China’s finance ministry has announced an 84% tariff on goods imported from the US, retaliating against recent levies imposed by the White House.

The hike in tariffs, from 34%, came after US President Donald Trump’s 104% tariff on Chinese goods came into force on Wednesday – they were later increased to 125%.

Trump said the 21% rise was “based on the lack of respect” China had shown, and that it would be “effective immediately”.

Beijing, which has said its charges would take effect from Thursday, urged other countries to unite against Trump’s tariffs as the country’s exporters reel from the crippling new levies.

“Global unity can triumph over trade tyranny,” declared an editorial in the state-run newspaper China Daily, noting Beijing’s collaborations with Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies.

A separate piece called for the European Union to work with it to “uphold free trade and multilateralism”.

The US’s trade war with China continued to escalate on Wednesday. Hours after Trump’s highest tariffs on a raft of countries came into force, China retaliated with its own 84% levy on US imports.

European markets dropped shortly after the announcement, with the FTSE 100 falling by 3.3% and Germany’s Dax 4%.

Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to say that, in return, he was upping the US’s levies on China to 125%.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” the US president wrote.

He also announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of countries -except China – saying this was because those nations had not “at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States”.

Beijing “firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying practices”, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday – before the latest hike from Washington.

The tariffs come at a difficult time for China’s sluggish economy: domestic consumption remains weak and exports are still a major driver of growth.

The sweeping nature of Trump’s tariffs has also left Chinese businesses scrambling to adjust their supply chains – with most countries affected, firms say it’s hard to find a way out of this uncertainty.

The tariffs will shrink “already razor-thin profit margins”, said the owner of a Chinese business that handles cross-border logistics for e-commerce, as well as air and sea freight. He did not wish to share his name.

“Higher tariffs raise costs for freight forwarders like us, as well as for factories, companies, and sellers. It just means everyone earns less.”

Any tariff upwards of 35% will wipe out all the profits that Chinese businesses make when exporting to the US or South East Asia, said Dan Wang from the Eurasia Group consultancy.

“Growth is going to be much lower since exports contributed to 20% to 50% of growth since the Covid pandemic,” she added.

Beijing is reportedly considering banning Hollywood films and suspending fentanyl cooperation with the US, according to Chinese blogger Liu Hong, who is a senior editor at state-run Xinhua news.

But that would offer little comfort to firms like Fuling, which sells disposable tableware to US fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

It said the additional tariffs would “significantly impact” its business. Fuling noted that nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenue in 2023 and the first half of last year came from the US.

To mitigate the impact of tariffs, Fuling, which is headquartered in China’s Zhejiang province, started a new factory in Indonesia late last year.

However, Trump’s new tariffs have introduced more uncertainty for Chinese exports from Indonesia, which are now subject to a 32% levy, the company said in a corporate filing.

Indonesia was hit along with much of the world in President Trump’s announcement of expansive tariffs last week, which he claimed would allow the US economy to flourish.

But economists have warned of a US and global recession. The tariffs have also shaken world markets and drawn criticism from billionaire CEOs, including Trump’s ally Elon Musk.

While China has left the door open for talks, Trump has not spoken to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since returning to the White House.

Such broad, sweeping tariffs will cause more harm than good, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a note to its member companies on Wednesday.

“This level of upheaval is unprecedented, and it remains unclear how the current measures will benefit consumers in either nation or the broader economy,” read the note signed by Chair Alvin Liu and President Michael Hart.

Some analysts believe the levies will force China to restructure its economy and rely heavily on domestic consumption, which it has been struggling to boost.

Otherwise, the tariffs will not be sustainable for China in the longer term, Tim Waterer from brokerage KCM Trade said.

“The tariffs are aimed at suppressing China,” said the manager of a Chinese freight company, who asked to remain anonymous.

He added that many of the South East Asian countries that have been hit with steep tariffs are “exactly where many Chinese businesses have relocated”, such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

The Tianjin-based company plans to negotiate with some of its American clients to share the burden of the tariffs. “Every case is different, but overall, the impact has been quite substantial,” he said.

Another freight company manager Wu Changchun, whose firm mainly operates on shipping routes between China and Cambodia, said he is already seeing a fall in freight volume.

Several construction projects in Cambodia have also come to a halt after Trump’s tariffs announcement, he said.

“If the tariffs were at 10% or 20%, businesses might still be able to absorb the cost by optimising supply chains, cutting margins and sharing the burden. Trade could still go on… [But at 104%] that’s no longer something trade-offs can fix,” said Mr Wu, a general manager at Maritima Maruba.

“That’s full-on decoupling. Trade would basically come to a standstill.”

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s recent comments about the country’s start-up ecosystem have sparked a massive debate on social media and evoked strong reactions from some entrepreneurs.

At the second edition of Startup Mahakumbh, a government-led start-up conclave last week, Goyal seemed to take a hard look at India’s consumer start-ups as he urged entrepreneurs to explore more innovations in technology in order to help the country progress.

Poking fun at the rise of food delivery apps, artisanal brands and online betting apps in the country, he compared them with the innovations being made by the “other side”, which many took to mean China.

He said that while “they” were making leaps in machine learning, robotics and building “next-gen factories that can compete with the rest of the world”, India’s start-ups were still largely focussed on lifestyle products like gluten-free ice creams.

His comments sparked a flurry of reactions from India’s top innovators, with some arguing that he was only encouraging creators to be more ambitious and others calling it an unfair criticism of the start-up ecosystem, a major contributor to the country’s economy.

To be sure, Goyal also praised the pace at which new businesses were popping up in the country, hailing India as the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world. He also urged Indian investors to do more to support Indian creators.

But he seemed to want to see more happen, and faster.

“We have to be willing to evolve and learn. [If] we want to be bigger and better, then we have to be bolder and we should not fight shy of the competition,” the minister said.

At one point, he asked the audience – brimming with entrepreneurs and investors – “Do we want to make ice creams or [semiconductor] chips?”

Aadit Palicha, co-founder of the quick-commerce app Zepto, was quick to call out the minister.

In a post on X, he argued that it was consumer internet companies like his that have led innovation in the technology space, in India and globally.

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He pointed out that Amazon – originally a consumer internet company – had scaled cloud computing while the big players in AI today, like Facebook and Google, were once consumer internet companies too.

He urged Indian investors to support consumer internet companies so that they can grow and use their profits for making more ambitious innovations.

Mohandas Pai, a prominent angel investor, told news channel Economic Times Now that there was a dearth of capital investment in deep-tech start-ups from the government and private players.

He explained that investors made a beeline for lifestyle-focused start-ups because they gave quick returns.

Deep-tech innovations take a long time to develop and require expensive infrastructure. “People are not willing to take long-term risks. We need long-term ‘patient’ money [for deep tech start-ups to thrive],” he said.

He also said that regulatory curbs on foreign investments in Indian start-ups were hurting innovation.

“Deep tech start-ups also struggle to find a market,” he added, citing the example of an Indian firm that recently pioneered a quick-charging battery for buses but found no takers for its product.

Many social media users also spoke about the challenges they faced when they tried to start their own tech businesses.

Some said they struggled to get loans, others highlighted high import taxes on certain foreign raw materials and equipment, while some others spoke about unnecessary red tape that made getting documents and approvals a nightmare.

But some entrepreneurs also defended the minister, saying that his comments were well-intentioned and a much-needed reality-check for the start-up ecosystem.

Vironika S, founder of edtech app Proxy Gyan, agreed that India’s future leadership of the global economy depended on breakthroughs in AI and semiconductors but added that there were realistic barriers to doing so and that the government could help by easing them.

Indian investor Kushal Bhagia said in a post on X that Goyal was right about ambition and a lack of deep tech start-ups in India. “We just don’t meet enough founders who are doing something truly deep tech or going after big ambitious problem statements,” he said.

He attributed this to India’s tech talent leaving the country to work in US firms and to a dearth of deep-tech founders for people to learn from and be inspired by.

The minister’s comments also got the media analysing different journeys of Indian and Chinese start-ups.

Journalist Abhijeet Kumar wrote in the Business Standard newspaper that in 2023, just 5% of Indian start-up funding went into deep-tech sectors, compared to 35% in China. He also pointed out how Beijing actively promoted high-tech innovation – in 2024, it had slashed $361bn in taxes and fees for high-tech firms, including $80.7bn in research and development deductions.

In an editorial published on Monday, the newspaper also noted that India’s start-ups are more consumption-driven, focused on using technology to solve local problems at scale rather than global ones by creating path-breaking foundational models.

It pointed out that India currently had 4,000 deep-tech start-ups and that this number was expected to jump to 10,000 by 2030 and quoted a Nasscom report which said that India’s deep tech-start-ups attracted $1.6bn in funding in 2024, marking a 78% year-on-year increase.

But there’s still a long way to go.

“As the deep-tech race intensifies globally, it is clear that India will have to do a lot to catch up with these countries,” the editorial said, adding that Goyal’s comments should “serve as a call to action” for start-ups and investors and also for the government.

“This can include setting up deep-tech innovation funds, building strong academia-start-up bridges and offering incentives for faster developments in hardware, AI, biotech and clean energy,” it said.

Twenty people have been killed in a fire at a nursing home in north-east China, state media report.

The blaze in Chengde city, Hebei province, broke out on Tuesday night local time and was extinguished in about two hours.

Nineteen people survived the fire and were taken to hospital for observation, reports say.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze, and a person in charge of the home has been detained. No other details were immediately available.

On social media, some called for a thorough investigation while others expressed sympathy for the elderly victims.

“Old people already have mobility issues,” one Weibo user wrote. “I can’t imagine how desperate they must have felt during the fire.”

Nursing homes and elderly care facilities have doubled between 2019 and 2024, according to authorities, as China deals with a growing ageing population.

In 2023, 29 people died – many of them elderly – and dozens were injured after a private hospital in Beijing caught fire.

US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs targeting most of the world are now in effect – and outside China, no other region has been hit as hard as South East Asia.

Near the top of the list are Vietnam and Cambodia which have been hit by some of the highest tariffs: 46% and 49%. Further down are Thailand (36%), Indonesia (32%) and Malaysia (24%). The Philippines gets a tariff of 17%, and Singapore of 10%.

This is a huge blow for a region highly dependent on exports. Its widely admired economic development over the past three decades has largely been driven by its success in selling its products to the rest of the world, in particular to the US.

Exports to the US contribute around 30% of Vietnam’s GDP, and 25% of Cambodia’s.

That growth story is now imperilled by the punitive measures being imposed in Washington.

The longer-term impact of these tariffs, assuming they stay in place, will vary, but will certainly pose big challenges to the governments of Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia in particular.

Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy”, where it attempts to be friends with everyone and balance ties with both China and the US, will now be tested.

Under the leadership of the new Communist Party Secretary-General To Lam, Vietnam has embarked on an ambitious plan to build an upper-income, knowledge-and-tech-based economy by the year 2045. It has been aiming for annual growth rates in excess of 8%.

Exporting more to the US, already its biggest market, was central to that plan.

It was also the main reason why Vietnam agreed to elevate their relationship to that of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2023.

The Communist Party, which tolerates little dissent and has no formal political opposition, depends on its economic pledges for its legitimacy. Already viewed by many economists as too ambitious, these will now be even harder to meet.

Thailand depends on US exports less than Vietnam – under 10% of GDP – but the Thai economy is in much worse shape, having underperformed for the past decade. The Thai government is trying to find ways to lift economic growth, most recently attempting but failing to legalise gambling, and these tariffs are another economic blow it cannot afford.

For Cambodia, the tariffs pose perhaps the greatest political threat in the region.

The government of Hun Manet has proved just as authoritarian as that of his father Hun Sen, whom he succeeded two years ago, but it is vulnerable.

Keeping the Hun family’s hold on power has required offering rival clans in Cambodia economic privileges like monopolies or land concessions, but this has helped create a glut of property developments, which are no longer selling, and a mass of grievances over land expropriations.

The garment sector, which employs 750,000 people, has been a crucial social safety valve, giving steady incomes to Cambodia’s poorest. Thousands of those jobs are now likely to be lost as a result of President Trump’s tariffs.

Unlike China, which has hit back with its own levies, the official message from governments in South East Asia is don’t panic, don’t retaliate, but negotiate.

Vietnam has dispatched deputy prime minister Ho Duc Phoc to Washington to plead his country’s case, and has offered to eliminate all tariffs on US imports. Thailand plans to send its finance minister to make a similar appeal, and has offered to reduce its tariffs and buy more American products, like food and aircraft.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is also heading to Washington, though with exports to the US making up only 11% of Malaysia’s total, his country is less affected than some of its neighbours.

However, the Trump administration appears to be in no mood to compromise.

Peter Navarro, President Trump’s senior counsellor on trade and manufacturing and one of the main thinkers behind the new policy, said in interviews on Monday that Vietnam’s offer of zero tariffs was meaningless, because it would not address the deficit in trade where Vietnam sells $15 worth of goods to the US for every $1 it buys.

He accused Vietnam of keeping multiple non-tariff barriers to US imports, and said that one-third of all Vietnamese exports to the US were actually Chinese products, trans-shipped through Vietnam.

The proportion of Vietnamese exports which are being made or trans-shipped there to avoid US tariffs on China is difficult to assess, but detailed trade studies put it at between 7% and 16%, not one-third.

Like Vietnam, the government of Cambodia has appealed to the US to postpone the tariffs while it attempts to negotiate.

The local American Chamber of Commerce has called for the 49% tariffs to be dropped, making the point that the Cambodian garment industry, the country’s biggest employer, will be badly affected, but that no tariff level, however high, will see clothing and footwear manufacturing return to the US.

Perhaps the most perverse tariff rate is the 44% applied to Myanmar, a country mired in a civil war, which has no capacity to buy more US goods.

US exports make up only a small proportion of Myanmar’s GDP, less than 1%.

But as in Cambodia, that sector, mainly garments, is one of the few that provides a steady income to poor families in Myanmar’s cities.

In a supreme irony, Trump has until now been a popular figure in this region.

He has been widely admired in Vietnam for his tough, transactional approach to foreign policy, and Cambodia’s former strongman Hun Sen, still the main power behind the scenes, has long sought a close personal relationship with the US president, proudly posting selfies with him at their first meeting in 2017.

Only last month Cambodia was praising Trump for shutting down the US media networks Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which often carried the views of Cambodian dissidents.

Now Cambodia, like so many of its neighbours, finds itself in a long line of supplicants pleading with him to ease their tariff burden.

US shares have rocketed after US President Donald Trump said he would suspend steep tariffs on goods from most countries, and instead impose a 10% import tax rate.

The White House said it was backing off on higher levies for trade partners that had agreed to negotiate, although Trump said he would raise tariffs on goods from China even further, to at least 125% “effective immediately”.

The S&P 500 soared 9.5% in the biggest one-day rally since 2008, following days of turmoil sparked by the tariffs.

Trump’s decision came less than 24 hours after the latest round of tariffs had come into force, hitting key trade partners, such as Vietnam, which saw its imports facing a new levy of 46%.

The duties, which the president had announced last week, were higher and more far-reaching than many on Wall Street had anticipated.

In the aftermath of the announcement, the S&P plunged more than 10% and many analysts warned of the rising risk of economic recession in the US and globally.

By Wednesday, the fears had hit the bond market, where investors started dumping US government bonds.

“Although President Donald Trump was able to resist the stock market sell-off, once the bond market began to weaken too, it was only a matter of time before he folded on his eye-wateringly high tariffs,” said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist for Capital Economics.

He said he expected Trump to return to the plan for a 10% universal tariff that he called for in his campaign, though warned that it would take time for for the US and China to work out a deal.

“It is difficult to see either side backing down in the next few days,” he said. “But we suspect that talks will eventually happen, although a full rollback of all the additional tariffs applied since Inauguration Day appear unlikely.”

The Dow ended the day up more than 7.8% and the Nasdaq skyrocketed more than 12%.

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Companies such as Nike, which makes roughly half its footwear in Vietnam, jumped 11%, while Apple soared roughly 15%.

Despite the gains, the leading indexes in the US remain lower than they were before Trump’s announcement, with the S&P 500 off about 3% and down more than 8% for the year.

“This week is Passover – the festival of freedom,” Liri Albag, an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza for 15 months by Hamas, told a crowd of thousands gathered in Tel Aviv last weekend. “But what kind of freedom is it when 59 people are still in Hamas hell?”

In recent weeks, powerful voices have joined the fight to bring home Israel’s remaining hostages – those of the captives released during the latest ceasefire deal that began in January and lasted two months.

Despite their ongoing trauma, frailty and grief, a number of ex-hostages have felt compelled to give their harrowing testimony on stage at demonstrations, in long TV interviews or in meetings overseas with world leaders.

They have detailed their own harsh treatment and expressed fears for the fate of others left behind, especially since Israel cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza at the start of March and restarted its military offensive two weeks later, saying this was to put pressure on Hamas.

Twenty-four of those who have been held captive since the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023 are still believed to be alive.

Witnessing the collapse of the ceasefire has been unbearable, the former hostages say.

“We have no time. The earth is burning under our feet,” insisted Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old farmer abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Kibbutz Nir Oz and freed in January, who also spoke at Saturday’s rally in Hostages Square.

“I’m not really here. Only half of me is standing here,” said Omer Wenkert, another former hostage, in his emotive address. “Part of us, part of all of us, is still captive in Gaza.”

He called on Israeli leaders to take action on the hostages saying: “Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s on you to get them back.”

Many of the released hostages want a return to the original ceasefire deal which brought them home in exchange for some 1,800 Palestinians being freed by Israel.

The agreement was meant to see a second phase in which remaining Israeli captives would be returned and the war would end.

However, Israel now rejects this and is pushing instead for more hostages to be freed through an extension of the first phase of the truce.

Hamas has agreed only to an extension involving the release of fewer hostages than Israel will accept, and ultimately wants to return to the original ceasefire framework.

Since appearing on stage, flanked by masked gunmen and looking pale and thin, at a Hamas handover ceremony in Gaza City in February, US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel has turned into an active campaigner.

He was part of a group of eight ex-hostages that met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last month – crediting him with securing the recent deal that brought back 25 hostages and the bodies of eight others and urging him to help get ceasefire negotiations back on track.

“It’s urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation,” Mr Siegel told 60 Minutes on the US network CBS.

Mr Siegel described how he and others with whom he was initially held – including women and children – had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels.

“We were gasping for our breath,” he recalled.

He said there was constant abuse: “I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense.”

A prominent former hostage, Yarden Bibas, gave his first interview to 60 Minutes, speaking in English, hoping his powerful story and ceasefire message would reach the US president.

“I’m here because of Trump. I’m here only because of him. I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again,” Mr Bibas said. “He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas, I think he can do it.”

Hamas filmed the anguish of Mr Bibas after telling him in late 2023 that his wife Shiri and two children had been blown up in an Israeli air strike, although Israeli officials later said forensic evidence showed his boys were killed by their captors.

