlin.

It was the “but” that followed that did all the heavy lifting.

“There are questions that we need to discuss, and I think we need to talk them through with our American colleagues and partner,” he added, suggesting that Ukraine should neither rearm nor mobilise and that western military aid to Kyiv be halted during the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the message was clear: Russia had no intention of halting its own rearmament. Ukraine fears that Putin is preparing to do exactly what he accuses Kyiv of: exploiting the ceasefire to rearm and intensify his offensive if talks fall apart, as Russian forces press their advantage on the ground.

Over the past month, the geopolitical landscape has shifted dramatically in favour of the Russian leader, as Donald Trump reshaped US foreign policy to Moscow’s advantage while straining relations with American allies.

But the introduction of a joint ceasefire proposal from the US and Ukraine turned the tables on Putin, forcing him to navigate the growing tension between his ambitions for a decisive victory in Ukraine and his efforts to maintain a close relationship with Trump.

By steering clear of an outright rejection of Trump’s proposal, Putin appeared to be buying time – walking a fine line between avoiding an open rebuff of Trump’s peace initiative and imposing his own stringent conditions, effectively prolonging the negotiations.

To his admirers, it was a masterclass in Putin’s diplomatic manoeuvring, flanked by the seasoned foreign policy veterans Sergei Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov – both with decades of experience.

“Putin used one of his favourite phrases … A firm ‘Yes, but … ’” quipped Andrei Kolesnikov, chief political reporter for Russia’s Kommersant newspaper and one of the few journalists with direct access to the president.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, predictably viewed Putin’s ambivalent response as yet another cynical trick, dismissing it as “manipulative”. Putin, he said, was “afraid to say directly to President Trump that he wants to continue this war”, accusing the Russian leader of “framing the idea of a ceasefire with such preconditions that nothing will work out at all, or for as long as possible”.

For longtime observers, it was a familiar Russian tactic. Moscow has long excelled at delaying negotiations, offering just enough hope of progress to keep talks alive while avoiding major concessions.

Putin’s remarks and Zelenskyy’s response have drawn a clear dividing line between the two sides’ positions.

Ukraine envisions a two-step approach: an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiations for a long-term settlement backed by western security guarantees.

Russia, on the other hand, insists that both issues must be settled within a single, comprehensive agreement, one that extends far beyond a simple ceasefire.

The contours of Russia’s demands were discussed behind closed doors on Thursday, as Putin held late-night talks with Steven Witkoff, the billionaire friend of Trump and chief Ukraine negotiator.

Moscow is expected to push for sweeping concessions, including the demilitarisation of Ukraine, an end to western military aid and guarantees that Kyiv will remain outside Nato.

Foreign troop deployments in Ukraine remain a non-starter for Moscow, which is also seeking international recognition of its claims to Crimea and the four Ukrainian regions annexed in 2022. Putin may further revive broader security demands from 2021, including limits on Nato’s military presence in countries that joined the alliance after 1997, when its expansion into former communist states began.

The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing classified US intelligence assessments, including one from earlier this month, that the Russian president had not “veered from his maximalist goal of dominating Ukraine”.

Trump, in his push for a deal to halt the war in Ukraine, started with the low-hanging fruit – pressuring Zelenskyy, whose military relies on American support.

But Trump had “few options to counter either a Russian rejection or prolonged feigned compliance”, said Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While Trump had pledged to intensify sanctions against Russia, the reality was that the US had little room left to escalate pressure – aside from increasing military support, which he had said he was reluctant to do.

Instead, Baunov argued, the most effective way to influence Russia would be the carrot rather than the stick – offering the prospect of sanctions relief and reintegration into western economies.

From the outset, Trump had dangled financial investment and a return to normal relations as incentives for Russia, or as his transactional administration put it, “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians” – both geopolitically and economically.

But there was also a far darker possibility for Ukraine. “Faced with the reality that he has no real leverage over Putin for a quick deal, Trump could once again align himself with the Russian leader – turning Putin’s demands into a joint agenda,” Baunov said.

Hamas has said it is ready to free an Israeli-US soldier held hostage in Gaza and hand over the remains of four other Israeli-US nationals in what may be a breakthrough in continuing negotiations over the fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory.

The militant Islamist organisation announced in a statement on Friday that it was ready to release the Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, who holds American citizenship, along with the remains of four other dual Israeli-US nationals.

Hamas also said it responded “positively” to a proposal presented on Thursday to resume stalled negotiations in Qatar but did not give details of what it might demand in return for the Israeli-US hostages.

The initial phase of the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect in January but lapsed almost two weeks ago. In recent statements, Hamas has said it wants Israel to implement the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to definitively end the conflict.

Israel has so far refused to move to the second phase, and is calling for an extension of several weeks to the first phase instead, leaving open the possibility of a new offensive in the months to come. The Trump administration’s hostage envoy, Steve Witkoff, has also been pushing for a proposal that would extend the truce.

Returning the US hostages held in Gaza has been a high-profile goal of the Trump administration and so the Hamas offer to free Alexander poses a difficult dilemma for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, if it is made part of a broader deal.

After the Hamas statement, Netanyahu’s office said Israel had “accepted the Witkoff outline and showed flexibility”, but said “Hamas is refusing and will not budge from its positions”.

