The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has told the BBC that Ukraine may have to give up land as part of a peace deal with Russia, amid a growing pressure from President Donald Trump to accept territorial concessions.

“One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he said in response to questions from the BBC.

But the 53-year-old former boxing champion-turned politician stressed that the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.

He was speaking hours after a Russian missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv killed 12 people and injured more than 80.

It was one of the deadliest Russian assaults on the Ukrainian capital in months.

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

Klitschko is now one of the most senior Ukrainian politicians to indicate publicly that his country may have to give up territory, albeit temporarily.

The Kyiv mayor and Zelensky are political opponents. The mayor has repeatedly accused the president and his team of trying to undermine his authority.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from his office in central Kyiv on Thursday, Klitschko noted that he was “responsible for the capital of Ukraine”, describing it as “the heart” of the war-torn country.

He said President Volodymyr Zelensky might be forced to take a “painful solution” to achieve peace.

When asked whether Zelensky has been discussing with him any details of a possible settlement, Klitschko replied bluntly: “No.”

“President Zelensky does [it] himself. It’s not my function,” he added.

Referring to a very public bust-up between Zelensky and Trump at the White House in February, the mayor suggested that key issues between top politicians would be better discussed “without video cameras”.

Earlier this week, Trump accused Zelensky of harming peace negotiations, after the Ukrainian leader again ruled out recognising Russian control of Crimea, a southern Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Trump said Crimea “was lost years ago” and was currently “not even a point of discussion”.

But Zelensky pointed to a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying the US “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation”.

Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Trump’s warming of relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

• Trump criticises Zelensky as Ukraine refuses Russian control of Crimea
• Why Zelensky can’t and won’t give up Crimea

As talks ramp up, Russian strikes on Ukraine have continued.

On Thursday, an attack on Kyiv killed 12 people and injured dozens, officials said. The BBC witnessed the body of a child being brought out from the wreckage of their home while people quietly cried nearby.

Svitlana, a teacher at a school close by which was also hit, spoke of her hurt and added she believed Russia would not stop its aggression if Ukraine gave up Crimea.

“Those who think that Putin will stop if he is given Crimea, they don’t know who the Russians are, he is not going to stop,” she said.

She said Zelensky expresses the opinion of “all of us and we support him”.

Another woman, Olha, who had helped rescue workers carry out 10 people, five of whom were dead and the rest injured, was more critical.

“As of now I think it’s better to be away from here because nothing good awaits us here,” she said, adding there “will not be a good solution” for Ukraine.

She said Zelensky “was a comedian and he should have stayed a comedian”.

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to invest A$1.2bn (£580m) in a strategic reserve for critical minerals if he wins next month’s election, as trade tensions escalate.

The announcement came after China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, essential to the production of advanced technologies – including electric vehicles, fighter jets, and robots.

China’s controls apply to all countries but were widely seen as retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Albanese said Australia would prioritise minerals that are key to its security, and that of its partners, including rare earths. But could his plan challenge China’s dominance?

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements – named “rare” because they are notoriously difficult to extract and refine.

Rare earths, like samarium and terbium, are critical to the production of technologies set to shape the world in the coming decades – including electric vehicles and highly advanced weapons systems.

Albanese’s proposed reserve includes rare earths as well as other critical minerals of which Australia is a top producer – like lithium and cobalt.

Both China and Australia have rare earth reserves. But 90% of rare earth refining – which makes them usable in technology – takes place in China, giving the country significant control over supply.

And that has spooked Western governments.

Beijing said its restrictions on rare earths were in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, currently at 145%.

But analysts say Washington’s inability to secure the supply of rare earths has become one of the Trump administration’s chief anxieties, especially as diplomatic tensions with Beijing have deepened.

Around 75% of US rare earth imports came from China between 2019 and 2022, according to the US Geological Survey.

Philip Kirchlechner, director of Iron Ore Research in Perth, Western Australia, told the BBC that the US and EU had “dropped the ball” on recognising the importance of the rare earths over recent decades, as China swiftly developed a monopoly over refinement.

“China has its foot on the blood vein… of US and European defence systems,” he added.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, this week said that China halting exports of rare earths used in advanced magnets was affecting the company’s ability to develop humanoid robots, in an early symbol of the pain Beijing has the power to inflict on US companies.

Albanese’s proposal says that minerals in the reserve will be available to both “domestic industry and international partners”, in a likely reference to allies such as the US and EU.

But Kirchlechner, while welcoming the move as “long overdue”, added that the proposal is “not going to solve the problem”.

The fundamental issue is that even if Australia stockpiles more critical minerals, the refining process of rare earths will still largely be controlled by China.

Lithium – not a rare earth, but a crucial metal in the production electric vehicle batteries and solar panels – is a good example. Australia mines 33% of the world’s lithium, but only refines and exports a tiny fraction. China, on the other hand, mines just 23% of the world’s lithium, but refines 57% of it, according to the International Energy Agency.

Australia has been investing in refining rare earths as part of its Future Made in Australia plan, aimed at leveraging the country’s critical minerals reserves to drive the green transition.

Arafura Rare Earths, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, last year received A$840m in funding to create the country’s first combined mine and refinery for rare earths. And in November, Australia opened its first rare earths processing plant, also in Western Australia, operated by Lynas Rare Earths.

But the country is expected to depend on China for refining until at least 2026, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, headquartered in Washington.

China has been trying to seize on the volatility brought by Trump.

In a series of editorials in Australian newspapers, China’s ambassador to Canberra lambasted Washington’s approach to global trade, and called on Australia to “join hands” with Beijing – something that Albanese quickly rejected.

Australia has touted its resource industry in its talks with Trump. Some critical minerals were exempt from a 10% tariff he imposed on imports of most Australian products.

But analysts say Albanese’s proposal is mainly aimed at protecting Australia and its partners from strategic adversaries like China.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, told the BBC that Albanese’s plan was “more sophisticated” than previous proposals, because it included the ability to sell Australia’s resources at moments of economic tension.

If China imposes export controls, she added, Australia could begin selling more of its mineral reserves to help lower prices on global markets, and loosen the control China has had on setting prices.

But she said that Australia still cannot completely replace China.

“If [Australia’s] goal is to serve the West, become more instrumental to the West – especially the US – there are weak spots China can enter – and the most important is refining.”

A Dutch town hall has admitted that it “most likely” accidentally disposed of 46 artworks, including an Andy Warhol print of the former Dutch queen, during renovation works last year.

Maashorst municipality said the works, including a 1980s silkscreen print of Queen Beatrix worth about €15,000 (£12,800), disappeared during work on a town hall last year.

An investigation said the artworks were stored in a basement during renovations and a lack of guidelines for storing the artworks could have been among the reasons why they ended up being thrown away.

Mayor Hans van der Pas told public broadcaster Omroep Brabant: “That’s not how you treat valuables. But it happened. We regret that.”

A statement by the municipality on Thursday said the artworks were put into storage during work on a town hall in Uden – which is being incorporated into the neighbouring municipality of Landerd to form the Maashorst municipality.

“It’s most likely that the artworks were accidentally taken away with the trash,” they said.

A report by investigators found that some of the artworks were stored in wheelie bins in the basement and were “not handled with care”, according to local newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

The report concluded: “Ownership was not properly established, no policies and procedures were established regarding the renovation and insufficient action was taken when the artworks turned out to be missing.”

It went on to say that a lack of guidelines for registration, storage, conservation and security of the artworks, were also contributing factors.

