In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump on tariffs, the answer is that it doesn’t have to.

China’s leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly labelled the Trump administration as – but it also has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on Earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to the US but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

That said, the Communist Party would clearly prefer not to be locked in a trade war with the US at a time when it has been struggling to fix its own considerable economic headaches, after years of a real estate crisis, overblown regional debt and persistent youth unemployment.

However, despite this, the government has told its people that it is in a strong position to resist the attacks from the US.

It also knows its own tariffs are clearly going to hurt US exporters as well.

Trump has been bragging to his supporters that it would be easy to force China into submission by simply hitting the country with tariffs, but this has proven to be misleading in the extreme.

Beijing is not going to surrender.

China’s leader Xi Jinping told the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday that his country and the European Union should “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of the Trump administration.

Sanchez, in turn, said that China’s trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.

Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US – though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.

Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.

His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.

In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.

In short, wherever you look, you can see that China has options.

And analysts have said that these mutual tariff increases by the two superpowers are now becoming almost meaningless, as they’ve already passed the point of cutting out much of the trade between them.

So, the tit-for-tat tariff increases in both directions have become more like symbolism.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has, over the past two days, posted images of Chairman Mao on social media, including a clip during the Korean War when he told the US that “no matter how long this war lasts we will never yield”.

Above this, she posted her own comments, saying: “We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We won’t back down.”

When the Chinese government wheels out Chairman Mao, you know they’re getting serious.

Buying or renting a home has become unaffordable for the average Australian, driven by a perfect storm of astronomical house prices, relentless rental increases and a lack of social housing.

With less than a month until the federal election, housing remains among the top issues for voters, and the country’s two major parties – the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition – have both pledged to tackle the crisis in a range of ways.

Australians are already struggling under cost-of-living pressures and bracing for the effects of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. And it remains to be seen whether either party will sway voters with their promise of restoring the Australian dream.

Simply put, Australia has not been building enough homes to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, creating a scarcity that makes any available home more expensive to buy or rent.

Compounding the issue are Australia’s restrictive planning laws, which prevent homes being built where most people want to live, such as in major cities.

Red tape means that popular metropolitan areas like Melbourne and Sydney are far less dense than comparably sized cities around the world.

The steady decline of public housing and ballooning waitlists have made matters worse, tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Climate change has also made many areas increasingly unliveable, with natural disasters such as bushfires and severe storms destroying large swathes of properties.

Meanwhile, decades of government policies have commercialised property ownership. So the ideal of owning a home, once seen as a right in Australia, has turned into an investment opportunity.

In short: it depends where you live.

Sydney is currently the second least affordable city in the world to buy a property, according to a 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

The latest data from property analytics company CoreLogic shows the average Sydney home costs almost A$1.2m (£570,294, $742,026).

Across the nation’s capital cities, the combined average house price sits at just over A$900,000.

House prices in Australia overall have also jumped 39.1% in the last five years – and wages have failed to keep up.

It now takes the average prospective homeowner around 10 years to save the 20% deposit usually required to buy an average home, according to a 2024 State of the Housing System report.

The rental market has provided little relief, with rents increasing by 36.1% nationally since the onset of Covid – an equivalent rise of A$171 per week.

Sydney topped the charts with a median weekly rent of A$773, according to CoreLogic’s latest rental review. Perth came in second with average rents at A$695 per week, followed by Canberra at A$667 per week.

Immigration and foreign property purchases are often cited as causes for Australia’s housing crisis. But experts say that they are not significant contributors statistically.

Many people who move to Australia are temporary migrants, such as international students who live in dedicated student accommodation rather than entering the housing market, according to Michael Fotheringham, head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

“The impact [of migrants] on the housing market is not as profound as some commentators have suggested,” Mr Fotheringham tells the BBC.

Foreign purchases of homes, meanwhile, is “a very small issue” with not much meaningful impact on housing strain, says Brendan Coates, from the Grattan Institute public policy think tank.

The latest data released by the Australian Taxation Office supports this, with homes purchased by foreign buyers in 2022-23 representing less than one percent of all sales.

“It’s already very difficult for foreigners to purchase homes under existing foreign investment rules. They are subject to a wide range of taxes, particularly in some states,” Mr Coates explains.

Labor and the Coalition have both promised to invest in building more homes – with Labor offering 1.2 million by 2029, and the Coalition vowing to unlock 500,000.

Labor announced a A$33bn housing investment plan in their latest budget, which pledges to help first-time homebuyers purchase properties with smaller deposits through shared-equity loans.

They have also promised to create more social housing and subsidies to help low-to-moderate-income earners own and rent more affordably.

Central to the Coalition’s housing affordability policy is cutting migration, reducing the number of international students and implementing a two-year ban on foreign investment in existing properties.

Additionally, they have promised a A$5bn boost to infrastructure to support local councils by paying for water, power and sewerage at housing development sites.

The Greens’ policies, meanwhile, have focused on alleviating pressures on renters by calling for national rent freezes and caps.

They have also said that in the event of a minority government, they will be pushing to reform tax incentives for investors.

In short, experts say that while both Labor and the Coalition’s policies are steps in the right direction, neither are sufficient to solve the housing problem.

“A combination of both parties’ platforms would be better than what we’re seeing from either side individually,” Mr Coates tells the BBC.

A 2025 State of the Land report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia says the federal government will fail to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – falling short by almost 400,000.

The Coalition’s focus on reducing immigration, meanwhile, will only make housing marginally cheaper while making Australia poorer in the long-term, according to Mr Coates.

The cuts to migration will mean fewer skilled migrants, he explains, and the loss of revenue from those migrants will result in higher taxes for Australians.

Decades of underinvestment in social housing also means demand in that area is massively outstripping supply – which at 4% of housing stock is significantly lower than many other countries, according to Mr Fotheringham.

There’s also concern about grants for first homebuyers, which drive prices up further.

While commending the fact that these issues are finally being treated seriously, Mr Fotheringham believes it will take years to drag Australia out of a housing crisis that has been building for decades.

“We’ve been sleepwalking into this as a nation for quite some time,” he says. “[Now] the nation is paying attention, the political class is paying attention.”

The head of the US military base in Greenland has been fired after she reportedly sent an email distancing herself from Vice-President JD Vance’s criticism of Denmark.

The US military’s Space Operations Command said Col Susannah Meyers had been removed from her role at Pituffik Space Base due to a “loss of confidence in her ability to lead”.

Last month, Vance said Denmark had “not done a good job” for Greenlanders and had not spent enough on security while visiting the Danish territory.

The alleged email, released by a military news site, told staff Vance’s comments were “not reflective” of the base. A Pentagon spokesman cited the article, saying “undermining” US leadership was not tolerated.

Following Vance’s trip, on 31 March, Col Meyers is reported to have written: “I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by Vice-President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.”

Military.com – which published the email – said the contents had been confirmed as accurate to them by the US Space Force.

Appearing to confirm this was the reason for her firing, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell linked to the Military.com article in a post on X, writing: “Actions [that] undermine the chain of command or to subvert President [Donald] Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense.”

The Space Force’s statement announcing Col Meyers’ removal on Thursday said that Col Shawn Lee was replacing her.

It added: “Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.”

Col Meyers had assumed command of the Arctic station in July last year. Col Lee was previously a squadron commander at the Clear Space Force Station in Alaska.

During his whirlwind trip, Vance had also reiterated Trump’s desire to annex Greenland for security reasons.

Since the US delegation’s visit, both Greenland and Denmark have shown a united front, opposing a US annexation of the autonomous Danish territory.

Earlier this month, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s official visit saw her stand side-by-side with her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen and his predecessor, Mute Egede.

Speaking to reporters, Frederiksen directly addressed Trump, telling him: “You can’t annex other countries.”

She added that Denmark was fortifying its military presence in the Arctic, and offered closer collaboration with the US in defending the region.

The US has long maintained a security interest in Greenland as a strategically important territory. It has had a military presence on the island since occupying it following the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany during World War Two.

“If Russia were to send missiles towards the US, the shortest route for nuclear weapons would be via the North Pole and Greenland,” Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, previously told the BBC.

“That’s why the Pituffik Space Base is immensely important in defending the US.”

Greenland, the world’s largest island, has been under Danish control for around 300 years.

Polls show that the vast majority of Greenlanders want to gain independence from Denmark – but do not wish to become part of the US.

Greenland has had the right to call an independence referendum since 2009, though in recent years some political parties have begun pushing harder for one to take place.

US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday as Donald Trump urged the Russian president to “get moving” on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said the meeting lasted for more than four hours and focused on “aspects of a Ukrainian settlement”. The talks, Witkoff’s third with Putin this year, were described by special envoy Kirill Dmitriev as “productive”.

Trump has expressed frustration with Putin over the state of talks. On Friday, he wrote on social media: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war.”

Earlier in the day, European nations agreed €21bn ($24bn; £18bn) in military aid for Kyiv.

At the event, Europe’s defence ministers said they saw no sign of an end to the war.

Ahead of the Putin-Witkoff talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was “no need to expect breakthroughs” as the “process of normalising relations is ongoing”.

Asked whether discussions could include setting up a date for Putin and Trump to meet, Peskov said: “Let’s see. It depends on what Witkoff has come with.”

Beforehand, Witkoff had a meeting with Dmitriev at the Grand Hotel Europe in St Petersburg, where a conference was held on stainless steel and the Russian market.

Dmitriev, the 49-year-old head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, visited Washington last week and was the most senior Russian official to go to the US since the country’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Kremlin of prolonging the war during a visit on Friday to the site of a 4 April Russian missile attack on his home town of Kryvyi Rih. The attack killed 19 people, including nine children.

He also alleged that hundreds of Chinese nationals were fighting with the Russian army. It comes after Ukraine said it had captured two Chinese nationals.

“We have information that at least several hundred Chinese nationals are fighting as part of Russia’s occupation forces,” Zelensky said.

“This means Russia is clearly trying to prolong the war even by using Chinese lives.”

Zelensky laid flowers in front of photos of Herman Tripolets, nine, and seven-year-olds Arina Samodina and Radyslav Yatsko.

He later reiterated a call for air defence systems “to protect lives and our cities”.

“We discussed this with President Trump – Ukraine is not just asking, we’re ready to purchase these additional systems,” he wrote on social media.

“Only powerful weapons can truly be relied upon to protect life when you have a neighbour like Russia.”

Trump has previously claimed he could end the Ukraine-Russia conflict “in 24 hours”. On Friday, he declared that it would not have happened at all if he’d been in the White House in 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

“A war that should ld [sic] have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!,” he wrote.

In February US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for their first face-to-face talks since the invasion. Officials have also been meeting to discuss restoring full diplomatic relations.

Trump has also had a fractious relationship with Zelensky since his second term as US president began, culminating in an angry confrontation in the Oval Office in February.

The US attempted to broker a limited ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, only for it to stall when the Kremlin asked for sanctions imposed after it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour to be lifted.

Trump has since said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” with Putin over the lack of progress in agreeing a truce between Kyiv and Moscow.

Earlier this week, Washington and Moscow went ahead with a prisoner swap.

Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American, was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Russia for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity when the war began in February 2022.

The Los Angeles resident was freed on Thursday morning and exchanged for Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen arrested in Cyprus in 2023.

He was accused of illegally exporting microelectronics to Russia for manufacturers working with the military.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has told the BBC that Gaza has become “hell on earth”, as Israel’s military assault there continues.

Mirjana Spoljaric’s comments come on the same day the UN human rights office warned that Israel’s tactics were threatening the viability of Palestinians continuing to live in Gaza at all.

The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions – internationally agreed rules of conduct in war – and normally only speaks confidentially to warring parties when it thinks violations are taking place.

But Ms Spoljaric has now said publicly that what is happening in Gaza is an “extreme hollowing out” of international law.

Israeli bombardment has killed 1,542 people since it renewed the war on 18 March, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also issued evacuation orders that have forced nearly 400,000 people to move. Israel has also imposed a complete blockade on the entry of food, medical supplies and all other goods since 2 March.

Israel insists it always follows international law in Gaza, and has also argued that the particular nature of this conflict, with Hamas fighters hidden among the civilian population, mean collateral damage can sometimes happen.

Israeli ministers insist there is enough food in Gaza and say the bombardment and seizure of territory aims to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages it is still holding, whom it kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 attack.

Under the fourth Geneva Convention, occupying powers, as Israel is in Gaza, must ensure civilians have food and medicine, and protect hospitals and health workers. The convention also prohibits the forcible transfer of entire populations from occupied territories.

“No state, no party to a conflict… can be exempt from the obligation not to commit war crimes, not to commit genocide, not to commit ethnic cleansing,” Ms Spoljaric said.

“These rules apply. They are universal.”

Civilians were bearing the brunt of a relentless pursuit of military objectives, she added, being displaced multiple times, and their homes reduced to rubble.

Of 36 recent airstrikes verified by the UN human rights office, all those killed were women and children.

Israel has strenuously denied accusations it is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza.

Israel’s military said it was looking into an attack that killed members of one family in the city of Khan Younis and said it had struck 40 “terror targets” across the territory over the past day.

The ICRC’s comments are the latest in a chorus of concern coming from the UN and other agencies.

On Friday the UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the “cumulative impact” of the IDF’s conduct meant “the office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza”.

Israel was continuing to bomb tents in the al-Mawasi area it had told people to go to for their own safety, she added.

On Tuesday the UN secretary general warned that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was violating the Geneva Conventions and the territory was becoming a “killing field”. On Monday the heads of six UN aid agencies appealed to the world to act to save the people of Gaza, and to uphold basic international law.

The Geneva Conventions are founded on the following principles:

• Medical staff and hospitals in warzones must be protected and allowed to work freely
• Those wounded in battle and no longer fighting are entitled to medical treatment
• Prisoners of war must be treated humanely
• Warring parties are obliged to protect civilians (this includes a prohibition on the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as power and water supplies).

Twenty years ago, in what it called its war on terror, the US suggested that the Geneva Conventions might be outdated in modern warfare, but the ICRC insists they apply in all circumstances.

“It’s not transactional,” said Ms Spoljaric. “You have to comply with these rules no matter what the other side does.”

She appealed for a renewal of the ceasefire, pointing out that during previous pauses in fighting, the ICRC had successfully been able to take Israeli hostages out of Gaza and reunite them with their families.

But she also warned of a growing “dehumanisation” during war, in which the international community was turning away even though it was clear war crimes were being committed.

The Geneva Conventions protecting civilians were created after World War Two, she pointed out, to make sure such dehumanisation never happened again. Diluting or abandoning them sends a dangerous signal that “everything is allowed”.

The ICRC believes that sticking with the rules of war can help, eventually, to build a more sustainable peace. Once the fighting stops, the thinking goes, both soldiers and civilians will remember whether those on the other side obeyed international law, or whether they committed atrocities.

But Gaza, Ms Spoljaric believes “will haunt us. It will haunt us for a long time because you cannot undo the suffering… that will last for generations”.