“At the same time, it continues to use manipulation and psychological warfare – the reports about Hamas’ willingness to release American hostages are intended to sabotage the negotiations,” the prime minister’s office said.

It added that Netanyahu would convene his ministerial team on Saturday night to receive a detailed report from the negotiation team and “decide on the next steps for the release of hostages.”

Netanyahu has consistently opposed any permanent end to the war in Gaza, in part due to domestic political considerations. However, the Israeli leader has made it clear that maintaining good relations with the White House is a priority.

After more than 16 months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt, Washington recently opened a direct channel of talks with Hamas with the aim of freeing US citizens abducted by the organisation during its surprise raid into Israel in October 2023.

Hamas abducted 251 hostages during its attack and killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

In a social media post earlier this month, Donald Trump said there would be “hell to pay” if all the 58 hostages still in Gaza were not released. Less than half are thought to be still alive.

Official reaction from the Israeli government to the news of direct talks between the US and Hamas was limited to a single terse statement by the office of Netanyahu acknowledging the negotiations, but the mass-market newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Israel had been “stunned to discover that, behind its back, Trump’s envoy had flirted for weeks in Doha” with a senior Hamas official.

In an attempt to pressure Hamas, Israel has cut off all supplies of goods to Gaza and on Sunday stopped any remaining electricity supplies from Israel to the territory.

Almost the entire population of Gaza was displaced by Israel’s military offensive, which killed 48,500 people, mostly civilians, and reduced swaths of the territory to rubble.

The six-week first phase of the ceasefire led to the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight others, in return for the release of about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. It also allowed much-needed food, shelter and medical assistance to re-enter Gaza.

Sudanese officials say they have rejected a request from the US to discuss taking in Palestinians displaced from Gaza under Donald Trump’s plan to turn the territory into a “Riviera on the Mediterranean”.

According to an Associated Press report, the US and Israel contacted officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about resettling uprooted Palestinians. The contacts suggested both countries are determined to press ahead with Trump’s proposal despite international outrage and massive practical difficulties – or at least use the plan to force other actors in the region to come up with their own ideas for Gaza when hostilities finally end.

Two officials from war-torn Sudan confirmed to the Associated Press that the Trump administration had approached the military-led government about accepting Palestinians.

One said the contacts began even before Trump’s inauguration with offers of military assistance in the army’s fight against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, assistance with postwar reconstruction and other incentives. Both officials said the Sudanese government rejected the idea. “This suggestion was immediately rebuffed,” said one official. “No one opened this matter again.”

Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, Somalia’s foreign minister, did not confirm or deny any requests from Israel or the US but said Somalia rejected any plan that would involve the use of its territory for the resettlement of other populations or would undermine the Palestinian people’s right to live peacefully on their ancestral land.

Under Trump’s plan, Gaza’s more than 2 million residents would be permanently displaced to allow massive reconstruction as a high-end “international” leisure and business destination. Experts said any forced resettlement was illegal under international law.

Initially, Egypt and Jordan were suggested as destinations for displaced Palestinians, but both strenuously opposed the plan.

Palestinians in Gaza have also rejected the proposal and dismiss Israeli claims that the departures would be voluntary. Arab nations have offered an alternative multibillion-dollar reconstruction plan that would leave the Palestinians in place.

The White House says Trump “stands by his vision”.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a secret diplomatic initiative, US and Israeli officials also described to the Associated Press news agency contacts with Somalia and the breakaway Somaliland region. They said it was unclear how much progress the efforts made or at what level the discussions took place.

Outreach from the US and Israel to the three potential destinations began last month, days after Trump floated the Gaza plan, according to the US officials, who said that Israel was taking the lead in the discussions.

Israeli officials and the White House have declined to comment on the efforts. The offices of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister who has been leading Israel’s postwar planning, also had no comment.

Netanyahu has hailed Trump’s proposal as a “bold vision”, while Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister and a longtime advocate of what he calls “voluntary” emigration of Palestinians, has recently said that Israel was working to identify countries to take in Palestinians.

International legal experts have told the Guardian that, given the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, any such emigration could be unlawful and potentially constitute a war crime.

Sudan was among the four Abraham accord nations that agreed to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 but was plunged almost immediately into a civil war marked by widespread atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the UN and rights groups.

US officials, seemingly aware that few Palestinians would be keen to relocate to such a precarious state, attempted to sweeten any deal by offering a range of incentives to Sudan’s government, including an offer of assistance to the army in its fight against the RSF which, in turn, is backed by the United Arab Emirates, a significant US ally.

The proposal, if accepted, would have meant the US backing a side it has accused of war crimes and joining the same side in the conflict as Russia, at a time when Vladimir Putin is contemplating the American proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Before the revelations, Sudan had already indicated it would not entertain any attempt to resettle Palestinians in a country coping with the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The head of Sudan’s army and de facto president, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – subject of the US sanctions – last week told a summit in Cairo that his country “categorically rejects” any plan that aims to transfer “the brotherly Palestinians from their land under whatever justification or name”.

The Guardian has contacted Sudan’s ministry of foreign affairs for comment.

Somaliland, a territory of more than 3 million people in the Horn of Africa, seceded from Somalia more than 30 years ago, but it is not internationally recognised as an independent state.