Local media reports that the 46 artworks altogether were worth around €22,000 (£18,800) and the Maashorst municipality said it was unlikely they will ever be found.

Queen Beatrix reigned as queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until she abdicated in 2013, when she was succeeded by her son King Willem-Alexander.

The Queen Beatrix print was part of Warhol’s series Reigning Queens, which comprised of 16 colourful prints of four monarchs, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, Margrethe II of Denmark – who abdicated in 2023 – and Queen Ntombi Twala of Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland.

Warhol, considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, created the prints in 1985 – two years before his death.

In November last year, Warhol prints of Queen Beatrix and Ntombi Twala were stolen – and abandoned – during a heist on a Dutch art gallery.

Local police at the time said thieves took four silkscreen prints from the MPV Gallery in the North Brabant province and fled by car.

But the portraits of Queen Beatrix and Queen Ntombi were later abandoned because they did not fit in the vehicle, NOS reported at the time.

Will India be able to stop the Indus river and two of its tributaries from flowing into Pakistan?

That’s the question on many minds, after India suspended a major treaty governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries, following Tuesday’s horrific attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

The suspension is among several steps India has taken against Pakistan, accusing it of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies. It has also hit back with reciprocal measures against Delhi, and said stopping water flow “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The treaty allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

Disputes have flared in the past, with Pakistan objecting to some of India’s hydropower and water infrastructure projects, arguing they would reduce river flows and violate the treaty. (More than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and around a third of its hydropower depend on the Indus basin’s water.)

India, meanwhile, has been pushing to review and modify the treaty, citing changing needs – from irrigation and drinking water to hydropower – in light of factors like climate change.

Over the years, Pakistan and India have pursued competing legal avenues under the treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But this is the first time either side has announced a suspension – and notably, it’s the upstream country, India, giving it a geographic advantage.

But what does the suspension really mean? Could India hold back or divert the Indus basin’s waters, depriving Pakistan of its lifeline? And is it even capable of doing so?

Experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes.

“The infrastructure India has are mostly run-of-the-river hydropower plants that do not need massive storage,” said Himanshu Thakkar, a regional water resources expert with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Such hydropower plants use the force of running water to spin turbines and generate electricity, without holding back large volumes of water.

Indian experts say inadequate infrastructure has kept India from fully utilising even its 20% share of the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus waters under the treaty – a key reason they argue for building storage structures, which Pakistan opposes citing treaty provisions.

Experts say India can now modify existing infrastructure or build new ones to hold back or divert more water without informing Pakistan.

“Unlike in the past, India will now not be required to share its project documents with Pakistan,” said Mr Thakkar.

But challenges like difficult terrain and protests within India itself over some of its projects have meant that construction of water infrastructure in the Indus basin has not moved fast enough.

After a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016, Indian water resources ministry officials had told the BBC they would speed up construction of several dams and water storage projects in the Indus basin.

Although there is no official information on the status of such projects, sources say progress has been limited.

Some experts say that if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season, when water availability is already at its lowest.

“A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season – when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical,” Hassan F Khan, assistant professor of Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Studies at Tufts University, wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

“That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.”

The treaty requires India to share hydrological data with Pakistan – crucial for flood forecasting and planning for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water.

Pradeep Kumar Saxena, India’s former IWT commissioner for over six years, told the Press Trust of India news agency that the country can now stop sharing flood data with Pakistan.

The region sees damaging floods during the monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. But Pakistani authorities have said India was already sharing very limited hydrological data.

“India was sharing only around 40% of the data even before it made the latest announcement,” Shiraz Memon, Pakistan’s former additional commissioner of the Indus Waters Treaty, told BBC Urdu.

Another issue that comes up each time there is water-related tension in the region is if the upstream country can “weaponise” water against the downstream country.

This is often called a “water bomb”, where the upstream country can temporarily hold back water and then release it suddenly, without warning, causing massive damage downstream.

Could India do that?

Experts say India would first risk flooding its own territory as its dams are far from the Pakistan border. However, it could now flush silt from its reservoirs without prior warning – potentially causing damage downstream in Pakistan.

Himalayan rivers like the Indus carry high silt levels, which quickly accumulate in dams and barrages. Sudden flushing of this silt can cause significant downstream damage.

There’s a bigger picture: India is downstream of China in the Brahmaputra basin, and the Indus originates in Tibet.

In 2016, after India warned that “blood and water cannot flow together” following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan, China blocked a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo – that becomes the Brahmaputra in northeast India.

China, that has Pakistan as its ally, said they had done it as it was needed for a hydropower project they were building near the border. But the timing of the move was seen as Beijing coming in to help Islamabad.

After building several hydropower plants in Tibet, China has green-lit what will be the world’s largest dam on the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing claims minimal environmental impact, but India fears it could give China significant control over the river’s flow.

California’s economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force.

Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California’s growth.

The data shows California’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan, which was marked at $4.01 trillion. The state now only trails Germany, China and the US as a whole.

“California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace,” Newsom said.

The new figures come as Newsom has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s tariffs and voiced concern about the future of the state’s economy.

California has the largest share of manufacturing and agricultural production in the US. It is also home to leading technological innovation, the centre of the world’s entertainment industry and the country’s two largest seaports.

Newsom, a prominent Democrat and possible presidential candidate in 2028, filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose the levies, which have caused disruption to global markets and trade.

Trump has enacted 10% levies on almost all countries importing to the US, after announcing a 90-day pause on higher tariffs.

Another 25% tariff was imposed on Mexico and Canada. The levies on China, however, have led to an all-out trade war with the world’s second largest economy.

Trump imposed import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US and China hit back with a 125% tax on American products.

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

Newsom noted his worries about the future of the state’s economy.

“While we celebrate this success, we recognise that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration,” he said. “California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected.”

Trump has argued his trade war is only levelling the playing field after years of the US being taxed.

The tariffs are an effort to encourage factories and jobs to return to the US. It is one major pillar of his economic agenda, as is a cut in interest rates, aimed at reducing the cost of borrowing for Americans.

The new data shows California’s GDP behind the US at $29.18 trillion, China at $18.74 trillion and Germany at $4.65 trillion. It also shows California was the fastest growing among those countries.

Japan’s economy is under pressure because of its decreasing and ageing population, which means its workforce is shrinking and social care costs are ballooning.

This week, the IMF cut its economic growth forecast for Japan and projected that the central bank would raise interest rates more slowly than previously expected because of the impact of higher tariffs.

“The effect of tariffs announced on April 2 and associated uncertainty offset the expected strengthening of private consumption with above-inflation wage growth boosting household disposable income,” its World Economic Outlook report said.

Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting a new earthquake in a viral TikTok video.

John Moe The posted his prediction on 9 April, just two weeks after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,500 people and destroyed centuries-old temples in the South East Asian nation.

He was arrested Tuesday for making “false statements with the intention of causing public panic”, Myanmar’s information ministry said.

John Moe The had warned that an earthquake would “hit every city in Myanmar” on 21 April. But experts say earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.

In his video, which got more than three million views, John Moe The urged people to “take important things with you and run away from buildings during the shaking.”

“People should not stay in tall buildings during the day,” read its caption.

A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbours believed in the prediction. They refused to stay in their homes and camped outside the day John Moe The said the earthquake would happen.

His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300,000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.

He was arrested during a raid on his home in Sagaing, central Myanmar.

The areas of Mandalay and Sagaing were hit especially hard by the earthquake on 28 March, which prompted a rare request from the Myanmar junta for foreign aid.