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

More than 50,912 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Workers have been told to hurry home, classes have been suspended and outdoor events have been cancelled as northern China braces for extreme winds this weekend.

Millions have been urged to stay indoors, with some state media outlets warning that people weighing less than 50kg (110lbs – about eight stone) may be “easily blown away”.

Winds reaching 150kph (93mph) are expected to sweep Beijing, Tianjin and other parts of Hebei region from Friday to Sunday, as a cold vortex moves southeast from Mongolia.

For the first time in a decade, Beijing has issued an orange alert for gales – the second-highest in a four-tier weather warning system.

Strong winds sweeping from Mongolia are not uncommon, especially at this time of the year. But the impending winds are expected to be stronger than anything the area has seen in years.

Temperatures in Beijing are expected to drop by 13C within 24 hours, when the strongest winds hit on Saturday, authorities said.

“This strong wind is extreme, lasts for a long time, affects a wide area, and is highly disastrous,” the Beijing Meteorological Service said.

China measures wind speed with a scale that goes from level 1 to 17. A level 11 wind, according to the China Meteorological Administration, can cause “serious damage”, while a level 12 wind brings “extreme destruction”.

The winds this weekend are expected to range from level 11 to 13.

Several sporting events slated for the weekend have been suspended, including the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon, which will now be held on 19 April.

Parks and tourist attractions have been closed as authorities have told residents to avoid outdoor activities, while construction works and train services have been suspended.

Thousands of trees across the city have been reinforced or pruned to prevent them from falling.

Officials have warned people to avoid entering mountains and forests, where gusts are expected to be especially strong.

As residents hunker down, social media users are finding humour in their shelved weekend plans.

“This wind is so sensible, it starts on Friday evening and ends on Sunday, without disrupting work on Monday at all,” said a Weibo user.

Hashtags about the strong winds, and the warning that those weighing less than 50kg could be swept away, have been trending on Chinese social media. One Weibo user quipped: “I eat so much all the time, just for this day.”

Beijing has also issued an alert for forest fires and prohibited people from starting fires outdoors.

The winds are expected to start weakening on Sunday night.

The remains of 36 Indigenous ancestors will be returned to Australia, in the latest repatriation of bodies taken from their traditional lands.

Six of the ancestors’ bodies were formally returned to their Queensland communities – Woppaburra, Warrgamay, Wuthathi and Yadhaighana – at a ceremony at London’s Natural History Museum.

The Australian government will take care of the other ancestors’ remains until their traditional custodians can be found.

The remains of Indigenous people were taken from Australia by a range of people, including scientists and explorers, following Britain’s colonisation of the country in the 18th Century.

These remains have ended up in museums, universities and private collections around the world.

However, growing ethical concerns about the collection, sale and display of human remains has led to an increase in efforts to return these in recent decades.

“The removal of our ancestors from their resting places was an act of deep disrespect—one that severed our spiritual and cultural connections to Country,” Thomas Holden, who represented the Warrgamay community, said at Thursday’s ceremony.

“Repatriation is about more than just bringing our ancestors home. It is about reaffirming our sovereignty, our rights, and our deep cultural and spiritual obligations to care for our people, even in death.”

This is the fourth group of ancestral remains that the Natural History Museum has returned to Australia. It said staff had undertaken “detailed archival research” involving several organisations to find out where the remains had come from.

According to the Australian government’s arts office, the latest repatriation brings the number of First Nations ancestors returned from around the world to 1,775. This includes more than 200 sets of remains from the Natural History Museum.

It added that discussions were being held with other institutions and private holders in the UK about the “unconditional and voluntary return of further ancestors”.

“The repatriation of our ancestors is a vital step in healing the wounds of the past and restoring the spiritual and cultural balance that was disrupted when they were taken from their homeland,” said Wuthathi representative Keron Murray.

Wayne Blair, an acclaimed actor and filmmaker who represented the Woppaburra people, described repatriation as “an eternal flame, the eternal healing is both spiritual and physical, for our elders and community”.

“You are not returning science specimens, you are returning ancestors to their families, their descendants.”

The price for a cup of coffee in the US is going up as tariffs put the squeeze on local café and bakery owners.

Some US businesses say the queues for a morning latte are already getting shorter as customers tighten their belts and imported beans become more expensive.

Americans spend $100bn (£76bn) a year on coffee, though that might be about to change.

Jorge Prudencio, who runs Bread Bite Bakery in Washington DC, says his Colombia-based coffee distributer just increased prices after the sweeping tariffs went into effect last week.

The vast majority of coffee in the US is imported.

In fact, the US is the world’s second-leading importer of coffee, with the majority coming from Brazil and Colombia, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Since 5 April, coffee imports have been affected by the 10% US tariffs against most countries.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Prudencio said his coffee suppliers have told him his next order will carry yet another price hike.

He added that his bakery will “definitely” be increasing prices for customers just to break even.

Asked if he is worried, Mr Prudencio said: “Of course.”

The manager of Au Lait café just down the street, Kamal Mortada, said he’s been seeing the effect of steadily increasing prices for a while now. Inflation spiked to a 40-year high under former US President Joe Biden.

Before the tariffs kicked in, ground coffee reached the highest ever recorded price in March 2025, and was over a dollar more expensive than the previous year, and $3 above March 2020 prices.

“We have less customers for coffee,” Mr Mortada said.

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“Most customers just get plain coffee,” instead of adding syrups and milks, he said.

The prices on the menu have gone up by 25% and people are now buying smaller coffees.

Mr Mortada has also changed his own habits as a consumer. Instead of his regular trip to Starbucks, he brews coffee at home.

He said he has seen the price of a cup of coffee go up by at least half a dollar, and is worried prices will rise again.

On the opposite coast in San Francisco, another local coffee shop owner is grappling with what the tariffs will mean for her business.

Jenny Ngo, who runs Telescope Coffee, said she was waiting to hear how much her roaster will hike prices.

The coffee she sells is sourced from Ethiopia and Guatemala, both facing the standard 10% tariff. She also imports her iced coffee cups from China – and said she noticed the prices on those jumped overnight.

“We unfortunately project to raise prices again in order to sustain our business,” she said.

Mr Prudencio remains confident that people will still come to his shop and buy coffee. He said it is something people need.

But recent inflation has also affected the price of eggs, crucial to his bakery side of the business.

He said they paid $42 per case when the bakery opened five months ago, but two weeks later it was more than $100 per case.

“Everybody is going through the same thing. We all pay the price.”

The price of eggs is a key symbol of the health of the US economy, often an arguing point for politicians.

President Donald Trump has argued he will get the cost of eggs down, blaming rising prices on the Biden administration, which culled millions of egg-laying chickens amid a bird flu outbreak.

But in March, egg prices reached a record high at $6.22 per dozen, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Joel Finkelstein runs Qualia Coffee Roasters, a small business in Washington DC where he mostly sells coffee beans online and at farmers’ markets.

The tariffs will represent just the latest in a series of price hikes, he told us.

He said he noticed the price of beans go up significantly after Trump took office and cut funding to USAID, which supported some coffee growers in South America. Now, he’s expecting it to go up again.

“We are going to see a decrease in sales,” Mr Finklestein said.

A Pakistan-born Chicago businessman wanted in India for his role in the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai city has been remanded in custody for 18 days.

Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen, landed in Delhi on Thursday. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) confirmed his extradition had been successful.

Indian authorities accuse 64-year-old Rana of aiding the Mumbai attacks by working with childhood friend David Headley to support Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group blamed for the assault.

On 26 November 2008, 10 militants launched deadly attacks across Mumbai, killing 166 and injuring hundreds, before being stopped by security forces on 29 November.

Rana was extradited from the US and arrested by the NIA upon arrival in Delhi on Thursday evening.

He was escorted to a special court under heavy security, trailed by dozens of journalists vying for a glimpse of Rana.

On Friday, the NIA said in a statement that the agency would question Rana “in detail in order to unravel the complete conspiracy behind the deadly 2008 attacks”.

India’s home ministry has appointed well-known lawyer Narendra Mann to lead the prosecution in the case.

Rana or his lawyers have not made any public comments yet.

On Friday, the US Embassy in Delhi said in a press release that Rana was to stand trial in India on 10 criminal charges stemming from his alleged role in the attacks.

“Rana’s extradition is a critical step toward seeking justice for the six Americans and scores of other victims who were killed in the heinous attacks,” it said.

In 2011, a US court cleared Rana of directly plotting the attacks but convicted him of supporting the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2013 but released in 2020 on health grounds. He was re-arrested later that year after India requested his extradition.

A US court approved Rana’s extradition in 2023, but he remained in custody awaiting final government clearance.

In February, President Donald Trump approved the move following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The US Supreme Court later rejected Rana’s appeals against the decision.

US prosecutors in the case said that in 2006, Rana allowed Headley to open an office of his Chicago-based immigration services firm in Mumbai, which Headley then used as cover to scout sites for the 2008 attacks.

The charges brought against Rana by the NIA include criminal conspiracy, waging war against the Indian government and terrorism.

The head of the British armed forces has visited China for the first time in a decade.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin discussed “issues of common concern” with China’s military leaders in Beijing, its defence ministry said in a short statement.

“We agreed that in an unstable world we must play our part as responsible nations with global interests,” Sir Tony wrote on X, “and we reflected on the importance of military-to-military communications”.

The last time a Chief of the Defence Staff visited China was in 2015. Since becoming prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer has sought to strengthen ties with the country.

The admiral’s visit coincided with the escalation of an intense trade war between China and the US after President Trump’s announcement of higher tariffs.

Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed on Thursday that the trip had happened earlier this week.

“It’s always good to have military to military engagement and that is what he was establishing”, Healey told reporters in Brussels.

He said that the admiral’s visit followed in the footsteps of one made recently by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who became only the second foreign secretary to visit China in six years when he went in October last year.

Healey said that in the discussions the admiral was “very firm in the arguments about peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific” region “and concerns about any use of military aggression or assertiveness to pursue political ends”.

Healey did not specifically mention Taiwan, where China has launched major military drills which have been seen as provocation towards the island and wider region.

Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will, eventually, be part of the country, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.

But many Taiwanese consider themselves to be part of a separate nation – although most are in favour of maintaining the status quo where Taiwan neither declares independence from China nor unites with it.

Sir Tony has now joined the defence secretary in Brussels for meetings with allies on Ukraine.

The five Spanish passengers who died in a helicopter crash in the Hudson River were all part of a globetrotting family which had made its mark in the corporate world as well as having close ties to one of Europe’s biggest football clubs.

Agustín Escobar and Mercè Camprubí Montal died with their three children, reported to be aged four, five and 11. The pilot of the helicopter also died.

The parents both worked for Siemens and the company sent its condolences, saying: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustín Escobar and his family died.”

The five were taking a sightseeing ride over New York when the aircraft crashed.

Although the family were based in the Catalan city of Barcelona, Mr Escobar was originally from the industrial town of Puertollano in southern Spain.

He had recently taken up the post of CEO of rail infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, following a two-year stint as president and CEO of the German technology firm in Spain.

Mrs Camprubí Montal, a Barcelona native, also held a senior post at Siemens. She had been a global commercialisation manager with the company for just over three years at the time of her death.

She came from an influential family in the city known for textile manufacturing as well as its association with FC Barcelona, one of the biggest teams in world football.

Her great-grandfather, Agustí Montal Galobart, was president of the football club in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her grandfather, Agustí Montal Costa, was also president, a tenure fondly remembered by fans for the arrival of the legendary Dutch player Johann Cruyff at the club in 1973.

Last year, Mrs Camprubí Montal’s brother, Joan, emerged as a contender to compete for the presidency of FC Barcelona, although in recent weeks his candidacy has faded.

The careers of Mr Escobar and Mrs Camprubí Montal saw them travel extensively.

Recent posts by Mr Escobar on LinkedIn detail trips to the UK and India, and he described himself as being “passionate” about developing high-performing teams to “positively transform people and organisations”.

A 27-year career at Siemens had taken him to postings in Latin America and the United States.

Juan Ignacio Díaz, a former colleague at Siemens, described him as “above all, a family man” in comments published by news site El Economista. “He was a loving, fun father, a really great guy.”

Emiliano García-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region, of which Mr Escobar was a native, said he was “deeply upset” by news of the deaths. Mr Escobar, he said, had been named a “favourite son” of the region.

According to Mrs Camprubí Montal’s CV, she had been at Siemens for 16 years, also with postings in the United States and Latin America, before moving to the company’s energy arm in 2018.

“I thrive in collaborative environments where I can leverage my international perspective,” she wrote on her LinkedIn profile.

An Indian forest worker, who was suspended after he was seen offering water to a cheetah and her cubs in a viral video, has been restored in his job at the sanctuary.

Satyanarayan Gurjar, a driver at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh state, violated instructions which said only authorised personnel could go near the big cats.

Cheetahs became extinct in India in 1952 but they were reintroduced in Kuno in 2022 as part of an ambitious plan to repopulate the species.

“I was suspended but have now been reinstated,” Mr Gurjar told BBC Hindi. “I am thankful to the authorities,” he said, adding that the region’s top forest official was incensed at his act.

Forest officials confirmed his reinstatement after protests by members of his community. Since this was his first offence, forest officials said they let him go with a warning, telling him that if he encountered an animal in distress in future, he should contact the authorities and not intervene himself.

The viral footage surfaced on Sunday with a video showing him pouring water into a metal pan, urged by off-camera voices. Moments later, a cheetah called Jwala and her four cubs drink from it.

Mr Gurjar said he was not at fault and blamed those who made the videos viral.

Referring to the cheetah and her cubs in the video, he said, “I called her by her name, saying ‘Jwala come, Jwala come’. They come only when you call them by their names.”

While initial reports called the video “heart-warming” and praised Mr Gurjar for his “kindness” and “bravery”, many on social media raised safety concerns and urged authorities to create water sources within the park to prevent such encounters.

Mr Gurjar says he isn’t afraid of wild animals as his ancestors have lived in forests for generations.

“I can sense the feelings of 99% of animals just by looking at them. I could immediately sense that the cheetah and her cubs were thirsty and I offered them water,” he said.

Officials say staff sometimes offer water to big cats near park boundaries to lure them back into the forest.

Chief Conservator of Forests Uttam Kumar Sharma said earlier that only trained personnel wre allowed near cheetahs to guide them back and avoid conflict. The man’s actions violated protocol, which clearly instructs staff to keep their distance, he added.

Mr Gurjar also has some advice about what to do if you encounter a big cat. “If you ever face a cheetah, speak to it with love – don’t hit it or throw stones,” he said.

Between 2022 and 2023, 20 cheetahs were relocated from South Africa and Namibia to Kuno – the first intercontinental move of its kind.

Since then, eight have died from causes like kidney failure and mating injuries, raising concerns about the park’s suitability.

Park authorities deny the allegations, saying 26 cheetahs remain -17 in the wild and nine in enclosures.