“They were murdered in cold blood, bare hands,” Mr Bibas said, remembering how the men holding him used to taunt him over his family’s fate. “They used to tell me: ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter, you’ll get a new wife, you’ll get new kids, better wife, better kids’.”

The small, red-haired Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, have become a symbol of the horror of the events of 7 October.

On the day in February that Yarden Bibas buried them with their mother, after their bodies were returned, thousands of Israelis turned out along the route of the funeral procession to pay their last respects.

Given his ordeal, many were surprised to see Mr Bibas quickly turn to lobbying. But hours after Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza on 18 March, he joined other former hostages standing in silent protest in Hostages Square.

Mr Bibas told CBS how terrifying it was to be held in a tunnel when Israel’s warplanes struck.

“You don’t know when it’s going to happen and when it happens, you’re afraid for your life,” he said. “The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but underground.”

He explained his constant fear for his best friend, David Cunio, who remains in Gaza with his brother, Ariel.

Mr Cunio’s wife Sharon and children were released in the first truce of the Gaza war in November 2023.

“I lost my wife and kids,” Mr Bibas concluded. “Sharon must not lose her husband.”

Eli Sharabi – like Mr Bibas, Mr Siegel and Mr Moses – was kidnapped from his home next to Gaza.

When he was released, looking gaunt and hollow-eyed after nearly 500 days in captivity, it was clear his captors had not told him what most Israelis already knew – that his British-born wife, Lianne and teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were among some 1,200 people killed on 7 October.

Just three weeks after his release, Mr Sharabi gave a heart-wrenching TV interview to Israel’s Channel 12 TV. He described how he had learnt the fate of his family from a social worker he knew after the Red Cross handed him to the Israeli army.

“I said: ‘Bring me my wife and the girls’,” Mr Sharabi recalled, only for the social worker to respond: “Osnat [his sister] and your Mum will tell you.”

“Obviously there was nothing to tell, she had said it all,” he went on, his voice breaking. “The worst disaster had happened.”

Mr Sharabi – who has since met Trump and addressed the UN Security Council – said he decided he must talk about his experiences even as he was processing his loss because: “It’s very simple, no-one must be left behind.”

He described his painful goodbye to Alon Ohel, a young musician kidnapped from the Nova music festival with whom he was held in an underground cell in Gaza.

“I promised him that I wouldn’t leave him there, that I would fight for him… I told him it’s a matter of days, just days,” he said.

Upon his release, Mr Sharabi and another released hostage were able to give Ohel’s family the first proof that he was alive, even passing his sister a birthday message. However, they have also revealed he is unable to see in one eye due to untreated shrapnel injuries.

Mr Sharabi has laid out how, in order to deal with his long captivity, he went into “survival mode” – a term several former hostages have used – observing: “Survival is made of little steps, little victories.”

He lost 30kg (66lb) and said that, as well as being beaten and humiliated, he felt “impossible” hunger during his captivity. He described how he and the three other hostages with him were given one meal a day and they would divide a single flatbread, or pitta, into quarters to share.

Omer Wenkert, who was also seized from the Nova festival, told Channel 12 how he was kept in a 1m-by-1m cell. The lowest point in his life – he said – was being woken up to get hit with a metal rod to his head on his birthday.

He related one crushing experience when he was desperately hungry and one of his captors told him to turn his back while food was laid out for him.

Then, he said: “There were pittas on the filthy floor on a filthy nylon cover, which was full of sand and fungi, and on top of it a block of cheese with a giant mould growing on it.”

On Fox News Digital, Tal Shoham, narrated how he and two other men – Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David, who remain in captivity – were moved in an ambulance that Hamas used for discreetly transporting hostages to a tunnel, to be held with Mr Wenkert. Their toilet was a hole in the ground.

He said they were monitored by cameras, often beaten and randomly deprived of food and sleep.

The guards, he said, continued to dig underground passages even as war raged on. “Hamas never stopped digging tunnels,” Mr Shoham remarked. “Not for a single day.”

The situation was so bad both he and Mr David developed serious infections but were not seen by a doctor.

“My leg turned blue, yellow, and purple with internal bleeding,” he explained. “They gave us blood thinners, fearing we might develop clots from prolonged immobility. Eventually, they realised the issue was malnutrition and provided us with vitamin supplements for seven days. It tasted like dog food, but it dramatically improved our condition.”

Other hostages said they were kept in solitary confinement. Gadi Moses has said he resorted to pacing his cell and solving mental maths problems to deal with this “psychological abuse”.

He told Channel 12: “The depth of the fear, the depth of disconnection from the world, the depth of the unknown – it’s impossible to convey.”

“You start having terrible thoughts,” admitted Omer Shem Tov, who was taken hostage at the Nova festival and also kept in isolation, speaking to Israeli public broadcaster, Kan. “Every day feels like an eternity.”

While Mr Shem Tov praised the Israeli military in his interview, saying it was doing “holy work” in Gaza, he insisted the government had to make a new ceasefire deal and prioritise the hostages. He commented: “I don’t know if you understand it… but you are breaking them.”

Fears for the lives of those still held captive have been heightened since Hamas recently stated it would not move living hostages out of the large areas where the Israeli military has ordered evacuations.

The armed group has previously threatened to execute hostages if Israeli troops approach the locations where they are held. In August, Hamas killed six hostages in Rafah after Israeli forces moved in nearby.

Liri Albag, who was 18 and had finished her army training only two days before she was snatched from her base on the Gaza border, gave her first in-depth TV interview in March.

“The truth is that 7 October feels like one long nightmare, and I’ve been waiting for someone to wake me up, for someone to tell me I was dreaming. But that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, this has all been real,” she told Channel 12.

Like other hostages, she has recounted her terror when she was first taken to Gaza. “[We saw] the Gazan masses surrounding us, standing on the sides, clapping, whistling, dancing… [Palestinians] ran after us, happy, firing in the air. Children, women, old people.”

She said her experience led her to conclude that there are no “innocent bystanders” in Gaza.

Scenes from the territory broadcast on 7 October, combined with the testimony from hostages that has now emerged, have hardened Israeli views when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians.

In the devastating Gaza war triggered by the Hamas attacks, more than 50,846 people have been killed – most of them women, children and the elderly – according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, used by the UN.

“As long as the hostage issue is still on the table, the emotional ability of Israelis to empathise with the Palestinians is close to zero,” says Professor Tamar Hermann, an expert on public opinion at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI).

Nevertheless, the latest surveys do indicate widespread support for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

When the IDI recently asked Israelis which of the state’s declared war goals – toppling Hamas or bringing home all the hostages – was more important, 68% said it was the latter, more than in polls last year.

Meeting at the White House on Monday, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu said there were ongoing efforts to restart truce talks and free the hostages.

“We’re trying very hard to get the hostages out. We’re looking at another ceasefire, we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed,” Netanyahu said. “The hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.”

Despite his strong words, many of the former hostages question Netanyahu’s commitment.

For his political survival, the prime minister relies on far-right allies who back continued fighting in Gaza and military occupation of the strip.

Some of the freed hostages have openly accused the Israeli government of betrayal and abandonment and, in some cases, they have drawn vicious online threats for their comments.

No wonder, then, that many continue to pin their hopes on Trump.

Along with Keith Siegel and his wife Aviva, another recently released hostage, Yair Horn, followed Netanyahu to Washington this week. The group had their own set of meetings with high-ranking officials and again met the president.

Mr Horn wore a red hoodie showing his younger brother, Eitan, who is still held in Gaza. The brothers were abducted together from Nir Oz and a haunting video released by Hamas showed them on the eve of Yair’s release – hugging, with Eitan weeping.

A day after Trump’s Netanyahu meeting, Mr Horn stood with the US leader at a Republican event and stressed his gratitude to him.

“It’s really surreal to be here, you know,” he said. “I’m a simple man. I’m running the bar in the kibbutz in Nir Oz, where I lived. And now, I’m here with President Trump, who is running the world.”

Mr Horn asked “humbly” for “the last push” to bring home the remaining hostages, including his brother.

Sounding in despair, he also reflected on how Passover was approaching with the traditional Seder meal. The major Jewish holiday celebrates the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and so has special poignancy for the freed hostages and those still captive in Gaza, like Eitan.

“In a few days we mark Passover… it’s a family time,” Mr Horn told the audience, his voice cracking. “I hope my little brother can sit with us at the Seder.”

Germany’s conservatives under Friedrich Merz have reached a deal with the Social Democrats to govern Europe’s biggest economy, five months after the previous government collapsed.

Merz, 69, said their agreement sent “a strong and clear signal” to Germans and the EU that they would get “a strong government capable of action”.

Germany was already in recession before it was buffeted by economic turbulence, caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

“The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track,” said the chancellor-in-waiting, promising to fulfil defence commitments and revive economic competitiveness.

• Follow live updates as China and EU hit back at Trump tariffs

Merz and his coalition partners have been under intense pressure to put an end to Germany’s political limbo since his Christian Democrats won federal elections in February.

He has also just seen his party overtaken in an opinion poll by the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Announcing the government deal, Merz promised to reform and stabilise Germany, with a focus on migration, the economy and defence.

“Europe can rely on Germany,” he said, promising “a strong plan to bring our country to the forefront again”.

He will have to wait for the week starting 5 May for the new parliament to elect him as chancellor, but should have no problem with a 13-seat majority.

The coalition parties had already signalled their urgency last month, when they pushed through significant reform of Germany’s strict debt rules.

Such changes mean the new government will be able to plough significant investment into the military and the country’s crumbling infrastructure.

Included in Wednesday’s agreement were a series of measures to “control and largely end irregular migration”, and impose border controls aimed at addressing one of the big concerns of voters in the February election.

The AfD complained that the plans did not go far enough, accusing Merz of capitulating to the Social Democrats.

In a recent report to parliament, Germany’s armed forces commissioner highlighted dramatic shortages in the military across the board, from ammunition and soldier numbers to dilapidated barracks.

Another significant part of the coalition deal is for defence spending to be increased, and for boosting the strength of the military.

Although there will be no conscription, Merz said the coalition was aiming to follow a “Swedish model” of voluntary military service.

“We hope that with enough volunteers, we will also be able to achieve an expansion of the Bundeswehr [German armed forces],” he said.

Merz also promised “comprehensive support” to Ukraine.

• Germany leads defiance of Trump car tariffs, saying it “will not give in”
• Germany decides to leave history behind and prepare for war
• Merz clinches package to revamp defence and infrastructure

Although his government will feature almost entirely new names – Merz himself has never been a cabinet minister – there will be continuity at the defence ministry.

Boris Pistorius, the Social Democrat defence minister in the outgoing government, is expected to remain in post.

This will be the fifth so-called grand coalition (GroKo) – involving the big parties of the centre right and centre left since World War Two – but the parties were at pains to say it would not be like any previous government.

With Germany in economic recession, though, one leading politician on the populist left, Sahra Wagenknecht, said they offered no answer either to Germany’s economic crisis or the trade war.

She said Germany was threatened with a third and fourth year in recession, which she dubbed “Merzession”.

Merz said he was confident that the coalition deal would be approved by their respective parties and they would be able to get to work in early May.

Meanwhile, an Ipsos poll on Wednesday put Merz’s conservatives in second place on 24% support, a point behind Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose co-leader Alice Weidel hailed the survey as unprecedented, and promised that “political change will come”.

A faulty radio antenna contributed to a deadly mid-air helicopter collision at an Australian theme park and resort, transport safety officials say.

Four people died – including two British tourists – and several more were seriously injured when the two aircraft hit each other in January 2023, near Sea World on the Gold Coast.

An investigation by Australia’s Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) found one of the pilots did not hear a vital radio call shortly before the accident, and that a series of changes by Sea World meant risk controls were over time eroded.

The accident rocked the Gold Coast, one of the nation’s biggest tourist hotspots.

The two helicopters collided around 20 seconds after one had taken off and as the other was landing.

Those who died were all travelling in the helicopter which was taking off. The other aircraft managed to make an emergency landing, with passengers suffering a range of injuries.

The ATSB report found that in the months leading up to the accident, Sea World had tried to improve its offering of leisure flights by adding a second helipad location and introducing larger Eurocopter EC140 B4 helicopters.

“Over time, these changes undermined risk controls used to manage traffic separation and created a conflict point between… helicopters,” it said.

The aircraft preparing to take off also had a faulty antenna.

In the run-up to the collision, a call from the arriving helicopter was either not received or not heard by the pilot on the ground, who was loading passengers at the time.

However, once the passengers were on board, a ground crew member advised the departing helicopter pilot that the airspace was clear. By the time the chopper took off, though, that information was no longer correct.

Meanwhile the pilot who was wanting to land after a five-minute scenic flight had seen the other helicopter on the ground but didn’t deem it a threat, the report said.

He would have expected to have been alerted by a “taxiing” radio call if that situation changed. However the faulty antenna likely prevented the broadcast of the taxiing call, the report said.

“Without the taxiing call being received, the pilot of the inbound helicopter, who was likely focusing on their landing site, had no trigger to reassess the status of the departing helicopter as a collision risk.”

Among those who died were Diane Hughes, 57, and her 65-year-old husband Ron who were from Neston, Cheshire. They had married in 2022 and were on holiday visiting relatives after being separated by COVID.

The “fun-loving” couple from Neston, Cheshire, had “a zest for life”, their family said in a statement at the time.

Also killed was Sydney resident Vanessa Tadros, 36, and 40-year-old Sea World Helicopters pilot Ashley Jenkinson, who was originally from Birmingham.

A further six people were seriously injured while three others sustained minor injuries in the crash.

Shortly after the accident, the passengers on the flight that was returning hailed the pilot as a “hero” for landing the helicopter safely.

In all, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau made 28 findings that underline “key lessons” for operators and pilots.

“The most fundamental lesson from this investigation is that making changes to aviation operations, even those that appear to increase safety, can have unintended consequences,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

“It is therefore critical that changes to aviation operations are managed through the implementation of a defined process to ensure overall safety is not adversely affected.”

Hundreds of rescue workers in the Dominican Republic continue to search for survivors of a roof collapse at a nightclub in the capital, Santo Domingo.

At least 124 people died and more than 150 were injured in the incident, which happened just before 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Tuesday at the Jet Set club, officials said.

Head of Emergency Operations Juan Manuel Méndez estimated that his team had “24 to 36 hours left” to try to find survivors under the rubble.

Hundreds of guests were inside the popular venue attending a concert by merengue singer Rubby Pérez.

Pérez, as well as former Major League Baseball players Octavio Dotel and Tony Blanco, and a provincial governor are among those who have been confirmed dead.

Mobile phone footage recorded inside the club, which has been verified by the BBC, shows Pérez on stage singing while the man recording can be heard talking.

“Something fell from the ceiling” the man recording says, while his finger can be seen pointing towards the roof.

In the footage, Pérez can be seen looking towards the area pointed out by the man.

Less than 30 seconds later, a noise can be heard and the recording goes black while a woman is heard shouting “Dad, what’s happened to you?”.

It is not clear how many people exactly were inside the popular venue but estimates range between 500 and 1,000 people.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on X that at least one US national, and multiple legal permanent residents, were killed in the roof collapse.

He said that he and his wife, Jeanette, were “united in prayer” and that the US stands “ready to support our Dominican allies amid this difficult time”.

Emergency workers have demolished one of the walls of the club to better reach those still buried under the rubble.

Relatives desperate for news of their missing loved ones have been holding vigils at the scene.

Among them was Pérez’s daughter Zulinka, who is a backing singer in his merengue band.

She described how she had been on stage, singing with her father when the tragedy unfolded.

Zulinka said she was saved by her husband, who shielded her with his body when the roof collapsed, telling her that she had to make it out “to be there for our son”.

She managed to crawl out from under the rubble and her husband also made it out alive.

Her 69-year-old father, however, remained trapped for hours.

According to Zulinka, he survived the collapse and managed to guide emergency workers to his location.

“They found him singing, he started to sing so they would hear him,” she told local media.

But around 17:00 local time, more than 16 hours after the tragedy had occurred, Zulinka was informed by rescue workers at the scene that her father had died before they could free him.

His manager later confirmed his death.

Nelsy Cruz also survived the initial impact from the falling debris and was among the first to raise the alarm – by directly calling the president of the Dominican Republic.

The first call the 41-year-old governor of Monte Cristi province placed as she lay injured in the debris was to President Luis Abinader, asking him to send the emergency services to save those around her who were also severely injured.

It was only after she had made the call to the president that Nelsy Cruz called her brother, seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz, their father said.

She later died in hospital from injuries she had sustained from falling glass.

Octavio Dotel, a former Major League Baseball pitcher, is also among those who died after being pulled from the debris.

The 51-year-old was rescued alive but died on the way to hospital.

It is not yet clear what caused Jet Set’s roof to collapse.

The club was previously a cinema and had been turned into a music venue hosting regular dance music concerts on Monday nights.

The concerts drew people of all ages and on the day of the collapse, a number of athletes, celebrities and politicians were in attendance.

President Abinader has declared three days of national mourning.

India’s central bank has cut interest rates by 0.25% amid a spate of downgrades to growth following Donald Trump’s tariff announcements.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced repo rates from 6.25% to 6%, a second cut since February when rates were brought down after nearly five years.

The repo rate is the level at which the central bank lends to commercial banks, influencing borrowing costs.

The RBI also brought down its growth projections for this year from 6.7% to 6.5%. It said India’s gross domestic product (GDP) will grow at 6.5% next year as well.

Crucially, the RBI shifted its monetary policy stance to “accommodative” from “neutral”, which means that the central bank would be more open to cutting rates in the future to stimulate a slowing economy.

“Concerns on trade frictions are coming true” and unsettling the global community, RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra said in his speech, adding that headwinds from disruptions to trade would continue to pose challenges for the economy.

Most economists who had previously expected only one more rate cut this year are now predicting more softening as Trump’s tariff war puts growth in the world’s fastest growing major economy at risk.

“The magnitude of rate cuts in the cycle now could be as high as 100bps (1%),” ICICI Bank said in a note, a view echoed by many other analysts.

Moderating inflation will give the RBI further elbow room to slash borrowing costs, according to several brokerages, as growth momentum further loses steam due to Trump’s global trade war.

HSBC calculates GDP could take a direct hit of as much as half a percent this financial year due to slower export volumes around the world and weaker inflows of foreign funds.

The government’s capacity to stimulate the economy to counter the impact of Trump’s tariffs is also limited because “spending and tax revenues have lost steam in recent months”, according to HSBC.

Starting Wednesday, Indian goods being exported to the US will face additional tariffs of up to 27%.

Tariffs on India are lower than 104% on China and 46% and 49% respectively on Vietnam and Cambodia.

• How will India navigate a world on the brink of a trade war?

The final impact on India’s trade will depend on “how long the announced tariff structure lasts”, ratings agency Crisil said. “The outcome will also be influenced by how other countries retaliate or negotiate with the US on tariffs.”

China has already retaliated by imposing 34% reciprocal tariffs on US imports, while Europe is considering counter-measures.

India on the other hand has assumed a more restrained stance and is working towards concluding a trade deal with the US.