That earthquake was felt some 1,000km away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens.

Donald Trump has signed a controversial executive order aimed at stepping up deep-sea mining within US and in international waters.

Thursday’s order is the latest issued by the US president to try to increase America’s access to minerals used by the aerospace, green technology and healthcare sectors.

The deep sea contains billions of tonnes of potato-shaped rocks, called polymetallic nodules, which are rich in critical minerals like cobalt and rare earths.

Many other countries and environmental groups oppose deep-sea mining in international waters without further research.

The latest US executive order was issued to “establish the United States as a global leader in responsible seabed mineral exploration”, it reads.

The move appears to bypass a long-running round of UN negotiations on mining in international waters.

“The US authorisation… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday.

China dominates the production of rare earths and critical metals like cobalt and lithium.

Trump has been frustrated by this relative weakness of the US position, analysts say.

“We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” a US official said on Thursday.

To achieve this, the order says the US will speed up the process of issuing exploration licences and recovery permits both in its own waters and in “areas beyond national jurisdiction”.

The administration estimates that deep-sea mining could boost the country’s GDP by $300bn (£225bn) over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs

The EU, the UK and others support a moratorium on the practice until further scientific research is carried out.

Environmentalists and scientists are concerned that undiscovered species living in the deep sea could be harmed by the process.

“Deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavour for our ocean,” said Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, a US-based environmental group.

“The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,” he added in a statement released on Friday.

It is not clear how quickly deep-sea mining could begin but one mining company, The Metals Company (TMC), is already in discussions with the US government to obtain permits.

TMC’s CEO Gerard Barron has previously said he hopes to begin mining by the end of the year.

Along with others in the mining industry, he disputes the environmental claims made and has argued that the abyssal zone – 3,000m to 6,000m below sea level – has very low concentrations of life.

“Here there’s zero flora. And if we measure the amount of fauna [animal life], in the form of biomass, there is around 10g per square metre. That compares with more than 30kg of biomass where the world is pushing more nickel extraction, which is our equatorial rainforests,” he previously told the BBC.

A recent paper published by the Natural History Museum and the National Oceanography Centre looked at the long term impacts of deep sea mining from a test carried out in the 1970s.

It concluded that some sediment-dwelling creatures were able to recolonise the site and recover from the test, but larger animals appeared not to have returned.

The scientists concluded this could have been because there were no more nodules for them to live on. The polymetallic nodules where the minerals are found take millions of years to form and therefore cannot easily be replaced.

China will let scientists from six countries, including the US, examine the rocks it collected from the Moon – a scientific collaboration that comes as the two countries remain locked in a bitter trade war.

Two Nasa-funded US institutions have been granted access to the lunar samples collected by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday.

CNSA chief Shan Zhongde said that the samples were “a shared treasure for all humanity,” local media reported.

Chinese researchers have not been able to access Nasa’s Moon samples because of restrictions imposed by US lawmakers on the space agency’s collaboration with China.

Under the 2011 law, Nasa is banned from collaboration with China or any Chinese-owned companies unless it is specifically authorised by Congress.

But John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BBC Newshour that the latest exchange of Moon rocks have “very little to do with politics”.

While there are controls on space technology, the examination of lunar samples had “nothing of military significance”, he said.

“It’s international cooperation in science which is the norm.”

Washington has imposed tariffs Chinese goods that go up to 245%, while Beijing has hit back with 125% tariffs on US goods.

US President Donald Trump previously hinted at a de-escalation in the trade war, but Beijing has denied that there were negotiations between the two sides.

In 2023, the CNSA put out a call for applications to study its Chang’e-5 moon samples.

What’s special about the Chang’e-5 Moon samples is that they “seem to be a billion years younger” than those collected from Apollo missions, Dr Logsdon said. “So it suggests that volcanic activity went on in the moon more recently than people had thought”.

Space officials from the US and China had reportedly tried to negotiate an exchange of moon samples last year – but it appears the deal did not materialise.

Besides Brown University and Stony Brook University in the US, the other winning bids came from institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, the UK.

Shan, from the CNSA, said the agency will “maintain an increasingly active and open stance” in international space exchange and cooperation, including along the space information corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative

“I believe China’s circle of friends in space will continue to grow,” he said.

Israel’s destructive military campaign in Gaza has released a silent killer: asbestos.

The mineral, once widely-used in building materials, releases toxic fibres into the air when disturbed that can cling to the lungs and – over decades – cause cancer.

Nowadays, its use is banned across much of the world, but it is still present in many older buildings.

In Gaza, it is found primarily in asbestos roofing used across the territory’s eight urban refugee camps – which were set up for Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war – according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In October 2024, UNEP estimated that up to 2.3 million tons of rubble across Gaza could be contaminated with asbestos.

“The Gaza rubble is a very, very toxic environment,” says Professor Bill Cookson, director of the National Centre for Mesothelioma Research in London. “People are going to suffer acutely, but also in the longer term as well, things that children may carry throughout their lives.”

“The lives lost now are not going to end here. The legacy is going to continue,” says Liz Darlison, CEO of Mesothelioma UK.

When asbestos is disturbed by something like an air strike, its fibres – too small to see with the human eye – can be breathed in by those nearby and can then work their way through to the lining of the lungs.

Over many years – usually decades – they can cause scarring which leads to a serious lung condition known as asbestosis, or, in some cases, an aggressive form of lung-cancer named mesothelioma.

“Mesothelioma is a terrible, intractable illness,” says Prof Cookson.

“The really worrying thing,” he adds, “is that it’s not dose related. So even small inhalations of asbestos fibre can cause subsequent mesothelioma.

“It grows within the pleural cavity. It’s extremely painful. It’s always diagnosed late. And it’s pretty well resistant to all treatments.”

Typically, those who contract mesothelioma do so 20 to 60 years after exposure – meaning it will take decades before the possible impact across the territory is felt. A higher level, or longer period, of exposure is believed to accelerate the progression of the disease.

Dr Ryan Hoy, whose research into dust inhalation was cited by the UNEP, says it is extremely difficult to avoid breathing in asbestos fibres because they are “really tiny particles that float in the air that can get very, very deep into the lungs.”

They are even harder to avoid, he says, because Gaza is so “densely populated”. The territory houses approximately 2.1 million people and is 365 sq km (141 sq miles) – about one quarter of the size of London.

Experts on the ground there say people are unable to manage the risks posed by asbestos or dust inhalation due to the more immediate dangers of Israel’s military offensive.

“At this point in time, [dust inhalation] is not something that is perceived as a worrying thing by the population. They even don’t have things to eat, and they’re more afraid to be killed by the bombs,” says Chiara Lodi, medical co-ordinator in Gaza for the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières.

“The lack of awareness about the risks of asbestos, combined with the ongoing challenges [people in Gaza] face in trying to rebuild their lives, means they are unable to take the necessary measures to protect themselves,” a Gaza-based spokesperson for the NGO SOS Children’s Villages said.

Many are “not fully aware of the harmful effects of the dust and debris”, they added.

After a previous conflict in Gaza in 2009, a UN survey of the territory found asbestos in debris from older buildings, sheds, temporary building extensions, roofs and the walls of livestock enclosures.

There are several types of asbestos ranging from so-called “white asbestos”, which is the least dangerous, to “blue”, or crocidolite, which is the most. Highly-carcinogenic crocidolite asbestos was previously found in Gaza by the UN.

Globally, around 68 countries have banned the use of asbestos, though some maintain exemptions for special use. It was banned in the UK in 1999, and Israel banned its use in buildings in 2011.

