Donald Trump said the US will “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine war talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.

The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was not expecting a truce to happen in “a specific number of days” but he wanted it done “quickly”.

His comments came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US would abandon talks “if it’s not going to happen”.

“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.

When asked about the deal between Russian and Ukraine, Trump said: “We’re talking about here people dying. We’re going to get it stopped, ideally.

“Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has placed a number of conditions on any potential ceasefire.

Despite the Trump administration’s initial confidence that it could secure a deal quickly, attempts to reach a full ceasefire have yet to materialise, with Washington blaming both sides.

Following a meeting with European leaders in Paris about a potential ceasefire on Thursday, Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable.”

“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on,” he said about truce talks.

He said it was clear that a peace deal would be difficult to strike but there needed to be signs it could be done soon.

Trump had said before he re-entered office that he would stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked to respond to Trump saying he expected an answer from Russia on a ceasefire, said “the negotiations taking place are quite difficult”.

“The Russian side is striving to reach a peace settlement in this conflict, to ensure its own interests, and is open to dialogue,” he said.

The comments come as Russian strikes on Ukraine continue. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that Russia had launched a volley of missile attacks that killed two people.

During a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance said he was “optimistic” about ending the Ukraine war.

“I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and also some of the things that have happened even in the past 24 hours,” he said.

“I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war – this very brutal war – to a close.”

Vance’s comments followed separate news that Ukraine and the US took the first step towards striking a minerals deal, after an initial agreement was derailed when a February meeting between Trump and Zelensky erupted into a public shouting match.

On Thursday, the two countries signed a memorandum of intent stating that they intend to establish an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as part of an economic partnership agreement.

The aim is to finalise the deal by 26 April, the memo published by the Ukrainian government says.

The details of any deal remain unclear. Previous leaks have suggested the agreement has been extended beyond minerals to control of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as well as its oil and gas.

Ukrainian negotiators have tried to resist Trump’s demands that a joint investment fund would pay back the US for previous military aid, but have seemingly accepted his claim that it would help the country recover after the war ends.

The memo said the “American people desire to invest alongside the Ukrainian people in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”.

Zelensky had been hoping to use the deal to secure a US security guarantee in the event of a ceasefire deal, telling European leaders last month that “a ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine”.

The US has so far resisted providing Kyiv with security guarantees.

The White House argues the mere presence of US businesses would put off Russia from further aggression, but that did not exactly work when they invaded in 2022.

Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced the signing of the memorandum on X, with pictures of Svyrydenko and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent separately signing the document over an online call.

“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries,” Svyrydenko wrote.

Bessent said the details were still being worked out but the deal is “substantially what we’d agreed on previously.”

Trump hinted at the deal during a press conference with Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, saying “we have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on (next) Thursday…and I assume they’re going to live up to the deal. So we’ll see. But we have a deal on that.”

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, an MP and the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on EU Integration, told the BBC the Ukrainian Parliament will have “the last word” in the deal.

She added: “I hope that there will be enough reasoning to ensure that whatever is signed, and if it is going to be ratified that it is in the interest of our country and our people.

The memo release comes as a 30-day moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin expires.

Peskov said Putin had not yet issued any new orders regarding the temporary ceasefire.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris to discuss how to end the war.

Sybiha said they had “discussed the paths to a fair and lasting peace, including full ceasefire, multinational contingent, and security guarantees for Ukraine”.

One of two people killed in an on-campus shooting at Florida State University was an employee of food service provider Aramark, the company said on Friday.

Authorities have not released the names of the victims, but relatives identified the Aramark employee as Robert Morales, a university dining worker. Doctors said six others injured in the attack were all expected to make a full recovery.

The alleged gunman, 20-year-old FSU student Phoenix Ikner, began shooting at around lunchtime on Thursday near the student union building in Tallahassee. The motive remains unclear.

The suspect allegedly used a gun owned by his stepmother, Jessica Ikner, a veteran police officer.

“We are heartbroken to confirm that an Aramark employee was among those killed at FSU yesterday in that senseless act of violence,” the company, which manages Florida State University’s on-campus dining programmes, said in a statement. “We are absolutely shaken by the news and our deepest sympathies are with the family and our entire Aramark community.”

Robert Morales was identified as one of the dead victims by his sister, who posted a tribute online. His LinkedIn profile said he had been working at FSU as a university dining co-ordinator since 2015.

At a news conference on Friday, doctors at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare hospital said six people injured by gunshots were in stable condition, with one seriously injured.

Doctors said two of the victims would be released from hospital on Friday.

According to a police timeline, officers responded to an active shooter call shortly before midday local time on Thursday. An alert was issued warning students and those on campus to “seek shelter and await further instructions”.

“One of my classmates got an alert on her phone and announced it to the rest of the class,” student Ava Arenado told CBS News Miami.

Another student, Blake Leonard, told CBS he initially heard roughly 12 shots fired.

“In my head, I thought it was construction at first, until I looked behind me and saw people running from the union towards my direction, and then I heard another 12 or 15 shots go off, so I started running away from there too,” he said.

The incident ended less than five minutes later when police shot Phoenix Ikner after he did not comply with their commands, authorities said. He was treated at a local hospital and remained in custody.

Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil described the suspect’s stepmother Mrs Ikner, who worked as a school resource officer, as a “model employee”.

He said the gun used in the shooting was a police-issued firearm that Mrs Ikner kept for personal use after the force upgraded its weapons. A shotgun was also found at the scene, police said.

The suspect was a “longstanding member” of the sheriff office’s youth advisory council and was engaged in a number of training programmes, Sheriff McNeil said.

“So it is not a surprise that he had access to weapons,” he said.

Court documents indicate that the alleged gunman was largely raised by his father and stepmother.

He was previously known as Christian Eriksen and was the subject of a long-running custody dispute between his biological mother and father. He had health issues including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a growth disorder, according to court documents.

The FSU student newspaper quoted the suspect commenting on an anti-Trump rally on campus in January.

FSUNews.com said Mr Ikner, who was registered to vote as a Republican, commented about anti-Trump protesters: “These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons.”

President Donald Trump, who said he was briefed on the incident, called the shooting “a shame, a horrible thing”.

When asked by reporters whether he wanted to change gun regulations in light of the shooting, he said he was a “big advocate” of the Second Amendment in the US Constitution, which protects gun rights.

“I have been since the beginning,” he said. “I have protected it. These things are terrible. We will have more to say about it later.”

The leaders of Canada’s four major federal parties have squared off in their second and final debate ahead of this month’s general election.

But it was someone off stage who stole much of the spotlight – US President Donald Trump.

A big question heading into the two-hour forum was whether Liberal leader Mark Carney, who has been leading in the polls, would stumble.

Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, managed to survive Wednesday’s French debate despite being less proficient in the country’s second-most spoken language.

On Thursday, he found himself placed on the spot repeatedly by his three opponents: Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet.

How to respond to Canada’s ongoing trade war with the US was a theme, but the debate also saw clashes on affordability, crime and the environment.

Here are five big takeaways from Thursday’s primetime showdown:

Carney’s opponents were quick to focus on the mistakes of his unpopular predecessor, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Conservative leader Poilievre made references to the “lost Liberal decade”, talking about the last 10 years when the Liberal party has been in power. He cited issues like housing affordability and the high cost of living to drive his point home.

“How can we possibly believe that you are any different?” Poilievre asked Carney.

Blanchet also threw down the gauntlet to Carney. “You claim you are different – you need to prove you are better.”

Carney was forced to defend himself multiple times, noting that he has only been in the prime minister’s chair for one month despite sharing the same party banner as Trudeau.

“I am a very different person than Justin Trudeau,” Carney said.

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The leaders were asked about how they would negotiate with Trump and respond to his tariffs on Canada.

The US president has implemented blanket 25% tariffs on goods from Canada, with an exemption on products covered by the USMCA – a North American free trade deal. Canada is also hit with global US tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars.

The president has also publicly spoken about Canada becoming the 51st US state.

Canada’s government has previously said its position is to implement “dollar-for-dollar” tariffs with the aim of inflicting maximum pain on the US economy.

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But during the debate, the leaders appeared to concede it is ultimately not an equal fight.

“We’ve moved on from dollar-for-dollar tariffs,” Carney said, acknowledging that the US economy is more than 10 times the size of Canada’s.

The Liberal leader said the focus would shift to targeted tariffs designed to maximise pain on the US and hurt Canada as little as possible.

Trump appears to have softened his language on Canada in recent weeks. After a phone call with the US president in late March, Carney said Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” and that their conversation was “constructive”.

Canada and the US are expected to start talks on trade and security after the 28 April election.

For Canadians tuned in to issues facing the country beyond Trump and his tariffs, the debate offered substantive policy discussions on topics from housing to crime to immigration.

It was clear that Canadians have starkly different choices before them.

Poilievre frequently championed his vision of a small government that would keep taxes low to drive up economic growth and affordability for Canadians, and that would be tough on crime.

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Singh, meanwhile, pushed for stronger social programmes in Canada, including expanding the country’s national dental care and pharmacare programmes and other healthcare spending.

Carney stuck close to the centrist point of view of his party.

“Government can play a role, but its role has to be catalytic,” he said during a segment on strong leadership in a crisis.

Canada’s political system, similar to that of the UK, has several political parties – the centrist Liberals, the right-leaning Conservatives, the left-leaning New Democrats, and the Bloc, which only runs candidates in Quebec.

There is also the Green Party, which was disqualified at the last minute from the debate for not running enough candidates.

But polls suggest that in this election, the bulk of Canadians are opting to support either the Conservatives or the Liberals.

This has left the third-place parties fighting for survival. National polls have Singh’s New Democrats polling at 8.5% – which could roughly translate to just five seats out of 343, a major loss from their current 24 seats.

Singh pushed to make his voice heard, repeatedly interrupting both Poilievre and Carney in a bid to set his party apart as the choice for left-wing voters.

“You can’t entrust all the power to Mr Carney,” Singh remarked.

Meanwhile, Bloc leader Blanchet inserted issues relevant to the French-speaking province at every opportunity.

His party, too, stands to lose at least a dozen seats in Quebec, according to current polling.

Despite the frequent crosstalk, the tone overall was rather cordial.

The general sense of decorum was apparent when the leaders were discussing the housing crisis. In a rebuttal to Poilievre, Carney appeared to stop himself before laying into his opponent.

“A misunderstanding… ,” Carney said as he paused mid-sentence, adding: “I’ll be polite.”

Even after some heated exchanges, Carney and Poilievre were filmed shaking hands and laughing afterwards.

Not only was it strikingly different to some recent presidential debate cycles in the US, it was even friendlier than some past Canadian federal debates.

As Iran and the United States prepare to hold a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks in Rome, hopes for de-escalation are being tempered by mounting military threats and mixed messages.

US President Donald Trump reminds Tehran nearly every day of its options: a deal or war.

He has previously said Israel would lead a military response if the talks failed.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Trump had “waved off” an Israeli plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites as early as next month.

“I wouldn’t say waved off. I’m not in a rush to do it,” Trump told reporters in response to the article on Thursday, adding that he preferred to give diplomacy a chance.

“I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death… That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran.”

After both sides described the first round of talks in Oman last weekend as constructive, Trump had said he would be “making a decision on Iran very quickly”.

In 2018, Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 agreement which saw Iran limit its nuclear activities and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for sanctions relief.

He said it did too little to stop Iran’s potential pathway to a nuclear weapon and reinstated US sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Iran to negotiate a new deal.

However, Iran refused and increasingly breached restrictions in retaliation. It has now stockpiled enough highly-enriched uranium to make several bombs if it chose to do so – something it says it would never do.

The threat of military action appears to have played a role in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. Yet it insists that is not the reason.

The website of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran had agreed to talks only because the US limited its demands strictly to nuclear issues – not out of fear of US and Israeli strikes.

Even so, reaching a deal remains far from certain.

Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who is leading the US negotiating team, posted on X on Tuesday: “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East – meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization programme.”

It came just a day after he had suggested in an interview with Fox News that Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium.

“They do not need to enrich past 3.67%,” he said, referring to the limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

“This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme and then ultimately verification on weaponization.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the head of the Iranian delegation, responded by noting Witkoff’s “contradictory statements” and stressing that “real positions will be made clear at the negotiating table”.

“We are ready to build trust regarding possible concerns over Iran’s enrichment, but the principle of enrichment is not negotiable,” he said.

This Saturday’s talks in Rome come amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, visited Tehran on Thursday, delivering a personal message from his father King Salman to Ayatollah Khamenei. He also met Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran has warned that any US military action would be met with retaliation against American bases in the region – many of them hosted by Iran’s Arab neighbours.

At the same time, Araghchi visited Moscow and handed a letter from Khamenei to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Iran and Russia have strengthened their military ties since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Tehran accused of supplying drones to support Moscow’s war effort.

The Russian parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership between Iran and Russia 10 days ago. However, the deal does not include a mutual defence clause.

Meanwhile, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi completed a two-day visit to Tehran this week, meeting Iranian nuclear officials and the foreign minister in a bid to ease tensions and restore inspection protocols.

Since Trump returned to office this year, Ayatollah Khamenei has consistently denounced negotiations with Washington.

“Negotiating with this administration is not logical, not wise, nor honourable,” he said in a February speech, just two months before agreeing to the current round of talks.

The supreme leader’s distrust stems from Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the “maximum pressure” campaign that followed, and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Iraq in 2020.

Ayatollah Khamenei expressed satisfaction with the first round of talks, saying it was “implemented well”.

But he cautioned that he was “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic”.

He has also previously warned that Iran would ​retaliate in the event of strikes on its nuclear programme.

Some officials, including his adviser Ali Larijani, have even said that Iran might be “forced” to acquire a nuclear weapon if attacked.

“We are not pursuing weapons, and we have no problem with IAEA oversight – even indefinitely. But if you resort to bombing, Iran will have no choice but to reconsider. That is not in your interest,” Larijani told state TV earlier this month.

Each side is pushing its own narrative about how the talks are being conducted.

The US says they are direct. Iran says they indirect, and that Oman is mediating by exchanging written notes.

After the first round in Muscat, Araghchi acknowledged he had a brief exchange with Witkoff “out of diplomatic courtesy” after crossing paths.

US news website Axios, citing sources, reported the two chief negotiators spoke for up to 45 minutes.

Tehran prefers secrecy. Washington seeks publicity.

After both sides put out positive statements about the first round, Iran’s currency surged by 20%.

Iran’s leadership is well aware of public discontent over the country’s harsh economic conditions – and the potential for protests it may trigger.

For the Islamic Republic, the fear is not just over bombs – it’s protests too.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he discussed his country’s potential to collaborate with the US on “technology and innovation” during a conversation with Elon Musk.

On Friday, Modi shared a post on X detailing his telephone conversation with the tech billionaire and said they had revisited topics from their meeting in Washington earlier this year.

Modi’s conversation with Musk comes as India is working towards securing a bilateral trade agreement with the US to offset the brunt of US President Donald Trump’s potential tariffs.

It also comes days before US Vice-President JD Vance’s four-day trip to India.

“We discussed the immense potential for collaboration in the areas of technology and innovation,” Modi wrote in his post on X.

He added that India remained “committed to advancing our partnerships with the US” in these domains.

Musk, who is seen as being close to Trump and also heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is looking at making inroads into India with his business plans.