India has “agreed on the importance of the early conclusion of the Bilateral Trade Agreement”, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on X (formerly Twitter) this week after his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But even with a trade deal in place, India’s economy is unlikely to be immune to a slowdown in other parts of the world with demand for its exports potentially reducing in the event of global growth falling off a cliff.

Wall Street bank JP Morgan has put the chance of a global recession at 60%, while ratings agency Moody’s said the odds had risen from 15% to 35% due to tariffs.

At 6.5%, India continues to remain the world’s fastest growing major economy, but its growth has sharply come off the 9.2% high recorded in financial year 2023-24.

King Charles and Queen Camilla have had a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican where he wished them a happy 20th wedding anniversary.

In a statement released by Buckingham Palace, the King and Queen said they were “delighted the Pope was well enough to host them – and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person”.

The meeting took place on the third day of their state visit to Italy and ahead of a state banquet in Rome on Wednesday evening.

It is understood the meeting was only confirmed on Wednesday morning. It came after previous plans for the couple to meet the pontiff in a state visit to the Vatican were postponed because of the Pope’s ill health.

A still picture of the meeting, which lasted 20 minutes, is due to be released on Thursday morning.

The meeting took place on Wednesday afternoon at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis has been convalescing since being released from Gemelli Hospital.

According to the Vatican, the Pope is showing signs of gradual improvement and he “reciprocated” the King’s “best wishes for a speedy recovery of his health”.

This was a reference to the Pope offering his own best wishes, after the King recently suffered side effects from his cancer treatment.

There was also an exchange of private gifts between Pope Francis and the royal visitors.

The King and Queen have been enjoying a warm welcome on their state visit to Italy, but it was a trip that originally had a significant focus on visiting the Vatican and planned events such as a service at the Sistine Chapel.

That had been no longer been possible after the serious health problems of Pope Francis – but with his health improving the King and Queen had the opportunity for a brief meeting.

After visiting the Pope, King Charles and Queen Camilla spent their wedding anniversary evening at a state banquet in Rome hosted by the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella.

The King joked to his Italian hosts at the Quirinale Palace about laying on such a spectacle for their anniversary.

“I must say it really is very good of you, Mr President, to lay on this small romantic, candle-lit dinner for two..,” the King told the banquet.

There were 150 guests at the dinner, including the singer Andrea Bocelli, chef Giorgio Locatelli, hotelier Rocco Forte and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Earlier in the day, at the Italian Parliament, Queen Camilla had worn the same outfit she had worn at her civil wedding ceremony in 2005.

The ivory silk dress designed by Anna Valentine had been “repurposed” to wear again for this anniversary day.

The King’s speech at the state banquet, at the Italian presidential palace, touched on a mix of comic and serious themes about the long relationship between the UK and Italy, back to the ancient Romans.

“I for one, have never asked that question, made famous by Monty Python, ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’,” the King joked.

“We see their imprint on what they knew as Britannia every day – from London to Carmarthen, from York to Hadrian’s Wall.”

But he also warned that “we are living in a very precarious and fragile world” and there was a need to stand up for “values and the liberty we hold so dear”.

“In difficult times, friends stand together,” he told his audience, in a speech that once again referenced the conflict in Ukraine.

The menu for the state banquet, in the splendour of the medieval palace, included bottoni pasta with aubergine caponata, salt encrusted sea bass, fried artichokes and roast potatoes.

That was followed by a fior di latte ice cream cake with raspberries.

This was the King’s second speech of the day, as earlier he had become the first UK monarch to address both houses of the Italian Parliament.

The King received a standing ovation from Italy’s lawmakers, in their ornately-decorated chamber in the Palazzo Montecitorio, with a rallying call to defend shared values and the need to reinforce the military partnership between the UK and Italy.

“We are both European countries,” he said, standing in front of the Italian and European Union flags.

He welcomed that the UK and Italy “stood by Ukraine in her hour of need”, but warned that images of wars were now reverberating across the continent.

“Our younger generations can see in the news every day on their smartphones and tablets that peace is never to be taken for granted,” said the King.

Such threats meant it was important that “Britain and Italy stand today united in defence of the democratic values we share”, he told Parliament.

Delivering some of the speech in Italian, he spoke of the long history between the UK and Italy, going back to the ancient Romans arriving on Britain’s “windswept shores”.

As head of the Commonwealth, he also spoke of the role of Canadian troops in helping to liberate Italy in the Second World War.

The speech went down well with the assembled Parliamentarians – with the applause so long at one point that an Italian official began to thank him, assuming that the King had finished.

The King began the day by meeting Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, receiving a ceremonial red-carpet welcome at the Villa Doria Pamphili, on the outskirts of Rome.

The Italian public has given a warm reception to the royal couple on their trip to Italy, including outside the Colosseum, when the King and Queen posed for photos near the ancient site of the Temple of Venus.

There were calls of “Carlo” – Italian for Charles – from crowds waiting to see the royal visitors and local media also seemed interested by their car, the claret coloured State Bentley.

The Royal Family’s official X account marked the wedding anniversary by posting a video which showed guards playing a version of Madness’s 1981 hit It Must Be Love.

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An adventurer who claimed to be the first woman to solo traverse Canada’s largest island has been criticised for her “privilege and ignorance”.

Camilla Hempleman-Adams, from Wiltshire, covered 150 miles (241km) on foot and by ski across Baffin Island, Nunavut, completing the journey on 27 March.

However, members of the native Inuit population said her claim was incorrect and came from a “dangerous colonial attitude”, with people there having travelled the same route for generations.

The daughter of adventurer Sir David Hempleman-Adams has since apologised, adding: “It was never my intention to misrepresent any historical achievements or cause distress to local communities.”

The solo trek across Baffin Island took Ms Hempleman-Adams from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung, crossing through Auyuittuq National Park.

Ahead of departure, she wrote on her expedition website: “Parks Canada has confirmed that there are no historical records of a female solo attempt from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung.”

But Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, who is Inuit and based in Ottawa, said this was because crossing the terrain is considered “a normal way of life” for them.

“The article hit people really hard in a very sensitive spot, because of our history and the difficulties we face every day in combatting Western colonialism,” she said.

“This woman is coming here from such a place of privilege and ignorance that it seems dangerous.

“It was almost like she was bringing back news of a new continent to Europe and saying ‘there’s nobody here!’ We were and still are.

“It’s such a clear example of how colonialism benefits from dispossessing indigenous people of their land and writing us out of history.”

In a statement, Ms Hempleman-Adams apologised for the offence caused by her expedition coverage.

“I have deep respect for the land, its people, and their history,” she said.

“I have travelled in this region multiple times and hold immense admiration for its nature, culture and traditions.

“I am truly saddened that the coverage of my journey may have caused concern or upset, and I remain committed to learning from this experience and engaging with the community with the utmost respect.”

Ms Kabloona said the matter had affected the community because many people who lived traditional nomadic lifestyles had now passed away – raising concerns that cultural practices will gradually be lost to time.

She is now in the process of mapping out the route her family has taken for generations while migrating south in spring, towards the caribou hunting grounds.

On one of these annual 186-mile (300km) journeys, Ms Kabloona’s grandmother went into labour and gave birth to her father in a tent along the way.

“Two days later, she got up and carried on walking,” Ms Kabloona said.

“She did that in every single one of her pregnancies, traversed our land, because that is our way of life and always has been.”

Ms Kabloona said she welcomed visitors to the region but disapproved of the “outdated” term “explorer”, as it carried with it connotations of imperialist expansion.

“If you want to come and enjoy the outdoors, please do so,” she said.

“The danger is going back with this colonial attitude and disseminating information like the Inuit don’t have history there.

“Saying you’re the ‘first person’ to do anything in an indigenous country is insulting.

“Show respect to the land and the people who have kept it pristine for your adventures.”

The trade war between the world’s two biggest economies shows no signs of slowing down – Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end” hours after US President Donald Trump threatened to nearly double the tariffs on China.

That could leave most Chinese imports facing a staggering 104% tax – a sharp escalation between the two sides.

Smartphones, computers, lithium-ion batteries, toys and video game consoles make up the bulk of Chinese exports to the US. But there are so many other things, from screws to boilers.

With a deadline looming in Washington as Trump threatens to introduce the additional tariffs from Wednesday, who will blink first?

“It would be a mistake to think that China will back off and remove tariffs unilaterally,” says Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the China Center at The Conference Board think tank.

“Not only would it make China look weak, but it would also give leverage to the US to ask for more. We’ve now reached an impasse that will likely lead to long-term economic pain.”

• Live updates on this story

Global markets have slumped since last week when Trump’s tariffs, which target almost every country, began coming into effect. Asian shares, which saw their worst drop in decades on Monday after the Trump administration didn’t waver, recovered slightly on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, China has hit back with tit-for-tat levies – 34% – and Trump warned that he would retaliate with an additional 50% tariff if Beijing doesn’t back down.

Uncertainty is high, with more tariffs, some more than 40%, set to kick in on Wednesday. Many of these would hit Asian economies: tariffs on China would rise to 54%, and those on Vietnam and Cambodia, would soar to 46% and 49% respectively.

Experts are worried about the speed at which this is happening, leaving governments, businesses and investors little time to adjust or prepare for a remarkably different global economy.

China had responded to the first round of Trump tariffs with tit-for-tat levies on certain US imports, export controls on rare metals and an anti-monopoly investigation into US firms, including Google.

This time too it has announced retaliatory tariffs, but it also appears to be bracing for pain with stronger measures. It has allowed its currency, the yuan, to weaken, which makes Chinese exports more attractive. And state-linked enterprises have been buying up shares in what appears to be a move to stabilise the market.

The prospect of negotiations between the US and Japan seemed to buoy investors who were fighting to claw back some of the losses of recent days.

But the face-off between China and the US – the world’s biggest exporter and its most important market – remains a major concern.

“What we are seeing is a game of who can bear more pain. We’ve stopped talking about any sense of gain,” Mary Lovely, a US-China trade expert at the Peterson Institute in Washington DC, told the BBC’s Newshour programme.

Despite its slowing economy, China may “very well be willing to endure the pain to avoid capitulating to what they believe is US aggression”, she added.

Shaken by a prolonged property market crisis and rising unemployment, Chinese people are just not spending enough. Indebted local governments have also been struggling to increase investments or expand the social safety net.

“The tariffs exacerbate this problem,” said Andrew Collier, Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School.

If China’s exports take a hit, that hurts a crucial revenue stream. Exports have long been a key factor in China’s explosive growth. And they remain a significant driver, although the country is trying to diversify its economy with high-end tech manufacturing and greater domestic consumption.

It’s hard to say exactly when the tariffs “will bite but likely soon,” Mr Collier says, adding that “[President Xi] faces an increasingly difficult choice due to a slowing economy and dwindling resources”.

But it’s not just China that will be feeling the impact.

According to the US Trade Representative office, the US imported $438bn (£342bn) worth of goods from China in 2024, with US exports to China valued at $143bn, leaving a trade deficit of $295bn.

And it’s not clear how the US is going to find alternative supply for Chinese goods on such short notice.

Taxes on physical goods aside, both countries are “economically intertwined in a lot of ways – there’s a massive amount of investment both ways, a lot of digital trade and data flows”, says Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore.

“You can only tariff so much for so long. But there are other ways both countries can hit each other. So you might say it can’t possibly get worse, but there are many ways in which it can.”

The rest of the world is watching too, to see where Chinese exports shut out of the US market will go.

They will end up in other markets such as those in South East Asia, Ms Elms adds, and “these places [are dealing] with their own tariffs and having to think about where else can we sell our products?”

“So we are in a very different universe, one that is really murky.”

Unlike the trade war with China during Trump’s first term, which was about negotiating with Beijing, “it’s unclear what is motivating these tariffs and it’s very hard to predict where things might go from here,” says Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute.

China has a “wide toolkit” for retaliation, he adds, such as depreciating their currency further or clamping down on US firms.

“I think the question is how restrained will they be? There’s retaliation to save face and there’s pulling out the whole arsenal. It’s not clear if China wants to go down that path. It just might.”

Some experts believe the US and China may engage in private talks. Trump is yet to speak to Xi since returning to the White House, although Beijing has repeatedly signalled its willingness to talk.

But others are less hopeful.

“I think the US is overplaying its hand,” Ms Elms says. She is sceptical of Trump’s belief that the US market is so lucrative that China, or any country, will eventually bend.

“How will this end? No-one knows,” she says. “I’m really concerned about the speed and escalation. The future is much more challenging and the risks are just so high.”

A full-scale trade war with China and the US is in prospect after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs of more than 100% on Chinese goods imports.

China has said it will “fight to the end” rather than capitulate to what it sees as US coercion, and will hike its own tariffs on American goods from 34% to 84% in response to the White House’s latest move.

What does this escalating trade conflict mean for the world economy?

The trade in goods between the two economic powers added up to around $585bn (£429bn) last year.

Though the US imported far more from China ($440bn) than China imported from America ($145bn).

That left the US running a trade deficit with China – the difference between what it imports and exports – of $295bn in 2024. That’s a considerable trade deficit, equivalent to around 1% of the US economy.

But it’s less than the $1tn figure that Trump has repeatedly claimed this week.

Trump already imposed significant tariffs on China in his first term as president. Those tariffs were kept in place and added to by his successor Joe Biden.

Together those trade barriers helped to bring the goods the US imported from China down from a 21% share of America’s total imports in 2016 to 13% last year.

So the US reliance on China for trade has diminished over the past decade.

Yet analysts point out that some Chinese goods exports to the US have been re-routed through south-east Asian countries.

• Live updates on this story
• China is not backing down from Trump’s tariff war. What next?
• Who are the tariff ‘PANICANS’ derided as ‘weak and stupid’ by Trump?

For example, the Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on Chinese imported solar panels in 2018.

But the US Commerce Department presented evidence in 2023 that Chinese solar panel manufacturers had shifted their assembly operations to states such as Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and then sent the finished products to the US from those countries, effectively evading the tariffs.

The new “reciprocal” Trump tariffs imposed on those countries will therefore push up the US price of a wide range of goods ultimately originating in China.

In 2024, the biggest category of goods exports from the US to China were soybeans – primarily used to feed China’s estimated 440 million pigs.

The US also sent pharmaceuticals and petroleum to China.

Going the other way, from China to the US, were large volumes of electronics, computers and toys. A large amount of batteries, which are vital for electric vehicles, were also exported.

The biggest category of US imports from China is smartphones, accounting for 9% of the total. A large proportion of these smartphones are made in China for Apple, a US-based multinational.

The US tariffs on China have been one of the main contributors to the decline in the market value of Apple in recent weeks, with its share price falling by 20% over the past month.

All these imported items to the US from China were already set to become considerably more expensive for Americans due to the 20% tariff the Trump administration has already imposed on Beijing.

Now the tariff has risen to 104%, the impact could be five times greater.

And US imports into China will also go up in price due to China’s retaliatory tariffs, ultimately hurting Chinese consumers in a similar way.

But beyond tariffs, there are other ways for these two nations to attempt to damage each other through trade.

China has a central role in refining many vital metals for industry, from copper and lithium to rare earths.

Beijing could place obstacles in the way of these metals reaching the US.

This is something it has already done in the case of two materials called germanium and gallium, which are used by the military in thermal imaging and radar.

As for the US, it could attempt to tighten the technological blockade on China started by Joe Biden by making it harder for China to import the kind of advanced microchips – which are vital for applications like artificial intelligence – it still can’t yet produce itself.

Donald Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, has suggested this week that the US could apply pressure on other countries, including Cambodia, Mexico and Vietnam, not to trade with China if they want to continue to exporting to the US.

The US and China together account for such a large share of the global economy, around 43% this year according to the International Monetary Fund.

If they were to engage in an all-out trade war that slowed their growth down, or even pushed them into recession, that would likely harm other countries’ economies in the form of slower global growth.

Global investment would also likely suffer.

There are other potential consequences.

China is the world’s biggest manufacturing nation and is producing far more than its population consumes domestically.

It is already running an almost $1tn goods surplus – meaning it is exporting more goods to the rest of the world than it imports.

And it is often producing those goods at below the true cost of production due to domestic subsidies and state financial support, like cheap loans, for favoured firms.

Steel is an example of this.

There is a risk that if such products were unable to enter the US, Chinese firms could seek to “dump” them abroad.

While that could be beneficial for some consumers, it could also undercut producers in countries threatening jobs and wages.

The lobby group UK Steel has warned of the danger of excess steel potentially being redirected to the UK market.

The spillover impacts of an all-out China-US trade war would be felt globally, and most economists judge that the impact would be highly negative.

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US President Donald Trump has paused his latest round of higher tariffs against some of America’s trading partners.

Taxes on goods imported from 60 countries he had described as the “worst offenders” took effect on 9 April.

But Trump later said those higher rates for some countries would be paused for 90 days, with a blanket 10% tariff to apply in the meantime.

At the same time he hiked tariffs on Chinese products to 125%.

Trump has said tariffs will boost US manufacturing and protect jobs, but economists warn that the move could harm the world economy and push up prices for consumers in the US and around the globe.

Tariffs are taxes charged on goods bought from other countries.

Typically, they are a percentage of a product’s value. For example, a 25% tariff on a $10 (£7.59) product would mean an additional $2.50 (£1.90) charge.

The 125% tariff on Chinese goods means that a $10 product would attract a $12.50 tax on top – driving the total cost up to $22.50.

The companies that bring the foreign goods into the country have to pay the tax to the government.

The money is collected when the imported goods clear US customs.

Firms can choose to pass on some or all of the increased cost to customers.

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For decades, Trump has argued the US should use tariffs to boost its economy.

He says they will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised and lead to huge levels of investment in the country.

Trump wants to reduce the gap between the value of goods the US buys from other countries and the value of those it sells to them. He argues that America has been taken advantage of by “cheaters” and “pillaged” by foreigners.

The US president has also made other demands alongside tariffs. The first wave announced during his current term targeted China, Mexico and Canada, after he said he wanted them to do more to stop migrants and illegal drugs reaching the US.

Trump has strongly defended his tariff policy but a growing number of influential voices within his Republican Party have joined opposition Democrats and foreign leaders in attacking the measures.

The argument has even split the White House team, with tariff policy sparking a recent personal spat between Elon Musk and Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro.

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Trump introduced a minimum 10% tariff on all imports to the US on 5 April.

The UK, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia are among the countries whose goods face this “baseline” charge.

Much higher tariffs were initially introduced against 60 other countries on 9 April.

These included 49% on Cambodian products, 46% on Vietnamese imports and 20% on goods from the EU.

Chinese imports were initially due to face 54% tariffs (34% on top of the 20% rate already in place). Trump then increased the total to 104% after China vowed to “fight to the end” and refused to scrap its own retaliatory tariffs of 34% on the US.

Hours after the 104% tariff took effect, China announced it would introduce a significantly higher 84% tax on all US imports from 10 April.

Trump soon hit back, saying the US would increase tariffs on Chinese goods to 125% effective immediately.