As well as mesothelioma, asbestos can cause other forms of lung cancer, larynx and ovarian cancer.

A further, lesser known risk is that of silicosis, a lung disease caused by breathing in silica dust, usually over many years. Concrete generally contains 20-60% silica.

Dr Hoy says the sheer amount of dust in Gaza could lead to an “increased risk of respiratory tract infections, upper and lower airway infections, pneumonia, exacerbations of pre-existing lung disease like asthma,” as well as, “emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which can be worsened by acute exposure to dust”.

For years, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York have been used as a case-study by health experts to examine the effects of a large toxic dust-cloud on a civilian population.

“The Twin Towers were not in the middle of a war zone,” says Ms Darlison, “so it was something we were able to measure and quantify easier”.

As of December 2023, 5,249 of those who were registered with the US government’s World Trade Center Health Programme have died as a result of aerodigestive illness or cancer – a far higher figure than the 2,296 people who were killed in the attack itself. A total of 34,113 people were diagnosed with cancer over the same period.

The US and a group of Arab States have proposed competing plans for the reconstruction of Gaza. The UN has warned that the process will have to be managed carefully to avoid disturbing the vast amounts of asbestos-contaminated rubble.

“Unfortunately,” says Ms Darlison, “the very properties that made us use so much of it are the properties that make it difficult to get rid of.”

A UNEP spokesperson told the BBC that the debris removals process will “increase the likelihood of asbestos disturbance and the release of hazardous fibres into the air”.

A UNEP assessment indicated that clearing all debris could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion (£929m).

The Israeli military launched its offensive on Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 people taken hostage.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

US federal prosecutors have filed a formal notice seeking the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting dead a healthcare boss in New York.

Prosecutors argue in the filing that the 26-year-old killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson “to amplify an ideological message” and spark resistance to the health insurance industry.

The move was made just hours ahead of his plea hearing on four federal charges later on Friday.

Previously, a lawyer for Mr Mangione called the decision to seek the death penalty “barbaric”.

Mr Thompson was shot dead outside a hotel on 4 December. Mr Mangione was arrested days later in Pennsylvania after a nationwide manhunt.

He has already pleaded not guilty to state charges and is awaiting trial in a New York prison.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in April that she had directed federal prosecutors to seek capital punishment in Mr Mangione’s case for the “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination”.

She added Mr Thompson’s murder “was an act of political violence” and it “may have posed grave risk of death to additional persons” nearby.

Mr Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, previously accused the government of “defending the broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry”, and said her client was caught in a tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors.

“While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi,” she added.

Investigators argue that Mr Mangione was motivated to kill Mr Thompson, 50, because of anger with US health insurance companies.

In the capital punishment formal notice, filed on Thursday, prosecutors say Mr Mangione poses a future danger because of his expressed intention to target the healthcare industry and rally support to his cause through violence.

Mr Mangione is facing 11 state criminal counts in New York, including first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism.

If convicted of all the counts, he would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

But federal prosecutors have also separately charged Mr Mangione for using a firearm to commit murder and interstate stalking resulting in death. These charges make him eligible for the death penalty.

Prosecutors have said the federal and state cases will move forward parallel with one another.

Mr Thompson was shot in the back by a masked assailant in December as he was walking into a hotel where the company he led was holding an investors’ meeting.

A nationwide search led police to Mr Mangione five days later at a McDonald’s hundreds of miles away in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The incident ignited a fraught debate about how the US healthcare system operates.

Some Americans, who pay more for healthcare than people in any other country, expressed anger over what they see as unfair treatment by insurance firms.

Indonesia is on an ambitious mission to offer free meals to 80 million school children – but that hasn’t exactly gone according to plan.

Nearly 80 students across two high schools in Cianjur, south of the capital Jakarta, fell ill after eating the meals this week. Most of those who ended up in hospital have since been discharged.

This is the latest in a series of food poisonings that have been linked to the programme, a signature policy of President Prabowo Subianto.

Authorities investigating the case say the suspected cause is negligent food preparation. Samples from the vomit of students have been sent for lab testing, and police say they have questioned people handling the food, from cooks to packers to delivery workers.

A 16-year-old student told local media that the shredded chicken in the meal had an “unpleasant odour”. “I felt dizzy, nauseous and vomited,” he said.

Across the world, programmes offering free meals to students have proved to be effective in improving health, academic performance and attendance.

But Indonesia’s $28bn (£21bn) version – shaping up to be the most expensive of its kind – has become the target of food safety concerns and heated anti-government protests.

In February, when thousands took to the streets to protest at budget cuts, they aimed their ire at the hefty price of Prabowo’s free school meals: “Children eat for free, parents are laid off,” read one of their protest signs.

A centrepiece of Prabowo’s presidential campaign last year, the free meals programme was pitched as a way to tackle stunting – a condition caused by malnutrition that affects a fifth of children below the age of five in Indonesia.

“Through this initiative, our children will grow taller and emerge as champions,” Prabowo said in 2023.

Since he took office last October, this programme, along with other populist policies like new houses and free medical check-ups, has earned him political points. His approval ratings stood at 80% after his first 100 days in power.

In the first phase, which began in January, free school meals have made their way to 550,000 students in 26 provinces.

While the programme is “well-intentioned”, Maria Monica Wihardja, a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told the BBC there has been “no evidence” of “widespread urgency” for free school meals.

According to a national survey in 2024, less than 1% of Indonesia’s households went at least one day without any meals in the past year.

Since January, a series of food poisonings have raised apprehension about the free meals.

Michelle, an elementary school student in East Nusa Tenggara province, was one of several in her school who suffered suspected food poisoning in February. She told BBC Indonesian at the time that the food, which had given her a stomach ache, was “bland and stale”.

After the incident, some parents started preparing homemade lunches for their children instead, a school official told BBC Indonesian.

This week, after the food poisoning in Cianjur, authorities have promised to step up food safety processes.

“We must improve quality,” said Dadan Hindayana, head of the National Nutrition Agency, who had visited the students in hospital.

“⁠One obvious thing is the lack of mature and in-depth planning before this program was launched,” Eliza Mardian, a researcher at the Center of Reform on Economics Indonesia, told the BBC.

“The haste ends up sacrificing quality and effectiveness, which actually worsens the public’s perception of this programme.”

The cost of the programme has not helped matters.

Indonesia has set aside more than $10bn this year for the free school meals.

By comparison, India spends $1.5bn a year to feed 120 million children in what is the world’s largest such programme. Brazil’s version costs about the same and serves some 40 million students.

To foot the steep bill in Indonesia, Prabowo has urged the country’s tycoons to help, and accepted a funding offer from China.

He also ordered $19bn in cuts to pay for it, along with other populist schemes – which made it especially controversial.

Several ministries, including education, had their budgets slashed by half. Bureaucrats who were not furloughed alleged they were forced to scrimp by limiting the use of air conditioning, lifts and even printers.

University students were furious as news spread of cancelled scholarship programmes and disruptions to their classes.

“The worst thing is when the stomach is full, but the brain is not filled,” Muhammad Ramadan, a student protester in Bandung, told BBC Indonesian – referring to Prabowo’s school meals plan.

There could be more challenges ahead, such as allegations of budget mismanagement, which have begun to emerge after Indonesia’s anti-graft bureau flagged a “real possibility” of fraud in March.

Police launched an investigation this month after a meal provider in south Jakarta accused authorities of embezzlement, saying that she has not been paid since her kitchen started preparing school meals in February.