In March, Starlink signed an agreement with two of India’s biggest telecoms firms to bring satellite internet to India and is awaiting government approval to start providing its services.

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Tesla could also finally be making its debut and has begun hiring for a dozen jobs in Delhi and Mumbai. It is also reportedly hunting for showrooms in both cities.

Meanwhile, Vance is set to meet Modi on 21 April, the first day of his trip, for discussions on economic, trade and geopolitical ties.

He will be accompanied by his children and wife Usha Vance whose parents migrated to the US from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The visit comes against the backdrop of an intensifying trade war between the US and China.

Trump slapped India too with 27% US tariffs on 2 April, before he announced a 90-day pause.

Since then, Delhi and Washington have been working towards an early conclusion of trade negotiations.

Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni talked up the chances of a trade deal between the US and Europe, as the Italian prime minister visited Washington.

“There will be a trade deal, 100%,” Trump said, “but it will be a fair deal”, while Meloni said she was “sure” they could reach an agreement, later adding that her aim was to “make the West great again”.

Meloni is the first European leader to visit Washington since Trump imposed, then paused, 20% tariffs on imports from the bloc.

The US president separately said on Thursday that he is confident of making “a very good deal” with China, adding that representatives from Beijing have reached out “a number of times”.

Trump and Meloni enjoy a good relationship and the Italian leader hopes to position herself as a bridge between the EU and the US amid fractured relations and mounting concerns about the global impact of Trump’s tariffs.

Despite his confidence in an eventual deal, Trump said he was in “no rush”.

“Everybody wants to make a deal. And if they don’t want to make a deal, we’ll make the deal for them,” he said, adding that he expects to cut deals with every country “over the next three to four weeks”.

Trump also suggested that he was reluctant to further raise tariffs on China – which currently stand at 145%.

“I may not want to go higher. I may want to go to less because you know, you want people to buy and, at a certain point, people aren’t gonna buy,” he told reporters at the White House.

At a press conference on Thursday following Trump’s and Meloni’s conversation, the leaders said they had discussed defence spending, immigration and tariffs.

The atmosphere in the Oval Office appeared relaxed and good-natured – similar to the reception UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer received during his visit to the White House in February.

However Meloni’s aides had described the visit as a “commercial peace mission” following Trump’s decision to impose a 10% baseline tariff on almost all foreign imports to the US.

He has strongly criticised the European Union on trade, claiming it was “formed to screw the United States”. A 20% “retaliatory” tariff on the EU has been temporarily suspended until July.

Meloni previously called the tariffs “absolutely wrong” and said they would end up damaging the EU “as much as the US”.

While she didn’t score any tangible wins on tariffs during the meeting, she did convince Trump to accept an invitation to visit Rome, which she said would be an occasion for him to meet other European leaders.

Given the fraught relations between the EU and the US, Meloni will likely chalk that up as a significant win, particularly if Trump agrees to meet the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, during the visit.

Meloni will return to Europe with stronger credentials as the so-called “Trump whisperer”, something that will be reinforced when she meets US Vice President JD Vance in Rome tomorrow.

The Italian leader was careful to praise Trump and align herself with the US president’s viewpoints.

In her statement following the meeting, she criticised “woke ideology” and championed the “war against illegal migration”.

“The goal for me is to make the West great again, and I think we can do it together,” she added.

She also seized the opportunity to tout the work of her own government. “I’m proud of sitting here as prime minister of an Italy that today has a very good situation – a stable country, a reliable country,” Meloni said.

She noted that her government had brought inflation down and improved employment, before gesturing towards Trump and adding with a broad smile: “Forgive me if I promote my country, but you’re a businessman and you understand me”. Trump grinned back.

Meloni basked in the praise lavished on her by Trump – from compliments about her work as prime minister to gushing about her Italian sounding “beautiful”.

The US president praised Meloni for taking a tough stance on immigration and said he wished more people were like her. Meloni said that change was happening, thanks to the example set by Italy, referring to yesterday’s EU announcement on safe countries.

It was only occasionally that she showed a tinge of irritation when asked about Italy’s low defence spending.

Meloni said that she expects Italy to announce at the next Nato meeting in June that her country would be able to meet the alliance’s requirement that each member nation spends 2% of GDP on defence.

Defence spending has been a key sticking point for Trump, with the US leader repeatedly demanding that Nato allies increase spending.

Italy is one of eight countries that currently does not meet the 2% threshold, spending 1.49% on defence.

Italian opposition leader Carlo Calenda said there had been “two very positive outcomes” from the visit: that Meloni “stayed on track on Ukraine and managed to convince Trump to meet EU figures in Italy”.

Calenda said Meloni had “gained credibility as a bridge between the US and the EU” but criticised her praise of “Trump’s fight on woke culture”.

An Indian man accused of orchestrating terror attacks in the northern state of Punjab has been arrested in the US.

On Friday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Harpreet Singh had been arrested by the FBI and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Sacramento.

The FBI alleged that Singh was linked to two international terrorist groups and had entered the US illegally and had been using burner phones to evade arrest.

Singh is in custody and has not commented on the allegations yet.

In a post on X, the FBI called Singh an “alleged terrorist responsible for terror attacks in Punjab, India”.

According to local media, Singh is linked to 14 of 16 grenade attacks in Punjab over the past seven months, targeting police posts, religious sites and homes of public figures.

Singh, who is also known as Happy Passia, is specifically wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a grenade attack on a house in Chandigarh city in 2024.

According to India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), the attack was aimed at a retired Punjab police officer.

In January, the NIA announced a reward of 500,000 rupees ($5,855; £4414) to anyone who shared information about Singh.

In March, the NIA brought formal charges against four people, including Singh, over the attack.

The NIA said in a statement that the four belonged to Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) – a militant organisation that aims to create an independent state of Khalistan in the Punjab region. India has designated BKI a terrorist group.

The statement also named Singh and Harwinder Singh Sandhu – also known as Rinda – and referred to the two men as “terrorists”, as the “primary handlers and masterminds behind the attack”.

“They had provided logistical support, terror funds, weapons and ammunition to India-based on-ground operatives in Chandigarh for executing the grenade attack,” it said.

It added that investigations had revealed Singh and Sandhu had orchestrated the conspiracy to “strike terror among law enforcement officials and general public”.

Sandhu’s whereabouts are not known and he is listed as a “most wanted” suspect by the NIA.

Since pop star Katy Perry returned to Earth earlier this week, the number of memes referencing her brief trip to space has skyrocketed.

After weighing in with jokes of its own, American fast-food chain Wendy’s has clarified that its now-viral tweets weren’t meant to cause offense.

Following criticism from followers, the company put out a statement this week saying it had no ill-will for Perry.

“We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent,” it said.

The star-studded, all-female crew on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket took off in Texas on Monday and flew for 11 minutes in total. Perry was joined by five other women, including journalist Gayle King and Jeff Bezos’ partner Lauren Sanchez.

But the “Fireworks” singer’s reactions captivated the internet more than others’. After landing, she kissed the ground, saying she felt “so connected to love”.

King revealed that Perry sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while in space.

Memes and comments began to flood social media platforms, including Wendy’s series of posts on its official X account when she landed: “When we said women in stem this isn’t what we meant” and “Can we send her back”.

While the space flight was meant to celebrate women, the crew has faced some criticism. The backlash ranged from the environmental impact of the flight to looming cuts for actual Nasa employees.

Other celebrities also offered their two cents.

“I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” actress Olivia Munn said in an appearance on TODAY. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they going to do up there that is going to help us down here?”

Model and activist Emily Ratajkowski said on TikTok that the flight was “beyond parody”.

“Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space,” she said. “For what?”

But not all reactions were negative. TV reality star Khloe Kardashian, watching from the viewing platform, said: “Whatever you dream of is in our reach, especially in today’s day and age.”

Oprah Winfrey, a close friend of King, also watched the launch. She was seen tearing up as the craft landed.

“I’ve never been more proud of my friend than today,” she said.

King countered some of the negative comments, saying she believes the flight inspired young women who want to be astronauts.

“I feel that anybody who is criticising doesn’t really understand what’s happening here,” she said.

Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump discussed “ongoing and productive” trade talks, No 10 has said, in their first call since the US president imposed tariffs on UK goods.

The prime minister stressed his commitment to “free and open trade and the importance of protecting the national interest”, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

They added that the two leaders also discussed “the situation in Ukraine, Iran and recent action taken against the Houthis in Yemen”.

Sir Keir is hoping to secure a deal with the US after Trump unveiled 10% tariffs on UK goods and a higher 25% rate on imports of cars, steel and aluminium.

“The leaders began by discussing the ongoing and productive discussions between the UK and US on trade,” No 10 said in a statement.

US Vice-President JD Vance said on Tuesday there was a “good chance” a trade deal could be reached with the UK.

Trump announced a barrage of tariffs earlier this month and shares on stock markets around the world have since tumbled.

The S&P 500 index of the largest firms listed in the US, the UK FTSE 100, German Dax, and French Cac 40 have recovered some value as Trump has delayed some tariffs and made exceptions, but are lower than before 2 April.

The current tariff policy now puts a 10% “baseline” tariff on all imports from the UK, France and other long-standing trade partners. China faces much harsher tariffs.

A tariff is a tax on businesses buying a good from overseas, but businesses often pass the costs from the tariff onto the consumer or overseas the seller.

The World Trade Organization said on Wednesday that global trade will shrink as a result of the tariffs while the International Monetary Fund downgraded its predictions for growth because of them.

The UK has been trying to avoid the tariffs by agreeing some kind of economic deal with the US, while the EU and Canada has responded with counter tariffs.

Several Eurostar trains between London, Paris and Brussels have been hit by delays ahead of the Easter weekend.

At least one train has been cancelled, and four others delayed by at least an hour, according to the Eurostar website.

A message on the site says Eurostar is “currently experiencing delays on our routes due to technical and operational incidents”.

The delays have been caused by a fire near the tracks, it says, without giving further details or the location.

Earlier on Friday, the fire brigade put out a fire underneath a bridge near Ebbsfleet International, according to a post on X by Network Rail Kent and Sussex.

It said services had been impacted and replacement buses were now in operation.

Southeastern Railway later wrote on X that the line had reopened but “at a reduced speed of 160kph (100mph)”.

Reports in France said trains to and from Gare du Nord station in Paris were affected, and facing severe disruption.

“We are doing our best to get the situation resolved as soon as possible, and apologise for any inconvenience,” Eurostar wrote on its website.

Ryan Gosling is to star in a new Star Wars film, which is set to be released in two years’ time.

The new Disney project is titled Star Wars: Starfighter, and will be directed by Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy.

“The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters,” said Barbie actor Gosling at a Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo.

“It’s filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”

Gosling’s lifelong passion for the franchise was on display at the event, which showed his childhood Star Wars bedsheets on screen.

“You can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about Star Wars before I even saw the film,” he said.

“And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was,” he said.

Set to be released on 7 May 2027, the film is a standalone story and won’t follow the main plotline of the Skywalker family and recent sequels starring Daisy Ridley.

Not many details about the storyline have been revealed yet.

According to the Star Wars website, it is “set approximately five years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker” with Gosling playing a new character.

The new space adventure is “not a prequel, not sequel, it’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet”, added Levy.

The next Star Wars film release is set to be The Mandalorian And Grogu, a sequel to The Mandalorian starring Pedro Pascal and directed by Jon Favreau.

Gosling was nominated at the Oscars for his portrayal of Ken in 2023’s Barbie blockbuster, which also starred Margot Robbie.

The Canadian actor, known for roles in La La Land and The Notebook, also starred as a stuntman in last year’s The Fall Guy.

Wembley, Old Trafford and Anfield regularly welcome football tourists from foreign shores – but they are a far less common sight at Harborough Town’s home ground in Leicestershire.

So imagine the surprise when more than 100 Spanish sports fans turned up to enjoy the non-league club’s match against St Ives Town on Saturday.

The Spaniards were subscribers to a Spanish YouTube channel devoted to English football which has now started arranging trips.

“Some of the local fans were quite surprised, probably wondering what 100 Spaniards were doing there,” said Madrid-born and new Harborough Town fan Alvaro Sanz.

The channel La Media Inglesa (LMI) was founded by Barcelona-born Ilie Oleart and covers English football matches for Spanish speaking fans across the world.

Since launching in 2011, the channel has gained more than 440,000 subscribers and began offering trips to the UK in 2018 so the fans could watch games in person.

Mr Oleart, who supports La Liga side Espanyol, said the next step for LMI was to not only show English football but also try to be involved with an English football club in some way.

“Our aim was to transform a small local English club into a small local club with a global fanbase,” he said.

After speaking to different lower league clubs, Mr Oleart asked his subscribers which club they should link up with – and Harborough Town FC emerged as the fans’ choice.

“I met people at the club in September to get to know their history, the town and the facilities,” said Mr Oleart.

“We thought they were the perfect club with the right values to share with our audience.”

Harborough Town games in the seventh tier of English football will now be live-streamed on the LMI Youtube channel, giving Spanish-speaking fans a chance to become “virtual supporters” of the club.

The club – nicknamed the Bees – have already captured the imagination this season by reaching the FA Cup second round for the first time and having former Brazilian international Sandro play for them.

Club chairman Peter Dougan said the partnership with LMI was an “opportunity to grow our fanbase and our income” through a global audience and could open the door to sponsorship deals.

“It was being in the right place at the right time,” he said.

“LMI liked what they saw and we decided they were right for our club too.”

Despite Harborough losing 2-1 to St Ives Town in their Southern League Premier Division Central encounter, Mr Oleart said his group were “very happy” with their experience.

“It was certainly the best trip we have had so far,” he said.

“We occupied a full stand and started cheering from the first second of the game,” added fan Alvaro Sanz.

“Quite a few local fans joined us, and we even taught them some chants in Spanish.

“We didn’t stop supporting the team for the entire match.”

Before the game, residents watched in amusement as two coachloads of Spanish supporters arrived in the town centre before marching around singing Spanish songs before kick-off.

“It wasn’t just any club anymore, it felt like our club,” said Mr Oleart.

“We were able to meet the players after the match and even have a drink with them in the pub, which is something that is impossible to imagine at a Premier League club.

“We wanted to ensure the trip was a chance for us to create a relationship with their fans too.

“There are many things to do to work on the alliance and to make it stronger, but I am sure there are many great memories to create in the future and I am hoping to bring 200-300 fans with me next time.

“Many football fans are looking for this experience and we are glad to do it with Harborough Town FC.”

Bees chairman Pete Dougan said: “It was a great day and the atmosphere they generated was superb.

“It was like song tennis in the stadium, our fans were singing songs in English and then they sang songs back in Spanish. It was good fun.”

Dougan said he was looking forward to welcoming his new fans back next season and revealed the club are heading to Barcelona and Madrid for a pre-season tour in July.

When US President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs in his first term, Vietnamese entrepreneur Hao Le saw an opportunity.

His company is one of hundreds of businesses that have emerged to compete with Chinese exports that have increasingly been facing restrictions from the West.

Le’s SHDC Electronics, which sits in the budding industrial hub of Hai Duong, sells $2m (£1.5m) worth of phone and computer accessories every month to the United States.

But that revenue could dry up if Trump imposes 46% tariffs on Vietnamese goods, a plan that is currently on hold until early July. That would be “catastrophic for our business,” Le says.