India is expected to receive 20 more from South Africa this year.

Donald Trump announced a massive tariff plan last week that would have upended the global economic order as well as long-established trading relationships with America’s allies.

But that plan – or at least a significant part of it – is on ice after the president suspended higher tariffs on most countries for 90 days while leaning into a trade war with China.

So with this partial reversal, is Trump any closer to realising his goals on trade? Here’s a quick look at five of his key ambitions and where they now stand.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump’s original trade plan packed a big punch that landed around the world, with a flat 10% baseline tariff on everyone (including some uninhabited islands) and additional “reciprocal” tariffs on the 60 countries that he said were the worst offenders.

It sent allies and adversaries scrambling, as they stared down the prospect of a debilitating blow to their economies.

The White House has been quick to boast about all the world leaders who have reached out to the president to make deals and offer trade concessions – “more than 75”, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Although the administration hasn’t released a list of all the countries that Trump said on Tuesday were “kissing my ass” and promising to do anything, the US has announced it is in negotiations with South Korea and Japan, among others.

THE TAKEAWAY: America’s trading partners have 90 days to strike some sort of agreement with Trump, and the clock is ticking. But the fact that talks are happening indicates that the president has a good chance of getting something for his efforts.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• What does the tariff pause mean for global trade?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump has said for decades that tariffs are an effective way of rebuilding America’s manufacturing base by shielding it from unfair foreign competition. While some factories may be able to increase production in current facilities, more substantive efforts take time. And for business leaders to pull the trigger on “reshoring” their production lines and investing in new US factories, they will want to know that the rules of the game are relatively stable.

The president’s on-again, off-again tariff moves over the past week are inherently unstable, however. For the moment, it’s difficult to predict where the final tariff levels will land and which industries will receive the greatest protections. It could be car manufacturers and steel producers today, and high-tech electronics companies tomorrow.

THE TAKEAWAY: When tariffs are applied and removed seemingly at the president’s whim, it’s much more likely that companies – both in the US and abroad – will hunker down and wait for the dust to settle before making any big commitments.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

After Trump’s tariff about-face on Wednesday, several White House officials – including Treasury Secretary Bessent – were quick to say that Trump’s goal was to drop the hammer on the real villain, China.

“They are the biggest source of the US trade problems,” Bessent told reporters, “and indeed they are the problem for the rest of the world.

If Trump wanted a battle of wills with China, testing each side’s tolerance for economic and political pain, he got one – even if the president and his aides have hinted that they are looking for an exit ramp.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he blamed past US leaders, not China, for the current trade dispute. The prior day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president would be “incredibly gracious” if China reaches out to make a deal.

THE TAKEAWAY: Even if this showdown is one Trump wants, picking a fight with the second-largest economy in the world, with military power to match, comes at enormous risk. And along the way America may have alienated the allies it needs most in such a confrontation.

• Why Trump is hitting China – and what might happen next

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump regularly touted that his proposed tariffs would bring in vast sums in new revenue, which the US could then use to shrink its budget deficit, fund tax cuts and pay for new government programmes.

A study last year by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff – which is what Trump has landed on for at least the next 90 days – would generate $2tn in new revenue over the next 10 years.

To put that in context, the tax cuts Congress recently included in its non-binding budget blueprint would cost approximately $5tn over the next 10 years, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

THE TAKEAWAY: Trump wanted more tariff revenue, and if he sticks with his baseline tariffs, plus the additional levies on certain imports and larger ones on China, he’s going to get it – at least until Americans switch to more domestic production, when the tariff money gusher could turn to a trickle.

• Is the US making $2bn a day from tariffs?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Analysts and experts have offered a grab bag of other explanations about why Trump made such an aggressive move on trade last week. Was he trying to drive down interest rates, or devalue the US dollar or bring the world to the table for a new, global agreement on trade? The president himself hasn’t spoken much about those kinds of elaborate schemes.

One thing he has talked about relentlessly, however, is his desire to lower costs for American consumers – and he has promised that his trade policy will help address this. While energy prices dipped in the week since Trump announced his tariff plan, that may have been a result of fears that the trade wars could trigger a global recession.

The consensus among economists is that new tariffs will drive up consumer prices, as tariffs are tacked on to the price of imports and, eventually, when there is less competition for US-made products. Last year, the Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff would increase costs for American households by an average of $1,253 in its first year. Economists also warn that lower-income Americans will be hardest hit.

THE TAKEAWAY: An increase in prices is an arrow moving in the wrong direction – and it represents an enormous potential liability for both Trump’s political standing and his party’s future electoral prospects.

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.

There were some heroic efforts from Donald Trump and those around him on Wednesday night to suggest the past seven days were something other than absolute chaos.

By this reading, Trump’s 4D game of chess has left China in check. Certainly the Chinese economy faces a massive hit from punitive tariffs in its biggest market. But even accounting for the President’s roll back, the US has still erected a massive protectionist tariff wall, not seen since the 1930s.

The world is left with a universal 10% tariff, irrespective of whether that country (for example the UK or Australia) actually sells less to the US than the US sells to it.

There is now no difference between the EU, which clearly does have a massive trade deficit in goods and was preparing to retaliate, and the UK.

There is also an anxious wait to find out what comes next. One of the questions is whether President Trump pushes ahead with tariffs on medicines, the UK’s second biggest goods export.

Plus there is potential logistical chaos on the cards from a little-noticed multi-million dollar port tax for every cargo vessel docking in the US that was “made in China”. That is more than half of the global merchant fleet – and it is due next week.

Even with Trump’s stated 90 day pause on implementing higher tariffs, there remains too much uncertainty for companies to go through the rigmarole of rerouting global trade.

The central issue now, however, is that the world’s two great economic superpowers are facing off against each other like rutting stags.

Tariffs at these sky-high rates are massively hitting business between two nations which together account for around 3% of the entire world’s trade. The main motorway of the global economy is effectively shut.

The visible tangible consequences of all this will become very real very quickly: Chinese factories will close, workers will stroll from plant to plant looking for work.

Beijing will need to organise a stimulus package to account for the loss of whole percentage points of GDP, the kind of thing that happens when a natural disaster flattens a major city. Painful, but manageable at a cost, though not forever.

Meanwhile the US will see consumer prices surge. President Trump might try to order these US companies not to raise prices, but the effect will come through soon enough.

In theory this will be in sharp contrast to what is happening in other countries in the world. Across the border in Canada, or in Europe, not only will there not be such China-sourced price rises, there could be price cuts.

Trade wars on this scale do not stay confined to the flow of goods. They tend to become currency wars.

What we saw this week was the trade turmoil spread to credit markets, especially the US bond market, having already hit share prices.

Indeed there was an invaluable reveal for the game theory of this conflict. The Trump administration revealed a key pressure point with its concern about the “yippy” – as Trump called it – bond market.

As trading in US government debt continued overnight in Asia, the effective interest rate on these bonds rose to 5%.

This sort of borrowing should not move in such an erratic fashion.

The last time this happened was in the “Dash for Cash”, the key moment of financial fragility at the very beginning of the pandemic. The world was focussed on life or death in March 2020, but this potential further crisis was alleviated only by emergency action.

Effectively, the President’s row back was a form of emergency policy change.

Was the Chinese government behind this rash of US government bond sales in Asia? Probably not. However, what happened on Wednesday highlighted a vulnerability for Trump.

China is the second biggest holder of US government debt in the world and if it chose to, dumping all that debt would be catastrophic for America. But doing so would be a form of mutually assured economic destruction – the losses for China would be huge.

More importantly, what the bond markets were telling Trump is that they are deeply sceptical about his tariff policy.

The US does have the Federal Reserve, which does have some power to tranquillise bond markets. But right now it does not look like its chairman Jerome Powell will ride to the rescue.

The bond market scepticism echoes the sentiment of the ascendant Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He is now pushing for Trump to reach trade deals with their allies because the US needs them to take on China.

Given the US was previously calling these same close allies cheaters, looters and pillagers, there is no way this was the strategy all along.

This does matter. The US needs the EU, UK, the rest of the G7 on side in terms of China. China probably needs those countries just to stay neutral, and carry on soaking up its exports.

The rest of the world has seen Trump’s team struggle to explain tariffing penguin islands or poor African economies and the President himself recirculating the suggestion he was crashing stock markets on purpose. And they’ve witnessed the fact that the tariff rates were changed after they came into effect and also the absurd nature of the equation used to calculate them.

It’s in this context that Trump’s handling of the situation has handed leverage back to the rest of the world, because neither friend nor foe will know quite what they are negotiating with this America.

There is a calm, welcomed by all, but it could be rather brief.

India is the world’s fifth-largest and fastest-growing major economy.

Yet, a recent legacy of protectionism and inward-focused trade policies have held back its global competitiveness.

Its tariffs are high and the share of global exports remains under 2%. India’s vast domestic market has fuelled its growth – outpacing many others, economists argue, largely because the rest of the world is slowing. But in a turbulent, increasingly protectionist era, India’s instinct for self-reliance may oddly serve as a short-term shield.

As countries scramble to recalibrate in response to shifting US trade policies – like Donald Trump’s latest 90-day tariff pause after weeks of sabre-rattling – India’s relative detachment may have helped it weather shocks that have jolted more trade-dependent economies.

“India’s lower exposure to global goods trade could work in our favour. If export-driven economies slow down under tariff pressure, and we continue growing at 6%, we’ll start looking stronger by comparison – especially with our large domestic market to fall back on,” says Rajeswari Sengupta, an associate professor of economics at Mumbai-based Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research.

“Being trade-shy has turned into an advantage – but we can’t afford complacency. To seize new opportunities, India must stay nimble and open up more to trade gradually and strategically,” she adds.

It may not be easy, given India’s long and complicated relationship with trade barriers and tariffs.

In his book India’s Trade Policy: The 1990s and Beyond, Columbia University economist and noted trade expert Arvind Panagariya traces the complex and often inconsistent evolution of India’s approach to trade.

During the inter-war years, industries like textiles and iron and steel lobbied for – and received – high levels of protection. The chronic shortages of World War Two led to even stricter import controls, enforced through an elaborate licensing system.

While Asian peers such as Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore shifted to export-led strategies in the 1960s – and began posting impressive growth rates of 8–10% annually – India chose to double down on import substitution. As a result, imports as a share of GDP shrank from 10% in 1957–58 to just 4% by 1969–70.

By the mid-1960s, India had banned imports of consumer goods altogether. This not only removed the pressure on domestic producers to improve quality but also denied them access to world-class inputs and technology.

As a result, Indian products lost their competitiveness in global markets and exports stagnated. The resulting foreign exchange shortages led to even tighter import controls, creating a vicious cycle that stifled growth. Between 1951 and 1981, per capita income grew at a sluggish pace of just 1.5% a year.

The turning point came in 1991. Faced with a balance-of-payments crisis, India dismantled many import controls and let the rupee depreciate – a move that gave a much-needed boost to exporters and domestic producers competing with imports. Import licensing on consumer goods ended only in 2001, after the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled against it.

The impact was striking: between 2002–03 and 2011–12, India’s exports of goods and services surged six-fold, soaring from $75bn to over $400bn.

With trade liberalisation and other reforms, India’s per capita income grew more in the first 17 years of the 21st Century than it did throughout the entire 20th Century, notes Prof Panagariya.

But the pushback to trade didn’t end.

Trade liberalisation in India was reversed twice – in 1996–97 and again since 2018 – with extensive use of anti-dumping measures to block imports from the most competitive sources, according to Prof Panagariya.

“Many post-colonial states like India harbour a deep-rooted suspicion that international commerce and trade are simply new forms of colonisation. Unfortunately, this mindset still lingers among some policymakers – and that’s a shame,” says Vivek Dehejia, a professor of economics at Carleton University in Canada.

Many economists argue that a decade of protectionist policies has undercut Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative, which focused on capital and technology-intensive sectors while sidelining labour-intensive industries like textiles. As a result, the programme has struggled to deliver meaningful gains in manufacturing and exports.

“If foreigners cannot sell their goods to us, they will not have the revenues to pay for the goods they buy from us. If we cut back on their goods, they will have to cut back on ours,” Prof Panagariya wrote.

Such protectionism has also led to allegations of cronyism.

“Tariffs have created protectionism in several Indian industries, disincentivising investments in efficiency by cosy incumbents and allowing them to steadily garner market power by building up concentrated positions,” according to Viral Acharya, a professor of economics at New York University Stern School of Business.

With the US turning inward and China under pressure, countries belonging to the European Union are scrambling for reliable trade partners – and India could be one of them. To seize this moment, economists believe India must lower its tariffs, boost export competitiveness and signal its openness to global trade.

Sectors like garments, textiles and toys present a golden opportunity, especially for the medium and small-scale sectors. But after a decade of stagnation, the big question is: can they scale up – and will the government back them?

If Trump follows through on his tariff plans after the current pause, India could see a $7.76bn – or 6.4% – drop in exports to the US this year, according to an estimate by Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think tank. (In 2024, India exported $89bn worth of goods to the American market.)

“The Trump tariffs are expected to deliver a mild blow to India’s merchandise exports to the US,” says Ajay Srivastava of GTRI.

He emphasises the need for India to broaden its trade base after securing a balanced deal with the US. This includes fast-tracking agreements with the EU, UK and Canada, while deepening ties with China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Asean.

At home, real impact hinges on reforms: simpler tariffs, a smoother goods and services tax (GST), better trade processes and fair implementation of quality controls. Without these, India risks missing the global moment.

Buying or renting a home has become unaffordable for the average Australian, driven by a perfect storm of astronomical house prices, relentless rental increases and a lack of social housing.

With less than a month until the federal election, housing remains among the top issues for voters, and the country’s two major parties – the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition – have both pledged to tackle the crisis in a range of ways.

Australians are already struggling under cost-of-living pressures and bracing for the effects of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. And it remains to be seen whether either party will sway voters with their promise of restoring the Australian dream.

Simply put, Australia has not been building enough homes to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, creating a scarcity that makes any available home more expensive to buy or rent.

Compounding the issue are Australia’s restrictive planning laws, which prevent homes being built where most people want to live, such as in major cities.

Red tape means that popular metropolitan areas like Melbourne and Sydney are far less dense than comparably sized cities around the world.

The steady decline of public housing and ballooning waitlists have made matters worse, tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Climate change has also made many areas increasingly unliveable, with natural disasters such as bushfires and severe storms destroying large swathes of properties.

Meanwhile, decades of government policies have commercialised property ownership. So the ideal of owning a home, once seen as a right in Australia, has turned into an investment opportunity.

In short: it depends where you live.

Sydney is currently the second least affordable city in the world to buy a property, according to a 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

The latest data from property analytics company CoreLogic shows the average Sydney home costs almost A$1.2m (£570,294, $742,026).

Across the nation’s capital cities, the combined average house price sits at just over A$900,000.

House prices in Australia overall have also jumped 39.1% in the last five years – and wages have failed to keep up.