Prabowo, who has continued to defend the programme, said this week that his administration will “handle” the allegations and “safeguard every cent of public money”.

Experts, however, say the problem runs much deeper.

Large-scale social assistance programmes in Indonesia have historically been “riddled with corruption”, Muhammad Rafi Bakri, a research analyst at Indonesia’s audit board, told the BBC.

“Given the sheer size of the budget,” he said, “this program is a goldmine for corrupt officials.”

The Netherlands, March 2025. Yungblud is leaving his hotel in Amsterdam when he’s approached by a fan in floods of tears.

“You saved my life,” she sobs.

“No, you saved your own life,” he replies, quietly. “Maybe the music was the soundtrack, but you saved your own life, OK?”

Leaning in for a hug, he adds, “Don’t be sad, be happy. I love ya.”

It’s a remarkably touching moment, full of compassion and devoid of rock star ego.

Two weeks later, after a video of the encounter goes viral, Yungblud is still moved by the memory.

“I didn’t think people would see that, except me and her,” he says, “but it was such a moment for me.”

The interaction crystallised something he’d felt for a while.

“I always said that Bowie and My Chemical Romance saved my life, but ultimately you have to find yourself,” he says.

“Like this morning, I put my headphones on and I listened to [The Verve’s] Lucky Man, and it made me go, ‘Oh, I’m ready to face the day’.

“But Richard Ashcroft didn’t tell me I was ready to face the day. I said that to myself.

“That’s what I was trying to tell that girl in Amsterdam.”

Self-assurance is a lesson he learned the hard way.

On the surface, Yungblud, aka 27-year-old Dominic Harrison, had it all. Two number one albums, an international fanbase, a Louis Theroux documentary and enough clout to run his own festival.

But if you looked more closely, there were chinks in the armour. Those number one albums both fell out of the Top 30 after one week, a sign of a strong core fanbase, with limited crossover appeal.

And the first year of his Bludfest in Milton Keynes was criticised after long queues and a lack of water caused fans to pass out and miss the concert.

Harrison was keenly aware of it all. As he released his self-titled third album in 2022, he hit a low.

“Yungblud was number one in seven countries, and I wasn’t happy because it wasn’t the album I wanted to make,” he says.

“It was a good album, but it wasn’t exceptional.”

The problem, he says, was a record label who’d pushed him in a more commercial direction. But in polishing his sound, he lost the angry unpredictability that characterised his best work.

“It’s funny, my-self titled album was actually the one where I was most lost,” he observes.

“I felt like I compromised but, because of that, I was never taking no for an answer again.”

Nowhere is that clearer than on his comeback single, Hello Heaven, Hello.

Over nine minutes and six seconds it achieves Caligulan levels of excess, full of scorching guitar solos, throat-shredding vocal runs, and even an orchestral coda.

“” Harrison asks himself, as he re-ignites his ambition.

The song’s purposefully unsuited to radio – unlike the follow-up single, Lovesick Lullaby. Released today, it’s a free-associating rampage through a messy night out, that ends with epiphany in a drug dealer’s apartment.

Combining Liam Gallagher’s sneer with Beach Boys’ harmonies, it’s uniquely Yungblud. But the singer reveals it was originally written for his last album.

“We were actually discouraged from doing it,” he says.

“My advisor at the time, a guy called Nick Groff [vice president of A&R at Interscope, responsible for signing Billie Eilish], was like, ‘I don’t get it’.”

Warming to the theme, he continues: “The music industry is crap because it’s all about money but, as an artist, I need to make sure that anything I put out is exciting and unlimited.

“It can’t be like a 50% version of me.”

To achieve that, he shunned expensive recording studios and made his new album in a converted Tetley brewery in Leeds.

Professional songwriters were banished, too, in favour of a close group of collaborators, including guitarist Adam Warrington, and Matt Schwartz, the Israeli-British producer who helmed his 2018 debut.

“When you make an album in LA or London, everything is great, even if it’s mediocre, because people want a hit out of it,” he argues.

“When you make an album with family, all they want is the truth.”

One of the most honest tracks on the record is Zombie, a lighters-aloft ballad (think Coldplay, sung by Bruce Springsteen) about “feeling you’re ugly, and learning to battle that”.

“I always was insecure about my body, and that got highlighted as I got famous,” says the singer, who last year revealed he’d developed an eating disorder due to body dysmorphia.

“But I realised, the biggest power you can give someone over you is in how you react. So I decided, I’m going to get sober, I’m going to get fit, and I discovered boxing.”

He ended up working with the South African boxer Chris Heerden – who was recently in the news after Russia jailed his ballerina girlfriend, Ksenia Karelina.

“I met him before all that,” says Harrison, “but he’s been extremely inspirational. Boxing’s become like therapy for me.

“If someone says something bad about me, I go to the gym, hit the punch bag for an hour and talk it out.”

Fans have noticed the change… drooling over photos of his newly chiseled torso, and declaring 2025 his “shirt-off era”.

“Maybe the shirt-off era is a comeback to all the comments I’ve had,” he laughs.

“I’m claiming a freedom and a sexiness and a liberation.”

He’s clearly found a degree of serenity, without surrendering the restless energy that propelled him to fame.

Part of that is down to control. In January, he created a new company that brings together his core business of recorded music with touring operations, his fashion brand and his music festival, Bludfest.

The event kicked off in Milton Keynes last summer but suffered teething troubles, when fans were stuck in long queues.

“I will fully take responsibility for that,” says the star, who claims he was “backstage screaming” at police and promoters to get the lines moving.

“The problem was, there were six gates open when there should have been 12,” he says, suggesting people underestimated his fans’ dedication.

“When Chase and Status had played [there] a day before, there were 5,000 people when the doors opened, and another 30,000 trickled in during the day.

“With my fans, there were 20,000 kids at the gate at 10am. So we’ve learned a lot for this year. There’ll be pallets of water outside. It’ll be very different.”

Dedication to his fans is what makes Yungblud Yungblud.

He built the community directly from his phone and, whether intended or not, that connection has sustained his career – insulating him from the tyrannies of radio playlists and streaming placement.

Maintaining a personal relationship becomes harder as his fanbase grows but, ever astute, he hired a fan to oversee his social accounts.

“She’s called Jules Budd. She used to come to my gigs in Austin and she’d sell confetti to pay for gas money to the next city.

“She built an account called Yungblud Army, and she’s amazing at letting me understand what are people feeling.

“If people are outside and security aren’t treating them right, I know about it because she’s in contact with them. So I brought her in to make the community safer as it gets bigger.”

With his new album, he wants to make that community even bigger. Harking back to the sounds of Queen and David Bowie, he says it’ll “reclaim the good chords” (Asus4 and Em7, in case you’re wondering).

“The shackles are off,” he grins.

“We made an album to showcase our ambition and the way we want to play.

“Can you imagine seeing Yungblud in a stadium? 100% yes. Let’s do it.”

It’s a bright spring morning in Hanover, Germany, and I’m on my way to meet a robot.

I have been invited to see the G1, a humanoid robot built by Chinese firm, Unitree, at the Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest industrial trade shows.

Standing at about 4’3″ (130cm), G1 is smaller and more affordable than other humanoid robots on the market, and has such a highly fluid range of motion and dexterity that videos of it performing dance numbers and martial arts have gone viral.

Today the G1 is being controlled remotely by Pedro Zheng, the Unitree sales manager.

He explains that customers must program each G1 for autonomous functions.

Passers-by stop and actively try to engage with the G1, which cannot be said for a lot of the other machines being shown off in the cavernous conference room.