And selling to Vietnamese consumers is not an option, he adds: “We cannot compete with Chinese products. This is not just our challenge. Many Vietnamese companies are struggling in their own home market.”

Trump tariffs in 2016 sent a glut of cheap Chinese imports, originally intended for the US, into South East Asia, hurting many local manufacturers. But they also opened new doors for other businesses, often into global supply chains that wanted to cut their dependence on China.

But Trump 2.0 threaten to shut those doors, which it sees as an unacceptable loophole. And that’s a blow for fast-growing economies like Vietnam and Indonesia that are gunning to be key players in industries from chips to electric vehicles.

They also find themselves stuck between the world’s two biggest economies – China, a powerful neighbour and their biggest trading partner, and the US, a key export market, which could be looking to strike a deal at Beijing’s expense.

And so Xi Jinping’s long-planned trip to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week took on fresh urgency.

All three countries rolled out the the red carpet for him, but Trump saw it as more evidence of them conspiring to “screw” the US.

The White House will use its upcoming negotiations with smaller nations to pressure them into limiting their dealings with Beijing, according to reports.

But that could be a fanciful ambition given the amount of money flowing between China and South East Asia.

In 2024, China earned a record $3.5tn from exports – 16% of those went to South East Asia, its biggest market. Beijing, in turn, has paid for railways in Vietnam, dams in Cambodia and ports in Malaysia as part of its “Belt and Road” infratructure programme that seeks to boost ties abroad.

“We can’t choose, and we will never choose [between China and the US],” Malaysia’s trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the BBC on Tuesday, ahead of Xi’s visit.

“If the issue is about something that we feel is against our interest, then we will protect [ourselves].”

In the days after Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs, South East Asian governments scrambled into deal-making mode.

In what Trump described as a “very productive call” with Vietnamese leader To Lam, the latter offered to completely scrap tariffs on US goods.

The US market is crucial to Vietnam, an emerging electronics powerhouse where manufacturing giants like Samsung, Intel and Foxconn, the Taiwanese firm contracted to make iPhones, have set up shop.

Meanwhile, Thai officials are headed to Washington with a plan that includes higher US imports and investments. The US is their largest export market, so they are hoping to avoid the 36% levy on Thailand that Trump may reinstate.

“We will tell the US government that Thailand is not only an exporter but also an ally and economic partner that the US can rely on in the long term,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has ruled out retaliation against Trump’s tariffs, instead choosing to emphasise their economic and political importance to the US.

“We understand the concerns of the US,” Mr Zafrul told the BBC. “That’s why we need to show that actually we, Asean, especially Malaysia, can be that bridge.”

It’s a role that South East Asia’s export-driven economies have played well – they have benefitted from both Chinese and US trade and investment. But Trump’s paused levies could derail that.

Take Malaysia, for instance. In recent years, chip manufacturers from the US and elsewhere have invested there, as Washington blocks the sale of advanced tech to China. Last year China imported $18bn worth of chips from Malaysia. These chips are used in Chinese-made electronics, such as iPhones, typically bound for the US.

Trump’s proposed tariffs on Malaysia – 24% – could cut off the multi-billion dollar US market. But that’s not all.

“If this continues, then companies will have to rethink their investment commitments,” Mr Zafrul says. “This will have an impact not just on Malaysia’s economy, but on the global economy.”

Then there is Indonesia, which could face 32% tariffs, and is home to vast nickel reserves and has its sights set on the global electric vehicle supply chain.

Cambodia, a Chinese ally, faces the steepest levies: 49%. One of the poorest countries in the region, it has thrived as a trans-shipment hub for Chinese businesses seeking to skirt US tariffs. Chinese businesses currently own or operate 90% of the clothes factories, which mainly export to the US.

Trump may have hit pause on these tariffs but “the damage is done,” says Doris Liew, an economist at Malaysia’s Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.

“This serves as a wake-up call for the region, not only to reduce reliance on the US, but also to re-balance overdependence on any single trade and export partner.”

In these uncertain times , Xi Jinping is trying to send a steadfast message: Let’s join hands and resist “bullying” from the US.

That is no easy task because South East Asia also has trade tensions with Beijing.

In Indonesia, business owner Isma Savitri is worried that Trump’s 145% tariffs on China means more competition from Chinese rivals who can no longer export to the US.

“Small businesses like us feel squeezed,” says the owner of sleepwear brand Helopopy. “We are struggling to survive against an onslaught of ultra-cheap Chinese products.”

One of Helopopy’s popular pyjamas sells for $7.10 (119,000 Indonesian rupiah). Isma says she has seen similar designs from China going for around half that price.

“South East Asia, being close by, with open trade regimes and fast-growing markets, naturally became the dumping ground,” says Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute in Singapore. “Politically, many countries are reluctant to confront Beijing, which adds another layer of vulnerability.”

While consumers have welcomed competitively-priced Chinese products – from clothes to shoes to phones – thousands of local businesses have not been able to match such low prices.

More than 100 factories in Thailand have closed every month for the last two years, according to an estimate from a Thai think tank. During the same period in Indonesia, around 250,000 textile workers were laid off after some 60 garment manufacturers shut, local trade associations say – including Sritex, once the region’s largest textile maker.

“When we see the news, there are lots of imported products flooding the domestic market, which messes up our own market,” Mujiati, a worker who was laid off from Sritex in February after 30 years, tells the BBC.

“Maybe it just wasn’t our luck,” says the 50-year-old, who is still hunting for work. “Who can we complain to? There’s no-one.”

South East Asian governments responded with a wave of protectionism, as local businesses demanded to be shielded from the impact of Chinese imports.

Last year Indonesia considered 200% tariffs on a range of Chinese goods and blocked e-commerce site Temu, popular among Chinese merchants. Thailand tightened inspections of imports and imposed additional tax on goods worth less than 1,500 Thai baht ($45; £34).

This year Vietnam has twice imposed temporary anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel products. And after Trump’s latest tariffs announcement, Vietnam is reportedly set to crack down on Chinese goods being trans-shipped via its territory to the US.

Allaying these fears would have been on Xi’s agenda this week.

China is concerned that channelling its US-bound exports to the rest of the world would “end up really alienating and aggravating” its trading partners, David Rennie, the former Beijing bureau chief for the Economist newspaper, told BBC’s Newshour.

“If a tidal wave of Chinese exports ends up swamping those markets and damaging employment and jobs … that’s a massive diplomatic and geopolitical headache for the Chinese leadership.”

China has not always had an easy relationship with this region. Barring Laos, Cambodia and a war-torn Myanmar, the others are wary of Beijing’s ambitions. Territorial disputes in the South China have soured ties with the Philippines. This is also an issue with others such as Vietnam and Malaysia, but trade has been a balancing factor.

But that might change now, experts say.

“South East Asia had to think about whether they really wanted to offend China. Now this complicates things,” says Chong Ja-Ian, associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

China’s loss could be South East Asia’s gain.

Hao Le, in Vietnam, says he has seen a surge in enquiries from American customers scouting for new electronics suppliers, outside of China: “In the past, US buyers would take months to switch suppliers. Today, such decisions are made within days.”

Malaysia, with sprawling rubber plantations and the world’s largest medical rubber glove maker, has nearly half the world’s market for rubber gloves. But it is poised to grab a bigger share from its main competitor, China.

The region still faces a 10% baseline tariff, like most of the world. And that is bad news, says Oon Kim Hung, president of the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association.

But even if the paused tariffs kick in, he says, customers will find paying an additional 24% on Malaysian gloves vastly preferable to the 145% levy they will have to cough up for Chinese-made gloves.

“We’re not exactly jumping with joy, but this may well benefit our manufacturers, as well as those in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.”

Before Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and threatened its sovereignty, the Canadian psyche was consumed with another major issue: housing affordability. With an election on the horizon, voters are wondering if any party has a plan to fix what has become a generational problem.

Willow Yamauchi says she was just a “regular” person when she and her husband bought their family home in Vancouver 25 years ago for a modest sum of C$275,000 – around C$435,000 ($312,000; £236,400) in today’s dollars.

That same property is now worth several million.

In the city on Canada’s west coast, Ms Yamauchi’s story is as common as the rainy weather. The average price of a detached home in Vancouver in 2000 was around C$350,000. Now, it is more than C$2m.

“My husband and I were very privileged to be able to purchase a house when we did,” the 52-year-old writer tells the BBC. As a member of Generation X, timing was on her side.

The same, she says, cannot be said for younger people, who – without “the bank of mom and dad” – are effectively priced out of the city they grew up in.

Vancouver, a cultural and economic hub with a population of less than one million, is often seen as the epicentre of Canada’s housing crisis. A report by Chapman University in California last year listed it among the top “impossibly unaffordable” cities in the world.

But it is not the only Canadian city where the cost of homes is out of reach for many. Canada as a whole has one of the highest house-price-to-income ratios among developed nations.

In 2021, the average household income after taxes in Canada was around C$88,000, according to national data. That same year, the average home price hit C$713,500 – more than eight times higher. The gap is even larger in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver.

For many Canadians, housing is one of the top issues in the federal election, eclipsed only recently by US President Donald Trump and his tariffs on Canada.

Before Trump, concerns on housing affordability had boosted the Conservative Party, which has consistently been seen as the best equipped to fix the crisis.

But then a trade war with the US came along and it catapulted the governing Liberal party to the top of the polls.

Even with the Trump factor, the topic featured prominently in the two election debates this week. During the French language one, moderator and journalist Patrice Roy displayed figures showing how much home prices had increased in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver in the last decade.

“I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise,” Mr Roy told the federal leaders, before asking for their plans on how they would fix the crisis.

Polls show young people are especially worried about the housing crisis and what it means for their future.

Speaking to students at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus, it quickly became clear that the issue was top of mind for many.

Many said they have either opted to live at home during their studies to save on costs, or are paying anywhere from C$1,100 to C$1,500 for a single room near campus, often in a home shared with five or six others.

Emily Chu, a 24-year-old who is in her final semester at UBC, says that she at one point had to delay her studies by two years in order to work, as she struggled to afford paying both tuition and rent.

She now shares an apartment with her older brother, who works full-time and pays the majority of the rent. Ms Chu considers herself one of the lucky ones.

As for home ownership in the future, she says “that’s not even possible” for most people her age. “Everybody kind of assumes that we can’t ever own housing.”

Young professionals with well-paying jobs, like Margareta Dovgal, are also priced out. The 28-year-old director at Vancouver-based non-profit Resource Works told the BBC that she has considered moving to the neighbouring province of Alberta due to its lower cost of living, despite being a lifelong and “committed Vancouverite”.

Still, Calgary, Alberta’s largest city, saw house prices increase by 15% in 2024 from the previous year as the city experienced its highest population growth rate since 2001.

The root causes of Canada’s housing affordability crisis are complex. One of the main issues is a supply that has not kept up with a growing population, which has driven up costs for both buyers and renters.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the national housing agency, estimates that more than 3.8 million homes need to be built in the next six years to address the shortage.

Construction of new housing, however, has been well below that target, raising questions on whether Canada will meet this goal. Experts say barriers to ramping up building include the high cost and scarcity of land in urban areas, where most Canadians tend to live and work.

There are also regional barriers, like city zoning laws that prevent the construction of more affordable, higher density housing – including apartment buildings or multiplexes – in some neighbourhoods.

Daniel Oleksiuk, co-founder of the advocacy group Abundant Housing Vancouver, says his city is one example, where more than half of the land has historically been zoned for single-family homes.

“We’ve kept almost all of the land reserved,” Mr Oleksiuk told the BBC. “There are whole neighbourhoods where all you have is three to five million dollar homes.”

On the campaign trail, each major federal party has put forward a plan to fix the crisis, all with the goal of building as many homes as quickly as possible.

The Liberals, led by Mark Carney, said their aim is to build 500,000 new homes a year with the help of a new government agency called Build Canada Homes that would oversee and finance the construction of affordable housing in Canada – a plan similar to one implemented after the Second World War to house veterans.

Critics have questioned whether Carney’s target is viable, as it would require Canada to more than double its current construction rate.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, vowed to tie federal funding to housing starts by rewarding cities that build more homes and penalising those that block construction – a carrot-and-stick approach.

Poilievre also promised to remove federal taxes on newly constructed homes in an effort to cut costs to would-be homebuyers. Critics, however, say this policy may have minimal effect, as most homes purchased in Canada are resold, rather than brand new.

Voters who spoke to the BBC say they welcome any plan to ramp up housing construction in Canada.

While much of housing is governed by provinces and cities, Ms Dovgal notes that the federal government has an ability “to lead persuasively” and implement measures that make it cheaper and easier to build across the country.

But others watching the issue closely caution that the steps proposed may not be enough.

Paul Kershaw, a public policy professor at UBC and founder of think tank Generation Squeeze, argues that politicians have failed to address the elephant in the room: the wealth older homeowners have generated off the housing crisis.

“The political bargain has asked younger Canadians to suffer higher rents and mortgages in order to protect those higher home values,” Kershaw notes.

“None of the parties are really naming that generational tension,” he says, adding that politicians may privately feel there is a political risk in trying to stall the cost of housing, and thus, older Canadians’ assets.

Prof Kershaw calls this a “cultural problem”, and says that parties should also focus on reducing costs for younger people as a way to alleviate this generational burden.

Fixing the housing crisis, he argues, is just as integral as asserting sovereignty and prosperity in the face of threats posed by Trump’s tariffs.

The “dysfunction that has entered our housing market is disruptive to the well-being of the country”, he says.

Until a fix is found, the possibility of homeownership still looks bleak for many.

Ms Dovgal contends half-heartedly that, other than moving elsewhere, “you have to win the lottery, or marry a multi-millionaire. These are kind of the options”.

This week saw more talks to agree a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, Hollywood star Mickey Rourke kicked out of Celebrity Big Brother, and scientists find new evidence of possible life on another planet.

But how much attention did you pay to what else has been going on in the world over the past seven days?

Quiz compiled by Ben Fell.

In the mood for more? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

Listen to Lina read this article

On the morning of 8 December 2024, I waited anxiously at the Lebanese border, hoping to get into Syria as soon as the crossing opened, not knowing what to expect.

Bashar al-Assad, the president of 24 years, was gone. Opposition fighters had advanced towards Damascus, taking major cities including Aleppo. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: Syria was free.

Like many Syrians, I’d only ever known the country under the rule of Assad and his father Hafez, who had been in power from 1971 until 2000. Life under the Assads had meant more than 50 years of disappearances, incarceration – and the civil war that began in 2011 had claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

I’d been detained at the start of the uprising that year, and several times afterwards; I witnessed men lined up to be beaten and heard screams of torture. Even after I left the country in 2013, I learnt that security forces had broken into my apartment in Damascus and vandalised it.

I assumed I’d lost my home country for good, then suddenly last year the dictatorship was toppled in just over a week. As I crossed the border into the country without fear of arrest, and watched rebel fighters shoot celebratory gunfire, while people rejoiced on the streets, I felt like laughing and crying at once.

For weeks, Damascus’s main Umayyad Square became a hub of celebrations. Young and old talked freely about politics and everywhere Syria’s future was debated openly; among street vendors and taxi drivers, boys cleaning shoes. All of this was unthinkable under Assad, as Syrians could never protest freely for fear of reprisals.

Only now, four months on, the situation is more complex. Though great strides have been made in gaining some social freedoms, there are growing concerns around what democracy will look like but also around the role of Islam in the new regime.