It now takes the average prospective homeowner around 10 years to save the 20% deposit usually required to buy an average home, according to a 2024 State of the Housing System report.

The rental market has provided little relief, with rents increasing by 36.1% nationally since the onset of Covid – an equivalent rise of A$171 per week.

Sydney topped the charts with a median weekly rent of A$773, according to CoreLogic’s latest rental review. Perth came in second with average rents at A$695 per week, followed by Canberra at A$667 per week.

Immigration and foreign property purchases are often cited as causes for Australia’s housing crisis. But experts say that they are not significant contributors statistically.

Many people who move to Australia are temporary migrants, such as international students who live in dedicated student accommodation rather than entering the housing market, according to Michael Fotheringham, head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

“The impact [of migrants] on the housing market is not as profound as some commentators have suggested,” Mr Fotheringham tells the BBC.

Foreign purchases of homes, meanwhile, is “a very small issue” with not much meaningful impact on housing strain, says Brendan Coates, from the Grattan Institute public policy think tank.

The latest data released by the Australian Taxation Office supports this, with homes purchased by foreign buyers in 2022-23 representing less than one percent of all sales.

“It’s already very difficult for foreigners to purchase homes under existing foreign investment rules. They are subject to a wide range of taxes, particularly in some states,” Mr Coates explains.

Labor and the Coalition have both promised to invest in building more homes – with Labor offering 1.2 million by 2029, and the Coalition vowing to unlock 500,000.

Labor announced a A$33bn housing investment plan in their latest budget, which pledges to help first-time homebuyers purchase properties with smaller deposits through shared-equity loans.

They have also promised to create more social housing and subsidies to help low-to-moderate-income earners own and rent more affordably.

Central to the Coalition’s housing affordability policy is cutting migration, reducing the number of international students and implementing a two-year ban on foreign investment in existing properties.

Additionally, they have promised a A$5bn boost to infrastructure to support local councils by paying for water, power and sewerage at housing development sites.

The Greens’ policies, meanwhile, have focused on alleviating pressures on renters by calling for national rent freezes and caps.

They have also said that in the event of a minority government, they will be pushing to reform tax incentives for investors.

In short, experts say that while both Labor and the Coalition’s policies are steps in the right direction, neither are sufficient to solve the housing problem.

“A combination of both parties’ platforms would be better than what we’re seeing from either side individually,” Mr Coates tells the BBC.

A 2025 State of the Land report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia says the federal government will fail to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – falling short by almost 400,000.

The Coalition’s focus on reducing immigration, meanwhile, will only make housing marginally cheaper while making Australia poorer in the long-term, according to Mr Coates.

The cuts to migration will mean fewer skilled migrants, he explains, and the loss of revenue from those migrants will result in higher taxes for Australians.

Decades of underinvestment in social housing also means demand in that area is massively outstripping supply – which at 4% of housing stock is significantly lower than many other countries, according to Mr Fotheringham.

There’s also concern about grants for first homebuyers, which drive prices up further.

While commending the fact that these issues are finally being treated seriously, Mr Fotheringham believes it will take years to drag Australia out of a housing crisis that has been building for decades.

“We’ve been sleepwalking into this as a nation for quite some time,” he says. “[Now] the nation is paying attention, the political class is paying attention.”

When Chloe Qisha was training to be a therapist, she wondered whether her dreams of being a pop star would ever come true.

Now, with one of the biggest artists in the US covering her songs and a spot on the BBC Radio 1 playlist, it’s definitely happening for the singer even if, in her words, she’s “a little bit late”.

But, speaking to BBC Newsbeat, Chloe says “late” actually feels like the perfect time.

The London-based singer, who was born in Malaysia, has been breaking through with her track 21st Century Cool Girl, which she describes as “an ode to my teenage self”, about the insecurities and drama of teen romance.

Chloe laughs when she says that success has come after her brain had time to “fully develop”.

“I think if it happened any earlier in my life I would have messed it up for myself,” she says.

“I’m looking back at my younger self, who was a bit of a trainwreck of a human being, and just being like, ‘You’ve got this, it’s gonna work out, it’s going to be great’.

“It took a lot of finessing over the years but now this is my whole life and I’m just so excited.

“It feels like what Chloe Qisha was always meant to do.”

Chloe released her first self-titled EP back in November and has been busy releasing new music since.

She confesses her route into music – doing a psychology degree first – was “a little bit backwards”.

Chloe started writing songs at uni, after posting covers on YouTube inspired her to get deeper into the process.

“I realised I needed to learn how to write songs if I wanted to do this,” she says.

However, she thinks having the extra time and experience helped to reassure her that music was “100% the right path” for her.

But Chloe says her degree in psychology has influenced a lot of her songs, which explore themes of wellbeing.

“It’s like learning to accept yourself, learning to accept the insecurities and everything like that,” she says.

“I’m here as my older self, feeling more set and confident in my mental health,” she says.

Chloe might have left the textbooks behind as her career takes off, but the learning hasn’t stopped, she says, admitting she’s still finding out things about being a pop star.

She performed at BBC Introducing’s Ones To Watch showcase in January and says being on stage means focusing on more than just the music and the songwriting.

It’s also the live performances, filming music videos and adapting to professional choreography as someone better known for “really terrible dad dancing”.

All that work is worthwhile though, she says, when crowds of fans sing along to her songs.

“It’s moments like that you just can’t replace.

“It’s just so special.”

Critics, as well as fans, are starting to notice with the likes of Rolling Stone and NME dubbing Chloe as an artist to watch.

She has more than 700k monthly listeners on Spotify and when she recently released tickets for her first headline show in London it sold out in four minutes.

And she’s made a name on the other side of the world too, being spotted by US singer and chat show host Kelly Clarkson.

The American Idol winner’s TV programme features a “Kellyoke” segment where she covers other artists.

Usually those songs are by high-profile singers such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Coldplay.

But in February she picked Chloe’s song I Lied, I’m Sorry, just a couple of months after the track was featured as BBC Introducing’s Track of the Week.

Chloe says her song being performed on the show is something she still hasn’t processed.

“Kelly Clarkson. This almost, fantasy, beautiful, human being,” says Chloe.

“It just feels surreal, I still think it’s a prank.

“It’s such an honour, I feel so blessed,” she says.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Police officers smash through the back doors of a bright, modern barber shop in the market town of Shrewsbury.

Inside they immediately detain two men – who we are later told are Kurdish asylum seekers. Both men are later released.

It is the first of six raids that day where police seize thousands of pounds in cash and illicit vapes.

The officers are here with a warrant to search the premises because of suspected money laundering. They say their intelligence also suggests the shop is linked to sale of illicit cigarettes and vapes, illegal immigration and drug-dealing.

Det Insp Daniel Fenn, on his ninth raid of the week, says some barber shops such as this are claiming income of £100,000 to £150,000 a month. “They aren’t getting that amount of customers to warrant that amount of money.”

CCTV in other barbers that have been raided has shown they do not have many customers, so footage of this one will also be examined, DI Fenn says.

The raid in Shrewsbury was one of 265 carried out across England and Wales last month as part of a crackdown on High Street businesses – often Turkish-style barbers, vape shops and mini-marts – suspected of being fronts for international crime gangs.

Politicians and members of the public have raised concerns about many of these businesses which have boomed even while High Streets appear to be in decline. The average number of barbers per person in England and Wales has doubled in the past 10 years, according to commercial property analysts Green Street.

Now the National Crime Agency (NCA) says it has launched the crackdown, called Operation Machinize, in response to growing intelligence reports that some of these shops are being used for money laundering – where gangs falsely present the proceeds of criminal operations as if they were earnings from legitimate businesses handling large amounts of cash.

Despite these shops operating openly for years on High Streets and attracting widespread local suspicion, this is the first co-ordinated action of its kind by police, tax and immigration inspectors and Trading Standards officers. We were given exclusive access to dozens of raids carried out by Greater Manchester and West Mercia Police.

Det Insp Melanie Johnson, who led the operation for Greater Manchester Police, said her own local High Street had 10 barbers and a mini-mart, which was “not sustainable”.

“As a mum to young children, I want them to grow up feeling safe, in a community that isn’t derelict, a High Street that isn’t falling apart, and isn’t populated by criminality,” she said.

During the operation:

• Police targeted a series of linked mini-marts in Rochdale that they suspect are “fronts” for illegal activity, staffed by Kurdish, Iraqi and Iranian asylum seekers. Officers later said some of the staff were working in the UK illegally
• A cannabis farm was found in Leigh and over 150 plants seized. Also found during raids across Greater Manchester were brown powder believed to be heroin, vials of testosterone, nitrous oxide, Xanax tranquilliser and a machete
• 35 people were arrested, and 55 suspected illegal immigrants were questioned. Three potential victims of modern slavery were identified
• Bank accounts and assets worth over £1m were later frozen and £40,000 in cash was seized

The Shrewsbury raid was on a barber shop in the centre of town, one of five close together which were also targeted in the operation.

“Members of the public are angry. They can see these fronts are there,” says Det Insp Fenn. “The criminals feel they are hidden here. They think they can come to sleepy areas such as Shrewsbury and Telford and won’t be found.”

It looks like the two men detained here have been living in the rooms above the barbers – there are clothes, shoes and food scattered on the floor as we move from room to room. The flats are barely furnished, with just a mattress and blankets on the floor.

Det Insp Fenn says organised crime groups are different all over the country, but here he has been seeing familiar patterns of shops staffed with asylum seekers or illegal immigrants, many of the people in the barber shops being from Kurdish backgrounds.

The detective says that behind the front of a High Street business “the main criminality may be modern-day slavery, exploitation and drugs”.

Despite the barber shop’s supposed high revenue, police find an unpaid £7,000 gas bill along with the seized cash and illicit vapes.

Legitimate barbers say they want to see a registration scheme and a crackdown on unscrupulous operators. Gareth Penn, chief executive of the Hair and Barber Council, said the rise of illegal barbers has led to fungal infections, such as ringworm, from improperly cleaned equipment.

“This has a massive impact on legitimate businesses as they can’t compete against those with few of the costs genuine barbers have,” said Mr Penn.

The NCA estimates that £12bn in illicit cash is laundered in the UK every year, some of it through criminal front organisations on the High Street. Their numbers appeared to surge as shop vacancies grew in the wake of the pandemic, creating an opening for criminal gangs.

Politicians began to demand action, prompting law enforcement, tax, immigration and Trading Standards agencies to develop this co-ordinated response.

The NCA now has to analyse what Operation Machinize has uncovered for evidence of fraud and money laundering, to try to trace the networks behind these shops and stop the flow of criminal cash.

Rachael Herbert, deputy director of economic crime at the NCA, said the presence of criminal front organisations “gives the perception from the local community that criminals have the run of the High Street” and contributes to the demise of shopping centres.

“Money laundering is not a victimless crime. It’s associated with some of the most high-harm and violent crimes on the street,” she said.

The NCA believes some barber shops or mini-marts are used as fronts for drug-trafficking, people-smuggling, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation. These kinds of shops have also been linked to the illicit importation of tobacco, vapes and firearms.

In 2023, it secured the conviction of one Iranian Kurdish barber shop owner, Hewa Rahimpur, who was using his shop in London as a base for a far-reaching criminal organisation which smuggled 10,000 people to the UK in small boats.

“These businesses also evade an enormous amount of tax. That is money that doesn’t go to the exchequer to be used for local communities,” Ms Herbert said.

Seeing illicit products like vapes, cigarettes and tobacco on sale is also a red flag to the investigating teams.

In Rochdale, the sniffer dog shakes with excitement, her tail wagging frantically, above a hole concealing dozens of boxes of illegally imported tobacco products in one shop.

“We could hit this shop every day for a week and we’d still find stuff. It’s non-stop,” Dennis Chalmers from Trading Standards says. “These shops are just set up to do this.”

Outside on the street, Mr Chalmers gestures to half a dozen shops on the street which he has visited and believes to be linked. “They seem to be popping up everywhere. There’s like five, six hairdressers in one row.”

He estimates across Rochdale there are more than 20 businesses that are fronts for criminal organisations and he says he sees many of the same people from Iran, Iraq and Kurdistan working in them.

In one shop, a worker who says he is Kurdish claims he has only worked there for two days.

“Two days?” asks Mr Chalmers. “Even though I saw you here last week?”

The shop worker tells the Trading Standards officer he doers not know his boss’s name.

Mr Chalmers tells us: “The danger is, because you don’t know who is behind these businesses, as the employee doesn’t know who the owner is, when we try and chase them they just keep changing, changing.”

Companies House documents show the shop address has been used to register four almost-identically named businesses since 2019, three of which faced action to strike them off the company register for failing to file accounts properly.

Immigration officers say the Kurdish man in the shop has been in the country for four years, but has been granted the right to work while he waits for his asylum application to be decided.

Close by, police and Trading Standards officers show us more mini-marts that have been left empty – they say staff disappeared as soon as police arrived.

Outside one, a man approaches us laughing. It is clear he is not put off by the police action. He tells us he is from Iran and, when questioned, claims he does not work in the shop. We return later and see him inside the mini-mart, apparently working.

“We see him every day,” says Mr Chalmers in frustration. “It’s just a game to them. A dangerous one.”

He says he would like more resources to get on top of the issue and greater powers to shut down these premises more quickly.

Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the operation “highlights the scale and complexity of the criminality our towns and cities face”.

“High Street crime undermines our security, our borders, and the confidence of our communities, and I am determined to take the decisive action necessary to bring those responsible to justice,” he said.

But so far only 10 of the shops that were raided last month across England have been shut down. The majority of the shops we visited were back up and running within minutes of the police leaving.

In Rochdale, we watched as Trading Standards officers identified a man they said was linked to the mini-marts walking from shop to shop with a backpack, which they believed contained illicit tobacco to restock the shelves.

The challenge for authorities now is to stop the problem at its root and dismantle the suspected serious organised crime gangs – which may have been profiting in plain sight for years on our High Streets.

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“My heart and soul died when Rifaat was killed,” says Hajjah Umm Mohammed, the mother of a Palestinian paramedic who was one of 15 emergency workers killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza last month.

Rifaat Radwan, 23, was travelling in a Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance in a convoy of emergency vehicles when it came under fire on the outskirts of Rafah on 23 March.

“I never expected him to be killed, especially since the area was classified as ‘green’, meaning safe and open to ambulances,” she adds.

The Israeli military initially claimed the troops opened fire because the convoy approached them “suspiciously” in darkness without headlights or flashing emergency lights.

However, video filmed by Rifaat and found on his phone after his body was recovered, showed the vehicles’ lights were on as they answered a call to help wounded people.

“Forgive me, mother… this is the path I chose to help people,” Rifaat can be heard saying in the video shortly before he was killed, amid the sound of heavy gunfire.

Umm Mohammed believes he was asking for her forgiveness because he knew she would never see him again.

“I entrusted Rifaat to God every time he went out to work,” she says. “He was brave, travelling across Gaza from north to south.”