For now, Chinese manufacturers – and American consumers – still benefit from a tariff exemption for goods in small parcels sent from China worth less than $800 (£624). However that exemption will also end on 2 May.

These items will be subject to a duty rate of 90% or $75 per item – increasing to $150 per item after 1 June.

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White House officials have described the higher tariffs as “reciprocal”.

Reciprocal would mean they were based on the amount countries charge the US in the form of existing tariffs, plus the cost of meeting non-tariff barriers such as regulations.

However, the White House used a different calculation – setting each tariff rate at a level that would eliminate the US’s trade deficit in goods with each country.

And some countries, including the UK, have had tariffs applied even though they buy more from the US than they sell to it.

The White House confirmed that some specific goods are exempt – including copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, energy and “other certain materials that are not available in the United States”.

Trump has said he plans to remove the exemption for pharmaceutical goods to help shift drug production to America, but it is not clear if or when this might happen.

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Trump had also previously announced 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, and a 10% tariff on Canadian energy imports before introducing a number of exemptions and delays.

He has also brought in 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports, and foreign-made cars. A 25% tariff on car parts is due to start no later than 3 May.

Trump’s escalation with China has now put a question mark over US trade with the European Union. The EU, too, has approved retaliatory tariffs against the US, which will come into effect on 15 April.

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Many economists expect tariffs to push up prices across a range of imported goods, as firms pass on some or all of their increased costs.

The products affected could include everything from clothing to coffee and alcohol to electronics.

Some firms may also decide to import fewer foreign goods, which could make those which are available more expensive.

The price of goods manufactured in the US using imported components may also rise.

For example, car parts typically cross the US, Mexican and Canadian borders multiple times before a vehicle is completely assembled.

Car prices had already been expected to increase as a result of earlier tariffs.

The cost of a car made using parts from Mexico and Canada alone could rise by $4,000-$10,000 (£3,035 – £7,588) depending on the vehicle, according to analysts at the Anderson Economic Group.

The measures could also damage the US economy.

The chance of a recession rose to 50% after Trump’s announcement on new tariffs, according to former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Ken Rogoff.

Trump’s top officials have repeatedly played down recession fears, and insisted that the tariffs would be implemented as planned.

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Trump’s tariffs announcement has caused significant volatility on global stock markets.

Stock markets are where firms sell shares in their business. They reflect the best guess of what every company in the world is worth and what their future profits will be.

Share prices have been hit because investors think the new tariffs will increase costs and reduce profits.

Many people are affected by stock market falls – even if they don’t invest in shares directly – because of the knock-on effect on pensions, jobs and interest rates.

But after Trump announced the 90-day pause, US markets rebounded sharply.

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The UK exported around £58bn of goods to the US in 2024, mainly cars, machinery and pharmaceuticals.

It was already due to be affected by the earlier tariffs targeting steel, aluminium and car imports.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said “clearly there will be an economic impact” from the 10% tariff. However, he said US-UK trade talks are ongoing, and that he will “fight for the best deal for Britain”.

The UK government has so far not announced any taxes on US imports. However, it is drawing up a list of US products it could hit with retaliatory tariffs.

Following the announcement of tariffs, car maker Jaguar Land Rover said it would “pause” all shipments to the US as it worked to “address the new trading terms”.

Economists have warned US tariffs could knock the UK’s economy off course and make it harder for the government to hit its borrowing rules.

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EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned that “the consequences will be dire for millions of people around the globe”.

27 EU members approved a list of US products to be taxed in three stages beginning on 15 April, hours before Trump announced his pause and 10% plans.

Italy‘s Giorgia Meloni – a Trump ally – said the reciprocal tariffs were “wrong” but that she would work towards a deal with the US to “prevent a trade war”.

In the Republic of Ireland, Micheál Martin said there was “no justification” for “deeply regrettable” tariffs which benefitted “no-one”.

Canada introduced a 25% tariff on some vehicles from the US on 9 April.

Australia‘s Anthony Albanese said “this is not the act of a friend”.

South Korea‘s acting president Han Duck-Soo said “the global trade war has become a reality”.

Japan said the 24% levy against its products was “extremely regrettable” and could violate World Trade Organization and US-Japan agreements.

China’s finance ministry has announced an 84% tariff on goods imported from the US, retaliating against recent levies imposed by the White House.

The hike in tariffs, from 34%, came after US President Donald Trump’s 104% tariff on Chinese goods came into force on Wednesday – they were later increased to 125%.

Trump said the 21% rise was “based on the lack of respect” China had shown, and that it would be “effective immediately”.

Beijing, which has said its charges would take effect from Thursday, urged other countries to unite against Trump’s tariffs as the country’s exporters reel from the crippling new levies.

“Global unity can triumph over trade tyranny,” declared an editorial in the state-run newspaper China Daily, noting Beijing’s collaborations with Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies.

A separate piece called for the European Union to work with it to “uphold free trade and multilateralism”.

The US’s trade war with China continued to escalate on Wednesday. Hours after Trump’s highest tariffs on a raft of countries came into force, China retaliated with its own 84% levy on US imports.

European markets dropped shortly after the announcement, with the FTSE 100 falling by 3.3% and Germany’s Dax 4%.

Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to say that, in return, he was upping the US’s levies on China to 125%.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” the US president wrote.

He also announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of countries -except China – saying this was because those nations had not “at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States”.

Beijing “firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying practices”, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday – before the latest hike from Washington.

The tariffs come at a difficult time for China’s sluggish economy: domestic consumption remains weak and exports are still a major driver of growth.

The sweeping nature of Trump’s tariffs has also left Chinese businesses scrambling to adjust their supply chains – with most countries affected, firms say it’s hard to find a way out of this uncertainty.

The tariffs will shrink “already razor-thin profit margins”, said the owner of a Chinese business that handles cross-border logistics for e-commerce, as well as air and sea freight. He did not wish to share his name.

“Higher tariffs raise costs for freight forwarders like us, as well as for factories, companies, and sellers. It just means everyone earns less.”

Any tariff upwards of 35% will wipe out all the profits that Chinese businesses make when exporting to the US or South East Asia, said Dan Wang from the Eurasia Group consultancy.

“Growth is going to be much lower since exports contributed to 20% to 50% of growth since the Covid pandemic,” she added.

Beijing is reportedly considering banning Hollywood films and suspending fentanyl cooperation with the US, according to Chinese blogger Liu Hong, who is a senior editor at state-run Xinhua news.

But that would offer little comfort to firms like Fuling, which sells disposable tableware to US fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

It said the additional tariffs would “significantly impact” its business. Fuling noted that nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenue in 2023 and the first half of last year came from the US.

To mitigate the impact of tariffs, Fuling, which is headquartered in China’s Zhejiang province, started a new factory in Indonesia late last year.

However, Trump’s new tariffs have introduced more uncertainty for Chinese exports from Indonesia, which are now subject to a 32% levy, the company said in a corporate filing.

Indonesia was hit along with much of the world in President Trump’s announcement of expansive tariffs last week, which he claimed would allow the US economy to flourish.

But economists have warned of a US and global recession. The tariffs have also shaken world markets and drawn criticism from billionaire CEOs, including Trump’s ally Elon Musk.

While China has left the door open for talks, Trump has not spoken to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since returning to the White House.

Such broad, sweeping tariffs will cause more harm than good, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a note to its member companies on Wednesday.

“This level of upheaval is unprecedented, and it remains unclear how the current measures will benefit consumers in either nation or the broader economy,” read the note signed by Chair Alvin Liu and President Michael Hart.

Some analysts believe the levies will force China to restructure its economy and rely heavily on domestic consumption, which it has been struggling to boost.

Otherwise, the tariffs will not be sustainable for China in the longer term, Tim Waterer from brokerage KCM Trade said.

“The tariffs are aimed at suppressing China,” said the manager of a Chinese freight company, who asked to remain anonymous.

He added that many of the South East Asian countries that have been hit with steep tariffs are “exactly where many Chinese businesses have relocated”, such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

The Tianjin-based company plans to negotiate with some of its American clients to share the burden of the tariffs. “Every case is different, but overall, the impact has been quite substantial,” he said.

Another freight company manager Wu Changchun, whose firm mainly operates on shipping routes between China and Cambodia, said he is already seeing a fall in freight volume.

Several construction projects in Cambodia have also come to a halt after Trump’s tariffs announcement, he said.

“If the tariffs were at 10% or 20%, businesses might still be able to absorb the cost by optimising supply chains, cutting margins and sharing the burden. Trade could still go on… [But at 104%] that’s no longer something trade-offs can fix,” said Mr Wu, a general manager at Maritima Maruba.

“That’s full-on decoupling. Trade would basically come to a standstill.”

For 20 years, Rj LaMendola found peace while paddling in the water on his surfboard.

But last month off the coast of Southern California, the ocean turned hostile after a sea lion lunged at him, bit him and dragged him off his board.

“It looked possessed,” Mr LaMendola wrote in a Facebook post, saying the animal involved in the encounter just north of Los Angeles was “feral, almost demonic”.

The surfer later learned the animal was suffering from domoic acid toxicosis- a neurological condition caused by a harmful algal bloom. It’s one of dozens of sickened animals that have been spotted across California beaches recently – many suffering from symptoms like seizures or intense lethargy. The toxin often leads to death.

This particular algae bloom has appeared four years in a row across California, raising concerns it might be turning into an annual event. The bloom of algae started earlier than normal this year and has spread roughly 370 miles of the iconic Southern California coastline.

When Mr LaMenolda made it to shore, his wetsuit ripped open, he was bleeding and went to the hospital. “It felt like I was being hunted,” he said.

South of where he was attacked, 15-year-old Phoebe Beltran was doing a swim test in Long Beach to become a lifeguard when a sea lion repeatedly bit her.

“I was just so scared, so shocked, but I still felt the immense pain on my arms, like, over and over again,” the teen told local US media.

The two back-to-back attacks have garnered global headlines and caused some anxiety among those who call California and its iconic beaches home. While attacks are rare, experts say the number of animals sickened by the toxic algae bloom appears to be increasing.

John Warner, CEO of the Marine Mammal Care Center in Los Angeles – which is treating sea life sickened by the bloom – told the BBC these animals aren’t “naturally aggressive or actually attack people” but the toxins impact their behaviour.

“These animals are reacting to the fact that they are sick,” he explained. “They’re disoriented, and most likely, most of them are having seizures, and so their senses are not all fully functional as they normally would and they’re acting out of fear.”

Domoic acid builds up in smaller fish like sardines and anchovies, which are eaten by marine predators such as dolphins, seals and sea lions in large quantities, causing them to get sick.

Exposure to the acid causes serious neurological issues in sea lions, including seizures, disorientation and a telltale head-tilting behaviour known as “stargazing.”

Some animals fall into a lethargic and comatose state, while others can turn aggressive.

“Their behaviour changes from what we’re used to, to something more unpredictable,” Mr Warner said. “But in this particular bloom, we’re seeing them really comatose and rather taken out by this toxin.”

The Marine Mammal Care Center is currently overwhelmed with the influx and severity of sick animals.

According to Mr Warner, the nonprofit has admitted at least 195 sea lions from Feb 20 to the end of March. During the same time frame last year, the centre saw only 50 of the animals.

If treated promptly, sea lions have a 50% to 65% chance of recovery, but Mr Warner says the centre is running out of space and money to treat the animals. Treatment includes anti-seizure medication and sedation, followed by twice-daily tube feeding and hydration.

On top of that, the recovery pace this year has been slower, he said.

While sick sea lions in 2023 typically began eating within a week, many this year are still lethargic five weeks into care.

Recovery comes in stages: from a comatose state to disorientation, then aggressive reawakening—when the animals are most dangerous due to lingering neurological effects.

Adult sea lions can weigh hundreds of pounds, and aggressive behaviors make housing them complicated. If their behaviour doesn’t normalize, it could signal permanent brain damage, and humane euthanasia becomes necessary.

“If they’re still aggressive or not foraging properly, it tells us their brains aren’t functioning the way they should,” Mr Warner said.

For now, beachgoers are urged to stay well away from stranded animals – at least 50 feet – and resist the temptation to intervene.

“These are still the same charismatic, really fun-to-watch expert cuddle puddlers that we see along the coast all the time,” Mr Warner said. “We need to remember they are wild animals. They can be unpredictable even in normal circumstances.”

It’s only been a couple of years since the last series of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian Netflix show Black Mirror landed. But we’re now living in an unpredictable world and a lot can happen in a short space of time.

Renowned for its often savvy and disturbing takes on humanity and our relationship with technology, Black Mirror is back for a seventh series at a time when the pace of change in both politics and tech has left many of us – including lawmakers – struggling to keep up.

In 2011, when the first episode aired, Siri was the new kid on the block and the iPhone 4S had just been launched. Now we have Meta AI embedded in WhatsApp and we’re on series 10 of the Apple watch.

Since then, Black Mirror has taken us from creepy memory devices, phone implants and robotic bees to actors-turned-werewolves. And everything in between.

Brooker is in buoyant mood as, he tells the BBC there appears to be little danger of him running out of ideas anytime soon, when asked if Black Mirror could go on forever.

“Hopefully [it will run and run]. Selfishly, it’s a fun job,” he says. “Technology is developing in the real world very quickly.

“That means there are more sources of inspiration, and… the viewer is experiencing more [technological] things in their everyday life.

“We can do stories that I wouldn’t have thought of 10 years ago, and also, you don’t need to explain some of the concepts to people because they’ve got it in their phone.”

The Crown and Deadpool & Wolverine actor Emma Corrin, who stars in one of this season’s episodes, adds: “It’s much closer to home. People have access to stuff like AI which is terrifying so then it’s more confronting and serves as a better warning.”

Brooker jokes: “So you’re saying it should go on forever?”

“Yes, it should go on forever,” Corrin concurs.

Brooker adds: “I’ll find out when it stops if I drop dead or people stop watching.”

Corrin appears in an episode titled Hotel Reverie, alongside Issa Rae. The pair both play A-listers appearing in a remake of a vintage Hollywood classic. With a twist, of course.

Corrin plays screen siren Dorothy Chambers, and reflects: “I really enjoyed playing a 1940s movie star.

“I just like the voice and the mannerisms and the way they hold themselves, and the style of acting is so ridiculous, larger than life and tongue in cheek, and yet packed with emotion at the same time.”

Without giving too much away, AI – the subject of much debate in the creative industries – rears its head in the storyline.

Corrin says they don’t “feel great” about its potential impact on their profession.

“Obviously, I think it’s scary, but it’s also a massive conversation, right? There are aspects of it that are terrifying to me as an artist. I love the creative process. I love that this art is born out of being in a room with people and things coming from the depths of someone’s human experience or imagination. And I really don’t think we’ll lose that, or I hope not.

“And I think there are also aspects of AI I probably don’t understand, and that could be used as tools for good. It’s about everyone being able to understand them and to use them correctly, and them being in the right hands.”

Brooker agrees: “Quite rightly, when Andy Serkis played Gollum [in the Lord of the Rings trilogy], everyone’s amazed by that, but what you’re amazed by is the human, you’re seeing a human performance shining through.

“I can totally see the value of AI as a tool for creative people. The point at which it worries me is if you remove the people bit from that equation, or you’re just hoovering up their work and regurgitating it, and they’re not being paid.”

Brooker also returns to another favourite tech theme, which he’s used as a jumping off point for several Black Mirror episodes over the previous six series. The world of gaming.

Remember the interactive standalone Black Mirror film Bandersnatch, where Asim Chaudhry and Will Poulter played a games company boss and a genius developer? The pair are now reprising their roles from the 2018 movie in a new series seven episode called Plaything.

Scottish actor Lewis Gribben, who is soon to star in the highly anticipated TV series Blade Runner 2099, plays 1990s games journalist and loner Cameron, who becomes obsessed with one particular game featuring little pixel creatures. (Brooker himself was a games journalist back in the day.)

Former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi also turns in a brilliantly disturbing performance as an older Cameron.

Although a big Black Mirror fan, Gribben hadn’t seen Bandersnatch but says that coming to Plaything fresh actually aided his performance.

“I think it made it easier for me… but I was just intimidated. I was like ‘Oh my god, it’s Will Poulter who I’ve watched since I was seven years old acting in Son of Rambow. And Asim Chowdhury from People Just Do Nothing!”

Gribben tells the BBC he’s a bit of a gamer himself but has more of a handle on it than his Black Mirror character.

“I’m playing the new Assassin’s Creed Shadows at the minute,” he says. “When you have a day off… I can spend a solid 10 hours [on it]. But I like to think most people game in moderation or just have bingeing game sessions. It’s more like a relaxation thing.”

Josh Finan, who has starred in Baby Reindeer, The Responder and recently played Gerry Adams in Say Nothing, plays an acquaintance of Cameron who becomes unwittingly embroiled in his companion’s distorted sense of reality.

The pair will both star in the highly anticipated Amazon mini-series, Blade Runner 2099. Expected to drop later this year, the action takes place 50 years after 2017’s Blade Runner 2049, a movie that also analyses the relationship between humans and AI.

Finan isn’t too worried about being replaced by robots though.

“I’m very optimistic. I don’t think actors are going anywhere. Maybe I’m being naive [but] I don’t think there’s any danger of being replaced. What we do is too special.”

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s recent comments about the country’s start-up ecosystem have sparked a massive debate on social media and evoked strong reactions from some entrepreneurs.

At the second edition of Startup Mahakumbh, a government-led start-up conclave last week, Goyal seemed to take a hard look at India’s consumer start-ups as he urged entrepreneurs to explore more innovations in technology in order to help the country progress.

Poking fun at the rise of food delivery apps, artisanal brands and online betting apps in the country, he compared them with the innovations being made by the “other side”, which many took to mean China.

He said that while “they” were making leaps in machine learning, robotics and building “next-gen factories that can compete with the rest of the world”, India’s start-ups were still largely focussed on lifestyle products like gluten-free ice creams.

His comments sparked a flurry of reactions from India’s top innovators, with some arguing that he was only encouraging creators to be more ambitious and others calling it an unfair criticism of the start-up ecosystem, a major contributor to the country’s economy.

To be sure, Goyal also praised the pace at which new businesses were popping up in the country, hailing India as the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world. He also urged Indian investors to do more to support Indian creators.

But he seemed to want to see more happen, and faster.

“We have to be willing to evolve and learn. [If] we want to be bigger and better, then we have to be bolder and we should not fight shy of the competition,” the minister said.

At one point, he asked the audience – brimming with entrepreneurs and investors – “Do we want to make ice creams or [semiconductor] chips?”

Aadit Palicha, co-founder of the quick-commerce app Zepto, was quick to call out the minister.

In a post on X, he argued that it was consumer internet companies like his that have led innovation in the technology space, in India and globally.

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He pointed out that Amazon – originally a consumer internet company – had scaled cloud computing while the big players in AI today, like Facebook and Google, were once consumer internet companies too.

He urged Indian investors to support consumer internet companies so that they can grow and use their profits for making more ambitious innovations.