They reach out to shake its hand, make sudden movements to see if it will respond, they laugh when G1 waves or bends backwards, they apologise if they bump into it. There’s something about its human shape that, uncanny as it is, sets people at ease.

Unitree is just one of dozens of companies around the world developing robots that have a human form.

The potential is huge – for business it promises a workforce that doesn’t need holidays or pay rises.

It could also be the ultimate domestic appliance. After all, who wouldn’t want a machine that could do the laundry and stack the dishwasher.

But the technology is still some way off. While robotic arms and mobile robots have been common in factories and warehouses for decades, conditions in those workplaces can be controlled and workers can be kept safe.

Introducing a humanoid robot to a less predictable environment, like a restaurant or a home, is a much more difficult problem.

To be useful humanoid robots would have to be strong, but that also makes them potentially dangerous – simply falling over at the wrong time could be hazardous.

So much work needs to be done on the artificial intelligence that would control such a machine.

“The AI simply has not yet reached a breakthrough moment,” a Unitree spokesperson tells the BBC.

“Today’s robot AI finds basic logic and reasoning – such as for understanding and completing complex tasks in a logical way – a challenge,” they said.

At the moment their G1 is marketed at research institutions and tech companies, who can use Unitree’s open source software for development.

For now entrepreneurs are focussing their efforts on humanoid robots for warehouses and factories.

The highest profile of those is Elon Musk. His car company, Tesla, is developing a humanoid robot called Optimus. In January he said that “several thousand” will be built this year and he expects them to be doing “useful things” in Tesla factories.

Other carmakers are following a similar path. BMW recently introduced humanoid robots to a US factory. Meanwhile, South Korean car firm Hyundai has ordered tens of thousands of robots from Boston Dynamics, the robot firm it bought in 2021.

Thomas Andersson, founder of research firm STIQ, tracks 49 companies developing humanoid robots – those with two arms and legs. If you broaden the definition to robots with two arms, but propel themselves on wheels, then he looks at more than 100 firms.

Mr Andersson thinks that Chinese companies are likely to dominate the market.

“The supply chain and the entire ecosystem for robotics is huge in China, and it’s really easy to iterate developments and do R&D [research and development],” he says.

Unitree underlines that advantage – its G1 is cheap (for a robot) with an advertised price of $16,000 (£12,500).

Also, Mr Andersson points out, the investment favours Asian nations.

In a recent report STIQ notes that almost 60% of all funding for humanoid robots has been raised in Asia, with the US attracting most of the rest.

Chinese companies have the added benefit of support from the national and local government.

For example, in Shanghai there is a state-backed training facility for robots, where dozens of humanoid robots are learning to complete tasks.

So how can US and European robot makers compete with that?

Bristol-based Bren Pierce has founded three robotics companies and the latest, Kinisi has just launched the KR1 robot.

While the robot has been designed and developed in the UK, it will be manufactured in Asia.

“The problem you get as a European or American company, you have to buy all these sub-components from China in the first place.

“So then it becomes stupid to buy your motors, buy your batteries, buy your resistors, shift them all halfway around the world to put together when you could just put them all together at the source, which is in Asia.”

As well as making his robots in Asia, Mr Pierce is keeping costs down by not going for the full humanoid form.

Designed for warehouses and factories, the KR1 does not have legs.

“All of these places have flat floors. Why would you want the added expense of a very complex form factor… when you could just put it on a mobile base?” he asks.

Where possible, his KR1 is built with mass-produced components – the wheels are the same as you would find on an electric scooter.

“My philosophy is buy as many things as you can off the shelf. So all our motors, batteries, computers, cameras, they’re all commercially available, mass produced parts,” he says.

Like his competitors at Unitree, Mr Pierce says that the real “secret sauce” is the software that allows the robot to work with humans.

“A lot of companies come out with very high-tech robots, but then you start needing a PhD in robotics to be able to actually install it and use it.

“What we’re trying to design is a very simple to use robot where your average warehouse or factory worker can actually learn how to use it in a couple of hours,” Mr Pierce says.

He says the KR1 can perform a task after being guided through it by a human 20 or 30 times.

The KR1 will be given to pilot customers to test this year.

So will robots ever break out of factories into the home? Even the optimistic Mr Pierce says it’s a long way off.

“My long term dream for the last 20 years has been building the everything robot. This is what I was doing my PhD work in I do think that is the end goal, but it’s a very complicated task,” says Mr Pierce.

“I still think eventually they will be there, but I think that’s at least 10 to 15 years away.”

“Out! Out! Out!”

The voice in the Telegram video is insistent. Loud. Sometimes musical.

And the message unambiguous.

“All of Hamas, out!”

On the streets of Gaza, more and more Palestinians are expressing open defiance against the armed group that’s ruled the strip for almost 20 years.

Many hold Hamas responsible for plunging the tiny, impoverished territory into the worst crisis faced by Palestinians in more than 70 years.

“Deliver the message,” another crowd chants, as it surges through Gaza’s devastated streets: “Hamas is garbage.”

“The world is deceived by the situation in the Gaza Strip,” says Moumen al-Natour, a Gaza lawyer and former organiser of the 2019 anti-Hamas “We Want to Live” movement.

Al-Natour spoke to us from the shattered remains of his city, the flimsy canvas side of the tent which now forms part of his house billowing behind him.

“The world thinks that Gaza is Hamas and Hamas is Gaza,” he said. “We didn’t choose Hamas and now Hamas is determined to rule Gaza and tie our fate to its own. Hamas must retreat. “

Speaking out is dangerous. Hamas has never tolerated dissent. Al-Natour seems undaunted, writing a furious column for the Washington Post at the end of March.

“To support Hamas is to be for Palestinian death,” he wrote, “not Palestinian freedom”.

Wasn’t it dangerous to speak out in this way, I asked him.

“We need to take a risk and speak out,” he replied without hesitation.

“I’m 30 years old. When Hamas took over, I was 11. What have I done with my life? My life has been wasted between war and escalating violence for nothing.”

Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 by violently ousting political rivals, a year after winning national elections, there have been three major wars with Israel and two smaller conflicts.

“Humanity demands that we raise our voices,” al-Natour said, “despite suppression by Hamas”.

Hamas may be busy fighting Israel, but it’s not afraid to punish its critics.

At the end of March, 22-year old Oday al-Rubai was abducted by armed gunmen from a refugee shelter in Gaza City.

Hours later, his body was found covered in horrific wounds.

The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights said Oday had been tortured, calling his death “a grave violation of the right to life and an extrajudicial killing”.

Al-Rubai had participated in recent anti-Hamas protests. His family blamed Hamas for his death and demanded justice.

Days earlier, a frightened al-Rubai posted a dark, grainy video on social media in which he expressed his fear that Hamas militants were coming for him.

“Gaza has become a city of ghosts,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

“I’m stranded in the street, not knowing where to go. I don’t know why they’re after me. They destroyed us and brought ruin to us.”

At his funeral, a small crowd demanded revenge and repeated demands for Hamas to get out of Gaza.

Last summer, Amin Abed almost suffered the same fate, following his decision to speak out against Hamas.

Masked militants beat him senseless, broke bones all over his body and damaged his kidneys. Abed survived but had to seek medical treatment abroad.

Now living in Dubai, he’s still involved in the protest movement, and believes that Hamas’ authority is diminished.

“Hamas’ power has begun to fade,” he told me.

“It targets activists and civilians, beats and kills them to scare people. But it’s not how it was before.”