Rifaat began volunteering with the PRCS after Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’s unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023.

Umm Mohammed says her son enjoyed humanitarian work.

“He even transported the wounded to cross into Egypt for treatment through the Rafah crossing.”

Umm Mohammed explains that on the day he died, Rifaat had gone out with an ambulance after reports of several killed in an Israeli air strike.

“I didn’t know he would be one of them [too],” she says.

It was a week before his body and those of his colleagues were found buried in a shallow grave on 30 March.

“Instead of celebrating Eid al-Fitr with Rifaat, we went with the Red Cross to collect his body from Nasser hospital in Khan Younis to bury him,” she recalls.

“It was badly decomposed and they wouldn’t allow me to see it.”

Umm Mohammed says he was an “absolutely beautiful” human being and the sole supporter of her and his father after all his siblings got married.

Following the discovery of the video footage, an Israeli military official changed its initial account that claimed the vehicles approached without their lights on. The official said the person who gave the account was “mistaken”.

The official also said the troops perceived the emergency workers as a threat because of an earlier encounter in the area, and that at least six of those killed were Hamas operatives, without providing any evidence.

The troops buried the bodies, including Rifaat’s, in sand to protect them from wild animals, the official said.

They were not uncovered until a week after the incident because international agencies, including the UN, could not organise safe passage to the area or locate the spot.

When the UN-led team found the bodies they also discovered Rifaat’s mobile phone containing footage of the incident.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has promised a “thorough examination” of the incident, saying it would “understand the sequence of events and the handling of the situation”.

The PRCS has alleged that the emergency workers were targeted in a “series of deliberate attacks” which constituted a “full-fledged war crime”, and demanded an independent international investigation.

“We need justice for the victims. We need to ensure that all of those who are responsible are held to account. Without this, the crimes will continue to happen,” PRCS spokeswoman Nebal Farsakh said on Wednesday.

“I have already lost 27 PRCS colleagues. All of them were killed while doing their humanitarian work. All of them were killed while wearing the Red Crescent emblem. This is not acceptable. It should never, ever have happened. We are not targets. And international humanitarian law is clear – humanitarians, medical personnel should be respected and protected.”

Munther Abed, a paramedic who survived the incident, says he and his colleagues were fired at without warning.

“I dropped to the floor in the back of the vehicle and didn’t hear any sound from my colleagues except their death gasps,” he told the BBC last week.

“Then, Israeli special forces arrested me, pinning my head to the ground so I couldn’t see what happened to my team.”

Holding back tears, Munther added: “When I found out they were all martyred, it crushed me. They were my second family… my brothers, my friends, my loved ones.

“I wished I had died from the horror of what I saw.”

He says his phone was confiscated when he was detained.

“They interrogated me for 15 hours with beatings, insults, and both physical and verbal torture,” he adds.

The BBC has put his claims to the IDF, but it is yet to respond.

The PRCS said the area the emergency workers were in had not been classified by the Israeli military as a “red zone”, which meant no prior co-ordination was required to access the site, and that the video showed that Israeli military vehicles had not been visible in the area.

It said preliminary forensic reports showed that the paramedics were killed by “multiple gunshot wounds to the upper parts of the bodies”, which it described as “further evidence of deliberate killing”.

It also dismissed the IDF’s internal inquiry and rejected the IDF’s accusation that Hamas operatives were among those killed.

The IDF said in a statement on Monday that its Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, had been presented with the findings of the initial inquiry into the incident and instructed that it be “pursued in greater depth and completed in the coming days by the general staff investigation mechanism”.

“All the claims raised regarding the incident will be examined through the mechanism and presented in a detailed and thorough manner for a decision on how to handle the event,” it added.

About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

More than 50,750 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A ceasefire deal announced in January collapsed in March and there are currently 59 hostages still held in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be still alive.

Donald Trump announced a massive tariff plan last week that would have upended the global economic order as well as long-established trading relationships with America’s allies.

But that plan – or at least a significant part of it – is on ice after the president suspended higher tariffs on most countries for 90 days while leaning into a trade war with China.

So with this partial reversal, is Trump any closer to realising his goals on trade? Here’s a quick look at five of his key ambitions and where they now stand.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump’s original trade plan packed a big punch that landed around the world, with a flat 10% baseline tariff on everyone (including some uninhabited islands) and additional “reciprocal” tariffs on the 60 countries that he said were the worst offenders.

It sent allies and adversaries scrambling, as they stared down the prospect of a debilitating blow to their economies.

The White House has been quick to boast about all the world leaders who have reached out to the president to make deals and offer trade concessions – “more than 75”, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Although the administration hasn’t released a list of all the countries that Trump said on Tuesday were “kissing my ass” and promising to do anything, the US has announced it is in negotiations with South Korea and Japan, among others.

THE TAKEAWAY: America’s trading partners have 90 days to strike some sort of agreement with Trump, and the clock is ticking. But the fact that talks are happening indicates that the president has a good chance of getting something for his efforts.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• What does the tariff pause mean for global trade?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump has said for decades that tariffs are an effective way of rebuilding America’s manufacturing base by shielding it from unfair foreign competition. While some factories may be able to increase production in current facilities, more substantive efforts take time. And for business leaders to pull the trigger on “reshoring” their production lines and investing in new US factories, they will want to know that the rules of the game are relatively stable.

The president’s on-again, off-again tariff moves over the past week are inherently unstable, however. For the moment, it’s difficult to predict where the final tariff levels will land and which industries will receive the greatest protections. It could be car manufacturers and steel producers today, and high-tech electronics companies tomorrow.

THE TAKEAWAY: When tariffs are applied and removed seemingly at the president’s whim, it’s much more likely that companies – both in the US and abroad – will hunker down and wait for the dust to settle before making any big commitments.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

After Trump’s tariff about-face on Wednesday, several White House officials – including Treasury Secretary Bessent – were quick to say that Trump’s goal was to drop the hammer on the real villain, China.

“They are the biggest source of the US trade problems,” Bessent told reporters, “and indeed they are the problem for the rest of the world.

If Trump wanted a battle of wills with China, testing each side’s tolerance for economic and political pain, he got one – even if the president and his aides have hinted that they are looking for an exit ramp.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he blamed past US leaders, not China, for the current trade dispute. The prior day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president would be “incredibly gracious” if China reaches out to make a deal.

THE TAKEAWAY: Even if this showdown is one Trump wants, picking a fight with the second-largest economy in the world, with military power to match, comes at enormous risk. And along the way America may have alienated the allies it needs most in such a confrontation.

• Why Trump is hitting China – and what might happen next

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump regularly touted that his proposed tariffs would bring in vast sums in new revenue, which the US could then use to shrink its budget deficit, fund tax cuts and pay for new government programmes.

A study last year by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff – which is what Trump has landed on for at least the next 90 days – would generate $2tn in new revenue over the next 10 years.

To put that in context, the tax cuts Congress recently included in its non-binding budget blueprint would cost approximately $5tn over the next 10 years, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

THE TAKEAWAY: Trump wanted more tariff revenue, and if he sticks with his baseline tariffs, plus the additional levies on certain imports and larger ones on China, he’s going to get it – at least until Americans switch to more domestic production, when the tariff money gusher could turn to a trickle.

• Is the US making $2bn a day from tariffs?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Analysts and experts have offered a grab bag of other explanations about why Trump made such an aggressive move on trade last week. Was he trying to drive down interest rates, or devalue the US dollar or bring the world to the table for a new, global agreement on trade? The president himself hasn’t spoken much about those kinds of elaborate schemes.

One thing he has talked about relentlessly, however, is his desire to lower costs for American consumers – and he has promised that his trade policy will help address this. While energy prices dipped in the week since Trump announced his tariff plan, that may have been a result of fears that the trade wars could trigger a global recession.

The consensus among economists is that new tariffs will drive up consumer prices, as tariffs are tacked on to the price of imports and, eventually, when there is less competition for US-made products. Last year, the Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff would increase costs for American households by an average of $1,253 in its first year. Economists also warn that lower-income Americans will be hardest hit.

THE TAKEAWAY: An increase in prices is an arrow moving in the wrong direction – and it represents an enormous potential liability for both Trump’s political standing and his party’s future electoral prospects.

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.

The corner shop Ramji Dharod has manned for over six decades is now on the brink of closure.

The store sits in a bylane in the central Indian city of Mumbai’s busy shopping precinct, and has served the community for 75 years.

Dharod began coming to the shop with his father when he was just 10. These days, he mostly sits idle, waiting for an occasional customer to walk in.

Behind him, cardboard boxes of unsold biscuit packets and snacks show a “stock clearance sale” sign posted on them.

“I wouldn’t get a minute to breathe a few years ago, but now I rarely get anyone coming,” says the septuagenarian wryly. “They are all shopping online. I’ve decided to retire and down the shutters.”

As 10-minute online deliveries by “quick commerce” apps like Zomato, BlinkIt and Zepto pervade urban India, hundreds of thousands of neighbourhood stores across cities have closed down.

A lobby group of consumer product distributors estimated that number to be 200,000 last October, while the municipal body of the southern city of Chennai estimated 20% of small grocers and 30% of larger departmental stores had shut down in the city in the past 5 years.

Sunil Kenia who runs a provision store right beside Dharod’s shop says he’s still in business only because his family owns the shop. Those on rent are no longer able to stay afloat, he says.

“It started going downhill after the Covid lockdowns. Business is at 50% of what we did before the pandemic,” Kenia told the BBC.

Most of his revenue now comes from wholesale customers – hawkers or those selling street-side snacks. The retail customer has all but “vanished”, he says, because of the convenience of mobile deliveries.

Mumbai-based graphic designer Monisha Sathe is among the millions of urban Indians who’ve stopped their weekly run to the market because of the ease of quick commerce.

“Lugging groceries back home was a big pain,” says Sathe. And occasionally, when she took out her car, navigating narrow market lanes and finding a parking slot would be a challenge.

Sathe says she misses the human interaction she had with the grocers and vegetable vendors and even the variety of fresh produce on sale – but for her, the balance still tilts in favour of online deliveries because of how much easier it has made her life.

A recent survey by consultancy PwC shows some 42% of urban consumers in India’s big cities think like Sathe, especially preferring quick delivery for their urgent needs. And these shifts in buying behaviour have led to three out of 10 retailers reporting a negative impact on their business, with a 52% drop in essential goods sales.

But to what extent is quick commerce really hollowing out the Indian high street?

There’s no doubt general trade – which includes grocery stores, corner shops and even big retail outlets – has come under threat, says Ankur Bisen, a partner at Technopak retail advisory. But at least for now “quick commerce is still a three-four city story”, he says. Nearly all of their sales come from these cities.

Lightning fast deliveries bucked the global trend and became successful in India largely due to a large concentration of people staying in urban clusters.

They are serviced through low-rent “dark stores” – or small shops dedicated to delivery and not open to the public – in densely populated areas, enabling economies of scale.

But the precarious nature of demand and fragmented demographics of smaller towns could make it expensive for quick commerce players to expand and make money beyond the metros, says Mr Bisen.

There’s little doubt though that these online deliveries will disrupt trade in the longer run.

Bain and Company expects quick commerce to grow at over 40% annually through to 2030, driven by expansion across “geographies”.

And this has made traditional retail nervous.

Trade organisations – like the Confederation of All India Traders, or the All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation which calls itself the voice of India’s 13m retailers – have made urgent and repeated pleas to the government against this breakneck expansion.

They allege that these companies are using billions of dollars in venture capital funds to engage in anti-competitive practices like “predatory pricing” or “deep discounting” which has further distorted the playing field for mom-and-pop shops.

The BBC spoke to several small retailers who shared these concerns. Mr Bisen too agreed there’s evidence of such practices in the clusters that quick commerce companies operate.

Swiggy, Zepto and Blinkit, who primarily control this market, did not agree to comment on the BBC’s queries on these allegations.

But a source within one of the quick commerce companies told the BBC the discounting was done by traders on the platform and not by them.

The source also said that contrary to the binary narrative of the “big guy versus small guy”, online deliveries were solving real-world challenges for people for whom going to the market was a “traumatic” experience.

“Think of women or senior citizens – they don’t want to be harassed or navigate potholes and traffic,” the source said. “Also consider the small brands that sell on our platform – they never get shelf space in physical shops where only the big names are displayed. We’ve democratised the market.”

Analysts say, the sheer diversity of India in terms of its stages of development, levels of income and infrastructure will mean that in the end all retail models – small corner shops, organised big retailers and quick commerce platforms – will cohabit in the country.

This is not a “winner takes all market”, says Mr Bisen, giving the example of e-commerce which came into India in 2010 and was meant to sound the death knell of local retailers.

Even after all these years, only 4% of all shopping is done online in India.

But the ripples caused by quick commerce should be a warning for physical retailers, say analysts, to improve their marketing and integrate technology to use both online and offline channels to give their consumers a better shopping experience.

Competing with click-of-a-button delivery means it can no longer be business as usual for the millions of corner shops who’ve existed for decades, with little or no innovation.

The Minecraft Movie’s director says he has been “laughing my brains out” at the trend for audience members shouting out, jumping up and down, and in some cases throwing popcorn in the air during screenings.

“It’s way too funny,” Jared Hess told the New York Times about fans’ exuberant reactions to the film, some of which have been widely shared.

The UK Cinema Association this week noted the “exceptional” crowd response to the movie and its characters, but some cinemas have warned that “anti-social behaviour” like loud screaming, clapping and shouting “will not be tolerated”.

“It’s been a total blast,” Hess said. “I’m just laughing my brains out every time someone sends me a new video.”

Based on one of the world’s best-selling video games, the film tells the story of four misfits pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld – the place where all players start in Minecraft.

Despite underwhelming critics’ reviews, the film, which boasts a star-studded cast including Jason Momoa, Jack Black and Jennifer Coolidge, exceeded expectations by making $300m (£233m) globally at the box office on its opening weekend.

In the film, Momoa’s character Garrett Garrison has to battle a baby zombie riding a chicken on the way to finding the orb that can take him back to the real world.

Hess and Black thought it would be funny if Black’s character Steve announced everything that happens to him intensely, hence the “!” meme taking off.

“Jack says it with such passion,” said Hess. “Everything that comes out of his mouth in the film is spoken with such authority and seriousness, like this is the most important thing anybody has ever heard in their life.

“I think people just love the craziness of it.”

With many young fans joining in, the UK Cinema Association’s chief executive Phil Clapp told the BBC this week that most of the behaviour had so far been good-natured.

He said it was “seemingly driven by the desire of young people to share their experiences on social media”.

But he did ask “those taking part to be mindful of the enjoyment of other cinema-goers”.

A cinema in Staffordshire banned under-18s from attending evening showings without an adult after rowdy behaviour at other screenings went viral on social media, while another picturehouse in Oxfordshire warned customers to behave.

Hess has been buoyed by the overall reaction, however, describing it as “a true party”.