Mohandas Pai, a prominent angel investor, told news channel Economic Times Now that there was a dearth of capital investment in deep-tech start-ups from the government and private players.

He explained that investors made a beeline for lifestyle-focused start-ups because they gave quick returns.

Deep-tech innovations take a long time to develop and require expensive infrastructure. “People are not willing to take long-term risks. We need long-term ‘patient’ money [for deep tech start-ups to thrive],” he said.

He also said that regulatory curbs on foreign investments in Indian start-ups were hurting innovation.

“Deep tech start-ups also struggle to find a market,” he added, citing the example of an Indian firm that recently pioneered a quick-charging battery for buses but found no takers for its product.

Many social media users also spoke about the challenges they faced when they tried to start their own tech businesses.

Some said they struggled to get loans, others highlighted high import taxes on certain foreign raw materials and equipment, while some others spoke about unnecessary red tape that made getting documents and approvals a nightmare.

But some entrepreneurs also defended the minister, saying that his comments were well-intentioned and a much-needed reality-check for the start-up ecosystem.

Vironika S, founder of edtech app Proxy Gyan, agreed that India’s future leadership of the global economy depended on breakthroughs in AI and semiconductors but added that there were realistic barriers to doing so and that the government could help by easing them.

Indian investor Kushal Bhagia said in a post on X that Goyal was right about ambition and a lack of deep tech start-ups in India. “We just don’t meet enough founders who are doing something truly deep tech or going after big ambitious problem statements,” he said.

He attributed this to India’s tech talent leaving the country to work in US firms and to a dearth of deep-tech founders for people to learn from and be inspired by.

The minister’s comments also got the media analysing different journeys of Indian and Chinese start-ups.

Journalist Abhijeet Kumar wrote in the Business Standard newspaper that in 2023, just 5% of Indian start-up funding went into deep-tech sectors, compared to 35% in China. He also pointed out how Beijing actively promoted high-tech innovation – in 2024, it had slashed $361bn in taxes and fees for high-tech firms, including $80.7bn in research and development deductions.

In an editorial published on Monday, the newspaper also noted that India’s start-ups are more consumption-driven, focused on using technology to solve local problems at scale rather than global ones by creating path-breaking foundational models.

It pointed out that India currently had 4,000 deep-tech start-ups and that this number was expected to jump to 10,000 by 2030 and quoted a Nasscom report which said that India’s deep tech-start-ups attracted $1.6bn in funding in 2024, marking a 78% year-on-year increase.

But there’s still a long way to go.

“As the deep-tech race intensifies globally, it is clear that India will have to do a lot to catch up with these countries,” the editorial said, adding that Goyal’s comments should “serve as a call to action” for start-ups and investors and also for the government.

“This can include setting up deep-tech innovation funds, building strong academia-start-up bridges and offering incentives for faster developments in hardware, AI, biotech and clean energy,” it said.

Donald Trump is a man in a hurry.

In the few short months he has been in office, the US president has sought and failed to bring peace to Gaza and Ukraine. He has bombed Yemen. He has launched a global trade war. Now he is turning his attention to Iran.

This has always been on the president’s jobs list. For Trump, Iran is unfinished business from his first term.

The issue remains the same as it was then: what can stop Iran seeking a nuclear weapon?

Iran denies it has any such ambition. But other countries believe the Islamic republic wants at the very least the capacity to build a nuclear warhead, a desire that some fear could spark an arms race or even all-out war in the Middle East.

In 2015, Iran agreed a deal with the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Under its provisions, Iran would limit its nuclear ambitions – and allow in international inspectors – in return for getting economic sanctions lifted.

But Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018, claiming it rewarded terrorism by funding Iran’s proxy militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The US reimposed sanctions.

Iran subsequently ignored some of the deal’s restrictions and enriched more and more uranium nuclear fuel.

Analysts fear Iran could soon have enough weapons-grade uranium to make a nuclear warhead.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watchdog estimates Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium could make about six bombs if it was enriched to the next and final level.

Within days of his inauguration, Trump restored his former policy of so-called “maximum pressure” on Iran.

On 4 February, with his trademark fat felt-tip pen, he signed a memorandum ordering the US Treasury to impose further sanctions on Iran and punish countries violating existing sanctions, especially those buying Iranian oil.

Now the White House is hoping to match that economic pressure with diplomacy.

Last month, Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

The president offered to begin negotiations and sought a deal within a couple of months.

Now he has agreed to direct discussions between US and Iranian officials in Oman at the weekend.

The US threat to Iran is explicit: agree a deal or face military action.

“If the talks aren’t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger,” Trump said on Monday.

So how might Iran respond?

Some policymakers in Tehran appear keen to agree a deal that could get sanctions lifted.

Iran’s economy is in dire straits, with soaring inflation and a plunging currency.

But any such deal might involve compromises some hardliners could find hard to stomach.

Iran has suffered huge reverses in recent months, seeing its proxy militias severely weakened by war with Israel and its regional ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, ousted. Some in Tehran argue now may be exactly the time to build a nuclear deterrent.

Both the US and Iran seem far apart. Their negotiating positions are not explicit.

But the US has made clear it wants the full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear programme, including a complete end to any further uranium enrichment, plus no further support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

That might prove too much for Iran to accept.

A complete ban on any nuclear enrichment – even for civilian purposes – has long been seen as an absolute red line for Tehran.

There is also the problem of Iranian technological expertise: its scientists simply know more now about how to make a nuclear weapon than they did 10 years ago.

As for Israel, it has made clear it would accept only the complete end to any Iranian nuclear capability. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he would agree to “the way it was done in Libya”.

This is a reference to the decision by late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to dismantle his entire nuclear programme in 2003 in return for getting sanctions lifted.

But Iran is unlikely to follow this precedent.

What if talks fail?

Israel has long considered military options to try to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But many are buried deep in underground bunkers.

Military analysts say Israel would need not just US help to bomb Iran, it might also need special forces on the ground to guarantee the destruction of its nuclear facilities.

This means military action would be risky and its success by no means guaranteed.

Trump also came to office promising not to start any more so-called “forever wars”, and an all-out regional conflict involving Iran could become one of those.

That has not stopped the US president from reportedly giving Israel more air defences and deploying more long-range B2 bombers to the region.

So, for now, Trump seems to be looking for a diplomatic solution – one Israel might have to accept as a fait accompli, regardless of its provisions.

But if there is no agreement, he is reserving the right to use force, the consequences of which could be devastating.

In the meantime, the president is allowing two months for both sides to agree a deal.

He may have forgotten it took negotiators two years to agree the JCPOA. Rushed diplomacy is not always successful diplomacy.

• Iran says it is ready for nuclear deal if US stops military threats
• High stakes as Iran nuclear issue reaches crunch moment

On 12 March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was driving home with his young son in Maryland when he was stopped by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Agents took Mr Garcia into custody, then shuttled him to detention facilities in Louisiana and Texas.

According to a federal judge, after three days, “without any notice, legal process, or hearing”, Mr Garcia found himself back in his native El Salvador at an infamous prison known for housing gang members.

The government said he was deported due to an “administrative error”.

But despite that, Mr Garcia remains incarcerated in El Salvador as lawyers debate the unusual intricacies of the case.

A Maryland court ordered Mr Garcia be returned to the US, but Trump officials argued that they cannot compel El Salvador to return Mr Garcia. The administration also argued that the judge ordering his return lacked the authority to do so.

On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary hold on lower court orders while they consider the matter.

Immigration experts say that as US President Donald Trump takes a hardline approach on illegal immigration, this case has the potential to upend due process for immigrants.

“If the US Supreme Court were to accept [the Trump administration’s] position, it would completely eviscerate any rule of law in the immigration process,” Maureen Sweeney, director of the University of Maryland’s Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice, told the BBC.

“Because they could pick up anybody, at any time, and send them anywhere with no repercussions whatsoever.”

US District Judge Paula Xinis wrote in a filing Sunday that ICE officials did not follow procedures in the Immigration and Nationality Act when they deported Mr Garcia to El Salvador.

She ruled the US must bring him back before midnight on Monday. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, writing that the US “has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street”.

Yet the Trump administration has argued that it cannot comply, saying Judge Xinis’ filing is outside her jurisdiction.

“Neither a federal district court nor the United States has authority to tell the Government of El Salvador what to do,” US Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in an appeal to the Supreme Court.

• Judge rules US must return man deported to El Salvador in ‘error’
• US judge scolds Trump officials for failing to return man deported in error
• US Supreme Court pauses order requiring return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Nicole Hallett, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School said that while it is true – US district judges cannot order El Salvador to take action – they can order the US government to have Mr Garcia returned.

She also said the US has previously facilitated the return of mistakenly deported individuals.

Prof Hallett also questioned the government’s claim that the US is powerless to compel El Salvador to release Mr Garcia, citing an agreement between the two countries.

The US, under the Trump administration, paid El Salvador’s government $6m to house prisoners it sends, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. Top officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself have publicly touted the arrangement.

“It’s almost as if the Salvadoran government is acting as an agent of the US government,” Ms Hallett said, arguing that this makes the release more plausible.

Mr Garcia’s lawyers argued that because El Salvador was detaining Mr Garcia “at the direct request and pursuant to financial compensation” from the US, the court could order the US government to request his return.

The Department of Justice, however, has resisted calls to take such action.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that “it was an administrative error as to why he was deported,” but maintained the allegation that Mr Garcia belonged to a gang.

“We believe he should stay where he is,” she said.

Mr Garcia is among 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans deported under the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison. Officials allege they are gang members and therefore are subject to deportation.

Mr Garcia, who is married to a US citizen, does not have any gang ties and has never been charged with a crime, his lawyer says.

He was also protected by a “withholding of removal” order, which means the US government cannot send him back to El Salvador because he could face harm. The order dates back to 2019, when ICE first took Mr Garcia into custody and alleged he belonged to the MS-13 criminal organisation, an allegation he denied at the time.

Such orders are common, immigration lawyers told the BBC, and are an alternative to asylum protections.

“It was an unlawful act, for the US to return him to the country where he could not be returned,” said Amelia Wilson, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at Pace University.

A judge ultimately granted Mr Garcia the 2019 order after he “testified about how he was a victim of gang violence in El Salvador when he was a teenager and he came to the US to escape all of that,” his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wrote in a March 2025 affidavit.

Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni acknowledged that at the time the “government did not appeal that decision, so it is final”.

The Trump administration now reiterates allegations that Mr Garcia belonged to MS-13, but Judge Xinis said the government made this claim “without any evidence” and had not produced a removal order or warrant.

The Trump administration continues to press its case to the nation’s highest court, setting up a potential showdown over the White House’s deportation strategy.

Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay on Monday night, pausing lower court rulings while the US Supreme Court considers the government’s appeal.

President Trump touted the stay as a victory, writing on Truth Social that the ruling allowed the president “to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself.”

Immigration lawyers, meanwhile, are watching Mr Garcia’s case closely, considering it a test for how much power the administration can exert over US immigration.

“If the Trump administration is trying to remove these individuals by bypassing the immigration courts,” said Ms Wilson, “there’s a direct and obvious line between what they’re doing, and an effort by the administration to completely usurp judicial and due process.”

Todd Brayman is no longer buying his favourite red wine, which is from California.

A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, he is one of a growing number of people in Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world, who are avoiding buying US products due to President Trump’s tariffs and treatment of US allies.

“I have in my life served alongside American forces. It is just profoundly upsetting and disappointing to see where we are given the historical ties that our two countries have,” says Mr Brayman, who lives in Nova Scotia.

“But I think right now it’s time to stand up and be counted, and in my mind, that means buying local and supporting Canadian business.”

Together with his wife, Mr Brayman has replaced all the American products he used to buy, including his previous wine of choice, with Canadian alternatives.

“Luckett Phone Box Red wine, which is from right here in Nova Scotia, is great,” he says.

Determining which products are Canadian isn’t always easy however. “Sometimes labelling can be misleading,” adds Mr Brayman.

To help, he now uses an app on his phone that can scan a product’s barcode and identify where it’s from. If the product is identified as American, the app suggests Canadian alternatives.

The app, called Maple Scan, is one of numerous emerging in Canada to help people shop local. Others include Buy Canadian, Is This Canadian? and Shop Canadian.

Maple Scan’s founder, Sasha Ivanov, says his app has had 100,000 downloads since it launched last month. He believes the momentum around buying Canadian is here to stay.

“Lots of Canadians have told me, ‘I’m not going back’. It’s important that we support local regardless,” he says.

Canadians like Mr Brayman are boycotting American products in response to a raft of import tariffs introduced by Trump. These included tariffs of 25% on all foreign cars, steel and aluminium, and 25% tariffs on other Canadian and Mexican goods.

Meanwhile, other European Union exports will get tariffs of 20%, while the UK is facing 10%.

Trump says the tariffs will boost US manufacturing, raise tax revenue and reduce the US trade deficit. However, they have spooked global markets, which have fallen sharply over the past month.

Trump has even expressed a desire for Canada to join the US as its 51st state, something the Canadian government was quick to strongly reject.

Ottawa has also responded with C$60bn ($42bn; £32bn) in counter tariffs, as well as additional tariffs on the US auto sector.

And there has been a substantial drop in the number of Canadians travelling to the US.

Groups dedicated to boycotting US goods have also emerged in European countries. Momentum behind the boycott is particularly strong in Denmark, whose territory of Greenland Trump has said he wants to acquire.

Denmark’s largest grocery store operator, Salling Group, recently introduced a symbol, a black star, on pricing labels to denote European brands.

Bo Albertus, a school principal who lives in Skovlunde, a suburb of Copenhagen, says joining the boycott was his way of taking action. “Statements that Trump made about wanting to buy Greenland, that was just too much for me,” he says.

“I can’t do anything about the American political system, but I can vote with my credit card.”

One of Mr Albertus’s first moves was to cancel his subscriptions to US streaming services, including Netflix, Disney Plus and Apple TV. “My 11-year-old daughter is a bit annoyed about it, but that’s the way it is. She understands why I do it,” he says.

Mr Albertus is the administrator for a Danish Facebook group dedicated to helping people boycott US goods. In the group, which has 90,000 members, people share recommendations for local alternatives to US goods, from shoes to lawnmowers.

Mr Albertus says: “It’s a movement that is quite a lot bigger than just our little country, so it all that adds up.”

Mette Heerulff Christiansen, the owner of a grocery shop in Copenhagen called Broders has stopped stocking American products, such as Cheetos crisps and Hershey’s chocolate, in her store. She is substituting them with Danish or European products where possible.

Ms Christiansen is also swapping out products she uses at home. She’s finding some easier to replace than others. “Coca-Cola is easy to substitute with Jolly Cola, a Danish brand,” she says. “But technology, like Facebook, that’s totally difficult to avoid.”

She believes the boycott movement in Denmark is helping people to channel their anger at Trump’s policies and rhetoric. “I think it’s more for the Danish people to feel good that they are doing something,” she says.

Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the US, who specializes in the history of US trade policy, believes the economic impact of the boycott may be limited. “It is hard to judge how economically significant the consumer boycotts will be in terms of reducing trade with the United States,” he says.

“In the past, boycotts have not lasted long and have not achieved much. It starts as a hostile reaction to some US action but tends to fade with time,” he says.

For now though, the rising Buy Canadian sentiment in Canada is boosting sales for many local brands. The CEO of Canadian grocer Loblaw posted on LinkedIn that weekly sales of Canadian products were up by double digits.

Bianca Parsons, from Alberta in Canada, is behind an initiative to promote locally-made goods, called Made In Alberta, which she says has had a surge in interest since the tariffs were introduced. “We’re now getting over 20,000 hits [to the site] every two weeks.”

Ms Parsons, who is the executive director of the Alberta Food Processors Association, adds: “I’ve had producers reach out to us and say: ‘I’m selling out at stores that I would never sell out before, thank you so much’.”

Several Canadian provinces, including Ontario and Nova Scotia, have removed US-made alcoholic beverages from their liquor store shelves in response to tariffs, a move the boss of Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman has said is “worse than tariffs”.

Among the American businesses feeling the impact is Caledonia Spirits, a distiller based in Vermont, near the Canadian border. Ryan Christiansen, Caledonia’s president and head distiller, says his business had an order on track for shipment to Quebec cancelled directly after tariffs were announced.

“My sense is that everyone’s just being a little too aggressive and, unfortunately, I think America started that,” says Mr Christiansen. “I do understand that the action America took needed a counter reaction.

“If it were up to me, I’d be at the table trying to resolve this in a friendly way, and I’m hopeful that the leaders in America take that approach.”

Ethan Frisch, the co-founder of Burlap & Barrel, an American spice company based in New York, which also exports to Canada, says he’s more concerned with the impact of the tariffs on his company’s imports and rising inflation in the US than the consumer boycott.

He says: “I think there’s this assumption that, if you boycott an American company, it’s going to have an impact on the economy and maybe change the situation. I think that assumption, unfortunately, is not accurate.

“The [US] economy is crashing all up by itself. Businesses like ours are struggling without boycotts.”

A faulty radio antenna contributed to a deadly mid-air helicopter collision at an Australian theme park and resort, transport safety officials say.

Four people died – including two British tourists – and several more were seriously injured when the two aircraft hit each other in January 2023, near Sea World on the Gold Coast.

An investigation by Australia’s Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) found one of the pilots did not hear a vital radio call shortly before the accident, and that a series of changes by Sea World meant risk controls were over time eroded.

The accident rocked the Gold Coast, one of the nation’s biggest tourist hotspots.

The two helicopters collided around 20 seconds after one had taken off and as the other was landing.

Those who died were all travelling in the helicopter which was taking off. The other aircraft managed to make an emergency landing, with passengers suffering a range of injuries.

The ATSB report found that in the months leading up to the accident, Sea World had tried to improve its offering of leisure flights by adding a second helipad location and introducing larger Eurocopter EC140 B4 helicopters.

“Over time, these changes undermined risk controls used to manage traffic separation and created a conflict point between… helicopters,” it said.

The aircraft preparing to take off also had a faulty antenna.

In the run-up to the collision, a call from the arriving helicopter was either not received or not heard by the pilot on the ground, who was loading passengers at the time.

However, once the passengers were on board, a ground crew member advised the departing helicopter pilot that the airspace was clear. By the time the chopper took off, though, that information was no longer correct.

Meanwhile the pilot who was wanting to land after a five-minute scenic flight had seen the other helicopter on the ground but didn’t deem it a threat, the report said.

He would have expected to have been alerted by a “taxiing” radio call if that situation changed. However the faulty antenna likely prevented the broadcast of the taxiing call, the report said.

“Without the taxiing call being received, the pilot of the inbound helicopter, who was likely focusing on their landing site, had no trigger to reassess the status of the departing helicopter as a collision risk.”

Among those who died were Diane Hughes, 57, and her 65-year-old husband Ron who were from Neston, Cheshire. They had married in 2022 and were on holiday visiting relatives after being separated by COVID.

The “fun-loving” couple from Neston, Cheshire, had “a zest for life”, their family said in a statement at the time.