An American official involved in the efforts confirmed to the Associated Press that the US was “having a quiet conversation with Somaliland about a range of areas where they can be helpful to the US in exchange for recognition”.

An official in Somaliland, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, said his government had not been approached and was not in talks about taking in Palestinians.

Somalia is an even more unlikely destination. Mogadishu has been a vocal supporter of the Palestinians, and joined the recent Arab summit that rejected Trump’s plan. A Somali official told the Associated Press the country had not been approached about taking in Palestinians from Gaza and there had been no discussions about it.

In recent years, Somalia has developed strong ties with Arab states and with Turkey. Much of the country is ruled by al-Shabaab, an extremist Islamist militia allied with al-Qaida.

Mark Carney has been sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister, capping a sudden rise to power for the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.

Less than a week ago, Carney beat the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the former government house leader Karina Gould and the former member of parliament Frank Baylis with a dominant 85.9% of the vote, in a closely watched leadership race. He has no prior elected experience and does not have a seat in the House of Commons, making him a rarity in Canadian history.

Carney is expected to announce an election in the coming days, reflecting both the urgency of Canada’s trade war with the US, and the awkward reality that as prime minister without a seat in parliament, he is unable to attend sessions of the House of Commons.

The effects of Donald Trump’s economic attack on Canada are so wide-ranging and so damaging that they are likely to overshadow all other issues in the coming months. US trade tariffs, if held in place for an extended period of time, could push Canada’s fragile economy into a recession and unleash a cascading chain of knock-on upheavals.

An election would also put limits on spending for political parties, which disproportionately affect the cash-flush Conservative party. The Conservatives lead the polls, but the lead is narrowing.

Earlier on Friday morning, Justin Trudeau formally resigned as prime minister, capping a nearly decade-long tenure that saw a rise in favourability in his final weeks as he stared down threats to Canadian sovereignty pushed by Trump. “Thank you, Canada – for trusting in me, for challenging me, and for granting me the privilege to serve the best country, and the best people, on Earth,” Trudeau said on social media.

In announcing his new, smaller cabinet, Carney left key ministers in cabinet. The finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, was shifted to minister of international trade, the foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, kept her role, and the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, took on the role as finance minister. Bill Blair remained as minister of national defence.

Notably, Carney brought his former leadership rival Freeland back into cabinet, as she assumed the role of transport minister. Freeland has previously served as foreign minister, finance minister and deputy prime minister.

Carney removed some key ministers who served in Trudeau’s cabinet and were seen as close allies of the former prime minister, including the health minister, Mark Holland, who endorsed Freeland in the leadership race and the immigration minister, Marc Miller, a longtime friend of Trudeau.

Also absent was the former government house leader Gould, who placed third in the Liberal leadership race.

“I am committed to supporting our government as we defend Canada from Donald Trump and his ill-conceived and unjustified trade war,” Gould wrote on social media. “I will continue to stand up for my constituents … and fight for a fairer, more inclusive, more prosperous Canada in Ottawa.”

In recent weeks, the Liberals have reversed a political freefall, sharply rebounding to such a degree that a previously expected Conservative majority in the next general election looks increasingly unlikely. The shift in the polls has been so dramatic that pollsters have struggled to find any historical precedent.

A newly released poll from Abacus Data showed the Conservative support had shrunk to 38%, with 34% going to the incumbent Liberals.

In a result likely to concern Conservatives, Abacus asked respondents who was best qualified to handle tasks as future prime minister, including finding common ground, standing up to a bully and helping people manage household expenses. Carney was seen as more skilled at six of the eight.

Heading into the event, the former prime minister Jean Chrétien said Carney “will do very well”, adding: “He is respected internationally.”

Mahmoud Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped when he was handcuffed and shackled and rushed from New York to immigration detention in Louisiana last weekend, his lawyers wrote in an updated lawsuit demanding that the Columbia University graduate be released from custody immediately.

The activist has told his lawyers that agents who arrested him at his university housing last Saturday night, in front of his eight-month pregnant wife, never identified themselves.

Once in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in Louisiana, he was left to sleep in a bunker with no pillow or blanket, as top Trump administration officials cheered the effort to deport a man his lawyers say sometimes became the “public face” of student protests on Columbia’s campus last year against Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

The filing late on Thursday in Manhattan federal court was the result of a federal judge’s Wednesday order that the lawyers finally be allowed to speak with Khalil.

The Trump administration has not accused the activist of any criminal behavior but has said he is aligned with Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza and is designated as a terrorist organization by the US. It has invoked an obscure legal provision to try to deport him.

One of his lawyers, Donna Lieberman, told CNN on Friday in a TV interview: “This is a targeted, retaliatory and extreme attack on the right of free expression” and said Khalil was being detained “for having ideas.”

“They’re not claiming he did anything illegal they just don’t like what he has said,” she added, warning: “It’s an attempt to bully students, faculty and the rest of us … this move to quell free speech is absolutely terrifying.”

The lawyers said in their filing that his treatment by federal authorities from Saturday, when he was first arrested, to Monday reminded Khalil of when he left Syria shortly after the forced disappearance of his friends there during a period of arbitrary detention in 2013.

“Throughout this process, Mr Khalil felt as though he was being kidnapped,” the lawyers wrote of his treatment.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump heralded Khalil’s arrest as the first “of many to come”, vowing on social media to deport students he said engage in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity.”