So, how long might these social freedoms remain – or could, as some fear, the newly won liberties be short-lived?

At Rawda Café in central Damascus, just across the road from Parliament, intellectuals gather around long tables to smoke shisha and discuss culture. Under Assad, political activists were picked up and arrested there. Rumour had it that some waiters were regime informants.

Today, it’s a very different picture. The café hosts talks and music plays. Prominent figures who once fled the country have returned too – many are greeted by a band playing traditional songs with a giant drum.

Syrian journalist Mohammad Ghannam is one of them. He tells me that he spent months in prisons during Assad’s regime and later moved to France; his euphoria at returning is palpable.

“I think everyone who can come back, should come back to rebuild the country,” he declares. “There is a window to do whatever you want now compared with before 8 December 2024.”

Reflecting on the past, he adds: “Even preachers in the mosques needed to get approval and know what they were going to preach. [Now] it’s completely free. [At] Friday prayers the Imam was talking about how your personal freedom shouldn’t step on other people’s freedom.”

Odai al-Zobi has also recently returned to Syria after 14 years – he left to study but says he was unable to come back before now because he was outspoken about the regime.

“My books were banned here,” he tells me. “Now there is no censorship, you can read whatever you want. I was very surprised that a lot of people want to read and want to know more.”

“This is a big change,” agrees Ali al-Atassi, a Syrian documentary-maker and son of former Syrian President Noureddine al-Atassi. (His father was deposed in a coup by Hafez al-Assad.)

“It changed the rules of the game, and opened a lot of perspectives for the country.”

Syria’s vibrant arts and culture scene has long been a source of the country’s pride: the Assads supported it, wanting to present a rich culture to the world yet some artists and writers were killed for their views on the regime.

Even carrying certain books was once cause for arrest. Today, however, all kinds of books are on display in shops around the capital – even political titles. Cinema clubs screen films that were previously banned too.

For weeks after Assad’s fall, the caretaker government didn’t appoint a Minister of Culture, but musicians and artists grouped together to protect the culture scene.

Now, however, there are fresh concerns: while Syria under Assad saw political debates repressed, some worry that repression by clerics could end up forbidding some forms of art seen as anti-religious.

There is no clear evidence of this. Dr Maher Al Sharaa, the brother of the interim president, has been seen at the city’s Opera House with his family; Vivaldi was played by Syrian musicians. The family looked like any modern one who would go on a weekend cultural outing.

And after the fall of Assad, a cultural event with talks about cinema, music, theatre and performances was held at Beit Farhi, a historic house in the heart of Damascus’s Jewish quarter. An all-female orchestra played songs that praised revolutions and martyrs. Some in the audience were left in tears.

“It is great to have this opportunity to talk among us about how to protect and support the art scene in Syria,” says Noura Murad, a choreographer.

Mr al-Atassi also chooses to be optimistic. “I believe the Syrians won’t allow this regime to enter in their private lives, to create rules on how to behave in the public space.”

When Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel offensive that overthrew Assad, was appointed by a military council on 29 January, he delivered a speech in which he stressed that the priority was to “fill the power vacuum in a legitimate and legal way”.

But months on, there is concern among some around the likelihood of building a lasting democracy. And there is no system in place to hold officials, including the president, accountable until a permanent constitution is adopted and elections are held.

“The past few months, the regime has not been ready to share power and allow other political and social forces to find their place in society,” argues Mr Al-Atassi. “Without opening up the political arena to other forces, I don’t think Sharaa can bring Syria back to the international community.”

In February, hundreds gathered at the People’s Palace in Damascus for a two-day national dialogue about Syria’s future. Some critics argued that the meeting was organised in haste and was too short to cover all the key topics.

According to Abdulhay Sayed, a Syrian legal expert and managing partner at Sayed and Sayed law firm, it was neither representative nor truly reflective of consensus.

“Large segments of Syrian society felt excluded or unrepresented,” he argues. “[It] was conceived as a mechanism to simulate wider assent.”

However, he concedes: “It does reflect a certain willingness on the part of the new authorities to expand the scope of consultation.”

Sharaa, who was leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al-Qaeda affiliate and Islamist group that dominated the rebel alliance, has clearly stated his commitment to establishing a country with “free and impartial elections”.

He has also appointed a committee to work on a constitutional declaration, which laid out Syria’s future over a five-year transitional period. However, the subsequent declaration didn’t enshrine the separation of powers.

“He needs to show that he’s more serious about political participation from all groups,” says Mr Al-Atassi.

There are some examples of this: a Christian female minister was appointed minister for social affairs, while head of the White Helmet civil defence group, became minister of emergencies and disasters. But some have raised questions about the appointment of Sharaa’s brother as head of presidential affairs.

“High-ranking former HTS members now occupy key sovereign positions,” adds Mr Sayed.

Mr Al-Atassi also claims that “highly qualified people in international law were not asked to participate in the Cabinet. They were overlooked.”

The Minister of Justice holds a degree in Sharia law (Islam’s legal system, derived from the Quran), and is not an expert on Syria’s Civil Code, which draws heavily on French and Ottoman law. One question being asked is whether codes based on Sharia law could be applied rather than civil ones.

“The new authorities have so far made no attempt to replace the existing legal codes with Sharia-inspired legislation,” says Mr Sayed. However, he adds, “this remains an area we continue to monitor closely.

“The most pressing concern is whether judicial independence will be restored and effectively safeguarded.”

Under Assad’s regime, women had relatively equal rights and had been represented in parliament since the 1950s, as well as being present in society at all levels. There are no new written rules that point to that changing, but there are some concerning signs.

Only one woman was appointed in the interim government. According to research by University College London and McGill University, women’s rights advocates have raised concerns over HTS enforcing an interpretation of Islamic law, which could for example severely restrict women’s mobility, dress and public participation.

“One important area to watch is whether women judges – who make up approximately 35 to 40 per cent of the judiciary – will face marginalisation or dismissal,” says Mr Sayed. “So far, we have seen no signs of such a trend, but continued vigilance is essential.”

As for religious freedoms, there have been no new laws or rulings restricting social life, but some Syrians report that they have seen what appear to be attempts to enforce Islamic rule.

The Ministry of Justice has begun separating entry for men and women, plus there have been reports of men distributing flyers on buses and in Umayyad Mosque in Damascus asking women to wear full-faced veils.

In Christian neighbourhoods in the capital, cars have been filmed driving through the streets with preachers advocating for Islam over loudspeakers. An order to shut down bars and restaurants in the old city’s Christian quarter was only revoked after a public outcry.

Some observers of Islam tell me they are worried. Damascus is known for its tolerance but there are fears in some quarters that the new authorities have a Salafi background (a strict, orthodox Sunni Muslim sect).

“There is an increasing call for a return to religious values,” says Mr Sayed. “This presents a profound challenge for those who still believe in democracy, the rule of law, and equal citizenship.”

However Husam Jazmati, a Syrian academic who researches Islamic movements at the civil society research organisation Impact, claims that Sharaa “opposes both Islamist and non-Islamist political movements [and] neither wants to establish an Islamic state nor believes it’s possible.

“They don’t want to, and they can’t”.

Even if the government wanted to instil hardline practices, the question is whether they could? Alaa El Din Al Sayyek, an imam based in Damascus, thinks not. He argues that Syrians would reject any attempt to do so.

“It is impossible, our society will not accept it,” he tells me. “We have lived in harmony with different sects for years even during difficult times. The Quran says it clearly: no compulsion in religion.”

Today there are growing tensions: violence in coastal cities has left more than 1,400 people dead, many of them Alawites (part of Assad’s minority sect). They were said to be revenge for attacks on Syrian security forces.

Elsewhere, in the north east of the country, even though the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared victory over IS in 2019, camps still hold about 56,000 people, many of them the family members of Islamic State group (IS) suspects, more than five years after the jihadists’ territorial defeat in Syria.

The main question now facing the country, however, is how Syrians see their future. There are some tensions around this, which have seeped into a push-pull between the leadership and HTS, according to Mr Jazmati.

He claims that while Sharaa’s top circle wants to build “a conservative, economically liberal” state, “they can’t stop many of their members – those they’ve appointed in various positions and rely on because they’re trusted – from trying to Islamise public life in Syria.”

The think tank International Crisis Group has similar concerns. It has said that it believes Syria is living “on borrowed time”.

“The interim government is running out of funds, security forces are overstretched, poverty is deepening and insurgency is brewing at the periphery. Outsiders are meddling. Western sanctions deprive leaders of what they need to rebuild, while preventing fragmentation or a return to civil war.”

For Mr Al-Atassi, the solution is straightforward: He believes Sharaa needs to open up the political arena. “There are no elections today in Syria, there are only nominations,” he says. “This is very dangerous.”

With a pause, he adds: “It could be that a new dictatorship is in the making – but I don’t believe that the Syrian people are ready, after five decades, to accept a new dictatorship.”

And as for the prospect of lasting democracy? “We need to wait to see,” he says. “But I’m not at all optimistic.”

However there is a wider issue too. That is, could there be a loss of faith in the very idea of democracy given the country’s recent history?

Mr Sayed thinks so. “Though the Assad-era constitutions formally proclaimed political freedoms… our experience of political modernity came in the form of shells falling on our heads, while our bodies were laid bare in detention camps,” he tells me.

“Large segments of the Syrian population have lost faith in the promises of political modernity.”

Of the many challenges facing the new leadership, perhaps it is this that they would be wise to address first as they continue to carve out a new path for the future of Syria.

Computer chip giant Nvidia has once again found itself at the centre of US-China tensions over trade and technology.

On Thursday Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang flew to Beijing to meet senior Chinese officials, just after the US imposed new export controls on its chips.

The California-based company will require licenses to export its H20 AI chip to China, a move which the US Commerce Department said was designed to safeguard “national and economic security”. Nvidia said federal officials had told them the requirement will be in force for the “indefinite future”.

But why is the company so pivotal in the race for AI supremacy between the US and China?

Nvidia designs advanced chips, or semiconductors, that are used in generative artificial intelligence. Generative AI can produce new content from a user’s prompt, like ChatGPT.

In recent years, a surge in global demand for AI chips led Nvidia to become one of the world’s most valuable companies. In November, Nvidia briefly unseated Apple as the largest company in the world by market capitalisation.

Because its chips are seen as so essential to advancements in generative AI, successive US administrations have scrutinised Nvidia’s relationship with China.

Washington hopes the new export controls will slow China’s development of advanced AI chips – especially their use by the Chinese military – and secure an advantage in AI competition with Beijing.

US restrictions on Nvidia selling chips to China are not new.

In 2022, Joe Biden’s administration imposed separate export controls on the sale of advanced semiconductors to China. Nvidia specifically designed the H20 chip to comply with those existing restrictions.

A more powerful Nvidia chip, the H100, was already banned for sale in China.

However, the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese generative AI company, has prompted fresh concerns in the US that even less powerful chips could lead to significant technological breakthroughs.

DeepSeek claimed it could operate as effectively as other applications like ChatGPT using less advanced chips.

Now, there is increasing demand for Nvidia’s H20 chips among Chinese technology companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

Those companies have outstanding orders for the chips. But because there is no grace period on the imposition of the new curbs, Nvidia expects to be hit by losses of $5.5bn (£4.15bn) from these orders that it can no longer fulfil.

Chim Lee, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in Beijing, told the BBC that there are alternative AI chips being developed in China, by companies like Huawei.

Although they are currently viewed as inferior to Nvidia’s, Mr Lee said the US curbs could prompt China to focus on developing better chips.

“It will introduce challenges to China’s AI scene, but it won’t massively slow down China’s AI development and deployment,” Mr Lee added.

China is a critical market for Nvidia. The world’s second-largest economy accounted for 13% of its total sales last year, though that is still far less than the United States, which accounted for nearly half.

The timing of Mr Huang’s trip is being seen as an effort to shore up Nvidia’s business in China despite the latest curbs.

In his Beijing meeting with Ren Hongbin, head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Mr Huang said he hoped “to continue to cooperate with China”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Mr Huang’s trip to China also included a meeting with DeepSeek’s founder, Liang Wenfeng.

Separately, top Chinese official He Lifeng told Mr Huang that “China’s market investment and consumption potential is huge”, according to state news agency Xinhua.

During talks with Shanghai’s mayor on Friday, Mr Huang said he was committed to the Chinese market, according to a Shanghai government statement.

The controls are part of Washington’s broader goal to de-risk supply chains for advanced technology away from China, and bring more semiconductor production back to the US.

Nvidia this week announced plans to build up AI servers in the US worth up to $500bn. US president Donald Trump later claimed his re-election drove Nvidia’s decision.

And in March, Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC, which manufactures Nvidia’s chips, announced it would invest an additional $100bn in advanced manufacturing facilities in Arizona.

Gary Ng, senior economist at Natixis, told the BBC the latest developments show that global technology is becoming increasingly polarised between “two systems”, one dominated by the US and the other by China.

“Tech will be less global in that sense, and it will be subject to more restrictions.”

It was once the Indian start-up world’s shining star, but Ola is now battling a multitude of crises.

Founded in 2010, it quickly became a household name, expanding from ride-hailing to electric vehicles and battery cells, challenging Uber along the way.

The company jumped on the AI bandwagon in 2023 with Krutrim, India’s first AI company valued at over $1bn.

Marquee global investors such as Japan’s SoftBank, US-based Tiger Global and Singapore’s Temasek bankrolled this expansion. Last year, Ola’s electric vehicles (EV) arm raised close to $734m (£567m) in a blockbuster initial public offering (IPO), India’s biggest in 2024.

But this ambitious rise has been accompanied by a series of controversies lately, particularly at its EV arm.

Ola Electric has lost close to 70% of its value in the seven months since the IPO was launched. It is facing competition from more established two-wheeler giants, along with mounting regulatory scrutiny.

Sales of Ola’s scooters are down to less than half from April last year and the company’s losses have widened. Customers have posted videos on social media of Ola scooters going up in flames or breaking down mid-ride.

There’s a government inquiry under way at hundreds of newly-opened Ola showrooms regarding licences and registrations. One of its vendors also filed an insolvency plea against the company, which Ola said in a statement to stock exchanges that it had settled.

The BBC has learnt from former employees and industry sources that delayed payments have led to many major suppliers and logistics partners ending ties with them.

Ola has been cutting jobs, restructuring operations and automating functions in a bid to reduce costs and trim losses. Media reports say it has undertaken a second round of layoffs since November, with over 1,000 roles axed.

The BBC sent detailed questions to Ola about these issues. The company shared links to some of its earlier press statements, not responding specifically to all the queries.

So, what’s gone wrong?

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal positioned the company as Tesla’s two-wheeler equivalent, solving the emissions problem for the price-sensitive Indian market.

He poured in millions of marketing dollars, opening Ola showrooms across India, even delivering scooters at the doorstep of people who’d made online bookings.

But Ola has struggled to read the market well, says Rohit Paradkar, an analyst with the auto magazine Overdrive.

Its scooter is modelled on the AppScooter from Etergo, a Dutch start-up that Ola Electric acquired in 2020.

Several former employees told the BBC that Ola’s first EV scooter was launched without many changes to Etergo’s version. A former employee who worked in the compliance department told the BBC that clearances were rushed through to meet unrealistic launch deadlines.