Before the ceasefire collapsed last month, Hamas fighters seemed intent on highly visible displays of power.

But now, with Israel once again attacking relentlessly, the same gunmen have retreated underground and Gaza’s civilians have been plunged back into the misery of war.

Some of the more recent protests suggest that civilians, driven to the edge of madness by a year and a half of Israeli bombardment, are losing their fear of Hamas.

Beit Lahiya, at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, has seen some of the most vociferous opposition.

In a series of voice notes, an eyewitness – who asked not to be named – described several recent incidents in which local residents prevented Hamas fighters from carrying out military actions from inside their community.

On 13 April, he said, Hamas gunmen tried to force their way into the house of an elderly man, Jamal al-Maznan.

“They wanted to launch rockets and pipes [a derogatory term used for some of Hamas’ home-made projectiles] from inside his house,” the eyewitness told us.

“But he refused.”

The incident soon escalated, with relatives and neighbours all coming to al-Maznan’s defence. The gunmen opened fire, injuring several people, but eventually were driven out.

“They were not intimidated by the bullets,” the eyewitness said of the protesters.

“They advanced and told [the gunmen] to take their things and flee. We don’t want you in this place. We don’t want your weapons that have brought us destruction, devastation and death.”

Elsewhere in Gaza, protesters have told militants to stay away from hospitals and schools, to avoid situations in which civilians are caught up in Israeli air strikes.

But such defiance is still risky. In Gaza City, Hamas shot one such protester dead.

With little to lose and hopes of an end to the war dashed once more, some Gazans direct their fury equally at Israel and Hamas.

Asked which side he blamed most for Gaza’s catastrophe, Amin Abed said it was “a choice between cholera and the plague”.

The protest movement of recent weeks is not yet a rebellion, but after almost 20 years of rule Hamas’ iron grip on Gaza is slowly slipping.

This week saw pilgrims flock to Rome to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis, the US threaten to pull out of Ukraine peace talks, and Prince Louis celebrate his seventh birthday.

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.

Fancy testing your memory? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

The best friend of a woman who died from methanol poisoning on holiday has called on the government to do more to educate teenagers in schools about the dangers of drinking alcohol abroad.

Bethany Clarke was travelling in Laos in south-east Asia with childhood friend Simone White when they drank free shots they were offered in a hostel in November.

The following day, they both became unwell and initially thought they had food poisoning. But, a few days later, 28-year-old Simone died in hospital.

The Department for Education have been contacted for a comment about Bethany’s petition.

Simone, who was from Orpington in south-east London, and Bethany planned to stay in Cambodia for just under two weeks, and spend four days in Laos.

They fell ill after drinking six vodka shots served to them at the Nana Backpackers hostel in traveller hotspot Vang Vieng.

Five other tourists also died after drinking at the hostel.

Their drinks are thought to have contained methanol – a deadly substance often found in bootleg alcohol.

Medical specialists say drinking as little as 25ml of methanol can be fatal, but it is sometimes added to drinks because it is cheaper than alcohol.

But Bethany, 28, tells BBC Newsbeat they didn’t even realise anything was wrong until the next day.

“This all happened on the fourth day of the trip. We did the tubing that day and that was good,” she says.

“It’s difficult to obviously describe the timeline. I think when I realised it was all going wrong was when we were on the kayaks for a trip we were doing the following morning. So just over 12 hours on.

“I guess that was when me and Simone were flat on the back of these kayaks, not being able to use our arms. We were just literally staring up into space.

“That was a moment where I thought I really don’t understand what’s happening to us. It just seemed like I was just having to accept my fate.”

Bethany says even when they tried to get help, it took them a while to be treated for methanol poisoning and they had to search for information about it themselves.

“The doctors kept saying it was food poisoning, which obviously didn’t help with trying to treat what was going on,” she says.

“This is when our other friends said ‘let’s get to a private hospital’. In the ambulance on the way there our friend mentioned to the paramedic ‘could it be methanol poisoning?’ He’d done a little bit of research on his phone.

“They rushed Simone off to have dialysis straight away and said to me ‘look can you just sign these forms and we’ll do our best to save her life?’

“And yeah, they did their best.”

Bethany says the group trusted the hostel because the reviews were good but she’s now urging others to be careful.

“We didn’t think we were doing anything stupid, but obviously now I do feel like I should have known more.

“The advice is from me ‘steer clear, drink beer’. Look up the symptoms, be mindful about where you’re drinking.

“Just don’t let it be your best friend that dies from methanol poisoning.”

Bethany’s also set up a petition calling for the dangers of methanol poisoning to be put on the school curriculum in the UK.

It says “children should be taught the dangers of consuming bootleg alcohol as part of the PSHE and/or Biology curriculum in school”.

“I think it just needs to be a five minute talk or possibly even some kind of public health advert, just giving the case study of Laos and saying this can happen,” she says.

“If people want to take the risk and drink it, at least they’ve been educated and then they might even be able to spot some of the symptoms if they do happen to drink it.”

Bethany is currently working in Australia and has since made a full recovery.

She says Simone was “so full of life, energetic, sporty, musical – there’s 100 adjectives I could probably come up with”.

“She was just the best friend that anybody could hope for.

“If you ever had a problem she’d always be trying to help you with it and she was just such a good listener.”

The government has updated its information on methanol poisoning after what happened – there’s a list of countries where its been reported and advice on how to spot it.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We provided consular assistance to British nationals and their families and we remain in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Laos.”

The Department for Education hasn’t responded to Newsbeat about the petition, but its current guidance says students should be made fully aware of the risks of types of drugs and alcohol by the time they leave school.

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

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to invest A$1.2bn (£580m) in a strategic reserve for critical minerals if he wins next month’s election, as trade tensions escalate.

The announcement came after China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, essential to the production of advanced technologies – including electric vehicles, fighter jets, and robots.

China’s controls apply to all countries but were widely seen as retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Albanese said Australia would prioritise minerals that are key to its security, and that of its partners, including rare earths. But could his plan challenge China’s dominance?

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements – named “rare” because they are notoriously difficult to extract and refine.

Rare earths, like samarium and terbium, are critical to the production of technologies set to shape the world in the coming decades – including electric vehicles and highly advanced weapons systems.

Albanese’s proposed reserve includes rare earths as well as other critical minerals of which Australia is a top producer – like lithium and cobalt.

Both China and Australia have rare earth reserves. But 90% of rare earth refining – which makes them usable in technology – takes place in China, giving the country significant control over supply.

And that has spooked Western governments.

Beijing said its restrictions on rare earths were in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, currently at 145%.

But analysts say Washington’s inability to secure the supply of rare earths has become one of the Trump administration’s chief anxieties, especially as diplomatic tensions with Beijing have deepened.

Around 75% of US rare earth imports came from China between 2019 and 2022, according to the US Geological Survey.

Philip Kirchlechner, director of Iron Ore Research in Perth, Western Australia, told the BBC that the US and EU had “dropped the ball” on recognising the importance of the rare earths over recent decades, as China swiftly developed a monopoly over refinement.

“China has its foot on the blood vein… of US and European defence systems,” he added.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, this week said that China halting exports of rare earths used in advanced magnets was affecting the company’s ability to develop humanoid robots, in an early symbol of the pain Beijing has the power to inflict on US companies.

Albanese’s proposal says that minerals in the reserve will be available to both “domestic industry and international partners”, in a likely reference to allies such as the US and EU.

But Kirchlechner, while welcoming the move as “long overdue”, added that the proposal is “not going to solve the problem”.