In court papers, lawyers for the justice department said Kahlil was detained under a law allowing Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, to remove someone from the country if he has reasonable grounds to believe their presence or activities would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. Trump and Rubio were added as defendants in the civil lawsuit seeking to free Khalil.

After Khalil, who is a US green card holder, or permanent resident, and a Palestinian, was arrested on Saturday night he was held for some hours then at some point early on Sunday was taken to the Elizabeth detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a privately run facility where he spent the rest of the night in a cold waiting room for processing, his request for a blanket denied, the lawsuit said.

He was flown to Louisiana and arrived at 1am on Monday and a police car took him to the Louisiana Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana.

He worries about his wife and is “also very concerned about missing the birth of his first child”, the lawsuit said.

He was denied release during a federal court hearing in New York on Wednesday and his arrest has sparked protests. The government is trying to move his case to Louisiana, where courts are more conservative. Khalil has previously worked for the British government.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

A far-right group that claimed credit for the arrest of a Palestinian activist and permanent US resident who the Trump administration is seeking to deport claims it has submitted “thousands of names” for similar treatment.

Betar US is one of a number of rightwing, pro-Israel groups that are supporting the administration’s efforts to deport international students involved in university pro-Palestinian protests, an effort that escalated this week with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who recently completed his graduate studies at Columbia University.

This week, Donald Trump said Khalil’s arrest was just “the first of many to come”. Betar US quickly claimed credit on social media for providing Khalil’s name to the government.

Betar, which has been labelled an extremist group by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish advocacy group, said on Monday that it had “been working on deportations and will continue to do so”, and warned that the effort would extend beyond immigrants. “Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group’s post on X read. (It is very difficult to revoke US citizenship, though Trump has indicated an intention to try.)

The group has compiled a so-called “deportation list” naming individuals it believes are in the US on visas and have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, claiming these individuals “terrorize America”.

A Betar spokesperson, Daniel Levy, said in a statement to the Guardian that Betar submitted “thousands of names” of students and faculty they believe to be on visas from institutions like Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Syracuse University and others to representatives of the Trump administration.

The group claims to have “documentation, including tapes, social media and more” to support their actions. It claims to be sharing names with several high-ranking officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; the White House homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller; and the attorney general, Pam Bondi, among others.

The White House and state department did not respond to questions about whether they are working with Betar or other groups to identify students for deportation.

Ross Glick, who was the executive director of the US chapter of Betar until last month, told the Guardian that the list began forming last fall. He noted that when they started compiling names, it was unclear who the next president would be, but that the change in administrations had been beneficial to their initiative.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly vowed to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and frequently framed demonstrations against Israel’s actions in Gaza as expressions of support for Hamas. Last week, it was reported that the US state department plans to use AI to identify foreign students for deportation.

The arrest of Khalil last week, who served as a lead negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, aligned with Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism. An accompanying fact sheet pledged the administration would cancel the student visas of those identified as “Hamas sympathizers” and deport those who participated in “pro-jihadist protests”.

After the election, Glick said he met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including the Democratic senator John Fetterman and aides to the Republican senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford, all of whom, he said, supported the efforts.

In a phone call this week, Glick said he discussed Khalil with Cruz in Washington DC just days before he was arrested.

Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Glick.

Glick said that the individuals on Betar’s list were identified through tips from students, faculty and staff on these campuses, along with social media research. He also claimed he had received support from “collaborators” who use “facial recognition AI-based technology” to help identify protesters that can even identify people wearing face coverings. He declined to elaborate on the specific technology used.

Glick mentioned that in recent months he had been inundated with messages from students, professors and university administrators across the country, all providing him with information on protesters’ identities. He said that he vetted the legitimacy of those tips and that he believed Khalil and other pro-Palestinian protesters were “promoting the eradication, the destruction and the devolution of western civilization”.

Glick described Khalil as an “operative”. When asked who he was an operative for, he responded: “Well, that has to be determined.”

Khalil is being held in a Louisiana detention center after being moved from New York. His detention is being challenged in a Manhattan federal court.

The arrest has sparked outrage and alarm from free-speech advocates who see the move to deport Khalil as a flagrant violation of his free speech rights and on Wednesday, protests erupted outside the Manhattan courthouse, where hundreds gathered demanding his freedom.

Betar is not alone in its efforts to support Trump’s deportation campaign, an effort that has divided American Jews in whose name the administration is purporting to act.

In the days leading up to his arrest, videos featuring Khalil and others at a sit-in at Barnard against the expulsion of two students who disrupted a class on Israel began circulating on social media.

Pro-Israel social-media accounts, including that of Shai Davidai, a vocal assistant professor at Columbia’s business school who was temporarily barred from campus last year after the school said he repeatedly intimidated and harassed university employees, identified Khalil and tagged Rubio in posts urging him to revoke his visa and deport him.

The video of Khalil that was circulating was first posted by Canary Mission, an online database that publishes the names and personal information of people that it considers to be anti-Israel or antisemitic, focusing mainly on those at universities across the US.

When Khalil was arrested, Canary Mission said that it was “delighted that our exposure of Mahmoud Khalil’s hatred has led to such deserved consequences”, adding that it had “more Columbia news on its way”.