In response to queries, Ola referred to an October 2023 blog post where it addressed the “myth” that the vehicle had “not been engineered and tested for India”. It said it had “fully re-engineered” Etergo’s scooter and tested it for “Indian conditions”.

“The whole vehicle has been tested at three levels [for India] – digital simulations, component tests and vehicular lab tests, and vehicular field tests,” it said in the post.

But several safety-related incidents reported by customers have raised questions.

Some scooters began catching fire which, auto experts say, was likely due to short-circuits or faulty battery management system.

Ola recalled more than 1,400 first-generation scooters in 2022 to investigate the fires, but the report was not publicly released. It had then said the battery systems were compliant for Indian and European standards but didn’t explain what caused the fires.

Some riders also reported the front suspension – which holds the wheel in place – breaking mid-ride, causing injuries.

In early 2023, after such an accident, Ola called it a rare case, noting there were only a few such issues among 150,000 scooters.

The front fork arm, they said, had a significant safety margin for accidents and was designed to handle 80% more load than what it would typically experience during daily use.

Meanwhile, Ola’s rivals – mostly established automakers – have rolled out electric scooters smoothly, adding to the pressure on the company.

Their entry shook the market. Ola’s share had plunged from 52% to 19% by December, then recovered to 25% in January.

Ola aims to sell 50,000 units monthly to turn profitable, but analysts doubt the target, despite the company saying recent restructuring has helped it achieve $10m monthly savings and faster deliveries.

Government data shows that less than 10,000 scooters were sold in February, but Ola claims 25,000, blaming registration delays due to vendor contract changes. The federal transport ministry has issued notices over the discrepancy. Ola said it had registered over 23,000 scooters sold in March and held a 30% market share for the fiscal year.

But competing scooters with fewer features are now outselling Ola simply because they come from trusted, well-established brands, said Jay Kale, executive vice-president and auto analyst at Elara Capital.

To push sales, Ola has offered deep discounts, launching newer models at cheaper price points. But losses have widened to $65m in the October-December quarter from $43.6m a year ago.

Besides product issues, the reliability of its customer service has been another major issue, says Kale.

When angry customers flooded social media and consumer helplines with complaints about the fires and front suspension, their service requests were reportedly unanswered for days.

At one point, thousands of complaints were piling up monthly, a former employee at Ola told the BBC. India’s consumer rights agency, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), also sent a notice to Ola after it got 10,000 complaints over the period of a year.

But since Ola had eschewed the established dealer route in a bid to sell directly to buyers and had just a few service centres, aggrieved consumers had few places to turn to.

Late last year, Ola wrote to the CCPA that it had a “robust mechanism to address complaints”, and that most raised with the regulator had been satisfactorily resolved.

Aggarwal was initially dismissive of the problems on social media but later announced that Ola would be opening nearly 4,000 stores with service facilities, following a heated public exchange on X with a stand-up comedian who took up the customers’ cause.

A majority of these new centres, however, came under the government’s scanner for lacking relevant licences to store and sell vehicles.

On 21 March, Ola confirmed investigations in four states and said it was responding to authorities.

The sharp turn in Ola’s fortunes is making investors – especially those who bought in at high IPO valuations – nervous.

Ola has been a key player in India’s push to cut carbon emissions and expand manufacturing.

It benefits from two separate state subsidies, one to make scooters and the second to set up its own 20 gigawatt EV battery plant. But Reuters has reported that the costly gigafactory project is delayed and has missed a key milestone, potentially leading to penalties.

Critics say Ola’s troubles emanate from typical culture issues that plague many start-ups – including CEO-driven decision-making, constant pivots and unrealistic, high-pressure deadlines.

“Software mindsets don’t work with hardware products, which need time to build,” said Deepesh Rathore, who used to head product strategy at Ola Electric and now runs consultancy firm Insight EV.

Some top executives across the wider company have quit recently, including a former Ola Cab CEO who quit within months. Key leaders in tech, marketing, sales and business also left last year.

Experts say the exits have also affected Ola’s efforts to fix product and service issues.

When US Vice-President JD Vance comes to Rome on Friday, he is set to meet Italy’s prime minister and the Vatican secretary of state.

But one of his main objectives is not on the official schedule – to be seen alongside Pope Francis.

According to four sources familiar with the matter, the vice-president, a devout Roman Catholic, is hoping for at least a brief encounter with the 88-year-old pontiff, which would become the focal point of his visit.

Such a moment would carry powerful symbolic weight, politically and personally, particularly over Easter, the most important celebration in the Catholic calendar, said a source familiar with his thinking.

It could also signal a thaw in relations between the Vatican and Washington after months of tension over issues such as moral leadership and migration, with the Pope having previously said that mass deportations of people fleeing poverty or persecution damaged “the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families”.

“Pope Francis and JD Vance are today’s most prominent Catholics, one at the head of the Church and the Catholic hierarchy, the other a layman who is now vice-president of the United States,” said Father Roberto Regoli, professor of history of the Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

“A meeting between the leaders of two global powers of this calibre would have immense symbolic significance.”

The White House and the vice-president’s office did not respond to questions from the BBC about Vance’s trip, and the Vatican has not confirmed any formal or informal meeting with Vance.

Pope Francis has been in poor health following a five-week hospital stay for double pneumonia.

Since returning to the Vatican a month ago, he has cancelled most of his official appointments.

• How JD Vance sees the world – and why that matters

However, as his condition improves, Pope Francis has begun making surprise appearances – last week, he briefly met King Charles III and Queen Camilla during their official visit to Italy.

“A photo with Pope Francis would be a major win for JD Vance, and it would also reflect Pope Francis’s inclusive approach – his willingness to welcome and meet anyone, even those with differing visions or values,” said David Gibson, director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, the Jesuit university of New York.

But if there is no encounter, he adds, there will inevitably be speculation about a snub or the Pope’s health.

While a potential meeting with the Pope is uncertain, another encounter has been firmly locked in for weeks – a formal handshake with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

A Catholic herself and standard-bearer of Europe’s populist right, she is politically aligned with the US administration and shares their belief in taking a tough stance on migration.

She is expected to receive the vice-president for a bilateral meeting during his visit, upon her return from Washington DC where she met Donald Trump on Thursday.

The meeting could offer a further glimpse of the ideological alliances that Vance hopes to nurture in Europe, as Meloni has emerged as the natural mediator between the US and the EU, especially on thorny issues such as tariffs and trade.

Vance and Meloni will later be joined by Italy’s two deputy prime ministers, the League’s Matteo Salvini and Forza Italia’s Antonio Tajani, according to Italian officials.

Vance’s visit is the first to Europe since he delivered an ideological broadside against European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in February.

He accused them of abandoning free speech, caving in to political correctness and losing touch with their citizens on issues like migration and national identity.

That friction with the leaders on the continent also extends to the Vatican, where relations with the Trump administration have been strained by hardline immigration policies which have faced pushback from Catholic leaders and Pope Francis.

Cuts to refugee programmes, the prospect of large-scale deportation plans, arrests in places of worship and efforts to curb birthright citizenship have been condemned by the US bishops’ conference as being contrary to the common good.

Pope Francis himself urged a more compassionate response to migration, drawing on Gospel teachings and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

• JD Vance – the ‘hillbilly’ Maga loyalist

In a letter to US bishops in February, he expressed concern over the administration’s policies and implicitly challenged Vance’s attempts to use Catholic doctrine to justify the administration’s immigration crackdown, saying that “Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity”.

“A meeting between Pope Francis and JD Vance would certainly underscore the stark contrast between their visions of Catholicism,” said Gibson.

“Yet a meeting would serve both men – for Vance, a photo with the Pope could soften perceptions that he’s an opponent of the Church; for Francis, it would demonstrate his welcoming approach, and, importantly, posing for a photo with JD Vance could mark [another] significant step in his return to public-facing duties.”

Others also see a benefit for Vance in associating with the moral authority of the papacy, if he does get a meeting or photograph with the man who leads the planet’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

• How many Roman Catholics are there?

He will have time with a highly ranked Vatican official, its secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. And he is expected to participate in ceremonies around Easter Sunday.

The vice-president came to the faith relatively late in life. Raised in a largely non-practising, evangelical household, Vance spent part of his adolescence drawn to a Pentecostal church, only to later abandon organised religion altogether.

It was not until August 2019, at the age of 35, that he formally converted to Catholicism at a Dominican priory in Cincinnati. Ohio.

The decision, he has since explained, stemmed from a search for a moral and philosophical framework capable of making sense of the societal breakdowns he chronicled in his bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

In a 2020 essay for the Catholic magazine The Lamp, Vance wrote candidly about his spiritual turn, describing his need for a worldview that could account for both personal responsibility and structural injustice.

Half a million weapons obtained by the Taliban in Afghanistan have been lost, sold or smuggled to militant groups, sources have told the BBC – with the UN believing that some have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda affiliates.

The Taliban took control of around one million weapons and pieces of military equipment – which had mostly been funded by the US – when it regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, according to a former Afghan official who spoke to the BBC anonymously.

As the Taliban advanced through Afghanistan in 2021, many Afghan soldiers surrendered or fled, abandoning their weapons and vehicles. Some equipment was simply left behind by US forces.

The cache included American-made firearms, such as M4 and M16 rifles, as well as other older weapons in Afghan possession that had been left behind from decades of conflict.

Sources have told the BBC that, at the closed-door UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee in Doha late last year, the Taliban admitted that at least half of this equipment is now “unaccounted” for.

A person from the committee said they had verified with other sources that the whereabouts of half a million items was unknown.

In a report in February, the UN stated that al-Qaeda affiliates, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, and Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, were accessing Taliban-captured weapons or buying them on the black market.

The BBC put this to Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesperson for the Taliban government, who told the BBC it took the protection and storage of weapons very seriously.

“All light and heavy weapons are securely stored. We strongly reject claims of smuggling or loss,” he said.

A 2023 UN report said the Taliban allowed local commanders to retain 20% of seized US weapons, and that the black market was thriving as a result. These commanders are affiliated to the Taliban but often have a degree of autonomy in their regions.

The UN noted that the “gifting of weapons is widely practiced between local commanders and fighters to consolidate power. The black market remains a rich source of weaponry for the Taliban”.

A former journalist in the city of Kandahar told the BBC that an open arms market existed there for a year after the Taliban takeover, but has since gone underground via the messaging service WhatsApp. On it, wealthy individuals and local commanders trade new and used US weapons and equipment – mostly the weapons left by US-backed forces.

The number of weapons recorded by the US body tasked with overseeing Afghan reconstruction projects, known as Sigar, is lower than those cited by our sources, but in a 2022 report it acknowledged it was unable to get accurate information.

The reason given for this was that equipment has been funded and supplied by various US departments and organisations over the years.

Sigar added that there had been “shortfalls and issues with DoD’s [Department of Defense] processes for tracking equipment in Afghanistan” for more than a decade.

It also criticised the State Department, adding: “State provided us limited, inaccurate, and untimely information about the equipment and funds it left behind.” The department denied this was the case.

This is very much a political issue, and US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he will reclaim weapons from Afghanistan. He said that $85bn (£66bn) of advanced weaponry was left there.

“Afghanistan is one of the biggest sellers of military equipment in the world, you know why? They’re selling the equipment that we left,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting of the new administration.

“I want to look into this. If we need to pay them, that’s fine, but we want our military equipment back.”

The president’s figure has been disputed, as money spent in Afghanistan also funded training and salaries. Also, Afghanistan did not feature in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s top 25 largest exporters of major arms last year.

In response to Trump’s comments, Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, told Afghan state TV: “We seized these weapons from the previous administration and will use them to defend the country and counter any threats.”

The Taliban regularly parades US weapons, including at Bagram Airfield, which served as the main US-Nato base, and frame them as symbols of victory and legitimacy.

After withdrawing in 2021, the Pentagon claimed US equipment left in Afghanistan was disabled, but the Taliban have since built a capable military using US weapons and gained superiority over rival groups, such as the National Resistance Front and Islamic State Khorasan Province – the regional affiliate of the Islamic State group.

A source from the former Afghan government told the BBC that “hundreds” of unused Humvees, mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPs), and Black Hawk helicopters remain in Kandahar warehouses.

The Taliban has showcased some of this captured equipment in propaganda videos, but their ability to operate and maintain advanced machinery, such as Black Hawk helicopters, is limited due to a lack of trained personnel and technical expertise. Much of this sophisticated equipment remains non-operational.

However, the Taliban have been able to utilise more straightforward equipment, like Humvees and small arms, in their operations.

While Donald Trump appears determined to reclaim US weapons from Afghanistan, the former head of Sigar, John Sopko, says such an attempt would be pointless.

At a recent event hosted by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, he said that “the cost would exceed its actual value”.

Whether Trump will take any action remains to be seen, but, in the meantime, concerns about the spread of weapons in the region and access by militant groups remain unresolved.

The US has revealed plans to impose port fees on Chinese ships to try to revive shipbuilding in the US and challenge China’s dominance of the industry.

From mid-October, Chinese ship owners and operators will be charged $50 per ton of cargo with the fees increasing each year for the next three years.

There have been concerns that the measures would further disrupt global trade after US President Donald Trump’s raft of tariff policies, but the fee is less severe than originally suggested.

A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said the fees will raise prices for American consumers and “will not revitalise the US shipbuilding industry”.

The US Trade Representative (USTR) said: “China has largely achieved its dominance goals, severely disadvantaging US companies, workers, and the US economy”.

Fees on Chinese vessel owners and operators of ships built in China will be based on the weight of their cargo, how many containers they carry or the number of vehicles onboard.

For affected bulk vessels, the fee will be based on the weight of their cargo, while the charge for container ships will depend on how many containers a vessel is carrying.

The $50 per ton of cargo will rise by $30 a ton each year for the next three years. Fees on Chinese-built ships will start at $18 a ton or $120 per container and also rise over the next three years.

Non-US built ships carrying cars will be charged $150 per vehicle.

The fee will be applied once per voyage on affected ships and not more than five times a year.

The USTR also decided not to impose fees based on how many Chinese-built ships are in a fleet or based on prospective orders of Chinese ships, as it had originally proposed.

Empty vessels that arrive at US ports to carry bulk exports like coal or grain are exempted.

Vessels that move goods between American ports as well as from those ports to Caribbean islands and US territories are also exempted from rules, as are US and Canadian ships that call at ports in the Great Lakes.

The fees are much lower than a plan floated in February to charge up to $1.5m (£1.1m) for each American port a Chinese ship visits.

The USTR said a second phase of actions will begin in three years to favour US-built ships carrying liquified natural gas (LNG). These restrictions will rise incrementally over the following 22 years.

The announcement came as global trade is already being disrupted by Trump’s trade tariffs, experts have said.

Cargoes originally destined for ports in the US from China are instead being redirected to European ports, a trade group said.

Businesses have warned this will raise prices for US consumers.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has imposed taxes of up to 145% on imports from China. Other countries are facing a blanket US tariff of 10% until July.

His administration said this week that when the new tariffs are added on to existing ones, the levies on some Chinese goods could reach 245%.

These tariffs have caused “significant build ups” of ships, especially in the European Union, but also “significant congestion” at UK ports, according to Marco Forgione, director general of the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade.

More containers are coming to the UK, he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of diversion of ships from China, that were due to head to the US, diverting and coming to the UK and into the EU.”

In the first three months of 2025, Chinese imports into the UK have increased by about 15% and into the EU by about 12%.