“Just the fact that people are making memories at the movies – that’s what it’s all about,” he said. “That’s why we do it.

“I never could have anticipated this level of passion and fun and craziness that’s happening.”

Asked whether he approved of throwing popcorn, he replied: “No-one’s going to get hurt from popcorn.

“Look, when I go to the movies with my kids, it’s like a popcorn massacre that happens and they’re not throwing anything, but it ends up on the ground regardless.”

Some videos of fan reactions have even shown police being called to cinemas.

“It’s weird when you’re having too much fun and the cops get called,” Hess told Entertainment Weekly.

“It’s funny because I think it’s just literally cheering and throwing popcorn, which is so funny to me that cops are getting called for popcorn.

“Yeah, it’s hilarious. I’ve seen so many funny videos. It’s great, especially when people are climbing on their friends’ shoulders and standing up and cheering for those moments. It’s like this crazy anticipation.

“But, man, I’m just glad people are making memories with their friends and families.”

At 01:00 on Tuesday morning Carwin Javier Molleja was dancing with his mother in Santo Domingo’s Jet Set nightclub when he noticed something fall from the ceiling.

At the time, he didn’t think much of it. “No-one thought that because a small stone fell the entire roof was going to collapse,” he says.

The percussionist, who had moved to the Dominican Republic eight years earlier, was out with his mother, Carmen, and friends to see a concert by merengue singer Rubby Pérez.

It was the first time Carwin, 32, and his mother had seen each other in three years and it was meant to be a night of joy and celebration.

But in the early hours of Tuesday morning, disaster struck.

“What I have in my head are the screams, the loud sound of the ceiling falling in, my mum’s screams asking me if I’m OK, me asking her if she’s OK,” Carwin recalls.

“Everything happened so fast. I guess I closed my eyes and my instinct was to hug my mum.”

Both Carwin and his mother, who had been standing near the stage, were struck on the head by pieces of falling ceiling, but were lucky to avoid serious injury. Rubby Perez was among those killed.

In the chaos that quickly unfolded, Carwin managed to find a door through which he and his mother escaped outside.

But his friend Jessica and her sister were still in the club. Desperate to find them, he decided to go back inside.

Inside the club, Carwin desperately shouted Jessica’s name but no one answered.

He says he felt powerless to help those who had become trapped under the debris.

“The stones were huge. I felt useless.”

Carwin says he then repeatedly went out of the building, where he’d try to call paramedics, then return inside to shout his friend’s name and call her phone.

“After that, the calls stopped going through.”

Carwin describes the aftermath of the collapse as “total chaos”.

“People were going crazy,” he says.

“They were pulling out injured people. I saw when they pulled out the saxophonist who died.”

Within minutes of the collapse, emergency services arrived, as ambulances and stretchers “kept coming”.

Carwin says he remained at the scene for about an hour and a half after the collapse.

In that time, he says he didn’t see any machinery arriving to remove the debris.

He says he wanted to continue trying to find his friend, but needed to take home his mother, who was in pain.

“I needed to get her home and calm her down.”

Later that day, Jessica and her sister’s lifeless bodies were found among the rubble. At least 221 people were killed in the disaster.

Carwin says he regrets not having been able to do more for his friend.

“It was horrible not being able to help her. I yelled her name, but she didn’t answer. It feels awful not being able to do anything.”

Euphoria and Grey’s Anatomy star Eric Dane has revealed he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neurone disease (MND).

Speaking to People, the 52-year-old US actor said he was “grateful to have my loving family by my side as we navigate this next chapter”.

“I feel fortunate that I am able to continue working and am looking forward to returning to set of Euphoria next week,” he added, while asking for privacy for himself and his family.

Dane stars as the Jacobs family patriarch Cal Jacobs on hit HBO teen drama show Euphoria, which is due to begin production on season three on Monday.

Before that, he was perhaps best known as Dr Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy from 2006.

He also played Jason Dean in fantasy drama series Charmed, and Captain Tom Chandler in action drama show The Last Ship, while appearing in films such as Marley & Me, Valentine’s Day and Burlesque.

He is married to fellow actress and model Rebecca Gayheart, and the couple have two children.

According to the NHS, MND “encompasses several different conditions whose common feature is the premature degeneration of motor nerves (known as neurons or sometimes neurones)”.

It says nearly 90% of patients with MND have the mixed ALS form of the disease.

• ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a rare degenerative disease that causes progressive paralysis of the muscles
• Patients first experience twitching or weakness in a limb, often followed by slurred speech
• The disease affects the nerve cells in the brain and spine that control muscle movement, causing patients to slowly lose their ability to speak, eat, walk and breathe independently
• There is no cure for ALS, and, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, people usually live for three to five years after diagnosis although some can live for decades

A former Russian government minister, once a governor in illegally annexed Crimea, has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for breaching UK sanctions.

Dmitrii Ovsiannikov was found guilty of deliberately avoiding sanctions by receiving more than £75,000 from his wife, Ekaterina Ovsiannikova, into a newly-opened account, and a new Mercedes Benz SUV from his brother, Alexei Owsjanikow.

Ovsiannikov, who has a British passport, was found guilty on Wednesday of six out of seven counts of circumventing sanctions.

The case is the first prosecution in the UK regarding a breach of sanctions under the Russia Sanctions Regulations, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Two years after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin appointed Ovsiannikov as acting governor of the “strategically significant” city of Sevastopol in Crimea, the jury heard.

In 2017, elections were held there for the position of governor and Ovsiannikov won. He resigned from the position in July 2019.

As a result of his senior job in illegally annexed Crimea, the EU and UK imposed financial sanctions on him.

In August 2022, Ovsiannikov travelled to Turkey from Russia and applied for a British passport.

Despite the fact that UK sanctions still applied, the jury heard that he was granted a passport in January 2023, which he was entitled to because his father was born in the UK.

Ovsiannikov challenged the EU sanctions and they were lifted just five days after he arrived in the UK.

After arriving in Britain on 1 February 2023, Ovsiannikov moved into his brother’s house in Clapham, where his wife and two younger children were already living and attending private school.

On 6 February, the former governor applied for a Halifax bank account and over the next two-and-a-half weeks his wife transferred £76,000 into his account – allowing him to put down a deposit on a Mercedes Benz GLC 300 SUV.

However, the bank later realised he was on the UK sanctions list and froze the account. His brother Alexei Owsjanikow bought the Mercedes instead, paying more than £54,000, the prosecution said.

The prosecution argued that when Ovsiannikov’s wife sent him the £76,000 and his brother bought the car they were also in breach of sanctions.

While in May 2024, Owsjanikow paid more than £40,000 in school fees for his brother’s two youngest children – which the prosecution argued was also in breach of sanctions.

Ovsiannikov’s wife, who was in the public gallery on Friday for the sentencing, was cleared of four counts of circumventing sanctions by assisting with payments totalling £76,000 to her husband in February 2023.

His brother, Owsjanikow, was cleared of breaching sanctions by buying the Mercedes-Benz, arranging car insurance for Ovsiannikov, and by making a Barclays bank account available to him.

However, the jury at Southwark Crown Court found Owsjanikow guilty on two counts of circumventing sanctions by paying school fees of £41,027 for his brother’s children. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for 15 months.

The prosecution argued Ovsiannikov must have known he was subject to UK sanctions, because on 7 February 2023 he was applying for them to be lifted and had included his unique ID number and group ID number from his sanctions listing on the form.

He was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court to 40 months’ imprisonment for each count, to be served concurrently.

The total amount of time he will serve was reduced by the 217 days he spent on curfew, and he will spend up to half of his sentence in custody before he is released on licence.

Ovsiannikov, the former governor of Sevastopol, also served as the Russian Federation’s deputy minister for industry and trade before he was dismissed and expelled from the ruling United Russia party in 2020.

Under the asset freeze, Ovsiannikov was not allowed to spend money even on basic necessities. Others were not permitted to assist him to do so.

The jury failed to reach a verdict on the outstanding charge, that Ovsiannikov deliberately avoided sanctions by opening the new bank account.

Julian Capon, head of the CPS’s economic organised crime unit, said prosecutors will begin legal action to recover “illegally obtained cash and assets”.

He said Ovsiannikov “knew he had been on the UK sanctions list since 2017 but chose to ignore this”.

National Crime Agency chief Graeme Biggar said the Ovsiannikov investigation was one of 180 which have aimed to “reduce a criminal threat posed by Putin-linked elites and their enablers since the invasion of Ukraine”.

The US Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must try to release a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a mega-jail in El Salvador.

In a 9-0 ruling, the justices declined to block a lower court’s order to “facilitate” bringing back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but they also said Judge Paula Xinis may have exceeded her authority.

On Friday Judge Xinis directed the Trump administration to provide her with daily updates on what steps they are taking to bring Mr Garcia back to the US.

The government has conceded Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”, though it also alleges he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his lawyer denies.

Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran, is one of dozens of alleged gang member migrants placed by the US on military planes last month and flown to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) under an arrangement between the two countries.

Following the Supreme Court’s order, lawyers for the Trump administration went in front of Judge Xinis of the Maryland district court on Friday to explain how they will release Mr Garcia.

The judge had asked the government to explain by that morning how they planned to bring Mr Garcia back, but justice department attorneys filed a motion asking for the deadline to be extended until Tuesday evening.

In a two-page filing, government lawyers called her deadlines “impracticable”.

During an at-times tense hearing that lasted about half an hour, Judge Xinis repeatedly pressed the justice department for specifics on Mr Garcia’s whereabouts.

“I’m not asking for state secrets,” she said. “I’m asking a very simple question: where is he?”

Judge Xinis ultimately ruled that the government must provide her with daily updates on Mr Garcia’s location and status, what efforts it had previously taken to get him back to the US and what efforts it will undertake.

In court documents, Mr Garcia’s lawyers accused the government of trying to “delay, obfuscate and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk”.

• Can the US return man deported to El Salvador?

In its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court last week, the Trump administration argued that Judge Xinis lacked the authority to issue the order to return Mr Garcia by Monday night, and that US officials could not compel El Salvador to return him.

US Solicitor General Dean John Sauer wrote in his emergency court filing: “The Constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal.”

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, issued its decision in an unsigned order on Thursday.

The justices did not give the administration a deadline for when Mr Garcia should be freed.

They said Judge Xinis may have exceeded her authority when she required the Trump administration to “effectuate” Mr Garcia’s return.

“The district court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,” the Supreme Court order said.

A justice department spokesperson told the BBC that the Supreme Court correctly recognised “it is the exclusive prerogative of the president to conduct foreign affairs”.

“By directly noting the deference owed to the executive branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”

Mr Garcia, 29, entered the US illegally as a teenager from El Salvador. In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

But an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.

His US citizen wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, has been calling for his release since his deportation.

“I will continue fighting until my husband is home,” she told the New York Times on Thursday.

Workers have been told to hurry home, classes have been suspended and outdoor events have been cancelled as northern China braces for extreme winds this weekend.

Millions have been urged to stay indoors, with some state media outlets warning that people weighing less than 50kg (110lbs – about eight stone) may be “easily blown away”.

Winds reaching 150kph (93mph) are expected to sweep Beijing, Tianjin and other parts of Hebei region from Friday to Sunday, as a cold vortex moves southeast from Mongolia.

For the first time in a decade, Beijing has issued an orange alert for gales – the second-highest in a four-tier weather warning system.

Strong winds sweeping from Mongolia are not uncommon, especially at this time of the year. But the impending winds are expected to be stronger than anything the area has seen in years.

Temperatures in Beijing are expected to drop by 13C within 24 hours, when the strongest winds hit on Saturday, authorities said.

“This strong wind is extreme, lasts for a long time, affects a wide area, and is highly disastrous,” the Beijing Meteorological Service said.

China measures wind speed with a scale that goes from level 1 to 17. A level 11 wind, according to the China Meteorological Administration, can cause “serious damage”, while a level 12 wind brings “extreme destruction”.

The winds this weekend are expected to range from level 11 to 13.

Several sporting events slated for the weekend have been suspended, including the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon, which will now be held on 19 April.

Parks and tourist attractions have been closed as authorities have told residents to avoid outdoor activities, while construction works and train services have been suspended.

Thousands of trees across the city have been reinforced or pruned to prevent them from falling.

Officials have warned people to avoid entering mountains and forests, where gusts are expected to be especially strong.

As residents hunker down, social media users are finding humour in their shelved weekend plans.

“This wind is so sensible, it starts on Friday evening and ends on Sunday, without disrupting work on Monday at all,” said a Weibo user.

Hashtags about the strong winds, and the warning that those weighing less than 50kg could be swept away, have been trending on Chinese social media. One Weibo user quipped: “I eat so much all the time, just for this day.”

Beijing has also issued an alert for forest fires and prohibited people from starting fires outdoors.

The winds are expected to start weakening on Sunday night.

Ukraine’s European allies have pledged €21bn ($24bn; £18bn) in a new tranche of military support for Kyiv in what they described as “a critical year” for the war.

More than half of this – €11bn in aid over four years – is coming from Germany. British Defence Minister John Healey said the pledges would send a strong signal to Moscow.

The announcement came as members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group met at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels to pledge air defences, missiles and other gear as Europe sought to fill the gap left by the changed priorities of the US under Donald Trump.

Europe’s defence ministers said they saw no sign of an end to the war, despite Trump’s promise of a ceasefire.

Support announced on Friday also includes a £450m ($590m) package from the UK and Norway to fund radar systems, anti-tank mines, vehicle repairs and hundreds of thousands of drones for Ukraine. The money is part of a British pledge of £4.5bn made earlier this year.

Air defence was a priority in Brussels. Healey said Russian forces had dropped 10,000 glide bombs on Ukraine in the first three months of this year, as well as launching 100 one-way attack drones a day.

“In our calculations, 70% to 80% of battlefield casualties are now caused and inflicted by drones,” the UK defence secretary said.

The German aid package meanwhile has a significant focus on artillery.

Boris Pistorius said Germany would send 100,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, 25 infantry fighting vehicles, 15 battle tanks, 100 ground surveillance radars and 120 Man-Portable Air Defense Systems.

Berlin will also send four IRIS-T air defence systems with 300 missiles to Kyiv.

“Ukraine needs a strong military and only then can the negotiation process lead to a just and lasting peace,” the German defence minister told reporters in Brussels.

Defence ministers from 50 nations gathered in Brussels for the 27th gathering of the UDCG.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth joined the meeting remotely, telling allies that America appreciated their work.

Pistorius said Hegseth’s decision was a matter of “schedules” rather than “priorities”, and that the “most important fact was that he took part”.

Other leaders also joined remotely, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kyiv’s defence minister Rustem Umerov, who was in Brussels, thanked Europe for “taking over the lead on security assistance” for his country.

He also said Hegseth’s attendance “means that the US is continuing its security assistance and is beside us”.

Healey, Pistorius and Umerov all accused Russia of dragging its feet over a ceasefire.