Also killed was Sydney resident Vanessa Tadros, 36, and 40-year-old Sea World Helicopters pilot Ashley Jenkinson, who was originally from Birmingham.

A further six people were seriously injured while three others sustained minor injuries in the crash.

Shortly after the accident, the passengers on the flight that was returning hailed the pilot as a “hero” for landing the helicopter safely.

In all, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau made 28 findings that underline “key lessons” for operators and pilots.

“The most fundamental lesson from this investigation is that making changes to aviation operations, even those that appear to increase safety, can have unintended consequences,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

“It is therefore critical that changes to aviation operations are managed through the implementation of a defined process to ensure overall safety is not adversely affected.”

Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals who were fighting for the Russian army in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

He said on Tuesday that intelligence suggested the number of Chinese soldiers in Russia’s army was “much higher than two”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Chinese troops fighting on Ukrainian territory “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and added that their envoy in Kyiv was summoned for an explanation.

It is the first official allegation from Ukraine that China is supplying Russia with manpower. Russia declined to comment on Zelensky’s revelation on Wednesday.

However, China’s foreign ministry said it was “verifying the relevant situation with the Ukrainian side”, but that it had consistently urged Chinese nationals to steer clear of any armed conflicts.

It added that Kyiv’s accusation that more Chinese citizens were involved in the fighting was “groundless”.

In a statement on social media platform X, Zelensky said the soldiers were captured in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region with identification documents, including bank cards which had “personal data” on them.

Ukraine’s forces fought six Chinese soldiers and took two of them prisoner, he said.

The post was accompanied by a video showing one of the alleged Chinese captives in handcuffs, speaking Mandarin Chinese and apparently describing a recent battle.

“We have information suggesting that there are many more Chinese citizens in the occupier’s units than just these two,” he said.

“Russia’s involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly, in this war in Europe is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war,” Zelensky added.

The Ukrainian president called for a response “from the United States, Europe, and all those around the world who want peace”.

An investigation is under way and the captives are currently in the custody of Ukraine’s security service, he added.

On Tuesday, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the reports “disturbing”.

She added that China is a “major enabler” of Russia’s war in Ukraine, citing its supply of dual-use goods such as navigation equipment, semiconductor chips and jet parts.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said that he had summoned China’s chargé d’affaires in Kyiv to “demand an explanation”.

Writing on X, Andrii Sybiha said: “We strongly condemn Russia’s involvement of Chinese citizens in its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as their participation in combat against Ukrainian forces.”

He added that the move “puts into question China’s declared stance for peace” and undermines Beijing’s credibility as a member of the UN Security Council.

French newspaper Le Monde has previously reported that it identified around 40 accounts on TikTok’s sister app, Douyin – which is only available in China – belonging to Chinese individuals who claim to have signed up with the Russian army.

North Korea has sent thousands of troops to aid Russia’s war effort against Ukraine, according to Kyiv and Western officials.

• What we know about North Korean troops fighting Russia’s war
• About 1,000 North Koreans killed fighting Ukraine in Kursk, officials say

In a press conference on Tuesday, Zelensky said: “But there is a difference: North Koreans fought against us on the front in Kursk, the Chinese are fighting on the territory of Ukraine.”

In January Ukraine said it captured two injured North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk Oblast.

While Beijing and Moscow are close political and economic allies, China has attempted to present itself as a neutral party in the conflict and has repeatedly denied supplying Russia with military equipment.

In its response on Wednesday, the foreign ministry in Beijing appeared to indicate that if Chinese citizens had been captured by Ukrainian forces then they had been operating in a private capacity.

“It is important to emphasise that the Chinese government has consistently urged its citizens to stay away from conflict zones and to avoid involvement in armed conflicts in any form – particularly participation in military actions on any side,” said foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian.

One of Russia’s chief advantages in the war is numbers. There have been reports of Moscow using “meat grinder” tactics to throw huge numbers of soldiers at the front lines and incrementally improve their position.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, mostly in the east.

Russian drone attacks into Ukraine continued on Tuesday night with strikes injuring 14 people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, and another two in Kharkiv, in the north-east, local officials said. A number of fires were reported in the two cities.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced-off with his election rival Peter Dutton in their first debate before the 3 May federal election vote.

Cost of living issues dominated Tuesday night’s debate, organised by Sky News Australia and The Daily Telegraph, and the two leaders were also asked about US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Opinion polls have predicted a slim margin between Albanese’s Labor Party and Dutton’s Liberal-National coalition, and the possibility that either will need to form the next government with independent MPs or minor parties.

Albanese was declared the night’s winner by Sky News after a vote by 100 undecided voters, who also provided the night’s questions.

When the debate host asked the audience if they were having a tough time with the cost of living, most of the audience members raised their hands, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Dutton described the show of hands as a “very confronting scene” and said his plan to temporarily lower a government tax on fuel would provide immediate relief.

Albanese pointed the finger at tough global economic conditions, saying “the world has thrown a lot of challenges at Australia”. But he said he had brought inflation down and wages up, and added that interest rates were starting to fall.

How to respond to Trump’s tariffs was the first question of the night, to which Albanese replied that “no country is better prepared” than Australia because of his efforts.

“We’ll continue to negotiate with the United States looking for a better deal for Australia because reciprocal tariffs would, of course, be zero, because we don’t impose tariffs on US goods,” he said.

Dutton pointed to his experience as a senior minister negotiating with the first Trump government, and argued he would be in a better position to get concessions from the White House.

“The prime minister of the day should have the ability and the strength of character to be able to stand up against bullies, against those that would seek to do us harm, to keep our country safe,” he said.

The leaders also clashed on health and energy, and throughout the debate accused each other of lying.

Dutton blamed Albanese’s government for increased out-of-pocket health expenses, and said his party would help by funding more free doctor visits, training more general practitioners (GPs) and improving mental health services.

The Labor Party has promised to do all of these things too – and Albanese said only they could be trusted on health policy, pointing to the Coalition government’s previous record.

Each leader was given the opportunity to ask the other a question, and Albanese used his to attack Dutton’s nuclear energy plan.

Dutton has proposed building seven nuclear reactors, something he says will help Australia lower its emissions, create new jobs and offer cheaper power than renewables.

“Our policy is to make sure that we can underpin our economy with a stable energy market for the next hundred years,” Dutton said, pointing to countries like China, France, and Canada which all use nuclear power.

In the interim, the coalition would increase the supply of gas into the Australian market, he said.

“The only gas policy that the coalition have is the gaslighting of the Australian public,” Albanese rebutted, citing experts who say the nuclear scheme cannot be delivered within the timeframe or cost Dutton has specified.

Dutton, meanwhile, used his question to accuse the Labor government of out-of-control spending.

“A coalition government will always be a better economic manager,” he argued.

“When the Prime Minister says that this has been a successful three-year period, it’s just in defiance of the reality of people’s lives and where we are as a country right now.”

The UK government is investigating a fast-growing “green fuel” called HVO diesel amid claims of significant fraud, the BBC has learned.

HVO is increasingly popular as a transport fuel and for powering music festivals and its backers say it can curb carbon emissions by up to 90% as it can be made from waste materials like used cooking oil.

But industry whistleblowers told the BBC they believe large amounts of these materials are not waste but instead are virgin palm oil, which is being fraudulently relabelled.

And data analysed by the BBC and shared with the UK’s Department for Transport casts further doubt on one of the key ingredients in HVO, a material called palm sludge waste.

Europe used more of this waste in HVO and other biofuels in 2023 than it is thought possible for the world to produce.

In response to the BBC’s findings, the Department for Transport said they “take the concerns raised seriously and are working with stakeholders and international partners to gather further information”.

HVO, or hydrotreated vegetable oil, has been called something of a wonder-fuel in recent years as it can be used as 100% substitute for diesel reducing planet warming emissions.

UK consumption rocketed from 8 million litres in 2019 to about 699 million litres in 2024, according to provisional government figures.

Its green credentials rely heavily on the assumption that it is made from waste sources, particularly used cooking oil or the waste sludge from palm oil production.

But industry whistle-blowers have told the BBC that they believe virgin palm oil and other non-waste materials are often being used instead.

That would be bad news for the planet, as virgin palm oil is linked to increased tropical deforestation, which adds to climate change and threatening endangered species like orang-utans.

This palm oil “floods the market like cancer,” one large European biofuel manufacturer told the BBC.

They said that to stay in business they have to go along with the pretence that they are using waste materials.

Another whistle-blower, a former trader of these biofuels, also speaking anonymously, gave the BBC his account of one recent case dealing with supposedly waste products.

“I believe that what I bought was multiple cargos of virgin palm oil that has been wrongly classified as palm oil sludge,” they said.

“I called one of the board members and told them about the situation, and then I was told that they didn’t want to do anything about it, because the evidence would be burned.”

As well as this testimony, data compiled by campaign group Transport & Environment and analysed by the BBC suggests that more palm sludge waste is being used for transport biofuels than the world is probably able to produce.

The figures show that the UK and EU used about two million tonnes of palm sludge waste for HVO and other biofuels in 2023, based on Eurostat and UK Department for Transport figures.

EU imports of this sludge appear to have risen further in 2024, according to preliminary UN trade data, although the UK appears to have bucked this trend.

But the data analysed by the BBC, which is based on well-established UN and industry statistics, suggests the world can only produce just over one million tonnes of palm sludge waste a year.

This mismatch further suggests non-waste fuels such as virgin palm oil are being used to meet Europe’s rapid growth in biofuels, according to researchers and industry figures.

“It’s a very easy game,” said Dr Christian Bickert, a German farmer and editor with experience in biofuels, who believes that much of the HVO made with these waste products is “fake”.

“Chemically, the sludge and the pure palm oil are absolutely the same because they come from the same plant, and also from the same production facilities in Indonesia,” he told BBC News.

“There’s no paper which proves [the fraud], no paper at all, but the figures tell a clear story.”

Underpinning the sustainability claims of biofuels is an independent system of certification where producers have to show exactly where they get their raw materials from.

It is mainly administered by a company called ISCC, and in Europe it has a long-standing reputation for ensuring that waste materials turned into fuel really do come from waste, by working with national authorities.

But in Indonesia, Malaysia and China, three of the main sources of the raw ingredients claimed to be waste for HVO, supervision is much more difficult.

“ISCC is simply not allowed to send anybody to China,” said Dr Christian Bickert.

“They have to rely on certification companies in China to check that everything is OK, but China doesn’t allow any inspectors in from outside.”

This concern is echoed by several other groups contacted by the BBC.

Construction giant Balfour Beatty, for example, has a policy of not using the fuel, citing sustainability concerns.

“We just are not able to get any level of visibility over the supply chain of HVO that would give us that level of assurance that this is truly a sustainable product,” Balfour Beatty’s Jo Gilroy told BBC News.

The European Waste-based and Advanced Biofuels Association represents the major biofuel manufacturers in the EU and UK.

In a statement they said “there is a major certification verification issue that needs to be addressed as a matter of priority”, adding that the “ISCC should do much more to ensure that non-EU Biodiesel is really what it claims to be”.

In the light of growing fraud allegations, the Irish authorities have recently restricted incentives for fuels made from palm waste.

The BBC also understands that the EU is about to propose a ban on ISCC certification of waste biofuels for two-and-a-half years, although it is expected to say it is not aware of direct breaches of renewable goals.

It would then be up to individual member countries to decide whether to accept certifications.

In response, the ISCC said it was “more than surprised” by the EU’s move, adding that it had been “a frontrunner in implementing the most strict and effective measures to ensure integrity and fraud prevention in the market for years”.

“The measure would be a severe blow to the entire market for waste-based biofuels,” it said.

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Tributes have been paid to a London-based scientist who formerly worked for the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) after he was found murdered in northern Colombia.

Alessandro Coatti’s remains were discovered on the outskirts of Santa Marta, a port city on the Caribbean coast, on Sunday, investigators say.

Santa Marta’s Mayor, Carlos Pinedo Cuello, said a reward of 50,000,000 Colombian pesos (£8,940) was being offered for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the death of the Italian citizen.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the RSB said it was “devastated” by news of Mr Coatti’s killing.

“He was a passionate and dedicated scientist, leading RSB animal science work, writing numerous submissions, organising events and giving evidence in the House of Commons,” the RSB said.

“Ale was funny, warm, intelligent, loved by everyone he worked with and will be deeply missed by all who knew and worked with him.

“Our thoughts and best wishes go out to his friends and family at this truly awful time.”

Santa Marta is a gateway to some of Colombia’s most popular tourist destinations including Tayrona National Park, Minca and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains.

Mr Coatti, who took a master’s course at University College London (UCL), worked for the RSB for eight years as science policy officer before being promoted to senior science policy officer.

He left the RSB at the end of 2024 to volunteer in Ecuador and travel in South America.

Parts of the scientist’s dismembered body were found in a suitcase dumped in a stream.

Posting on X, Mr Pinedo Cuello said: “This crime will not go unpunished. The criminals must know that crime has no place in Santa Marta. We will pursue them until they are brought to justice.”

A hotel worker who spoke to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo said Mr Coatti had inquired about visiting the village of Minca and was conducting research on local animal species.

Prince Harry’s decision to step back from his life as a working royal resulted in a “unique set of circumstances”, a government barrister has told the Court of Appeal.

Sir James Eadie KC said it was right to take a flexible approach to the level of personal security he should be given after he stepped back in early 2020.

The Duke of Sussex has asked three judges to overturn a decision to downgrade the police protection he is given at public expense when he visits the UK.

His barrister said the duke’s life was “at stake” and he had been given a security process that he knows “is manifestly inferior in every respect”.

• What are Harry and Meghan’s UK security arrangements and where do they get their money?

Prince Harry was in court again for the second day of the hearing, with a crowd of photographers and onlookers waiting when he arrived and waved to reporters.

Sitting next to his solicitor, the duke occasionally made notes as he listened to Sir James set out the government’s position.

Sir James told the court the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec), which decides security levels, was governed by “royal prerogative” – not the requirements of any law.

Its chair, Sir Richard Mottram, had been in charge for more than a decade and was “front line responsible” if Ravec got it wrong, he said.

As a senior civil servant with experience overseeing national security, “it’s hard to imagine a decision maker better placed to form his own view”, he told the court.

• Prince Harry can appeal against UK security ruling

While Ravec had “terms of reference” for deciding security measures, there was “nothing to suggest they were designed to operate rigidly and not flexibly”.

Unlike most of the senior members of the Royal Family, Prince Harry decided to live abroad and not carry out official engagements.

He previously said the safety of his family, with whom he moved to California in 2020, was at the heart of the case.

This decision was in a “category of its own”, Sir James said, and the committee was right to consider the case on its merits.

The core objective of the committee’s members and advisers, he said, was “to make nuanced judgments about security protection bringing all of their expertise to bear including making decisions about unusual cases and what process should most appropriately be followed”.

He added later that the decision on Prince Harry’s security was “considered with care” and “nothing was excluded or shut down in the future”, including conducting a risk assessment.

In closing remarks, Shaheed Fatima KC said of the duke, sat two rows behind: “There is a person sitting behind me whose safety, whose security and whose life is at stake.

“There is a person sitting behind me who has been told that he is getting a special, bespoke process, when he knows and has experienced a process that is manifestly inferior in every respect.”

“His presence here, and throughout this appeal, is a potent illustration, were one needed, of how much this appeal means to him and his family,” she added.

Because the Home Office has legal responsibility for Ravec’s decisions, it is opposing the appeal on its behalf.

The duke’s security in the UK is currently decided on a case-by-case basis, the same way as the country’s other high-profile visitors.

The details of Prince Harry’s current security arrangements, and the levels he would like to receive, have not been discussed in court, for security reasons.

More sensitive information was discussed in a closed hearing, without the media present, on Wednesday afternoon.

After the public hearing, a woman who had been sitting in the court shouted at journalists: “If you’re members of the press, you’re the reason he’s not in England.”

Prince Harry’s bodyguards led him out of the court before she was allowed to leave.

He then returned for the private section of the hearing before Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Bean, and Lord Justice Edis, which concluded on Wednesday afternoon.

A written decision is expected at a later date.

On Tuesday, Ms Fatima told the court Prince Harry had been subject to a “so-called bespoke process” with regards to his UK security, that saw him “singled out for different, unjustified and inferior treatment”.

She told the court Ravec had not followed its own standard procedures, because it chose to downgrade his security without having expert analysis of the risks he faced.

She argued the previous judge was wrong to have concluded that the committee could make decisions without such analysis, and said the duke does not accept that “bespoke” means “better”.

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US shares have rocketed after US President Donald Trump said he would suspend steep tariffs on goods from most countries, and instead impose a 10% import tax rate.

The White House said it was backing off on higher levies for trade partners that had agreed to negotiate, although Trump said he would raise tariffs on goods from China even further, to at least 125% “effective immediately”.

The S&P 500 soared 9.5% in the biggest one-day rally since 2008, following days of turmoil sparked by the tariffs.

Trump’s decision came less than 24 hours after the latest round of tariffs had come into force, hitting key trade partners, such as Vietnam, which saw its imports facing a new levy of 46%.

The duties, which the president had announced last week, were higher and more far-reaching than many on Wall Street had anticipated.

In the aftermath of the announcement, the S&P plunged more than 10% and many analysts warned of the rising risk of economic recession in the US and globally.

By Wednesday, the fears had hit the bond market, where investors started dumping US government bonds.

“Although President Donald Trump was able to resist the stock market sell-off, once the bond market began to weaken too, it was only a matter of time before he folded on his eye-wateringly high tariffs,” said Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist for Capital Economics.

He said he expected Trump to return to the plan for a 10% universal tariff that he called for in his campaign, though warned that it would take time for for the US and China to work out a deal.

“It is difficult to see either side backing down in the next few days,” he said. “But we suspect that talks will eventually happen, although a full rollback of all the additional tariffs applied since Inauguration Day appear unlikely.”

The Dow ended the day up more than 7.8% and the Nasdaq skyrocketed more than 12%.

• Live updates

Companies such as Nike, which makes roughly half its footwear in Vietnam, jumped 11%, while Apple soared roughly 15%.

Despite the gains, the leading indexes in the US remain lower than they were before Trump’s announcement, with the S&P 500 off about 3% and down more than 8% for the year.

An adventurer who claimed to be the first woman to solo traverse Canada’s largest island has been criticised for her “privilege and ignorance”.

Camilla Hempleman-Adams, from Wiltshire, covered 150 miles (241km) on foot and by ski across Baffin Island, Nunavut, completing the journey on 27 March.

However, members of the native Inuit population said her claim was incorrect and came from a “dangerous colonial attitude”, with people there having travelled the same route for generations.

The daughter of adventurer Sir David Hempleman-Adams has since apologised, adding: “It was never my intention to misrepresent any historical achievements or cause distress to local communities.”

The solo trek across Baffin Island took Ms Hempleman-Adams from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung, crossing through Auyuittuq National Park.

Ahead of departure, she wrote on her expedition website: “Parks Canada has confirmed that there are no historical records of a female solo attempt from Qikiqtarjuaq to Pangnirtung.”