“That’s a direct impact of what President Trump is doing,” he said, adding that uncertainty and increased disruption pushes up prices for consumers.

Sanne Manders, president of logistics firm Flexport, said both tariffs and strikes at ports in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium in the first three months of the year had been “clogging” ports.

Congestion in the UK “is particularly severe in Felixstowe”, while in continental Europe Rotterdam and Barcelona are “also pretty severe”.

“I do believe that if more cargo is going to be routed towards Europe, finding new buyers that will drive up the volumes even further, that could lead to more congestion,” he said – although terminals would be open for more hours per day in the summer due to better weather.

He said shippers were looking for new markets, but that also there may be a surge of goods to the US to try to take advantage of that 90-day window for goods from some countries.

He said in the US, consumers would pay for the tariffs, but European consumers would not see “much impact”.

Companies would also probably start redesigning their supply chains, he said.

A man has died trying to cross the English Channel, Kent Police says.

The RNLI said it had launched its all-weather lifeboat and a group of people were brought to Dover in a Border Force boat on Friday morning.

In a statement, the RNLI said: “Dover RNLI’s all-weather lifeboat was tasked by HM Coastguard at 8.15 BST… to an incident in the Channel.”

Kent Police said they were called 10 minutes afterwards following a Border Force patrol responding to a medical emergency on a small boat in the English Channel. They confirmed a man had been pronounced dead.

A blue forensics tent has been set up outside the lifeboat station in Dover.

A police spokesperson said: “Officers have launched an investigation to establish the circumstances leading to the man’s death.

“The priority remains to establish the man’s identity in order to notify his family.

“Officers are currently at Dover Lifeboat Station while initial enquiries are under way.”

The government said investigations were ongoing so it would be inappropriate to comment further.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said it sent UK Border Force vessels, RNLI lifeboats and an HM Coastguard search-and-rescue helicopter “in response to small boats activity” reported in the Channel.

“People were recovered to the UK,” the spokesperson added.

More than 9,000 people have crossed the English Channel on small boats so far this year.

This is 42% higher than at the same point last year, when the total stood at 6,265, and 81% higher than at this stage in 2023, when the total was 4,899.

In the last week, 1,871 migrants crossed the channel on small boats, with more than 705 making the journey in 12 boats on Tuesday – the highest number of arrivals on a single day so far this year.

On Thursday, 211 people crossed the English Channel on three small boats.

Home Office figures show more people arrived in small boats between January and April 2025 than in the same four-month period in any year since data on Channel crossings began in 2018.

The figures come as the government has vowed to crack down on people-smuggling across the Channel.

A no-fly zone has been put in place over the Sandringham Estate after drone sightings were reported during the visit of Ukraine’s president last month.

The restrictions were requested by security services after the King hosted Volodymyr Zelensky at the Norfolk site on 2 March.

The order, which came into force on 10 March, restricts aircraft flying below 2,000ft (610m) for “reasons of public safety and security”.

It was signed off by Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander. Buckingham Palace has not commented.

The order states: “These regulations impose restrictions on flying in the vicinity of Sandringham House, Norfolk.

“In view of the need for security members of the Royal Family and other dignitaries staying at or visiting Sandringham House and at the request of the security services, it has been agreed by the Civil Aviation Authority and the Department for Transport that flying should be restricted in the vicinity of that location for reasons of public safety and security.”

Royal flights, visitors’ aircraft and emergency services are exempt from the rules.

Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire offer, saying it is prepared to immediately negotiate a deal that would see the release of all remaining hostages in return for an end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners.

In a video statement, Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said: “We will not accept partial deals that serve [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s political agenda.”

Fifty-nine hostages remain in captivity and 24 are thought to be alive. Israel’s latest offer involved a 45-day ceasefire in return for the release of 10 hostages.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was time “to open the gates of hell” on Hamas.

Hamas officials had already indicated to the BBC earlier in the week that they would reject the plan.

“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” Hayya said.

He added the group was “ready to immediately negotiate a deal to swap all hostages with an agreed number of Palestinians jailed by Israel” and end the war.

Hamas has previously said it would contemplate an overall deal to end the war but the two sides are nowhere near any kind of agreement that would bring that about.

Israel’s stated aim is the complete disarmament and destruction of Hamas. Meanwhile dozens of Gazans are dying each day in air strikes with no humanitarian aid entering the strip at all.

The latest series of Israeli strikes killed at least 37 people, the majority of them displaced civilians living in a tented camp, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency.

Witnesses in al-Mawasi said dozens of Palestinians including children had died after tents were set ablaze following a “powerful” explosion.

“I rushed outside and saw the tent next to mine engulfed in flames,” a man told the BBC’s Gaza Lifeline programme.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment but said that it was looking into reports of the strikes.

Israel has previously told Palestinians to evacuate from other parts of Gaza to al-Mawasi.

The Israeli military said attacks over the past two days had “struck over 100 terror targets” including “terrorist cells, military structures and infrastructure sites”.

Israel said there was no shortage of aid and that it was maintaining the blockade installed on 1 March to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages.

However the heads of 12 major aid groups said the humanitarian aid system in Gaza was “facing total collapse”.

The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack on Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has killed at least 51,065 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Former Credit Suisse boss Tidjane Thiam is to run for president in Ivory Coast’s forthcoming election, his party has confirmed.

Thiam, 62, was the only candidate vying to represent the country’s main opposition party, the PDCI.

Thiam has spent the last two decades living abroad, and had to give up his French citizenship to be able to stand in the presidential election.

The former minister has held senior positions in leading international businesses like Aviva, Prudential and Credit Suisse, though he resigned from the latter following a spying scandal.

Political scientist Geoffroy Kouao told the AFP news agency that Thiam was not “well known to Ivorians,” after spending more than 20 years out of the country pursuing his business career, and so would have to run a strong campaign in order to win October’s election.

The governing RHDP party has not yet announced its candidate, but the current president, 83-year-old Alassane Ouattara, is likely to run for what would be a fourth term in office.

Three other prominent figures, including former President Laurent Gbagbo, have been barred from running.

Thiam has had something of a chequered professional life.

After becoming the first Ivorian to pass the entrance exam to France’s prestigious Polytechnique engineering school, he returned to Ivory Coast and took up politics.

In 1998, aged 36, he became planning minister before the PDCI was ousted from power in a coup the following year.

He then moved abroad and pursued a largely successful business career.

In 2009, he became the first black person to head a company on the UK’s FTSE 100 stock exchange when he was named CEO of the Prudential insurance company.

However, he was later censured by a financial regulator for not being open about a planned takeover.

After five years as the head of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, he was forced to resign in 2020 over a spying scandal, although he has been cleared of any involvement.

He is well connected in West African political circles – he is the great-nephew of Ivory Coast’s first President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, while his uncle Habib Thiam was a prime minister in Senegal, on two occasions, spanning a total of nine years.

However, Thiam faces a legal challenge to his candidacy because he had taken up French nationality.

The courts are expected to rule on this next Thursday.

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he discussed his country’s potential to collaborate with the US on “technology and innovation” during a conversation with Elon Musk.

On Friday, Modi shared a post on X detailing his telephone conversation with the tech billionaire and said they had revisited topics from their meeting in Washington earlier this year.

Modi’s conversation with Musk comes as India is working towards securing a bilateral trade agreement with the US to offset the brunt of US President Donald Trump’s potential tariffs.

It also comes days before US Vice-President JD Vance’s four-day trip to India.

“We discussed the immense potential for collaboration in the areas of technology and innovation,” Modi wrote in his post on X.

He added that India remained “committed to advancing our partnerships with the US” in these domains.

Musk, who is seen as being close to Trump and also heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is looking at making inroads into India with his business plans.

In March, Starlink signed an agreement with two of India’s biggest telecoms firms to bring satellite internet to India and is awaiting government approval to start providing its services.

• Musk’s X is suing India, as Tesla and Starlink plan entry
• Musk v Ambani: Billionaires battle over India’s satellite internet

Tesla could also finally be making its debut and has begun hiring for a dozen jobs in Delhi and Mumbai. It is also reportedly hunting for showrooms in both cities.

Meanwhile, Vance is set to meet Modi on 21 April, the first day of his trip, for discussions on economic, trade and geopolitical ties.

He will be accompanied by his children and wife Usha Vance whose parents migrated to the US from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

The visit comes against the backdrop of an intensifying trade war between the US and China.

Trump slapped India too with 27% US tariffs on 2 April, before he announced a 90-day pause.

Since then, Delhi and Washington have been working towards an early conclusion of trade negotiations.

Donald Trump said the US will “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine war talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.

The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was not expecting a truce to happen in “a specific number of days” but he wanted it done “quickly”.

His comments came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US would abandon talks “if it’s not going to happen”.

“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.

When asked about the deal between Russian and Ukraine, Trump said: “We’re talking about here people dying. We’re going to get it stopped, ideally.

“Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has placed a number of conditions on any potential ceasefire.

Despite the Trump administration’s initial confidence that it could secure a deal quickly, attempts to reach a full ceasefire have yet to materialise, with Washington blaming both sides.

Following a meeting with European leaders in Paris about a potential ceasefire on Thursday, Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable.”

“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on,” he said about truce talks.

He said it was clear that a peace deal would be difficult to strike but there needed to be signs it could be done soon.

Trump had said before he re-entered office that he would stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked to respond to Trump saying he expected an answer from Russia on a ceasefire, said “the negotiations taking place are quite difficult”.

“The Russian side is striving to reach a peace settlement in this conflict, to ensure its own interests, and is open to dialogue,” he said.

The comments come as Russian strikes on Ukraine continue. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that Russia had launched a volley of missile attacks that killed two people.

During a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance said he was “optimistic” about ending the Ukraine war.

“I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and also some of the things that have happened even in the past 24 hours,” he said.

“I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war – this very brutal war – to a close.”

Vance’s comments followed separate news that Ukraine and the US took the first step towards striking a minerals deal, after an initial agreement was derailed when a February meeting between Trump and Zelensky erupted into a public shouting match.

On Thursday, the two countries signed a memorandum of intent stating that they intend to establish an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as part of an economic partnership agreement.

The aim is to finalise the deal by 26 April, the memo published by the Ukrainian government says.

The details of any deal remain unclear. Previous leaks have suggested the agreement has been extended beyond minerals to control of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as well as its oil and gas.

Ukrainian negotiators have tried to resist Trump’s demands that a joint investment fund would pay back the US for previous military aid, but have seemingly accepted his claim that it would help the country recover after the war ends.

The memo said the “American people desire to invest alongside the Ukrainian people in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”.

Zelensky had been hoping to use the deal to secure a US security guarantee in the event of a ceasefire deal, telling European leaders last month that “a ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine”.

The US has so far resisted providing Kyiv with security guarantees.

The White House argues the mere presence of US businesses would put off Russia from further aggression, but that did not exactly work when they invaded in 2022.

Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced the signing of the memorandum on X, with pictures of Svyrydenko and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent separately signing the document over an online call.

“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries,” Svyrydenko wrote.

Bessent said the details were still being worked out but the deal is “substantially what we’d agreed on previously.”

Trump hinted at the deal during a press conference with Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, saying “we have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on (next) Thursday…and I assume they’re going to live up to the deal. So we’ll see. But we have a deal on that.”

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, an MP and the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on EU Integration, told the BBC the Ukrainian Parliament will have “the last word” in the deal.

She added: “I hope that there will be enough reasoning to ensure that whatever is signed, and if it is going to be ratified that it is in the interest of our country and our people.

The memo release comes as a 30-day moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin expires.

Peskov said Putin had not yet issued any new orders regarding the temporary ceasefire.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris to discuss how to end the war.

Sybiha said they had “discussed the paths to a fair and lasting peace, including full ceasefire, multinational contingent, and security guarantees for Ukraine”.

When US President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs in his first term, Vietnamese entrepreneur Hao Le saw an opportunity.

His company is one of hundreds of businesses that have emerged to compete with Chinese exports that have increasingly been facing restrictions from the West.

Le’s SHDC Electronics, which sits in the budding industrial hub of Hai Duong, sells $2m (£1.5m) worth of phone and computer accessories every month to the United States.

But that revenue could dry up if Trump imposes 46% tariffs on Vietnamese goods, a plan that is currently on hold until early July. That would be “catastrophic for our business,” Le says.

And selling to Vietnamese consumers is not an option, he adds: “We cannot compete with Chinese products. This is not just our challenge. Many Vietnamese companies are struggling in their own home market.”

Trump tariffs in 2016 sent a glut of cheap Chinese imports, originally intended for the US, into South East Asia, hurting many local manufacturers. But they also opened new doors for other businesses, often into global supply chains that wanted to cut their dependence on China.

But Trump 2.0 threaten to shut those doors, which it sees as an unacceptable loophole. And that’s a blow for fast-growing economies like Vietnam and Indonesia that are gunning to be key players in industries from chips to electric vehicles.

They also find themselves stuck between the world’s two biggest economies – China, a powerful neighbour and their biggest trading partner, and the US, a key export market, which could be looking to strike a deal at Beijing’s expense.

And so Xi Jinping’s long-planned trip to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia this week took on fresh urgency.

All three countries rolled out the the red carpet for him, but Trump saw it as more evidence of them conspiring to “screw” the US.

The White House will use its upcoming negotiations with smaller nations to pressure them into limiting their dealings with Beijing, according to reports.

But that could be a fanciful ambition given the amount of money flowing between China and South East Asia.

In 2024, China earned a record $3.5tn from exports – 16% of those went to South East Asia, its biggest market. Beijing, in turn, has paid for railways in Vietnam, dams in Cambodia and ports in Malaysia as part of its “Belt and Road” infratructure programme that seeks to boost ties abroad.

“We can’t choose, and we will never choose [between China and the US],” Malaysia’s trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told the BBC on Tuesday, ahead of Xi’s visit.

“If the issue is about something that we feel is against our interest, then we will protect [ourselves].”

In the days after Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs, South East Asian governments scrambled into deal-making mode.

In what Trump described as a “very productive call” with Vietnamese leader To Lam, the latter offered to completely scrap tariffs on US goods.

The US market is crucial to Vietnam, an emerging electronics powerhouse where manufacturing giants like Samsung, Intel and Foxconn, the Taiwanese firm contracted to make iPhones, have set up shop.

Meanwhile, Thai officials are headed to Washington with a plan that includes higher US imports and investments. The US is their largest export market, so they are hoping to avoid the 36% levy on Thailand that Trump may reinstate.

“We will tell the US government that Thailand is not only an exporter but also an ally and economic partner that the US can rely on in the long term,” Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) has ruled out retaliation against Trump’s tariffs, instead choosing to emphasise their economic and political importance to the US.

“We understand the concerns of the US,” Mr Zafrul told the BBC. “That’s why we need to show that actually we, Asean, especially Malaysia, can be that bridge.”

It’s a role that South East Asia’s export-driven economies have played well – they have benefitted from both Chinese and US trade and investment. But Trump’s paused levies could derail that.

Take Malaysia, for instance. In recent years, chip manufacturers from the US and elsewhere have invested there, as Washington blocks the sale of advanced tech to China. Last year China imported $18bn worth of chips from Malaysia. These chips are used in Chinese-made electronics, such as iPhones, typically bound for the US.

Trump’s proposed tariffs on Malaysia – 24% – could cut off the multi-billion dollar US market. But that’s not all.