Healey said it had been more than a month since Russia rejected a US-backed peace settlement. Pistorius said Russia was still not interested in peace.

Talks in Europe took place as US special envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Russia, once more, to press the Kremlin to accept a truce.

Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday as Donald Trump urged the Russian president to “get moving” on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin and Witkoff would discuss the Ukraine war, but one should not expect any “breakthroughs”.

On the ground in Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had captured the village of Zhuravka, in Ukraine’s northern border region of Sumy.

Ukrainian officials are yet to confirm this.

Earlier this week, President Zelensky said as many as 67,000 Russian soldiers were positioned north of the border of the Sumy region, in preparation for an attack on the city of Sumy.

The price for a cup of coffee in the US is going up as tariffs put the squeeze on local café and bakery owners.

Some US businesses say the queues for a morning latte are already getting shorter as customers tighten their belts and imported beans become more expensive.

Americans spend $100bn (£76bn) a year on coffee, though that might be about to change.

Jorge Prudencio, who runs Bread Bite Bakery in Washington DC, says his Colombia-based coffee distributer just increased prices after the sweeping tariffs went into effect last week.

The vast majority of coffee in the US is imported.

In fact, the US is the world’s second-leading importer of coffee, with the majority coming from Brazil and Colombia, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Since 5 April, coffee imports have been affected by the 10% US tariffs against most countries.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Prudencio said his coffee suppliers have told him his next order will carry yet another price hike.

He added that his bakery will “definitely” be increasing prices for customers just to break even.

Asked if he is worried, Mr Prudencio said: “Of course.”

The manager of Au Lait café just down the street, Kamal Mortada, said he’s been seeing the effect of steadily increasing prices for a while now. Inflation spiked to a 40-year high under former US President Joe Biden.

Before the tariffs kicked in, ground coffee reached the highest ever recorded price in March 2025, and was over a dollar more expensive than the previous year, and $3 above March 2020 prices.

“We have less customers for coffee,” Mr Mortada said.

• Live updates: Global markets in flux as Trump says US ‘doing really well’
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• Analysis: Americans could pay more for these everyday basics

“Most customers just get plain coffee,” instead of adding syrups and milks, he said.

The prices on the menu have gone up by 25% and people are now buying smaller coffees.

Mr Mortada has also changed his own habits as a consumer. Instead of his regular trip to Starbucks, he brews coffee at home.

He said he has seen the price of a cup of coffee go up by at least half a dollar, and is worried prices will rise again.

On the opposite coast in San Francisco, another local coffee shop owner is grappling with what the tariffs will mean for her business.

Jenny Ngo, who runs Telescope Coffee, said she was waiting to hear how much her roaster will hike prices.

The coffee she sells is sourced from Ethiopia and Guatemala, both facing the standard 10% tariff. She also imports her iced coffee cups from China – and said she noticed the prices on those jumped overnight.

“We unfortunately project to raise prices again in order to sustain our business,” she said.

Mr Prudencio remains confident that people will still come to his shop and buy coffee. He said it is something people need.

But recent inflation has also affected the price of eggs, crucial to his bakery side of the business.

He said they paid $42 per case when the bakery opened five months ago, but two weeks later it was more than $100 per case.

“Everybody is going through the same thing. We all pay the price.”

The price of eggs is a key symbol of the health of the US economy, often an arguing point for politicians.

President Donald Trump has argued he will get the cost of eggs down, blaming rising prices on the Biden administration, which culled millions of egg-laying chickens amid a bird flu outbreak.

But in March, egg prices reached a record high at $6.22 per dozen, according to the Consumer Price Index.

Joel Finkelstein runs Qualia Coffee Roasters, a small business in Washington DC where he mostly sells coffee beans online and at farmers’ markets.

The tariffs will represent just the latest in a series of price hikes, he told us.

He said he noticed the price of beans go up significantly after Trump took office and cut funding to USAID, which supported some coffee growers in South America. Now, he’s expecting it to go up again.

“We are going to see a decrease in sales,” Mr Finklestein said.

In response to why Beijing is not backing down to Donald Trump on tariffs, the answer is that it doesn’t have to.

China’s leaders would say that they are not inclined to cave in to a bully – something its government has repeatedly labelled the Trump administration as – but it also has a capacity to do this way beyond any other country on Earth.

Before the tariff war kicked in, China did have a massive volume of sales to the US but, to put it into context, this only amounted to 2% of its GDP.

That said, the Communist Party would clearly prefer not to be locked in a trade war with the US at a time when it has been struggling to fix its own considerable economic headaches, after years of a real estate crisis, overblown regional debt and persistent youth unemployment.

However, despite this, the government has told its people that it is in a strong position to resist the attacks from the US.

It also knows its own tariffs are clearly going to hurt US exporters as well.

Trump has been bragging to his supporters that it would be easy to force China into submission by simply hitting the country with tariffs, but this has proven to be misleading in the extreme.

Beijing is not going to surrender.

China’s leader Xi Jinping told the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday that his country and the European Union should “jointly resist the unilateral bullying practices” of the Trump administration.

Sanchez, in turn, said that China’s trade tensions with the US should not impede its cooperation with Europe.

Their meeting took place in the Chinese capital in the hours before Beijing again increased its tariffs on goods from the US – though it has said it will not respond to further US tariff increases.

Next week Xi will visit Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. These are all countries which have been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.

His ministers have been meeting counterparts from South Africa, Saudi Arabia and India, talking up greater trade co-operation.

In addition, China and the EU are reportedly in talks about potentially removing European tariffs on Chinese cars, to be replaced by a minimum price instead, to rein in a new round of dumping.

In short, wherever you look, you can see that China has options.

And analysts have said that these mutual tariff increases by the two superpowers are now becoming almost meaningless, as they’ve already passed the point of cutting out much of the trade between them.

So, the tit-for-tat tariff increases in both directions have become more like symbolism.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has, over the past two days, posted images of Chairman Mao on social media, including a clip during the Korean War when he told the US that “no matter how long this war lasts we will never yield”.

Above this, she posted her own comments, saying: “We are Chinese. We are not afraid of provocations. We won’t back down.”

When the Chinese government wheels out Chairman Mao, you know they’re getting serious.

The head of the US military base in Greenland has been fired after she reportedly sent an email distancing herself from Vice-President JD Vance’s criticism of Denmark.

The US military’s Space Operations Command said Col Susannah Meyers had been removed from her role at Pituffik Space Base due to a “loss of confidence in her ability to lead”.

Last month, Vance said Denmark had “not done a good job” for Greenlanders and had not spent enough on security while visiting the Danish territory.

The alleged email, released by a military news site, told staff Vance’s comments were “not reflective” of the base. A Pentagon spokesman cited the article, saying “undermining” US leadership was not tolerated.

Following Vance’s trip, on 31 March, Col Meyers is reported to have written: “I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by Vice-President Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik Space Base.”

Military.com – which published the email – said the contents had been confirmed as accurate to them by the US Space Force.

Appearing to confirm this was the reason for her firing, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell linked to the Military.com article in a post on X, writing: “Actions [that] undermine the chain of command or to subvert President [Donald] Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense.”

The Space Force’s statement announcing Col Meyers’ removal on Thursday said that Col Shawn Lee was replacing her.

It added: “Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.”

Col Meyers had assumed command of the Arctic station in July last year. Col Lee was previously a squadron commander at the Clear Space Force Station in Alaska.

During his whirlwind trip, Vance had also reiterated Trump’s desire to annex Greenland for security reasons.

Since the US delegation’s visit, both Greenland and Denmark have shown a united front, opposing a US annexation of the autonomous Danish territory.

Earlier this month, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s official visit saw her stand side-by-side with her Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen and his predecessor, Mute Egede.

Speaking to reporters, Frederiksen directly addressed Trump, telling him: “You can’t annex other countries.”

She added that Denmark was fortifying its military presence in the Arctic, and offered closer collaboration with the US in defending the region.

The US has long maintained a security interest in Greenland as a strategically important territory. It has had a military presence on the island since occupying it following the occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany during World War Two.

“If Russia were to send missiles towards the US, the shortest route for nuclear weapons would be via the North Pole and Greenland,” Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, previously told the BBC.

“That’s why the Pituffik Space Base is immensely important in defending the US.”

Greenland, the world’s largest island, has been under Danish control for around 300 years.

Polls show that the vast majority of Greenlanders want to gain independence from Denmark – but do not wish to become part of the US.

Greenland has had the right to call an independence referendum since 2009, though in recent years some political parties have begun pushing harder for one to take place.

A US judge has ruled the government can deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate arrested last month by immigration officers.

Mr Khalil has been held at a Louisiana detention centre since 8 March, when US immigration officers told him he was being deported for taking part in campus protests against the war in Gaza.

The pro-Palestinian activist is a permanent legal US resident, and has not been charged with a crime. The government is seeking to remove him under a Cold War-era immigration law.

In a letter written from the facility, Mr Khalil has said his “arrest was a direct consequence” of speaking out for Palestine.

The judge said the Trump administration was allowed to move forward with its effort to deport Mr Khalil because the argument that he poses “adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US is “facially reasonable”.

The judge gave Khalil’s lawyers until 23 April to appeal against his deportation to Algeria or Syria.

“I would like to quote what you said last time that there’s nothing that’s more important to this court than due process rights and fundamental fairness,” Mr Khalil said in court.

“Clearly what we witnessed today, neither of these principles were present today or in this whole process,” he said. “This is exactly why the Trump administration has sent me to this court, 1,000 miles away from my family.”

The five Spanish passengers who died in a helicopter crash in the Hudson River were all part of a globetrotting family which had made its mark in the corporate world as well as having close ties to one of Europe’s biggest football clubs.

Agustín Escobar and Mercè Camprubí Montal died with their three children, reported to be aged four, five and 11. The pilot of the helicopter also died.

The parents both worked for Siemens and the company sent its condolences, saying: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic helicopter crash in which Agustín Escobar and his family died.”

The five were taking a sightseeing ride over New York when the aircraft crashed.

Although the family were based in the Catalan city of Barcelona, Mr Escobar was originally from the industrial town of Puertollano in southern Spain.

He had recently taken up the post of CEO of rail infrastructure at Siemens Mobility, following a two-year stint as president and CEO of the German technology firm in Spain.

Mrs Camprubí Montal, a Barcelona native, also held a senior post at Siemens. She had been a global commercialisation manager with the company for just over three years at the time of her death.

She came from an influential family in the city known for textile manufacturing as well as its association with FC Barcelona, one of the biggest teams in world football.

Her great-grandfather, Agustí Montal Galobart, was president of the football club in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her grandfather, Agustí Montal Costa, was also president, a tenure fondly remembered by fans for the arrival of the legendary Dutch player Johann Cruyff at the club in 1973.

Last year, Mrs Camprubí Montal’s brother, Joan, emerged as a contender to compete for the presidency of FC Barcelona, although in recent weeks his candidacy has faded.

The careers of Mr Escobar and Mrs Camprubí Montal saw them travel extensively.

Recent posts by Mr Escobar on LinkedIn detail trips to the UK and India, and he described himself as being “passionate” about developing high-performing teams to “positively transform people and organisations”.

A 27-year career at Siemens had taken him to postings in Latin America and the United States.

Juan Ignacio Díaz, a former colleague at Siemens, described him as “above all, a family man” in comments published by news site El Economista. “He was a loving, fun father, a really great guy.”

Emiliano García-Page, president of the Castilla-La Mancha region, of which Mr Escobar was a native, said he was “deeply upset” by news of the deaths. Mr Escobar, he said, had been named a “favourite son” of the region.

According to Mrs Camprubí Montal’s CV, she had been at Siemens for 16 years, also with postings in the United States and Latin America, before moving to the company’s energy arm in 2018.

“I thrive in collaborative environments where I can leverage my international perspective,” she wrote on her LinkedIn profile.

US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday as Donald Trump urged the Russian president to “get moving” on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said the meeting lasted for more than four hours and focused on “aspects of a Ukrainian settlement”. The talks, Witkoff’s third with Putin this year, were described by special envoy Kirill Dmitriev as “productive”.

Trump has expressed frustration with Putin over the state of talks. On Friday, he wrote on social media: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war.”

Earlier in the day, European nations agreed €21bn ($24bn; £18bn) in military aid for Kyiv.

At the event, Europe’s defence ministers said they saw no sign of an end to the war.

Ahead of the Putin-Witkoff talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was “no need to expect breakthroughs” as the “process of normalising relations is ongoing”.

Asked whether discussions could include setting up a date for Putin and Trump to meet, Peskov said: “Let’s see. It depends on what Witkoff has come with.”

Beforehand, Witkoff had a meeting with Dmitriev at the Grand Hotel Europe in St Petersburg, where a conference was held on stainless steel and the Russian market.

Dmitriev, the 49-year-old head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, visited Washington last week and was the most senior Russian official to go to the US since the country’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Kremlin of prolonging the war during a visit on Friday to the site of a 4 April Russian missile attack on his home town of Kryvyi Rih. The attack killed 19 people, including nine children.

He also alleged that hundreds of Chinese nationals were fighting with the Russian army. It comes after Ukraine said it had captured two Chinese nationals.

“We have information that at least several hundred Chinese nationals are fighting as part of Russia’s occupation forces,” Zelensky said.

“This means Russia is clearly trying to prolong the war even by using Chinese lives.”

Zelensky laid flowers in front of photos of Herman Tripolets, nine, and seven-year-olds Arina Samodina and Radyslav Yatsko.

He later reiterated a call for air defence systems “to protect lives and our cities”.

“We discussed this with President Trump – Ukraine is not just asking, we’re ready to purchase these additional systems,” he wrote on social media.

“Only powerful weapons can truly be relied upon to protect life when you have a neighbour like Russia.”

Trump has previously claimed he could end the Ukraine-Russia conflict “in 24 hours”. On Friday, he declared that it would not have happened at all if he’d been in the White House in 2022 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

“A war that should ld [sic] have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!,” he wrote.

In February US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia for their first face-to-face talks since the invasion. Officials have also been meeting to discuss restoring full diplomatic relations.

Trump has also had a fractious relationship with Zelensky since his second term as US president began, culminating in an angry confrontation in the Oval Office in February.

The US attempted to broker a limited ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, only for it to stall when the Kremlin asked for sanctions imposed after it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour to be lifted.

Trump has since said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” with Putin over the lack of progress in agreeing a truce between Kyiv and Moscow.

Earlier this week, Washington and Moscow went ahead with a prisoner swap.

Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American, was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Russia for donating $51 to a Ukrainian charity when the war began in February 2022.

The Los Angeles resident was freed on Thursday morning and exchanged for Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen arrested in Cyprus in 2023.

He was accused of illegally exporting microelectronics to Russia for manufacturers working with the military.

Workers have been told to hurry home, classes have been suspended and outdoor events have been cancelled as northern China braces for extreme winds this weekend.

Millions have been urged to stay indoors, with some state media outlets warning that people weighing less than 50kg (110lbs – about eight stone) may be “easily blown away”.