On Monday afternoon, Canary Mission released a video naming five other students and faculty it believes should be deported.

It was revealed this week by Zeteo that Khalil had emailed Columbia University the day before his arrest, appealing for protection and telling the university’s interim president that he was being subjected to a “dehumanizing doxxing campaign” that week led by Davidai and David Lederer, a Columbia student.

“Their attacks have incited a wave of hate, including calls for my deportation and death threats,” Khalil said.

He added: “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that Ice or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support, and I urge you to intervene and provide the necessary protections to prevent further harm.”

In another email, Khalil reportedly cited a threatening post by Betar, in which the group claimed he said: “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Khalil “unequivocally” denied ever saying that.

In that post, Betar wrote that Ice⁩ was “aware of his home address and whereabouts” and said it had “provided all his information to multiple contacts”.

After the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the White House, said that Columbia University had been given the “names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity” but said that the school was “refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus”.

‘A moment of reckoning’

Khalil’s arrest has divided American Jews, many of whom have harshly condemned the activist’s arrest.

The ADL, a group that describes its focus as fighting antisemitism and all forms of hate and that is also known to view campus protests as antisemitic, welcomed the escalation and said it appreciated “the Trump administration’s broad, bold set of efforts to counter campus antisemitism.

“Obviously, any deportation action or revocation of a Green Card or visa must be undertaken in alignment with required due process protections,” the group said. It added: “We also hope that this action serves as a deterrent to others who might consider breaking the law on college campuses or anywhere.”

But many mainstream, progressive and leftwing Jewish groups have condemned the administration’s actions as a dangerous violation of free speech.

“It is both possible and necessary to directly confront and address the crisis of antisemitism, on campus and across our communities, without abandoning the fundamental democratic values that have allowed Jews, and so many others, to thrive here,” said Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

In a letter on Thursday to the US Department of Homeland Security, several groups including the New York Jewish Agenda, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, Habonim Dror North America and others, said that they were “deeply disturbed by the circumstances surrounding the apprehension and detention of Mahmoud Khalil”.

“Irrespective of the content of Mr Khalil’s speech, we firmly believe that his arrest does nothing to make Jews safer,” the groups said. “In the past, laws and policies that limit the right to free speech have often been wielded against the Jewish community, and we are worried that we are seeing signs that they are being wielded against Muslim, Arab, and other minority communities now.”

David Myers, a distinguished professor and the Sady and Ludwig Kahn chair in Jewish history at the University of California Los Angeles, told the Guardian he believed the Trump administration was instrumentalizing and weaponizing “antisemitism for political gain”.

“I think ultimately, [the administration] is interested in something larger than defending Jewish students, it’s really interested in bringing the university to its knees as a way of removing a key liberal, progressive actor from the American political game,” he said.

Myers described Betar’s decision to compile a list of people to be deported as “horrifying” but “not a total surprise”, he said, given what Betar has historically represented, which he called an “embrace of Jewish fascism”.

“I find it distasteful, un-Jewish and collaborationist to forge together lists of people who fail to meet a political litmus test,” Myers said.

He believes universities should resist pressure from the government and uphold the principles of fairness and democracy.

“It’s a moment of reckoning about where one’s values really lie,” he said.

“If universities submit, that’s removing an extraordinarily important site of free and open thinking from the American political conversation. I think that would be very ominous for this country, a further step in the move towards a fully authoritarian regime.”

Cuts to food assistance by the US, Britain and others are already leading to more people starving to death around the world, experts have warned.

As the United Nations and other agencies try to understand just how badly President Donald Trump’s announced 83% cut in funding to USAid will affect the world’s most vulnerable people, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has said its aid provision in Somalia is being reduced, after last month’s estimate that 4.4 million people in the east African nation will be pushed into malnutrition from April because of drought, global inflation and conflict.

This follows the WFP halving food rations for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and a similar cut in rations for refugees in Kenya, which sparked protests last week.

Elizabeth Campbell, director of ODI Global Washington, a thinktank focused on inequality, said the cuts “will mean high malnutrition rates, starvation and death”.

“The United States was by far the biggest global humanitarian donor, especially to the food sector, outstripping almost all other donors combined,” she said. “There is no other donor or group of donors who can fill that void, certainly not in the short term.”

Aid workers also fear that successful malnutrition and cash-assistance programmes may be sacrificed to focus more on food packages as a result of the sudden funding shortages and pressure from the US government, which sees political benefits in buying up surplus domestic produce for food aid.

The world had 281.1 million people facing high levels of severe food insecurity in 2023, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) most recent report, but the “stop work” orders issued by the US government in January have probably pushed millions more into hunger.

As well as the cuts increasing malnutrition, aid workers are concerned that they will also affect the ability to treat them because of the closure of health clinics. According to the FAO, there are 36 million acutely malnourished people, including 10 million with severe malnutrition.

The situation has been compounded by cuts to the UK aid budget from 0.58% of the UK’s gross national income to 0.3% – a cut of about £6bn – to pay for increased defence spending.

There are also concerns other donor countries may follow suit as they step up spending on arms, including Germany – the second-biggest overseas aid donor – where the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has pledged a significant increase in defence spending.

Rein Paulsen, FAO’s emergencies director, said food aid was now being directed to only a limited number of the most extreme immediate cases.