But Gayle Uyagaqi Kabloona, who is Inuit and based in Ottawa, said this was because crossing the terrain is considered “a normal way of life” for them.

“The article hit people really hard in a very sensitive spot, because of our history and the difficulties we face every day in combatting Western colonialism,” she said.

“This woman is coming here from such a place of privilege and ignorance that it seems dangerous.

“It was almost like she was bringing back news of a new continent to Europe and saying ‘there’s nobody here!’ We were and still are.

“It’s such a clear example of how colonialism benefits from dispossessing indigenous people of their land and writing us out of history.”

In a statement, Ms Hempleman-Adams apologised for the offence caused by her expedition coverage.

“I have deep respect for the land, its people, and their history,” she said.

“I have travelled in this region multiple times and hold immense admiration for its nature, culture and traditions.

“I am truly saddened that the coverage of my journey may have caused concern or upset, and I remain committed to learning from this experience and engaging with the community with the utmost respect.”

Ms Kabloona said the matter had affected the community because many people who lived traditional nomadic lifestyles had now passed away – raising concerns that cultural practices will gradually be lost to time.

She is now in the process of mapping out the route her family has taken for generations while migrating south in spring, towards the caribou hunting grounds.

On one of these annual 186-mile (300km) journeys, Ms Kabloona’s grandmother went into labour and gave birth to her father in a tent along the way.

“Two days later, she got up and carried on walking,” Ms Kabloona said.

“She did that in every single one of her pregnancies, traversed our land, because that is our way of life and always has been.”

Ms Kabloona said she welcomed visitors to the region but disapproved of the “outdated” term “explorer”, as it carried with it connotations of imperialist expansion.

“If you want to come and enjoy the outdoors, please do so,” she said.

“The danger is going back with this colonial attitude and disseminating information like the Inuit don’t have history there.

“Saying you’re the ‘first person’ to do anything in an indigenous country is insulting.

“Show respect to the land and the people who have kept it pristine for your adventures.”

Confidence in the US economy is plummeting as investors dumped government debt amid growing concerns over the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Governments sell bonds – essentially an IOU – to raise money from financial markets for public spending and in return they pay interest.

The US does not normally see high interest rates on its debt as its bonds are viewed as a safe investment, but on Wednesday rates spiked sharply to touch 4.5%.

The rise came after Trump pressed ahead with sweeping tariffs on goods being imported into the US, while Washington’s trade war with China escalated further – although Trump on Wednesday did put a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for some countries.

After the US implemented a 104% tariff on products from China at midnight on Wednesday, Beijing hit back with 84% levy on American products. Trump later raised the tariff on China to 125%.

Stock markets have been falling sharply over the past few days in reaction to the escalating global trade war and fears of tariffs leading to higher prices, although US stocks soared when Trump announced the 90-day pause and a lowered 10% reciprocal tariff for other countries.

However, the sale of bonds in the US poses a major problem for the world’s biggest economy.

The interest rate – or yield – for US government borrowing over 10 years has spiked sharply in the past couple of days from 3.9% to 4.5%, the highest level since February.

The rise has spooked economists because US bonds are traditionally seen as a so-called safe haven for investors to put their money in times of financial turmoil.

“Rising bond yields mean higher costs for companies to borrow, and of course governments too,” said Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell.

“Bonds should do well in times of turmoil as investors flee to safety, but Trump’s trade war is now undermining the US debt market,” he added.

While interest rates on US government debt rose, the price of the bonds themselves fell as demand weakened due to investors offloading them.

Mohammed El Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz and former boss of the biggest bond manager Pimco, said one reason US borrowing costs had shot up was because there had been an “erosion” of bonds being seen as a safe haven.

He added concerns over the impact of tariffs on inflation and US government budgets were also reasons.

Some analysts suggested that America’s central bank – the US Federal Reserve – might be forced to step in if turbulence continues, in a move reminiscent of the Bank of England’s emergency action in 2022 following Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.

“We see no other option for the Fed but to step in with emergency purchases of US Treasuries to stabilise the bond market,” said George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank.

“We are entering uncharted territory,” he said, adding that it was “very hard” to predict how markets would react in the coming days as the bond market suggested investors had “lost faith in US assets”.

Mr El Erian told the BBC’s World At One that the Fed would be “torn” over what action to take, given its main mandates are to manage inflation and maximise employment.

Economists have predicted US tariffs, which will be paid for by American companies importing goods from abroad, will raise consumer prices domestically.

Trump’s plan is aimed at protecting American businesses from foreign competition and also to boost domestic manufacturing.

However, tumbling stock markets resulting from fears extra taxes will hit the profits of companies, could lead ultimately to firms cutting jobs and an economic downturn.

JP Morgan, the investment banking giant, has raised the likelihood of a US recession from 40% to 60% and warned that American policy was “tilting away from growth”.

Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Liberum, told the BBC that the Fed could decide to cut interest rates in a bid to protect US jobs by making it easier for businesses to borrow cash as they face higher costs from tariffs.

He said it was a “coin toss” over whether the US would enter a recession.

This is defined as a prolonged and widespread decline in economic activity typically characterised by a jump in unemployment and fall in incomes.

Mr El Erian said the UK was likely to be impacted by the US bonds sell-off.

“When US treasuries sneeze, UK government bonds catch a cold – we have seen a significant move up in UK bond yields which means more pressure on the Budget,” he added.

Rising UK bond yields means “higher borrowing costs for companies and households,” he added.

The Bank of England warned on Wednesday that US tariffs “contributed to a material increase in the risk to global growth” and financial stability.

“Uncertainty has intensified,” it said.

Investors are now betting on the Bank to cut interest rates by as many as four times, to bolster the economy against a potential economic downturn.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that Trump’s goal was to bring “jobs and manufacturing back to the United States, raising wages, increasing revenues and reviving the American Dream”.

He said the Trump administration was looking to “right the wrongs of longstanding global trade imbalances”.

Questions remain over the scale and what type of investors are dumping US bonds.

There has been speculation some foreign countries, such as China which owns some $759bn of US bonds, might be selling them.

Mr Saravelos warned there could be “no winner” to this trade war. “The loser will be the global economy,” he added.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second 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.

President Trump has been justifying his sweeping tariffs with a series of claims about how the US is the victim of “unfair trade”.

He has imposed tariffs – or import taxes – on countries around the world, including a 125% rate on goods imported from China. In response, China is hiking its tariffs on American imports.

Some of Trump’s claims on trade are unsubstantiated or even false. BBC Verify has been taking a closer look.

“We’re making a fortune with tariffs – $2bn a day”, Trump has said about his new tariff regime on Tuesday.

BBC Verify cannot find any published figures which show this.

The US Treasury Department publishes a daily statement on how much money from customs duties goes to the federal government.

Data from 7 April – which includes the impact of some of Trump’s earlier tariffs – amounted to $215m (£168m).

That figure is well short of Trump’s claim.

It is possible that he has based it on forecasts for the year ahead.

The US imported $9bn (£7bn) worth of goods per day last year.

Some analysts have calculated that the average rate of Trump’s tariffs (as of 2 April) is 22%.

Applying this to these import figures would get you to $2bn (£1.6bn) a day.

But this calculation assumes that the volume of US imports would stay at this level.

• China retaliates with 84% tariffs on US goods as Trump trade war escalates
• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• How were Donald Trump’s tariffs calculated?

Another way Trump could have reached his figure is by basing it on what his trade advisor said on 6 April.

Peter Navarro claimed the tariffs would raise $700bn (£546bn) a year and – from this – you can get to around $2bn a day.

It is not clear how Navarro came up with his figure and analysts have since argued that it could be much lower.

BBC Verify has asked the White House for Trump’s evidence.

A trade deficit happens when a country buys more from another country than it sells to it and Trump claims the US has a huge one with China.

“We have a trillion dollar trade deficit with China”, Trump told reporters on 7 April.

The US does have a large trade deficit in goods with China.

Official figures show it was just over $295bn (£230bn) in 2024 – which is far less than the $1tn (£780bn) claimed by Trump.

Globally, in 2024, China exported nearly $1tn (£780bn) more goods than it imported.

But, contrary to what Trump said, that figure applies to all countries, not just the US.

Trump has claimed that Canada charges US farmers a 270% tariff on their dairy products.

“Canada charges for our dairy products 270%. Nobody knows that. They charge you 2% for the first two cartons of milk and after that you go up to 270,” Trump said.

It is correct that Canada does impose high tariffs on US dairy products – including 241% for milk, 270% for dairy powder and 298% for butter – but they only apply under specific conditions.

Under the Canadian system, US dairy goods can enter the country duty-free or with very low tariffs – until certain quotas are exceeded. Once this happens, higher tariffs are applied.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US exported $1.14bn (£892m) worth of dairy products to Canada in 2024.

Despite the volume of trade between the two countries, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) – which represents America’s dairy industry – said “the US has never gotten close” to exceeding the quotas.

The IDFA has, however, supported Trump challenging Canada’s approach, saying that tariff quotas as well as Canada’s milk pricing policy was distorting trade. But it also said a tariff war would “create uncertainly and additional costs for American dairy farmers”.

Trade expert David Henig, from the European Centre for International Political Economy, told BBC Verify that Canada is highly protective of its dairy market, but pointed out that “President Trump actually negotiated the most recent trade deal between Canada and the US”.

As well as China, Trump singled out the European Union (EU) which he said had been formed “to screw the United States”.

“You know, we take their millions of cars. They take no cars. They don’t take our farm products. They don’t take anything”, he said.

While the US imports more cars from the EU than it exports to it, Trump’s claim that they take no cars is false.

In 2024, the EU imported 164,857 US-made cars valued at €7.7bn (£6.6bn), according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

Many more did go the other way – 749,170 EU-made cars were exported to the US last year valued at €38.5bn (£33.3bn).

Trump’s claim about farm products is also false.

The EU bought $12.8bn (£10bn) of US agricultural exports in 2024, making the EU America’s fourth largest export market – according to the USDA.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

China’s finance ministry has announced an 84% tariff on goods imported from the US, retaliating against recent levies imposed by the White House.

The hike in tariffs, from 34%, came after US President Donald Trump’s 104% tariff on Chinese goods came into force on Wednesday – they were later increased to 125%.

Trump said the 21% rise was “based on the lack of respect” China had shown, and that it would be “effective immediately”.

Beijing, which has said its charges would take effect from Thursday, urged other countries to unite against Trump’s tariffs as the country’s exporters reel from the crippling new levies.

“Global unity can triumph over trade tyranny,” declared an editorial in the state-run newspaper China Daily, noting Beijing’s collaborations with Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies.

A separate piece called for the European Union to work with it to “uphold free trade and multilateralism”.

The US’s trade war with China continued to escalate on Wednesday. Hours after Trump’s highest tariffs on a raft of countries came into force, China retaliated with its own 84% levy on US imports.

European markets dropped shortly after the announcement, with the FTSE 100 falling by 3.3% and Germany’s Dax 4%.

Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to say that, in return, he was upping the US’s levies on China to 125%.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” the US president wrote.

He also announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of countries -except China – saying this was because those nations had not “at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States”.

Beijing “firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying practices”, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday – before the latest hike from Washington.

The tariffs come at a difficult time for China’s sluggish economy: domestic consumption remains weak and exports are still a major driver of growth.

The sweeping nature of Trump’s tariffs has also left Chinese businesses scrambling to adjust their supply chains – with most countries affected, firms say it’s hard to find a way out of this uncertainty.

The tariffs will shrink “already razor-thin profit margins”, said the owner of a Chinese business that handles cross-border logistics for e-commerce, as well as air and sea freight. He did not wish to share his name.

“Higher tariffs raise costs for freight forwarders like us, as well as for factories, companies, and sellers. It just means everyone earns less.”

Any tariff upwards of 35% will wipe out all the profits that Chinese businesses make when exporting to the US or South East Asia, said Dan Wang from the Eurasia Group consultancy.

“Growth is going to be much lower since exports contributed to 20% to 50% of growth since the Covid pandemic,” she added.

Beijing is reportedly considering banning Hollywood films and suspending fentanyl cooperation with the US, according to Chinese blogger Liu Hong, who is a senior editor at state-run Xinhua news.

But that would offer little comfort to firms like Fuling, which sells disposable tableware to US fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

It said the additional tariffs would “significantly impact” its business. Fuling noted that nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenue in 2023 and the first half of last year came from the US.

To mitigate the impact of tariffs, Fuling, which is headquartered in China’s Zhejiang province, started a new factory in Indonesia late last year.

However, Trump’s new tariffs have introduced more uncertainty for Chinese exports from Indonesia, which are now subject to a 32% levy, the company said in a corporate filing.

Indonesia was hit along with much of the world in President Trump’s announcement of expansive tariffs last week, which he claimed would allow the US economy to flourish.

But economists have warned of a US and global recession. The tariffs have also shaken world markets and drawn criticism from billionaire CEOs, including Trump’s ally Elon Musk.

While China has left the door open for talks, Trump has not spoken to Chinese leader Xi Jinping since returning to the White House.

Such broad, sweeping tariffs will cause more harm than good, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said in a note to its member companies on Wednesday.

“This level of upheaval is unprecedented, and it remains unclear how the current measures will benefit consumers in either nation or the broader economy,” read the note signed by Chair Alvin Liu and President Michael Hart.

Some analysts believe the levies will force China to restructure its economy and rely heavily on domestic consumption, which it has been struggling to boost.

Otherwise, the tariffs will not be sustainable for China in the longer term, Tim Waterer from brokerage KCM Trade said.

“The tariffs are aimed at suppressing China,” said the manager of a Chinese freight company, who asked to remain anonymous.

He added that many of the South East Asian countries that have been hit with steep tariffs are “exactly where many Chinese businesses have relocated”, such as Vietnam and Cambodia.

The Tianjin-based company plans to negotiate with some of its American clients to share the burden of the tariffs. “Every case is different, but overall, the impact has been quite substantial,” he said.

Another freight company manager Wu Changchun, whose firm mainly operates on shipping routes between China and Cambodia, said he is already seeing a fall in freight volume.

Several construction projects in Cambodia have also come to a halt after Trump’s tariffs announcement, he said.

“If the tariffs were at 10% or 20%, businesses might still be able to absorb the cost by optimising supply chains, cutting margins and sharing the burden. Trade could still go on… [But at 104%] that’s no longer something trade-offs can fix,” said Mr Wu, a general manager at Maritima Maruba.

“That’s full-on decoupling. Trade would basically come to a standstill.”

Germany’s conservatives under Friedrich Merz have reached a deal with the Social Democrats to govern Europe’s biggest economy, five months after the previous government collapsed.

Merz, 69, said their agreement sent “a strong and clear signal” to Germans and the EU that they would get “a strong government capable of action”.

Germany was already in recession before it was buffeted by economic turbulence, caused by US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

“The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track,” said the chancellor-in-waiting, promising to fulfil defence commitments and revive economic competitiveness.

• Follow live updates as China and EU hit back at Trump tariffs

Merz and his coalition partners have been under intense pressure to put an end to Germany’s political limbo since his Christian Democrats won federal elections in February.

He has also just seen his party overtaken in an opinion poll by the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Announcing the government deal, Merz promised to reform and stabilise Germany, with a focus on migration, the economy and defence.

“Europe can rely on Germany,” he said, promising “a strong plan to bring our country to the forefront again”.

He will have to wait for the week starting 5 May for the new parliament to elect him as chancellor, but should have no problem with a 13-seat majority.

The coalition parties had already signalled their urgency last month, when they pushed through significant reform of Germany’s strict debt rules.

Such changes mean the new government will be able to plough significant investment into the military and the country’s crumbling infrastructure.

Included in Wednesday’s agreement were a series of measures to “control and largely end irregular migration”, and impose border controls aimed at addressing one of the big concerns of voters in the February election.

The AfD complained that the plans did not go far enough, accusing Merz of capitulating to the Social Democrats.

In a recent report to parliament, Germany’s armed forces commissioner highlighted dramatic shortages in the military across the board, from ammunition and soldier numbers to dilapidated barracks.

Another significant part of the coalition deal is for defence spending to be increased, and for boosting the strength of the military.

Although there will be no conscription, Merz said the coalition was aiming to follow a “Swedish model” of voluntary military service.

“We hope that with enough volunteers, we will also be able to achieve an expansion of the Bundeswehr [German armed forces],” he said.

Merz also promised “comprehensive support” to Ukraine.

• Germany leads defiance of Trump car tariffs, saying it “will not give in”
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• Merz clinches package to revamp defence and infrastructure

Although his government will feature almost entirely new names – Merz himself has never been a cabinet minister – there will be continuity at the defence ministry.

Boris Pistorius, the Social Democrat defence minister in the outgoing government, is expected to remain in post.

This will be the fifth so-called grand coalition (GroKo) – involving the big parties of the centre right and centre left since World War Two – but the parties were at pains to say it would not be like any previous government.

With Germany in economic recession, though, one leading politician on the populist left, Sahra Wagenknecht, said they offered no answer either to Germany’s economic crisis or the trade war.

She said Germany was threatened with a third and fourth year in recession, which she dubbed “Merzession”.

Merz said he was confident that the coalition deal would be approved by their respective parties and they would be able to get to work in early May.

Meanwhile, an Ipsos poll on Wednesday put Merz’s conservatives in second place on 24% support, a point behind Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose co-leader Alice Weidel hailed the survey as unprecedented, and promised that “political change will come”.

For 20 years, Rj LaMendola found peace while paddling in the water on his surfboard.

But last month off the coast of Southern California, the ocean turned hostile after a sea lion lunged at him, bit him and dragged him off his board.

“It looked possessed,” Mr LaMendola wrote in a Facebook post, saying the animal involved in the encounter just north of Los Angeles was “feral, almost demonic”.

The surfer later learned the animal was suffering from domoic acid toxicosis- a neurological condition caused by a harmful algal bloom. It’s one of dozens of sickened animals that have been spotted across California beaches recently – many suffering from symptoms like seizures or intense lethargy. The toxin often leads to death.

This particular algae bloom has appeared four years in a row across California, raising concerns it might be turning into an annual event. The bloom of algae started earlier than normal this year and has spread roughly 370 miles of the iconic Southern California coastline.

When Mr LaMenolda made it to shore, his wetsuit ripped open, he was bleeding and went to the hospital. “It felt like I was being hunted,” he said.

South of where he was attacked, 15-year-old Phoebe Beltran was doing a swim test in Long Beach to become a lifeguard when a sea lion repeatedly bit her.

“I was just so scared, so shocked, but I still felt the immense pain on my arms, like, over and over again,” the teen told local US media.

The two back-to-back attacks have garnered global headlines and caused some anxiety among those who call California and its iconic beaches home. While attacks are rare, experts say the number of animals sickened by the toxic algae bloom appears to be increasing.

John Warner, CEO of the Marine Mammal Care Center in Los Angeles – which is treating sea life sickened by the bloom – told the BBC these animals aren’t “naturally aggressive or actually attack people” but the toxins impact their behaviour.