Winds reaching 150kph (93mph) are expected to sweep Beijing, Tianjin and other parts of Hebei region from Friday to Sunday, as a cold vortex moves southeast from Mongolia.

For the first time in a decade, Beijing has issued an orange alert for gales – the second-highest in a four-tier weather warning system.

Strong winds sweeping from Mongolia are not uncommon, especially at this time of the year. But the impending winds are expected to be stronger than anything the area has seen in years.

Temperatures in Beijing are expected to drop by 13C within 24 hours, when the strongest winds hit on Saturday, authorities said.

“This strong wind is extreme, lasts for a long time, affects a wide area, and is highly disastrous,” the Beijing Meteorological Service said.

China measures wind speed with a scale that goes from level 1 to 17. A level 11 wind, according to the China Meteorological Administration, can cause “serious damage”, while a level 12 wind brings “extreme destruction”.

The winds this weekend are expected to range from level 11 to 13.

Several sporting events slated for the weekend have been suspended, including the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon, which will now be held on 19 April.

Parks and tourist attractions have been closed as authorities have told residents to avoid outdoor activities, while construction works and train services have been suspended.

Thousands of trees across the city have been reinforced or pruned to prevent them from falling.

Officials have warned people to avoid entering mountains and forests, where gusts are expected to be especially strong.

As residents hunker down, social media users are finding humour in their shelved weekend plans.

“This wind is so sensible, it starts on Friday evening and ends on Sunday, without disrupting work on Monday at all,” said a Weibo user.

Hashtags about the strong winds, and the warning that those weighing less than 50kg could be swept away, have been trending on Chinese social media. One Weibo user quipped: “I eat so much all the time, just for this day.”

Beijing has also issued an alert for forest fires and prohibited people from starting fires outdoors.

The winds are expected to start weakening on Sunday night.

Donald Trump announced a massive tariff plan last week that would have upended the global economic order as well as long-established trading relationships with America’s allies.

But that plan – or at least a significant part of it – is on ice after the president suspended higher tariffs on most countries for 90 days while leaning into a trade war with China.

So with this partial reversal, is Trump any closer to realising his goals on trade? Here’s a quick look at five of his key ambitions and where they now stand.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump’s original trade plan packed a big punch that landed around the world, with a flat 10% baseline tariff on everyone (including some uninhabited islands) and additional “reciprocal” tariffs on the 60 countries that he said were the worst offenders.

It sent allies and adversaries scrambling, as they stared down the prospect of a debilitating blow to their economies.

The White House has been quick to boast about all the world leaders who have reached out to the president to make deals and offer trade concessions – “more than 75”, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Although the administration hasn’t released a list of all the countries that Trump said on Tuesday were “kissing my ass” and promising to do anything, the US has announced it is in negotiations with South Korea and Japan, among others.

THE TAKEAWAY: America’s trading partners have 90 days to strike some sort of agreement with Trump, and the clock is ticking. But the fact that talks are happening indicates that the president has a good chance of getting something for his efforts.

• What are tariffs and why is Trump using them?
• What does the tariff pause mean for global trade?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Trump has said for decades that tariffs are an effective way of rebuilding America’s manufacturing base by shielding it from unfair foreign competition. While some factories may be able to increase production in current facilities, more substantive efforts take time. And for business leaders to pull the trigger on “reshoring” their production lines and investing in new US factories, they will want to know that the rules of the game are relatively stable.

The president’s on-again, off-again tariff moves over the past week are inherently unstable, however. For the moment, it’s difficult to predict where the final tariff levels will land and which industries will receive the greatest protections. It could be car manufacturers and steel producers today, and high-tech electronics companies tomorrow.

THE TAKEAWAY: When tariffs are applied and removed seemingly at the president’s whim, it’s much more likely that companies – both in the US and abroad – will hunker down and wait for the dust to settle before making any big commitments.

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

After Trump’s tariff about-face on Wednesday, several White House officials – including Treasury Secretary Bessent – were quick to say that Trump’s goal was to drop the hammer on the real villain, China.

“They are the biggest source of the US trade problems,” Bessent told reporters, “and indeed they are the problem for the rest of the world.

If Trump wanted a battle of wills with China, testing each side’s tolerance for economic and political pain, he got one – even if the president and his aides have hinted that they are looking for an exit ramp.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he blamed past US leaders, not China, for the current trade dispute. The prior day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president would be “incredibly gracious” if China reaches out to make a deal.

THE TAKEAWAY: Even if this showdown is one Trump wants, picking a fight with the second-largest economy in the world, with military power to match, comes at enormous risk. And along the way America may have alienated the allies it needs most in such a confrontation.

• Why Trump is hitting China – and what might happen next

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump regularly touted that his proposed tariffs would bring in vast sums in new revenue, which the US could then use to shrink its budget deficit, fund tax cuts and pay for new government programmes.

A study last year by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff – which is what Trump has landed on for at least the next 90 days – would generate $2tn in new revenue over the next 10 years.

To put that in context, the tax cuts Congress recently included in its non-binding budget blueprint would cost approximately $5tn over the next 10 years, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

THE TAKEAWAY: Trump wanted more tariff revenue, and if he sticks with his baseline tariffs, plus the additional levies on certain imports and larger ones on China, he’s going to get it – at least until Americans switch to more domestic production, when the tariff money gusher could turn to a trickle.

• Is the US making $2bn a day from tariffs?

WHAT TRUMP SAID:

Analysts and experts have offered a grab bag of other explanations about why Trump made such an aggressive move on trade last week. Was he trying to drive down interest rates, or devalue the US dollar or bring the world to the table for a new, global agreement on trade? The president himself hasn’t spoken much about those kinds of elaborate schemes.

One thing he has talked about relentlessly, however, is his desire to lower costs for American consumers – and he has promised that his trade policy will help address this. While energy prices dipped in the week since Trump announced his tariff plan, that may have been a result of fears that the trade wars could trigger a global recession.

The consensus among economists is that new tariffs will drive up consumer prices, as tariffs are tacked on to the price of imports and, eventually, when there is less competition for US-made products. Last year, the Tax Foundation estimated that a 10% universal tariff would increase costs for American households by an average of $1,253 in its first year. Economists also warn that lower-income Americans will be hardest hit.

THE TAKEAWAY: An increase in prices is an arrow moving in the wrong direction – and it represents an enormous potential liability for both Trump’s political standing and his party’s future electoral prospects.

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.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has told the BBC that Gaza has become “hell on earth”, as Israel’s military assault there continues.

Mirjana Spoljaric’s comments come on the same day the UN human rights office warned that Israel’s tactics were threatening the viability of Palestinians continuing to live in Gaza at all.

The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions – internationally agreed rules of conduct in war – and normally only speaks confidentially to warring parties when it thinks violations are taking place.

But Ms Spoljaric has now said publicly that what is happening in Gaza is an “extreme hollowing out” of international law.

Israeli bombardment has killed 1,542 people since it renewed the war on 18 March, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has also issued evacuation orders that have forced nearly 400,000 people to move. Israel has also imposed a complete blockade on the entry of food, medical supplies and all other goods since 2 March.

Israel insists it always follows international law in Gaza, and has also argued that the particular nature of this conflict, with Hamas fighters hidden among the civilian population, mean collateral damage can sometimes happen.

Israeli ministers insist there is enough food in Gaza and say the bombardment and seizure of territory aims to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages it is still holding, whom it kidnapped during the 7 October 2023 attack.

Under the fourth Geneva Convention, occupying powers, as Israel is in Gaza, must ensure civilians have food and medicine, and protect hospitals and health workers. The convention also prohibits the forcible transfer of entire populations from occupied territories.

“No state, no party to a conflict… can be exempt from the obligation not to commit war crimes, not to commit genocide, not to commit ethnic cleansing,” Ms Spoljaric said.

“These rules apply. They are universal.”

Civilians were bearing the brunt of a relentless pursuit of military objectives, she added, being displaced multiple times, and their homes reduced to rubble.

Of 36 recent airstrikes verified by the UN human rights office, all those killed were women and children.

Israel has strenuously denied accusations it is committing genocide or genocidal acts in Gaza.

Israel’s military said it was looking into an attack that killed members of one family in the city of Khan Younis and said it had struck 40 “terror targets” across the territory over the past day.

The ICRC’s comments are the latest in a chorus of concern coming from the UN and other agencies.

On Friday the UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the “cumulative impact” of the IDF’s conduct meant “the office is seriously concerned that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza”.

Israel was continuing to bomb tents in the al-Mawasi area it had told people to go to for their own safety, she added.

On Tuesday the UN secretary general warned that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was violating the Geneva Conventions and the territory was becoming a “killing field”. On Monday the heads of six UN aid agencies appealed to the world to act to save the people of Gaza, and to uphold basic international law.

The Geneva Conventions are founded on the following principles:

• Medical staff and hospitals in warzones must be protected and allowed to work freely
• Those wounded in battle and no longer fighting are entitled to medical treatment
• Prisoners of war must be treated humanely
• Warring parties are obliged to protect civilians (this includes a prohibition on the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as power and water supplies).

Twenty years ago, in what it called its war on terror, the US suggested that the Geneva Conventions might be outdated in modern warfare, but the ICRC insists they apply in all circumstances.

“It’s not transactional,” said Ms Spoljaric. “You have to comply with these rules no matter what the other side does.”

She appealed for a renewal of the ceasefire, pointing out that during previous pauses in fighting, the ICRC had successfully been able to take Israeli hostages out of Gaza and reunite them with their families.

But she also warned of a growing “dehumanisation” during war, in which the international community was turning away even though it was clear war crimes were being committed.

The Geneva Conventions protecting civilians were created after World War Two, she pointed out, to make sure such dehumanisation never happened again. Diluting or abandoning them sends a dangerous signal that “everything is allowed”.

The ICRC believes that sticking with the rules of war can help, eventually, to build a more sustainable peace. Once the fighting stops, the thinking goes, both soldiers and civilians will remember whether those on the other side obeyed international law, or whether they committed atrocities.

But Gaza, Ms Spoljaric believes “will haunt us. It will haunt us for a long time because you cannot undo the suffering… that will last for generations”.

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

More than 50,912 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Buying or renting a home has become unaffordable for the average Australian, driven by a perfect storm of astronomical house prices, relentless rental increases and a lack of social housing.

With less than a month until the federal election, housing remains among the top issues for voters, and the country’s two major parties – the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition – have both pledged to tackle the crisis in a range of ways.

Australians are already struggling under cost-of-living pressures and bracing for the effects of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. And it remains to be seen whether either party will sway voters with their promise of restoring the Australian dream.

Simply put, Australia has not been building enough homes to meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, creating a scarcity that makes any available home more expensive to buy or rent.

Compounding the issue are Australia’s restrictive planning laws, which prevent homes being built where most people want to live, such as in major cities.

Red tape means that popular metropolitan areas like Melbourne and Sydney are far less dense than comparably sized cities around the world.

The steady decline of public housing and ballooning waitlists have made matters worse, tipping people into homelessness or overcrowded living conditions.

Climate change has also made many areas increasingly unliveable, with natural disasters such as bushfires and severe storms destroying large swathes of properties.

Meanwhile, decades of government policies have commercialised property ownership. So the ideal of owning a home, once seen as a right in Australia, has turned into an investment opportunity.

In short: it depends where you live.

Sydney is currently the second least affordable city in the world to buy a property, according to a 2023 Demographia International Housing Affordability survey.

The latest data from property analytics company CoreLogic shows the average Sydney home costs almost A$1.2m (£570,294, $742,026).

Across the nation’s capital cities, the combined average house price sits at just over A$900,000.

House prices in Australia overall have also jumped 39.1% in the last five years – and wages have failed to keep up.

It now takes the average prospective homeowner around 10 years to save the 20% deposit usually required to buy an average home, according to a 2024 State of the Housing System report.

The rental market has provided little relief, with rents increasing by 36.1% nationally since the onset of Covid – an equivalent rise of A$171 per week.

Sydney topped the charts with a median weekly rent of A$773, according to CoreLogic’s latest rental review. Perth came in second with average rents at A$695 per week, followed by Canberra at A$667 per week.

Immigration and foreign property purchases are often cited as causes for Australia’s housing crisis. But experts say that they are not significant contributors statistically.

Many people who move to Australia are temporary migrants, such as international students who live in dedicated student accommodation rather than entering the housing market, according to Michael Fotheringham, head of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

“The impact [of migrants] on the housing market is not as profound as some commentators have suggested,” Mr Fotheringham tells the BBC.

Foreign purchases of homes, meanwhile, is “a very small issue” with not much meaningful impact on housing strain, says Brendan Coates, from the Grattan Institute public policy think tank.

The latest data released by the Australian Taxation Office supports this, with homes purchased by foreign buyers in 2022-23 representing less than one percent of all sales.

“It’s already very difficult for foreigners to purchase homes under existing foreign investment rules. They are subject to a wide range of taxes, particularly in some states,” Mr Coates explains.

Labor and the Coalition have both promised to invest in building more homes – with Labor offering 1.2 million by 2029, and the Coalition vowing to unlock 500,000.

Labor announced a A$33bn housing investment plan in their latest budget, which pledges to help first-time homebuyers purchase properties with smaller deposits through shared-equity loans.

They have also promised to create more social housing and subsidies to help low-to-moderate-income earners own and rent more affordably.

Central to the Coalition’s housing affordability policy is cutting migration, reducing the number of international students and implementing a two-year ban on foreign investment in existing properties.

Additionally, they have promised a A$5bn boost to infrastructure to support local councils by paying for water, power and sewerage at housing development sites.

The Greens’ policies, meanwhile, have focused on alleviating pressures on renters by calling for national rent freezes and caps.

They have also said that in the event of a minority government, they will be pushing to reform tax incentives for investors.

In short, experts say that while both Labor and the Coalition’s policies are steps in the right direction, neither are sufficient to solve the housing problem.

“A combination of both parties’ platforms would be better than what we’re seeing from either side individually,” Mr Coates tells the BBC.

A 2025 State of the Land report by the Urban Development Institute of Australia says the federal government will fail to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029 – falling short by almost 400,000.

The Coalition’s focus on reducing immigration, meanwhile, will only make housing marginally cheaper while making Australia poorer in the long-term, according to Mr Coates.

The cuts to migration will mean fewer skilled migrants, he explains, and the loss of revenue from those migrants will result in higher taxes for Australians.

Decades of underinvestment in social housing also means demand in that area is massively outstripping supply – which at 4% of housing stock is significantly lower than many other countries, according to Mr Fotheringham.

There’s also concern about grants for first homebuyers, which drive prices up further.

While commending the fact that these issues are finally being treated seriously, Mr Fotheringham believes it will take years to drag Australia out of a housing crisis that has been building for decades.

“We’ve been sleepwalking into this as a nation for quite some time,” he says. “[Now] the nation is paying attention, the political class is paying attention.”