“About 200 million people in severe need – who are just one small shock or stress away from being in extreme need – are left behind,” he said. “The support being provided is focused on the very short term, aimed at keeping people alive for the coming weeks or months.”

One aid worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their organisation was already seeing the effects of the “life-killing” cuts, with beneficiaries in Somalia forced into debt to buy food and a halt to a nutrition programme for breastfeeding mothers and children.

Meg Sattler, of Ground Truth Solutions, which surveys recipients of aid, said malnourished children in Somalia were now dying as a result. She said her organisation had documented aid deliveries stopping in Darfur – the worst-hit region of Sudan’s civil war – and families having the cash payments they relied on stopped.

“The reality is people are dying and they’re going to continue dying,” said Sattler.

There is significant uncertainty about how the aid sector will respond to cuts by the US, Britain and most other European countries, and also concern that cash assistance and longer-term nutritional support could be sacrificed for a greater focus on in-kind assistance.

Over the past 20 years there has been a growing move away from direct delivery of aid – such as sacks of grain being imported and distributed by an international organisation – to giving people small cash payments to allow them to make decisions for themselves and their families.

The approach has proved highly successful and also keeps a better balance for economies as people can buy their food locally, supporting traders and markets, instead of having to walk, often for many miles, to collect heavy sacks of imported rations from distribution centres. Cash payments now make up more than a third of WFP’s food assistance, amounting to $2.8bn in 2023.

This year the UN appealed for $47bn (£36bn) for humanitarian needs, with food security accounting for a third of those requirements. In its call to support five regional refugee response programmes for 2024 – for Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, South Sudan and Syria – the UN said it would be targeting at least 20 million refugees.

Paulsen said 85% of the UN’s humanitarian aid went on in-kind food and cash payments. He said that even in crisis zones, emergency agriculture could help prevent hunger more efficiently than direct food aid, with FAO assistance helping to produce $2.7bn worth of food in 2022 for a cost of $470m, and gave people more predictable and nutritious sources of food. Paulsen said such projects with farmers meant that 50 million people would not need emergency aid.

But there are fears that the US will now revert to the outdated policies of aid delivery, especially in shipping grain.

The US already buys up surplus produce from its farmers and distributes it as aid. In 2022, USAid spent $2.6bn procuring 1.8m tonnes of goods from US producers – including sorghum, maize, beans, rice and vegetable oil.

Campbell said the political motivation was likely to win out over what had proved to deliver the best results. “They have to have a market and a place to put their excess wheat and the way they have been doing it is that the US government was buying it and giving it away for free.

“I think to the extent that US humanitarian food-assistance support continues, it is highly likely that it will be in kind,” she said.

Alexandra Rutishauser-Perera, head of nutrition for Action Against Hunger, said the aid sector was again in “emergency mode” to feed people in crisis, after setbacks from Covid, a series of conflicts and the climate crisis. Aid agencies would increasingly need to rely on fundraising from the public and from private donors to provide the more comprehensive programmes on malnutrition and food security, she said.

While the shift towards cash assistance was seen as progress, many in the global south wanted to see international agencies go much further, empowering governments and local organisations, which are too often not consulted on their own communities.

Dr Rattan Lal, an Indian-born scientist who was awarded the 2020 World Food prize for his work on soil fertility, said there should be no shortages of food anywhere in the world, but that people needed to be given the ability to produce their own.

“Famine is really a human-made tragedy,” he said. “Food insecurity and malnutrition is not because we are not producing enough. It is a problem of poverty, access, war, political strife and other social-economic issues.”

He said sub-Saharan Africa, where food insecurity was high, had the land and conditions to become self-sufficient but investment was needed to help agriculture thrive.

“We need action to ensure everyone can produce locally. What has happened in US politics now will happen again and again, and the solution is be self-sufficient,” he said.

Degan Ali, the Somalian-born co-founder of the Network for Empowered Aid Response (Near), of civil society organisations from developing countries, said other than in situations where government rule had broken down, emergency aid should be organised locally.

She said that international aid groups had grown and taken on the role of governments, disempowering instead of assisting them, including in Somalia.

“You haven’t created any food self-sufficiency, any systems where people don’t need you any more. You haven’t helped people go back to their farms, rebuild their farms, get out of these camps and go back to farming,” she said.

“Part of reinventing the new system is to say we’re done with the old aid model, where we balloon international organisations and the UN agencies. The system is so broken because there’s no incentive to scale down. There’s no incentive to say: ‘I don’t need the money, go give it to the government, give it to local organisations.’”

Germany’s conservative chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, has said he has secured the support of the Green party for his radical plan to increase spending on defence and infrastructure after marathon talks that went through the night, paving the way for its approval in parliament.

“Germany is back,” Merz said in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making its large contribution to the defence of freedom and peace in Europe.”

The conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which won last month’s election, and the Social Democrats, who are in talks to form a new government, put forward a deal that will relax Germany’s strict debt brake, allowing an increase in defence spending and a €500bn (£420bn) “special fund” dedicated to infrastructure reforms.

Merz, who is on the verge of becoming Germany’s new leader, wants to seal the funding deal before parliament convenes in less than two weeks. The backing of the Green party, which would give Merz the necessary two-thirds majority for a constitutional change, is tantamount to him getting the deal through.