“If this continues, then companies will have to rethink their investment commitments,” Mr Zafrul says. “This will have an impact not just on Malaysia’s economy, but on the global economy.”

Then there is Indonesia, which could face 32% tariffs, and is home to vast nickel reserves and has its sights set on the global electric vehicle supply chain.

Cambodia, a Chinese ally, faces the steepest levies: 49%. One of the poorest countries in the region, it has thrived as a trans-shipment hub for Chinese businesses seeking to skirt US tariffs. Chinese businesses currently own or operate 90% of the clothes factories, which mainly export to the US.

Trump may have hit pause on these tariffs but “the damage is done,” says Doris Liew, an economist at Malaysia’s Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.

“This serves as a wake-up call for the region, not only to reduce reliance on the US, but also to re-balance overdependence on any single trade and export partner.”

In these uncertain times , Xi Jinping is trying to send a steadfast message: Let’s join hands and resist “bullying” from the US.

That is no easy task because South East Asia also has trade tensions with Beijing.

In Indonesia, business owner Isma Savitri is worried that Trump’s 145% tariffs on China means more competition from Chinese rivals who can no longer export to the US.

“Small businesses like us feel squeezed,” says the owner of sleepwear brand Helopopy. “We are struggling to survive against an onslaught of ultra-cheap Chinese products.”

One of Helopopy’s popular pyjamas sells for $7.10 (119,000 Indonesian rupiah). Isma says she has seen similar designs from China going for around half that price.

“South East Asia, being close by, with open trade regimes and fast-growing markets, naturally became the dumping ground,” says Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute in Singapore. “Politically, many countries are reluctant to confront Beijing, which adds another layer of vulnerability.”

While consumers have welcomed competitively-priced Chinese products – from clothes to shoes to phones – thousands of local businesses have not been able to match such low prices.

More than 100 factories in Thailand have closed every month for the last two years, according to an estimate from a Thai think tank. During the same period in Indonesia, around 250,000 textile workers were laid off after some 60 garment manufacturers shut, local trade associations say – including Sritex, once the region’s largest textile maker.

“When we see the news, there are lots of imported products flooding the domestic market, which messes up our own market,” Mujiati, a worker who was laid off from Sritex in February after 30 years, tells the BBC.

“Maybe it just wasn’t our luck,” says the 50-year-old, who is still hunting for work. “Who can we complain to? There’s no-one.”

South East Asian governments responded with a wave of protectionism, as local businesses demanded to be shielded from the impact of Chinese imports.

Last year Indonesia considered 200% tariffs on a range of Chinese goods and blocked e-commerce site Temu, popular among Chinese merchants. Thailand tightened inspections of imports and imposed additional tax on goods worth less than 1,500 Thai baht ($45; £34).

This year Vietnam has twice imposed temporary anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel products. And after Trump’s latest tariffs announcement, Vietnam is reportedly set to crack down on Chinese goods being trans-shipped via its territory to the US.

Allaying these fears would have been on Xi’s agenda this week.

China is concerned that channelling its US-bound exports to the rest of the world would “end up really alienating and aggravating” its trading partners, David Rennie, the former Beijing bureau chief for the Economist newspaper, told BBC’s Newshour.

“If a tidal wave of Chinese exports ends up swamping those markets and damaging employment and jobs … that’s a massive diplomatic and geopolitical headache for the Chinese leadership.”

China has not always had an easy relationship with this region. Barring Laos, Cambodia and a war-torn Myanmar, the others are wary of Beijing’s ambitions. Territorial disputes in the South China have soured ties with the Philippines. This is also an issue with others such as Vietnam and Malaysia, but trade has been a balancing factor.

But that might change now, experts say.

“South East Asia had to think about whether they really wanted to offend China. Now this complicates things,” says Chong Ja-Ian, associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

China’s loss could be South East Asia’s gain.

Hao Le, in Vietnam, says he has seen a surge in enquiries from American customers scouting for new electronics suppliers, outside of China: “In the past, US buyers would take months to switch suppliers. Today, such decisions are made within days.”

Malaysia, with sprawling rubber plantations and the world’s largest medical rubber glove maker, has nearly half the world’s market for rubber gloves. But it is poised to grab a bigger share from its main competitor, China.

The region still faces a 10% baseline tariff, like most of the world. And that is bad news, says Oon Kim Hung, president of the Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers Association.

But even if the paused tariffs kick in, he says, customers will find paying an additional 24% on Malaysian gloves vastly preferable to the 145% levy they will have to cough up for Chinese-made gloves.

“We’re not exactly jumping with joy, but this may well benefit our manufacturers, as well as those in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.”

A British woman who was among four people killed in a cable car crash near Naples has been named by Italian officials as Margaret Elaine Winn.

A second Briton killed in the accident has been identified by authorities but not yet named.

The mountain cable car cabin plunged to the ground after one of the cables supporting it snapped on Thursday, local officials said.

The cable car operator said it had passed a safety inspection just two weeks ago and that a criminal investigation has been opened.

The UK foreign office said it was in touch with local authorities but has not confirmed the identities of the victims.

The two other victims include the driver of the cable car, named by authorities as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato, and an Israeli woman identified as Janan Suliman.

A fifth person in the cabin, Ms Suliman’s brother, was “extremely seriously injured” in the crash and airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition, officials said.

Authorities in Torre Annunziata have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

Sixteen people were rescued from a second cabin which was also on the line near the bottom of the valley at the time of the incident. They were winched to safety.

The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia – where the cable car is located – said it was believed a traction cable had snapped.

“The emergency brake downstream worked but clearly not the one on the cabin that was about to reach the top of the hill,” he told Italian media on Thursday.

He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line which runs three kilometres from the town to the top of the mountain.

A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign office said: “We are dealing with an incident in Italy and are in contact with the local authorities. Our thoughts are with those affected.”

Shortly after the crash, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was on a trip to Washington, expressed her “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.

The Mount Faito cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident on the line in 1960 left four people dead.

A US senator has met a man who Trump administration officials have acknowledged was deported in error from Maryland to a mega-prison in El Salvador.

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen posted photos with Kilmar Ábrego García, as the administration continues to resist his return to the US despite yet another court ruling against the government on Thursday.

After the meeting, which appeared to take place in a hotel, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said the detainee would remain in the country’s custody.

The White House has accused Mr Ábrego García of being a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, which his lawyer denies.

In a post on his social media site Truth Social the morning after the meeting, Trump said Van Hollen “looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone”.

The visit came amid an escalating showdown between the US president and the courts over the case.

A federal court on Thursday ruled against the Trump administration in a case that could force officials to testify under oath about the deportation.

In a scathing judgement, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals called the administration’s handling of the situation “shocking”.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” wrote conservative Judge Harvie Wilkinson III, one of three judges on the panel.

The government “claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done”, Judge Wilkinson wrote.

“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

Why, the judge wrote, should the government “not make what was wrong, right?”

Mr Ábrego García’s lawyers are suing the US government for sending him to a mega-prison in El Salvador in March, in what the Trump administration has admitted was an error.

• What next in legal fight over El Salvador deportations?

The Supreme Court has ordered the US government to “facilitate” his return.

Photos shared by Van Hollen and Mr Bukele are the first sight of the Maryland resident since his deportation.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” the Democratic senator posted on social media.

“I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

Before the meeting, the senator said he was stopped by armed guards on his way to Cecot, the maximum-security prison where Mr Ábrego García has been detained.

Van Hollen arrived in the country on Wednesday hoping to secure the release of Mr Ábrego García, who had been living in Maryland.

The senator did not offer an update on Mr Ábrego García’s status in his social media posts, but said more information would be released upon his return to the US.

Mr Ábrego García’s wife celebrated the news and said her “prayers have been answered”.

She said her family still has many questions and will continue fighting for his release.

During his trip, Van Hollen said he also met the country’s vice-president and asked that they open the doors so Mr Ábrego García could leave the prison, a request he says was rejected.

On X, El Salvador’s president reposted photos of the senator meeting Mr Ábrego García and appeared to poke fun at social media speculation that the inmate had died in custody.

President Bukele commented that Mr Ábrego García had “miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture'” in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador”.

• What we know about MS-13 allegations

“Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody,” the president added.

The White House called the visit “disgusting” and said it showed that Democrats side with “an illegal alien MS-13 terrorist” while President Trump stands with law-abiding Americans.

Mr Ábrego García’s lawyers deny he has any gang affiliation and maintain he has never been charged with, nor convicted of any crime.

Mr Ábrego García was living in Maryland before he was deported on 15 March with scores of Salvadorans and Venezuelans to the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot) in El Salvador.

Maryland Judge Paula Xinis ruled that Mr Ábrego García’s removal from the country breached a 2019 court order that had granted him legal protection from deportation.

Trump administration officials have conceded the deportation was an “administrative error” although the White House insists there was no mistake.

The Republican president’s allies have argued the deportation is making good on his campaign promise to keep Americans safe.

They have cited a restraining order filed by Mr Ábrego García’s wife on 5 May 2021, in which she alleged four instances of domestic violence against her by him.

Ms Vasquez Sura told Newsweek on Wednesday that she and her husband had worked through their difficulties, including by counselling.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday: “He [Mr Ábrego García] will never live in the United States of America.”

She was joined by the mother of a Maryland woman, Rachel Morin, who was murdered in August 2023 by an alleged fugitive from El Salvador, in a separate case.

Since pop star Katy Perry returned to Earth earlier this week, the number of memes referencing her brief trip to space has skyrocketed.

After weighing in with jokes of its own, American fast-food chain Wendy’s has clarified that its now-viral tweets weren’t meant to cause offense.

Following criticism from followers, the company put out a statement this week saying it had no ill-will for Perry.

“We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent,” it said.

The star-studded, all-female crew on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket took off in Texas on Monday and flew for 11 minutes in total. Perry was joined by five other women, including journalist Gayle King and Jeff Bezos’ partner Lauren Sanchez.

But the “Fireworks” singer’s reactions captivated the internet more than others’. After landing, she kissed the ground, saying she felt “so connected to love”.

King revealed that Perry sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while in space.

Memes and comments began to flood social media platforms, including Wendy’s series of posts on its official X account when she landed: “When we said women in stem this isn’t what we meant” and “Can we send her back”.

While the space flight was meant to celebrate women, the crew has faced some criticism. The backlash ranged from the environmental impact of the flight to looming cuts for actual Nasa employees.

Other celebrities also offered their two cents.

“I think it’s a bit gluttonous,” actress Olivia Munn said in an appearance on TODAY. “Space exploration was to further our knowledge and to help mankind. What are they going to do up there that is going to help us down here?”

Model and activist Emily Ratajkowski said on TikTok that the flight was “beyond parody”.

“Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space,” she said. “For what?”

But not all reactions were negative. TV reality star Khloe Kardashian, watching from the viewing platform, said: “Whatever you dream of is in our reach, especially in today’s day and age.”

Oprah Winfrey, a close friend of King, also watched the launch. She was seen tearing up as the craft landed.

“I’ve never been more proud of my friend than today,” she said.

King countered some of the negative comments, saying she believes the flight inspired young women who want to be astronauts.

“I feel that anybody who is criticising doesn’t really understand what’s happening here,” she said.

A suspect accused of killing two people and injuring six others during a shooting spree at Florida State University did not know his victims, police said Friday.

The alleged gunman, 20-year-old FSU student Phoenix Ikner, began shooting around lunchtime on Thursday near the student union building in Tallahassee. The motive remains unclear.

Police said the gun was owned by his stepmother, Jessica Ikner, a veteran police officer.

In a video statement, Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said: “At this point, there does not appear to be any connection at all between the shooter and any of the victims.”

Details about the victims began to emerge Friday. One of two people killed was an employee of food service provider Aramark, the company said on Friday.

Tiru Chabba, 45, of Greenville, South Carolina, was a married father of two, according to a statement from a law firm hired by his family. He was on the Florida campus working Thursday when the shooting began.

“We are heartbroken to confirm that an Aramark employee was among those killed at FSU yesterday in that senseless act of violence,” the company, which manages Florida State University’s on-campus dining programmes, said in a statement. “We are absolutely shaken by the news and our deepest sympathies are with the family and our entire Aramark community.”

The other dead victim, university dining worker Robert Morales, was identified by his sister, who posted a tribute online. His LinkedIn profile said he had been working at FSU as a university dining co-ordinator since 2015.

At a news conference on Friday, doctors at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare hospital said six people injured by gunshots were in stable condition, with one seriously injured.

Doctors said two of the victims would be released from hospital on Friday, and all were expected to make full recoveries.

According to a police timeline, officers responded to an active shooter call shortly before midday local time on Thursday. An alert was issued warning students and those on campus to “seek shelter and await further instructions”.

“One of my classmates got an alert on her phone and announced it to the rest of the class,” student Ava Arenado told CBS News Miami.

Another student, Blake Leonard, told CBS he initially heard roughly 12 shots fired.

“In my head, I thought it was construction at first, until I looked behind me and saw people running from the union towards my direction, and then I heard another 12 or 15 shots go off, so I started running away from there too,” he said.

The incident ended less than five minutes later when police shot Mr Ikner after he did not comply with their commands, authorities said. He was undergoing treatment at a local hospital, police said.

Chief Revell said Mr Ikner had serious injuries and would be in hospital for a “significant time”, after which he will face charges “up to and including first-degree murder”.

Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil described the suspect’s stepmother Mrs Ikner, who worked as a school resource officer, as a “model employee”.

He said the gun used in the shooting was a police-issued firearm that Mrs Ikner kept for personal use after the force upgraded its weapons. A shotgun also was found at the scene, police said.

The suspect was a “longstanding member” of the sheriff office’s youth advisory council and was engaged in a number of training programmes, Sheriff McNeil said.

“So it is not a surprise that he had access to weapons,” he said.

Court documents indicate that the alleged gunman was largely raised by his father and stepmother.

He was previously known as Christian Eriksen and was the subject of a long-running custody dispute between his biological mother and father. He had health issues including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a growth disorder, according to court documents.

The FSU student newspaper quoted the suspect commenting on an anti-Trump rally on campus in January.

FSUNews.com said Mr Ikner, who was registered to vote as a Republican, commented about anti-Trump protesters: “These people are usually pretty entertaining, usually not for good reasons.”

President Donald Trump, who said he was briefed on the incident, called the shooting “a shame, a horrible thing”.

When asked by reporters whether he wanted to change gun regulations in light of the shooting, he said he was a “big advocate” of the Second Amendment in the US Constitution, which protects gun rights.

“I have been since the beginning,” he said. “I have protected it. These things are terrible. We will have more to say about it later.”

As Iran and the United States prepare to hold a second round of high-stakes nuclear talks in Rome, hopes for de-escalation are being tempered by mounting military threats and mixed messages.

US President Donald Trump reminds Tehran nearly every day of its options: a deal or war.

He has previously said Israel would lead a military response if the talks failed.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Trump had “waved off” an Israeli plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites as early as next month.

“I wouldn’t say waved off. I’m not in a rush to do it,” Trump told reporters in response to the article on Thursday, adding that he preferred to give diplomacy a chance.

“I think that Iran has a chance to have a great country and to live happily without death… That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran.”

After both sides described the first round of talks in Oman last weekend as constructive, Trump had said he would be “making a decision on Iran very quickly”.

In 2018, Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 agreement which saw Iran limit its nuclear activities and allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for sanctions relief.