“These animals are reacting to the fact that they are sick,” he explained. “They’re disoriented, and most likely, most of them are having seizures, and so their senses are not all fully functional as they normally would and they’re acting out of fear.”

Domoic acid builds up in smaller fish like sardines and anchovies, which are eaten by marine predators such as dolphins, seals and sea lions in large quantities, causing them to get sick.

Exposure to the acid causes serious neurological issues in sea lions, including seizures, disorientation and a telltale head-tilting behaviour known as “stargazing.”

Some animals fall into a lethargic and comatose state, while others can turn aggressive.

“Their behaviour changes from what we’re used to, to something more unpredictable,” Mr Warner said. “But in this particular bloom, we’re seeing them really comatose and rather taken out by this toxin.”

The Marine Mammal Care Center is currently overwhelmed with the influx and severity of sick animals.

According to Mr Warner, the nonprofit has admitted at least 195 sea lions from Feb 20 to the end of March. During the same time frame last year, the centre saw only 50 of the animals.

If treated promptly, sea lions have a 50% to 65% chance of recovery, but Mr Warner says the centre is running out of space and money to treat the animals. Treatment includes anti-seizure medication and sedation, followed by twice-daily tube feeding and hydration.

On top of that, the recovery pace this year has been slower, he said.

While sick sea lions in 2023 typically began eating within a week, many this year are still lethargic five weeks into care.

Recovery comes in stages: from a comatose state to disorientation, then aggressive reawakening—when the animals are most dangerous due to lingering neurological effects.

Adult sea lions can weigh hundreds of pounds, and aggressive behaviors make housing them complicated. If their behaviour doesn’t normalize, it could signal permanent brain damage, and humane euthanasia becomes necessary.

“If they’re still aggressive or not foraging properly, it tells us their brains aren’t functioning the way they should,” Mr Warner said.

For now, beachgoers are urged to stay well away from stranded animals – at least 50 feet – and resist the temptation to intervene.

“These are still the same charismatic, really fun-to-watch expert cuddle puddlers that we see along the coast all the time,” Mr Warner said. “We need to remember they are wild animals. They can be unpredictable even in normal circumstances.”

King Charles and Queen Camilla have had a private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican where he wished them a happy 20th wedding anniversary.

In a statement released by Buckingham Palace, the King and Queen said they were “delighted the Pope was well enough to host them – and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person”.

The meeting took place on the third day of their state visit to Italy and ahead of a state banquet in Rome on Wednesday evening.

It is understood the meeting was only confirmed on Wednesday morning. It came after previous plans for the couple to meet the pontiff in a state visit to the Vatican were postponed because of the Pope’s ill health.

A still picture of the meeting, which lasted 20 minutes, is due to be released on Thursday morning.

The meeting took place on Wednesday afternoon at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis has been convalescing since being released from Gemelli Hospital.

According to the Vatican, the Pope is showing signs of gradual improvement and he “reciprocated” the King’s “best wishes for a speedy recovery of his health”.

This was a reference to the Pope offering his own best wishes, after the King recently suffered side effects from his cancer treatment.

There was also an exchange of private gifts between Pope Francis and the royal visitors.

The King and Queen have been enjoying a warm welcome on their state visit to Italy, but it was a trip that originally had a significant focus on visiting the Vatican and planned events such as a service at the Sistine Chapel.

That had been no longer been possible after the serious health problems of Pope Francis – but with his health improving the King and Queen had the opportunity for a brief meeting.

After visiting the Pope, King Charles and Queen Camilla spent their wedding anniversary evening at a state banquet in Rome hosted by the President of Italy Sergio Mattarella.

The King joked to his Italian hosts at the Quirinale Palace about laying on such a spectacle for their anniversary.

“I must say it really is very good of you, Mr President, to lay on this small romantic, candle-lit dinner for two..,” the King told the banquet.

There were 150 guests at the dinner, including the singer Andrea Bocelli, chef Giorgio Locatelli, hotelier Rocco Forte and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Earlier in the day, at the Italian Parliament, Queen Camilla had worn the same outfit she had worn at her civil wedding ceremony in 2005.

The ivory silk dress designed by Anna Valentine had been “repurposed” to wear again for this anniversary day.

The King’s speech at the state banquet, at the Italian presidential palace, touched on a mix of comic and serious themes about the long relationship between the UK and Italy, back to the ancient Romans.

“I for one, have never asked that question, made famous by Monty Python, ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’,” the King joked.

“We see their imprint on what they knew as Britannia every day – from London to Carmarthen, from York to Hadrian’s Wall.”

But he also warned that “we are living in a very precarious and fragile world” and there was a need to stand up for “values and the liberty we hold so dear”.

“In difficult times, friends stand together,” he told his audience, in a speech that once again referenced the conflict in Ukraine.

The menu for the state banquet, in the splendour of the medieval palace, included bottoni pasta with aubergine caponata, salt encrusted sea bass, fried artichokes and roast potatoes.

That was followed by a fior di latte ice cream cake with raspberries.

This was the King’s second speech of the day, as earlier he had become the first UK monarch to address both houses of the Italian Parliament.

The King received a standing ovation from Italy’s lawmakers, in their ornately-decorated chamber in the Palazzo Montecitorio, with a rallying call to defend shared values and the need to reinforce the military partnership between the UK and Italy.

“We are both European countries,” he said, standing in front of the Italian and European Union flags.

He welcomed that the UK and Italy “stood by Ukraine in her hour of need”, but warned that images of wars were now reverberating across the continent.

“Our younger generations can see in the news every day on their smartphones and tablets that peace is never to be taken for granted,” said the King.

Such threats meant it was important that “Britain and Italy stand today united in defence of the democratic values we share”, he told Parliament.

Delivering some of the speech in Italian, he spoke of the long history between the UK and Italy, going back to the ancient Romans arriving on Britain’s “windswept shores”.

As head of the Commonwealth, he also spoke of the role of Canadian troops in helping to liberate Italy in the Second World War.

The speech went down well with the assembled Parliamentarians – with the applause so long at one point that an Italian official began to thank him, assuming that the King had finished.

The King began the day by meeting Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, receiving a ceremonial red-carpet welcome at the Villa Doria Pamphili, on the outskirts of Rome.

The Italian public has given a warm reception to the royal couple on their trip to Italy, including outside the Colosseum, when the King and Queen posed for photos near the ancient site of the Temple of Venus.

There were calls of “Carlo” – Italian for Charles – from crowds waiting to see the royal visitors and local media also seemed interested by their car, the claret coloured State Bentley.

The Royal Family’s official X account marked the wedding anniversary by posting a video which showed guards playing a version of Madness’s 1981 hit It Must Be Love.

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“This week is Passover – the festival of freedom,” Liri Albag, an Israeli soldier held hostage in Gaza for 15 months by Hamas, told a crowd of thousands gathered in Tel Aviv last weekend. “But what kind of freedom is it when 59 people are still in Hamas hell?”

In recent weeks, powerful voices have joined the fight to bring home Israel’s remaining hostages – those of the captives released during the latest ceasefire deal that began in January and lasted two months.

Despite their ongoing trauma, frailty and grief, a number of ex-hostages have felt compelled to give their harrowing testimony on stage at demonstrations, in long TV interviews or in meetings overseas with world leaders.

They have detailed their own harsh treatment and expressed fears for the fate of others left behind, especially since Israel cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza at the start of March and restarted its military offensive two weeks later, saying this was to put pressure on Hamas.

Twenty-four of those who have been held captive since the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel of 7 October 2023 are still believed to be alive.

Witnessing the collapse of the ceasefire has been unbearable, the former hostages say.

“We have no time. The earth is burning under our feet,” insisted Gadi Moses, an 80-year-old farmer abducted by Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Kibbutz Nir Oz and freed in January, who also spoke at Saturday’s rally in Hostages Square.

“I’m not really here. Only half of me is standing here,” said Omer Wenkert, another former hostage, in his emotive address. “Part of us, part of all of us, is still captive in Gaza.”

He called on Israeli leaders to take action on the hostages saying: “Prime Minister Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s on you to get them back.”

Many of the released hostages want a return to the original ceasefire deal which brought them home in exchange for some 1,800 Palestinians being freed by Israel.

The agreement was meant to see a second phase in which remaining Israeli captives would be returned and the war would end.

However, Israel now rejects this and is pushing instead for more hostages to be freed through an extension of the first phase of the truce.

Hamas has agreed only to an extension involving the release of fewer hostages than Israel will accept, and ultimately wants to return to the original ceasefire framework.

Since appearing on stage, flanked by masked gunmen and looking pale and thin, at a Hamas handover ceremony in Gaza City in February, US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel has turned into an active campaigner.

He was part of a group of eight ex-hostages that met President Donald Trump in the Oval Office last month – crediting him with securing the recent deal that brought back 25 hostages and the bodies of eight others and urging him to help get ceasefire negotiations back on track.

“It’s urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation,” Mr Siegel told 60 Minutes on the US network CBS.

Mr Siegel described how he and others with whom he was initially held – including women and children – had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels.

“We were gasping for our breath,” he recalled.

He said there was constant abuse: “I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense.”

A prominent former hostage, Yarden Bibas, gave his first interview to 60 Minutes, speaking in English, hoping his powerful story and ceasefire message would reach the US president.

“I’m here because of Trump. I’m here only because of him. I think he’s the only one who can stop this war again,” Mr Bibas said. “He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas, I think he can do it.”

Hamas filmed the anguish of Mr Bibas after telling him in late 2023 that his wife Shiri and two children had been blown up in an Israeli air strike, although Israeli officials later said forensic evidence showed his boys were killed by their captors.

“They were murdered in cold blood, bare hands,” Mr Bibas said, remembering how the men holding him used to taunt him over his family’s fate. “They used to tell me: ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter, you’ll get a new wife, you’ll get new kids, better wife, better kids’.”

The small, red-haired Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, have become a symbol of the horror of the events of 7 October.

On the day in February that Yarden Bibas buried them with their mother, after their bodies were returned, thousands of Israelis turned out along the route of the funeral procession to pay their last respects.

Given his ordeal, many were surprised to see Mr Bibas quickly turn to lobbying. But hours after Israel renewed its bombardment of Gaza on 18 March, he joined other former hostages standing in silent protest in Hostages Square.

Mr Bibas told CBS how terrifying it was to be held in a tunnel when Israel’s warplanes struck.

“You don’t know when it’s going to happen and when it happens, you’re afraid for your life,” he said. “The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but underground.”

He explained his constant fear for his best friend, David Cunio, who remains in Gaza with his brother, Ariel.

Mr Cunio’s wife Sharon and children were released in the first truce of the Gaza war in November 2023.

“I lost my wife and kids,” Mr Bibas concluded. “Sharon must not lose her husband.”

Eli Sharabi – like Mr Bibas, Mr Siegel and Mr Moses – was kidnapped from his home next to Gaza.

When he was released, looking gaunt and hollow-eyed after nearly 500 days in captivity, it was clear his captors had not told him what most Israelis already knew – that his British-born wife, Lianne and teenage daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were among some 1,200 people killed on 7 October.

Just three weeks after his release, Mr Sharabi gave a heart-wrenching TV interview to Israel’s Channel 12 TV. He described how he had learnt the fate of his family from a social worker he knew after the Red Cross handed him to the Israeli army.

“I said: ‘Bring me my wife and the girls’,” Mr Sharabi recalled, only for the social worker to respond: “Osnat [his sister] and your Mum will tell you.”

“Obviously there was nothing to tell, she had said it all,” he went on, his voice breaking. “The worst disaster had happened.”

Mr Sharabi – who has since met Trump and addressed the UN Security Council – said he decided he must talk about his experiences even as he was processing his loss because: “It’s very simple, no-one must be left behind.”

He described his painful goodbye to Alon Ohel, a young musician kidnapped from the Nova music festival with whom he was held in an underground cell in Gaza.

“I promised him that I wouldn’t leave him there, that I would fight for him… I told him it’s a matter of days, just days,” he said.

Upon his release, Mr Sharabi and another released hostage were able to give Ohel’s family the first proof that he was alive, even passing his sister a birthday message. However, they have also revealed he is unable to see in one eye due to untreated shrapnel injuries.

Mr Sharabi has laid out how, in order to deal with his long captivity, he went into “survival mode” – a term several former hostages have used – observing: “Survival is made of little steps, little victories.”

He lost 30kg (66lb) and said that, as well as being beaten and humiliated, he felt “impossible” hunger during his captivity. He described how he and the three other hostages with him were given one meal a day and they would divide a single flatbread, or pitta, into quarters to share.

Omer Wenkert, who was also seized from the Nova festival, told Channel 12 how he was kept in a 1m-by-1m cell. The lowest point in his life – he said – was being woken up to get hit with a metal rod to his head on his birthday.

He related one crushing experience when he was desperately hungry and one of his captors told him to turn his back while food was laid out for him.

Then, he said: “There were pittas on the filthy floor on a filthy nylon cover, which was full of sand and fungi, and on top of it a block of cheese with a giant mould growing on it.”

On Fox News Digital, Tal Shoham, narrated how he and two other men – Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David, who remain in captivity – were moved in an ambulance that Hamas used for discreetly transporting hostages to a tunnel, to be held with Mr Wenkert. Their toilet was a hole in the ground.

He said they were monitored by cameras, often beaten and randomly deprived of food and sleep.

The guards, he said, continued to dig underground passages even as war raged on. “Hamas never stopped digging tunnels,” Mr Shoham remarked. “Not for a single day.”

The situation was so bad both he and Mr David developed serious infections but were not seen by a doctor.

“My leg turned blue, yellow, and purple with internal bleeding,” he explained. “They gave us blood thinners, fearing we might develop clots from prolonged immobility. Eventually, they realised the issue was malnutrition and provided us with vitamin supplements for seven days. It tasted like dog food, but it dramatically improved our condition.”

Other hostages said they were kept in solitary confinement. Gadi Moses has said he resorted to pacing his cell and solving mental maths problems to deal with this “psychological abuse”.

He told Channel 12: “The depth of the fear, the depth of disconnection from the world, the depth of the unknown – it’s impossible to convey.”

“You start having terrible thoughts,” admitted Omer Shem Tov, who was taken hostage at the Nova festival and also kept in isolation, speaking to Israeli public broadcaster, Kan. “Every day feels like an eternity.”

While Mr Shem Tov praised the Israeli military in his interview, saying it was doing “holy work” in Gaza, he insisted the government had to make a new ceasefire deal and prioritise the hostages. He commented: “I don’t know if you understand it… but you are breaking them.”

Fears for the lives of those still held captive have been heightened since Hamas recently stated it would not move living hostages out of the large areas where the Israeli military has ordered evacuations.

The armed group has previously threatened to execute hostages if Israeli troops approach the locations where they are held. In August, Hamas killed six hostages in Rafah after Israeli forces moved in nearby.

Liri Albag, who was 18 and had finished her army training only two days before she was snatched from her base on the Gaza border, gave her first in-depth TV interview in March.

“The truth is that 7 October feels like one long nightmare, and I’ve been waiting for someone to wake me up, for someone to tell me I was dreaming. But that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, this has all been real,” she told Channel 12.

Like other hostages, she has recounted her terror when she was first taken to Gaza. “[We saw] the Gazan masses surrounding us, standing on the sides, clapping, whistling, dancing… [Palestinians] ran after us, happy, firing in the air. Children, women, old people.”

She said her experience led her to conclude that there are no “innocent bystanders” in Gaza.

Scenes from the territory broadcast on 7 October, combined with the testimony from hostages that has now emerged, have hardened Israeli views when it comes to the suffering of Palestinians.

In the devastating Gaza war triggered by the Hamas attacks, more than 50,846 people have been killed – most of them women, children and the elderly – according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry, used by the UN.

“As long as the hostage issue is still on the table, the emotional ability of Israelis to empathise with the Palestinians is close to zero,” says Professor Tamar Hermann, an expert on public opinion at the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI).

Nevertheless, the latest surveys do indicate widespread support for a new ceasefire and hostage release deal.

When the IDI recently asked Israelis which of the state’s declared war goals – toppling Hamas or bringing home all the hostages – was more important, 68% said it was the latter, more than in polls last year.

Meeting at the White House on Monday, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu said there were ongoing efforts to restart truce talks and free the hostages.

“We’re trying very hard to get the hostages out. We’re looking at another ceasefire, we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed,” Netanyahu said. “The hostages are in agony, and we want to get them all out.”

Despite his strong words, many of the former hostages question Netanyahu’s commitment.

For his political survival, the prime minister relies on far-right allies who back continued fighting in Gaza and military occupation of the strip.

Some of the freed hostages have openly accused the Israeli government of betrayal and abandonment and, in some cases, they have drawn vicious online threats for their comments.

No wonder, then, that many continue to pin their hopes on Trump.

Along with Keith Siegel and his wife Aviva, another recently released hostage, Yair Horn, followed Netanyahu to Washington this week. The group had their own set of meetings with high-ranking officials and again met the president.

Mr Horn wore a red hoodie showing his younger brother, Eitan, who is still held in Gaza. The brothers were abducted together from Nir Oz and a haunting video released by Hamas showed them on the eve of Yair’s release – hugging, with Eitan weeping.

A day after Trump’s Netanyahu meeting, Mr Horn stood with the US leader at a Republican event and stressed his gratitude to him.

“It’s really surreal to be here, you know,” he said. “I’m a simple man. I’m running the bar in the kibbutz in Nir Oz, where I lived. And now, I’m here with President Trump, who is running the world.”

Mr Horn asked “humbly” for “the last push” to bring home the remaining hostages, including his brother.

Sounding in despair, he also reflected on how Passover was approaching with the traditional Seder meal. The major Jewish holiday celebrates the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and so has special poignancy for the freed hostages and those still captive in Gaza, like Eitan.

“In a few days we mark Passover… it’s a family time,” Mr Horn told the audience, his voice cracking. “I hope my little brother can sit with us at the Seder.”

Former world snooker champion Graeme Dott has been charged with child sex offences.

The 47-year-old Scot, who won the world title in 2006, faces historical charges relating to two children who were understood to be around 10 years old at the time.

Prosecutors claim the first attack happened in the Glasgow area between 1993 and 1996.

The second charge relates to an alleged attack between 2006 and 2010.

Mr Dott, from Larkhall, South Lanarkshire, is expected to appear in court on 11 June.

He was scheduled to be playing world championship qualifying matches this week but has now been suspended by snooker’s world governing body, the WPBSA.

In a statement, it said “Graeme Dott has been suspended by the WPBSA due to a case which is scheduled to be heard before the high court in Scotland.

“Whilst court proceedings are ongoing, it would be inappropriate for the WPBSA to make any further comment.”

Mr Dott turned professional in 1994, having won the UK Under-19 Championship in 1992 and the Scottish Amateur Championship in 1993.

He first qualified for the world championships in 1997.

As well as his 2006 world title triumph, he is a two-time runner-up at the event which is staged at The Crucible theatre in Sheffield.

He also won the China Open in 2007, the same year he reached a career-high of second in the world rankings.