An expanded group of far right and far left MPs in the new Bundestag could oppose the spending plan as a “blocking minority”, something Merz is keen to avoid.

The Greens had previously criticised Merz’s funding proposals for being too vague, as well as lacking climate protection commitments.

The controversial but ambitious plans put forward with Merz’s potential coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), are necessary, he says, for Germany to become independent of Washington in terms of its security and that of Europe. The proposals envisage defence spending being exempt from the constitutionally protected debt brake when it exceeds 1% of GDP.

The debt brake was introduced in 2009 after the global financial crisis, with the aim of limiting Germany’s borrowing capacity in order to protect future generations from the burden of excessive debt. But in recent years, especially after crises such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the brake has increasingly been seen as an impediment and an obstacle to economic growth.

In a debate during the first reading of the legislation in parliament on Thursday, Merz stressed the urgency of investing in security. Germany must “do something now … anything else would be irresponsible,” he said.

He appeared to make concessions to the Greens, saying he would dedicate “up to €50bn” of the special fund to climate protection, as well as offering to expand the scope of defence spending to include civil defence and intelligence, asking: “What more do you actually want from us?”

The Greens, part of the existing government but due to go into opposition, have been furious at the extent of the conservative bloc’s criticism of the party, blaming the Greens’ climate policies for Germany’s economic woes and ridiculing the party repeatedly in public.

Markets reacted positively to the news on Friday, with the euro, German government bond yields and equities all rising on the back of reports that the much-anticipated deal had been reached.

Analysts said it sent a signal that Germany was capable of decisiveness and raising its commitment to defence at a time of global uncertainty.

The SPD leader, Lars Klingbeil, one of the first to react to the news, called the package “a powerful boost for Germany”. He said it “laid the foundation for Germany to get back on its feet and protect itself”.

Merz called the package “a clear message to our partners … but also to the enemies of our freedom: we are capable of defending ourselves”.

Europe’s biggest economy has suffered two consecutive years of negative growth. Economists say the funding plans could help to pull it out of the economic doldrums.

The Greens and the conservatives have announced press conferences to take place this afternoon. The Greens have called for guarantees that investment should finance new projects, not existing ones, as well as requesting more money for climate protection.

The outgoing Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, is scheduled to hear the second and third readings of the legislation on Tuesday morning before voting on the deal. After that, it will go to the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where a two-thirds majority is also required. Germany’s new parliament is due to convene on 25 March.

Rodrigo Duterte has become the first Asian former leader to appear before the international criminal court, where he stands accused of committing crimes against humanity during his notorious “war on drugs” which is estimated to have killed as many as 30,000 people.

The ex-president of the Philippines, who was in office from 2016 to 2022, was arrested in Manila on an ICC warrant early on Tuesday, put on a government-chartered jet hours later, and arrived in The Hague the following day.

The 79-year-old politician was allowed to follow Friday’s proceedings via video link from a detention centre after the presiding judge, Iulia Motoc, noted that he had endured “a long journey with considerable time difference”.

Appearing before the court shortly before 3pm local time, Duterte was informed of the crimes he is alleged to have committed, as well as his rights as a defendant. Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth.

Duterte’s lawyer, Salvador Medialdea, told the court that his client had been “abducted from his country”, adding: “He was summarily transported to The Hague. To lawyers it’s extrajudicial rendition. For less legal minds it’s pure and simple kidnapping.”

Medialdea said Duterte would be unable to contribute to the proceedings because of what he termed his client’s “debilitating medical issues”. But Motoc said the court doctor who had examined Duterte was of the opinion that he was “fully mentally aware and fit”.

The judge set a pre-trial hearing date of 23 September to establish whether the prosecution’s evidence is strong enough to send the case to trial. If a trial does go ahead, it could take years, and if Duterte is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Duterte was arrested amid dramatic scenes three days ago. Despite threatening a police general with lawsuits, refusing to be fingerprinted and telling officers “you have to kill me to bring me to The Hague”, he eventually boarded the plane that arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday.

As he landed in The Hague, the former leader was calm and appeared to accept responsibility for his actions, saying in a Facebook video: “I have been telling the police, the military, that it was my job and I am responsible.”

His arrest came amid a spectacular breakdown in relations between his family and the Marcos family, who had previously joined forces to run the Philippines.

The current president, Ferdinand Marcos, and the vice-president, Sara Duterte – who is Rodrigo’s daughter – are at loggerheads, with the latter facing an impeachment trial over charges including an alleged assassination plot against Marcos.

Sara Duterte travelled to the Netherlands to support her father, whose arrest she has described as “oppression and persecution”. The Duterte family had sought an emergency injunction from the supreme court to stop his transfer.

Speaking to supporters and reporters outside the court on Friday morning, she said she was hoping to visit her father and to have the hearing moved. “We are praying and hoping that the court will grant our request to move the initial appearance just so that we can properly sit down with the former president and discuss the legal strategies since we haven’t talked to him yet,” she told Agence France-Presse.

Duterte became president nine years ago after promising a merciless, bloody crackdown that would rid the country of drugs. On the campaign trail he once said there would be so many bodies dumped in Manila Bay that fish would grow fat from feeding on them. After taking office, he publicly stated he would kill suspected drug dealers, and urged the public to kill addicts.