He said it did too little to stop Iran’s potential pathway to a nuclear weapon and reinstated US sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Iran to negotiate a new deal.

However, Iran refused and increasingly breached restrictions in retaliation. It has now stockpiled enough highly-enriched uranium to make several bombs if it chose to do so – something it says it would never do.

The threat of military action appears to have played a role in bringing Iran back to the negotiating table. Yet it insists that is not the reason.

The website of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Iran had agreed to talks only because the US limited its demands strictly to nuclear issues – not out of fear of US and Israeli strikes.

Even so, reaching a deal remains far from certain.

Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who is leading the US negotiating team, posted on X on Tuesday: “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East – meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization programme.”

It came just a day after he had suggested in an interview with Fox News that Iran would be allowed to continue enriching uranium.

“They do not need to enrich past 3.67%,” he said, referring to the limit set by the 2015 nuclear deal.

“This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme and then ultimately verification on weaponization.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the head of the Iranian delegation, responded by noting Witkoff’s “contradictory statements” and stressing that “real positions will be made clear at the negotiating table”.

“We are ready to build trust regarding possible concerns over Iran’s enrichment, but the principle of enrichment is not negotiable,” he said.

This Saturday’s talks in Rome come amid a flurry of diplomatic activity.

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, visited Tehran on Thursday, delivering a personal message from his father King Salman to Ayatollah Khamenei. He also met Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran has warned that any US military action would be met with retaliation against American bases in the region – many of them hosted by Iran’s Arab neighbours.

At the same time, Araghchi visited Moscow and handed a letter from Khamenei to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Iran and Russia have strengthened their military ties since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Tehran accused of supplying drones to support Moscow’s war effort.

The Russian parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership between Iran and Russia 10 days ago. However, the deal does not include a mutual defence clause.

Meanwhile, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi completed a two-day visit to Tehran this week, meeting Iranian nuclear officials and the foreign minister in a bid to ease tensions and restore inspection protocols.

Since Trump returned to office this year, Ayatollah Khamenei has consistently denounced negotiations with Washington.

“Negotiating with this administration is not logical, not wise, nor honourable,” he said in a February speech, just two months before agreeing to the current round of talks.

The supreme leader’s distrust stems from Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the “maximum pressure” campaign that followed, and the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Iraq in 2020.

Ayatollah Khamenei expressed satisfaction with the first round of talks, saying it was “implemented well”.

But he cautioned that he was “neither overly optimistic nor overly pessimistic”.

He has also previously warned that Iran would ​retaliate in the event of strikes on its nuclear programme.

Some officials, including his adviser Ali Larijani, have even said that Iran might be “forced” to acquire a nuclear weapon if attacked.

“We are not pursuing weapons, and we have no problem with IAEA oversight – even indefinitely. But if you resort to bombing, Iran will have no choice but to reconsider. That is not in your interest,” Larijani told state TV earlier this month.

Each side is pushing its own narrative about how the talks are being conducted.

The US says they are direct. Iran says they indirect, and that Oman is mediating by exchanging written notes.

After the first round in Muscat, Araghchi acknowledged he had a brief exchange with Witkoff “out of diplomatic courtesy” after crossing paths.

US news website Axios, citing sources, reported the two chief negotiators spoke for up to 45 minutes.

Tehran prefers secrecy. Washington seeks publicity.

After both sides put out positive statements about the first round, Iran’s currency surged by 20%.

Iran’s leadership is well aware of public discontent over the country’s harsh economic conditions – and the potential for protests it may trigger.

For the Islamic Republic, the fear is not just over bombs – it’s protests too.

Before Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and threatened its sovereignty, the Canadian psyche was consumed with another major issue: housing affordability. With an election on the horizon, voters are wondering if any party has a plan to fix what has become a generational problem.

Willow Yamauchi says she was just a “regular” person when she and her husband bought their family home in Vancouver 25 years ago for a modest sum of C$275,000 – around C$435,000 ($312,000; £236,400) in today’s dollars.

That same property is now worth several million.

In the city on Canada’s west coast, Ms Yamauchi’s story is as common as the rainy weather. The average price of a detached home in Vancouver in 2000 was around C$350,000. Now, it is more than C$2m.

“My husband and I were very privileged to be able to purchase a house when we did,” the 52-year-old writer tells the BBC. As a member of Generation X, timing was on her side.

The same, she says, cannot be said for younger people, who – without “the bank of mom and dad” – are effectively priced out of the city they grew up in.

Vancouver, a cultural and economic hub with a population of less than one million, is often seen as the epicentre of Canada’s housing crisis. A report by Chapman University in California last year listed it among the top “impossibly unaffordable” cities in the world.

But it is not the only Canadian city where the cost of homes is out of reach for many. Canada as a whole has one of the highest house-price-to-income ratios among developed nations.

In 2021, the average household income after taxes in Canada was around C$88,000, according to national data. That same year, the average home price hit C$713,500 – more than eight times higher. The gap is even larger in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver.

For many Canadians, housing is one of the top issues in the federal election, eclipsed only recently by US President Donald Trump and his tariffs on Canada.

Before Trump, concerns on housing affordability had boosted the Conservative Party, which has consistently been seen as the best equipped to fix the crisis.

But then a trade war with the US came along and it catapulted the governing Liberal party to the top of the polls.

Even with the Trump factor, the topic featured prominently in the two election debates this week. During the French language one, moderator and journalist Patrice Roy displayed figures showing how much home prices had increased in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver in the last decade.

“I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise,” Mr Roy told the federal leaders, before asking for their plans on how they would fix the crisis.

Polls show young people are especially worried about the housing crisis and what it means for their future.

Speaking to students at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Vancouver campus, it quickly became clear that the issue was top of mind for many.

Many said they have either opted to live at home during their studies to save on costs, or are paying anywhere from C$1,100 to C$1,500 for a single room near campus, often in a home shared with five or six others.

Emily Chu, a 24-year-old who is in her final semester at UBC, says that she at one point had to delay her studies by two years in order to work, as she struggled to afford paying both tuition and rent.

She now shares an apartment with her older brother, who works full-time and pays the majority of the rent. Ms Chu considers herself one of the lucky ones.

As for home ownership in the future, she says “that’s not even possible” for most people her age. “Everybody kind of assumes that we can’t ever own housing.”

Young professionals with well-paying jobs, like Margareta Dovgal, are also priced out. The 28-year-old director at Vancouver-based non-profit Resource Works told the BBC that she has considered moving to the neighbouring province of Alberta due to its lower cost of living, despite being a lifelong and “committed Vancouverite”.

Still, Calgary, Alberta’s largest city, saw house prices increase by 15% in 2024 from the previous year as the city experienced its highest population growth rate since 2001.

The root causes of Canada’s housing affordability crisis are complex. One of the main issues is a supply that has not kept up with a growing population, which has driven up costs for both buyers and renters.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the national housing agency, estimates that more than 3.8 million homes need to be built in the next six years to address the shortage.

Construction of new housing, however, has been well below that target, raising questions on whether Canada will meet this goal. Experts say barriers to ramping up building include the high cost and scarcity of land in urban areas, where most Canadians tend to live and work.

There are also regional barriers, like city zoning laws that prevent the construction of more affordable, higher density housing – including apartment buildings or multiplexes – in some neighbourhoods.

Daniel Oleksiuk, co-founder of the advocacy group Abundant Housing Vancouver, says his city is one example, where more than half of the land has historically been zoned for single-family homes.

“We’ve kept almost all of the land reserved,” Mr Oleksiuk told the BBC. “There are whole neighbourhoods where all you have is three to five million dollar homes.”

On the campaign trail, each major federal party has put forward a plan to fix the crisis, all with the goal of building as many homes as quickly as possible.

The Liberals, led by Mark Carney, said their aim is to build 500,000 new homes a year with the help of a new government agency called Build Canada Homes that would oversee and finance the construction of affordable housing in Canada – a plan similar to one implemented after the Second World War to house veterans.

Critics have questioned whether Carney’s target is viable, as it would require Canada to more than double its current construction rate.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre, vowed to tie federal funding to housing starts by rewarding cities that build more homes and penalising those that block construction – a carrot-and-stick approach.

Poilievre also promised to remove federal taxes on newly constructed homes in an effort to cut costs to would-be homebuyers. Critics, however, say this policy may have minimal effect, as most homes purchased in Canada are resold, rather than brand new.

Voters who spoke to the BBC say they welcome any plan to ramp up housing construction in Canada.

While much of housing is governed by provinces and cities, Ms Dovgal notes that the federal government has an ability “to lead persuasively” and implement measures that make it cheaper and easier to build across the country.

But others watching the issue closely caution that the steps proposed may not be enough.

Paul Kershaw, a public policy professor at UBC and founder of think tank Generation Squeeze, argues that politicians have failed to address the elephant in the room: the wealth older homeowners have generated off the housing crisis.

“The political bargain has asked younger Canadians to suffer higher rents and mortgages in order to protect those higher home values,” Kershaw notes.

“None of the parties are really naming that generational tension,” he says, adding that politicians may privately feel there is a political risk in trying to stall the cost of housing, and thus, older Canadians’ assets.

Prof Kershaw calls this a “cultural problem”, and says that parties should also focus on reducing costs for younger people as a way to alleviate this generational burden.

Fixing the housing crisis, he argues, is just as integral as asserting sovereignty and prosperity in the face of threats posed by Trump’s tariffs.

The “dysfunction that has entered our housing market is disruptive to the well-being of the country”, he says.

Until a fix is found, the possibility of homeownership still looks bleak for many.

Ms Dovgal contends half-heartedly that, other than moving elsewhere, “you have to win the lottery, or marry a multi-millionaire. These are kind of the options”.

The leaders of Canada’s four major federal parties have squared off in their second and final debate ahead of this month’s general election.

But it was someone off stage who stole much of the spotlight – US President Donald Trump.

A big question heading into the two-hour forum was whether Liberal leader Mark Carney, who has been leading in the polls, would stumble.

Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, managed to survive Wednesday’s French debate despite being less proficient in the country’s second-most spoken language.

On Thursday, he found himself placed on the spot repeatedly by his three opponents: Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet.

How to respond to Canada’s ongoing trade war with the US was a theme, but the debate also saw clashes on affordability, crime and the environment.

Here are five big takeaways from Thursday’s primetime showdown:

Carney’s opponents were quick to focus on the mistakes of his unpopular predecessor, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Conservative leader Poilievre made references to the “lost Liberal decade”, talking about the last 10 years when the Liberal party has been in power. He cited issues like housing affordability and the high cost of living to drive his point home.

“How can we possibly believe that you are any different?” Poilievre asked Carney.

Blanchet also threw down the gauntlet to Carney. “You claim you are different – you need to prove you are better.”

Carney was forced to defend himself multiple times, noting that he has only been in the prime minister’s chair for one month despite sharing the same party banner as Trudeau.

“I am a very different person than Justin Trudeau,” Carney said.

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The leaders were asked about how they would negotiate with Trump and respond to his tariffs on Canada.

The US president has implemented blanket 25% tariffs on goods from Canada, with an exemption on products covered by the USMCA – a North American free trade deal. Canada is also hit with global US tariffs on steel and aluminium and cars.

The president has also publicly spoken about Canada becoming the 51st US state.

Canada’s government has previously said its position is to implement “dollar-for-dollar” tariffs with the aim of inflicting maximum pain on the US economy.

• What Trump really wants from Canada

But during the debate, the leaders appeared to concede it is ultimately not an equal fight.

“We’ve moved on from dollar-for-dollar tariffs,” Carney said, acknowledging that the US economy is more than 10 times the size of Canada’s.

The Liberal leader said the focus would shift to targeted tariffs designed to maximise pain on the US and hurt Canada as little as possible.

Trump appears to have softened his language on Canada in recent weeks. After a phone call with the US president in late March, Carney said Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” and that their conversation was “constructive”.

Canada and the US are expected to start talks on trade and security after the 28 April election.

For Canadians tuned in to issues facing the country beyond Trump and his tariffs, the debate offered substantive policy discussions on topics from housing to crime to immigration.

It was clear that Canadians have starkly different choices before them.

Poilievre frequently championed his vision of a small government that would keep taxes low to drive up economic growth and affordability for Canadians, and that would be tough on crime.

• ‘My home is worth millions but my kids can’t afford to live here’

Singh, meanwhile, pushed for stronger social programmes in Canada, including expanding the country’s national dental care and pharmacare programmes and other healthcare spending.

Carney stuck close to the centrist point of view of his party.

“Government can play a role, but its role has to be catalytic,” he said during a segment on strong leadership in a crisis.

Canada’s political system, similar to that of the UK, has several political parties – the centrist Liberals, the right-leaning Conservatives, the left-leaning New Democrats, and the Bloc, which only runs candidates in Quebec.

There is also the Green Party, which was disqualified at the last minute from the debate for not running enough candidates.

But polls suggest that in this election, the bulk of Canadians are opting to support either the Conservatives or the Liberals.

This has left the third-place parties fighting for survival. National polls have Singh’s New Democrats polling at 8.5% – which could roughly translate to just five seats out of 343, a major loss from their current 24 seats.

Singh pushed to make his voice heard, repeatedly interrupting both Poilievre and Carney in a bid to set his party apart as the choice for left-wing voters.

“You can’t entrust all the power to Mr Carney,” Singh remarked.

Meanwhile, Bloc leader Blanchet inserted issues relevant to the French-speaking province at every opportunity.

His party, too, stands to lose at least a dozen seats in Quebec, according to current polling.

Despite the frequent crosstalk, the tone overall was rather cordial.

The general sense of decorum was apparent when the leaders were discussing the housing crisis. In a rebuttal to Poilievre, Carney appeared to stop himself before laying into his opponent.

“A misunderstanding… ,” Carney said as he paused mid-sentence, adding: “I’ll be polite.”

Even after some heated exchanges, Carney and Poilievre were filmed shaking hands and laughing afterwards.

Not only was it strikingly different to some recent presidential debate cycles in the US, it was even friendlier than some past Canadian federal debates.

Ryan Gosling is to star in a new Star Wars film, which is set to be released in two years’ time.

The new Disney project is titled Star Wars: Starfighter, and will be directed by Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy.

“The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters,” said Barbie actor Gosling at a Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo.

“It’s filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.”

Gosling’s lifelong passion for the franchise was on display at the event, which showed his childhood Star Wars bedsheets on screen.

“You can see from the picture, I guess I was probably dreaming about Star Wars before I even saw the film,” he said.

“And it’s probably framed my idea of what a movie even was,” he said.

Set to be released on 7 May 2027, the film is a standalone story and won’t follow the main plotline of the Skywalker family and recent sequels starring Daisy Ridley.

Not many details about the storyline have been revealed yet.

According to the Star Wars website, it is “set approximately five years after the events of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker” with Gosling playing a new character.

The new space adventure is “not a prequel, not sequel, it’s a new adventure. It’s set in a period of time that we haven’t seen explored yet”, added Levy.

The next Star Wars film release is set to be The Mandalorian And Grogu, a sequel to The Mandalorian starring Pedro Pascal and directed by Jon Favreau.

Gosling was nominated at the Oscars for his portrayal of Ken in 2023’s Barbie blockbuster, which also starred Margot Robbie.

The Canadian actor, known for roles in La La Land and The Notebook, also starred as a stuntman in last year’s The Fall Guy.