Estimates of the death toll under his administration rule vary: the national police put the number at 6,000 people, while human rights groups claim the true figure is five times higher. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas who were gunned down in the streets.

Even as his tactics provoked international horror, he remained highly popular at home throughout his presidency. While his arrest has been celebrated by rights groups and the families of the victims of the “war on drugs”, it has also prompted some protests in his strongholds of Mindanao and the Visayas.

Duterte, who appeared before a senate inquiry into the drugs war killings last year, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his policies, saying: “I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country.”

Campaigners and victims of his crackdowns hope that Duterte’s arrest will finally result in him facing justice for his alleged crimes.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International’s south-east Asia researcher, said Friday’s hearing proved that no one was above the law.

“The very institution that former President Duterte mocked will now try him for murder as a crime against humanity,” she said. “This is a symbolic moment and a day of hope for families of victims and human rights defenders who have for years fought tirelessly for justice despite grave risks to their lives and safety.”

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has hailed Duterte’s arrest as a key moment for victims and international justice as a whole.

“Many say that international law is not as strong as we want, and I agree with that. But as I also repeatedly emphasise, international law is not as weak as some may think,” Khan said. “When we come together … when we build partnerships, the rule of law can prevail.”

With Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse

JD Vance, the US vice-president, was booed by the audience as he took his seat at a National Symphony Orchestra concert at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Thursday evening.

As the normal pre-concert announcements got under way, the vice-presidential party filed into the box tier. Booing and jeering erupted in the hall, drowning out the announcements, as Vance and his wife, Usha, took their seats.

Such a vocal, impassioned political protest was a highly unusual event in the normally polite and restrained world of classical music.

Vance ironically acknowledged the yelling and shouts of “You ruined this place!” with a smile and a wave.

Audience members had undergone a full Secret Service security check as Vance’s motorcade drew up at the US’s national performing arts centre, delaying the start of the concert by 25 minutes.

After news of the reaction to Vance at the concert emerged, Richard Grenell, interim director of the Kennedy Center who was recently appointed by Trump, said the crowd was “intolerant”.

In February, Donald Trump sacked the chairman of the Kennedy Center board along with 13 of its trustees, appointing himself the new chair, bringing in foreign policy adviser and close ally Richard Grenell as interim leader, and naming new board members – among them, Usha Vance. She was on the board of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 2020 to 2022.

“So we took over the Kennedy Center,” the president said at the time. “We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things. We’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke. There’s no more woke in this country.”

The new board members have recently been given their first tour of the centre, which is home to the Washington Opera as well as the National Symphony Orchestra and hosts about 2,000 performances a year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thursday evening’s concert programme – Shostakovich’s second violin concerto, with Leonidas Kavakos the soloist, followed by Stravinsky’s Petrushka – got off to a slightly shaky start before settling into its stride.

Audience members nervously joked during the intermission about the apposite all-Russian programme, given Vance’s brutal dressing-down of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during an Oval Office blowup in February that played directly into the hands of the Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin.

Resistance to Trump’s takeover of the traditionally bipartisan Kennedy Center has begun. The producers of the hit musical Hamilton have withdrawn from a run at the institution, due to take place in 2026, and a number of individual artists have also cancelled appearances.

A group performing on the Millennium Stage in the centre’s foyer – traditional musicians Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman – had banners onstage with them reading “reinstate queer programming” and “creativity at the Kennedy Center must not be suppressed”.

In a 2016 interview with the New York Times, Vance said he had not realised that people listened to classical music for pleasure as he reflected on his rise through the American class system after the overnight success of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

“Elites use different words, eat different foods, listen to different music – I was astonished when I learned that people listened to classical music for pleasure – and generally occupy different worlds from America’s poor,” he said. “Unfortunately, this can make things a little culturally awkward when you leap from one class to the other.”

But the public anger at Vance was brought on by the culture war that he and his allies have unleashed on Washington’s cultural institutions, especially the Kennedy Center.

Vance has staked out a reputation as a cultural conservative and leaned into criticisms of “cancel culture”, saying that modern society was crushing the spirit of young men during an on-stage interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) in February.

“I think our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge, you should try to cast aside your family, you should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place,” he said at Cpac.

“My message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man.”

Trump tweeted in February, in relation to the his takeover of the centre, “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA – ONLY THE BEST.” On Saturday, drag artists rallied outside the Kennedy Center to protest against the attacks on their work.

In February The Kennedy Center announced the cancellation of a Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC concert scheduled to coincide with May’s Pride celebrations.

A British national has died in Kenya after being struck by a government vehicle that was part of the president’s motorcade.

Edgar Charles Frederick, 79, was killed on Thursday as President William Ruto’s motorcade made its way to a public engagement in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

The driver of the government vehicle was arrested and later released on cash bail, Michael Muchiri, a spokesperson for the Kenyan police, said on Friday.

A British high commission spokesperson said it was “liaising with the authorities”.

The collision caused an outrage on social media as Kenyans questioned why the president’s motorcade was being driven at a high speed along a busy major road.

Videos showed the victim lying on the road bleeding heavily from his head. The vehicle that hit him failed to stop.

The presidential motorcade, often made up of dozens of vehicles, is driven in high speeds for security reasons, according to the police.

Muchiri told the BBC that Frederick had been visiting Kenya to see his sister and nephew who live in the country. He said a postmortem would be held.