The fundamental issue is that even if Australia stockpiles more critical minerals, the refining process of rare earths will still largely be controlled by China.

Lithium – not a rare earth, but a crucial metal in the production electric vehicle batteries and solar panels – is a good example. Australia mines 33% of the world’s lithium, but only refines and exports a tiny fraction. China, on the other hand, mines just 23% of the world’s lithium, but refines 57% of it, according to the International Energy Agency.

Australia has been investing in refining rare earths as part of its Future Made in Australia plan, aimed at leveraging the country’s critical minerals reserves to drive the green transition.

Arafura Rare Earths, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, last year received A$840m in funding to create the country’s first combined mine and refinery for rare earths. And in November, Australia opened its first rare earths processing plant, also in Western Australia, operated by Lynas Rare Earths.

But the country is expected to depend on China for refining until at least 2026, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, headquartered in Washington.

China has been trying to seize on the volatility brought by Trump.

In a series of editorials in Australian newspapers, China’s ambassador to Canberra lambasted Washington’s approach to global trade, and called on Australia to “join hands” with Beijing – something that Albanese quickly rejected.

Australia has touted its resource industry in its talks with Trump. Some critical minerals were exempt from a 10% tariff he imposed on imports of most Australian products.

But analysts say Albanese’s proposal is mainly aimed at protecting Australia and its partners from strategic adversaries like China.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, told the BBC that Albanese’s plan was “more sophisticated” than previous proposals, because it included the ability to sell Australia’s resources at moments of economic tension.

If China imposes export controls, she added, Australia could begin selling more of its mineral reserves to help lower prices on global markets, and loosen the control China has had on setting prices.

But she said that Australia still cannot completely replace China.

“If [Australia’s] goal is to serve the West, become more instrumental to the West – especially the US – there are weak spots China can enter – and the most important is refining.”

Israel’s military has admitted killing a United Nations (UN) worker with tank fire, having previously denied responsibility, in an incident in the Gaza Strip last month.

After a UN staff member was killed when a UN compound in Deir al-Balah was damaged on 19 March, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had not struck the site.

But the IDF said on Thursday that the initial findings of its investigation into the incident indicated its troops had in fact killed the UN worker after wrongly identifying the building as containing an “enemy presence”.

It said in a statement: “The building was struck due to assessed enemy presence and was not identified by the forces as a UN facility.”

These preliminary findings have been shared with the UN and the full conclusion will also be provided, it said.

It added: “The IDF regrets this serious incident and continues to conduct thorough review processes to draw operational lessons and evaluate additional measures to prevent such events in the future.

“We express our deep sorrow for the loss and send our condolences to the family.”

The incident, which killed Bulgarian UN worker Marin Valev Marinov and seriously injured five other UN personnel, came a day after Israel renewed its offensive against Hamas after a two-month ceasefire collapsed.

At the time, UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a full investigation into the incident, while a spokesperson said: “The locations of all UN premises are known to the parties to the conflict, who are bound by international law to protect them and maintain their absolute inviolability.”

Following the attack, the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) said that “explosive ordnance was dropped or fired” at a guesthouse, which was in an “isolated” location. Its executive director, Jorge Moreira da Silva, said it was “not an accident”.

The IDF said in a statement on the day of the attack: “Contrary to reports, the IDF did not strike a UN compound in Deir el-Balah. The IDF calls on media outlets to act with caution regarding unverified reports.”

Footage verified by the BBC showed injured people – two wearing blue UN flak jackets – arriving at a hospital in an ambulance and a UN car.

Separately, the IDF said earlier this week that “professional failures” had led to the killing of 15 emergency workers in an incident in Gaza last month.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 1,978 people have been killed since Israel renewed its offensive on the territory, with at least 50 reported killed by Israeli strikes on Thursday.

Israel says it is putting military pressure on Hamas to release the 59 hostages it is still holding, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

It has also blocked all deliveries of humanitarian aid and other supplies to Gaza for seven weeks. The UN says this is “further depriving people of the means for survival and undermining every aspect of civilian life”.

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

More than 51,300 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The health of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has worsened after intestinal surgery earlier this month, according to his medical team.

The 70-year-old remains in intensive care and will undergo new tests.

Bolsonaro was visited in hospital by a court official on Wednesday, who delivered a summons giving him five days to present his initial defence against coup charges, in preparation for his trial.

Bolsonaro has been ordered to stand trial after charges that he directed an alleged right-wing coup attempt after he lost the 2022 presidential election to the left-wing President Lula da Silva.

In a video of the summons being delivered, Bolsonaro could be seen reacting furiously, saying: “I have five days to present my defence?”

During the alleged coup attempt, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings. Investigations by the police outlined allegations he had personal conversations – including with figures from the armed forces – about the idea of a coup to cling onto power.

His earlier intestinal surgery was in response to ongoing health issues after he was stabbed in 2018 on the campaign trail in the south eastern state of Minas Gerais.

He lost around 40% of his blood and had emergency surgery, with the perpetrator later declared mentally unfit to stand trial.

He has repeatedly denied coup allegations and accused his opponents of a political witch-hunt.

A day before he was delivered the summons in hospital, he recorded a live YouTube broadcast from his hospital bed with three of his sons, despite a doctor’s recommendation not to have visitors.

The Brazilian Supreme Court argued that this showed he was able to be summoned and notified.

Bolsonaro had been hoping to contest the presidential elections again in 2026, despite a current ban on running for office, but he risks a 40-year prison sentence if found guilty.

Top executives at well-known US firms are warning about the impact that tariffs are having on their companies and the wider economy.

Technology giant Intel, footwear maker Skechers and consumer goods firm Procter & Gamble, have either cut their profit forecasts or withdrawn them citing economic uncertainty.

US President Donald Trump has been trying to rebalance relations with key trading partners by using steep tariffs to bring them to the negotiating table.

No new trade agreements between the US and other countries have been announced yet but there have been signs of progress in talks with South Korea.

“The very fluid trade policies in the US and beyond, as well as regulatory risks, have increased the chance of an economic slowdown with the probability of a recession growing,” said Intel’s chief financial officer, David Zinsner, during a call with investors.

“We will certainly see costs increase,” he added as the California-based firm announced gloomy profit and revenue forecasts.

Intel’s shares dropped by more than 5% in extended trading after those remarks.

Beyond the technology industry, footwear maker Skechers also disappointed investors. The firm’s shares fell after it withdrew its annual results forecast.

“The current environment is simply too dynamic from which to plan results with a reasonable assurance of success,” Skechers’ chief operating officer, David Weinberg, told investors in a post-earnings call.

Skechers – like rivals Nike, Adidas and Puma – uses factories in Asia, particularly in China, to make its products.

Comments from Procter & Gamble (P&G) executives also hinted at how tariffs could mean higher prices for its customers.

The maker of Ariel, Head & Shoulders and Gillette said it was considering changes to its prices to make up for the extra cost of materials sourced from China and other places. It also said it expected sales to grow this year less than previously forecast.

“We’ll be looking for every opportunity to mitigate the impact,” said Andre Schulten, P&G’s financial chief, adding that there will be adjustments to “some level of consumer pricing”.

The Japanese owner of the 7-Eleven convenience stores, Seven & I, said it is also feeling the impact of the trade tensions.

North America account for more than 70% of its sales.

Its incoming chief executive, Stephen Dacus, told the BBC about the uncertainty faced by the business.

“We don’t know what those tariffs are going to be. We’ve seen some news recently where they have changed quite a bit so it’s a little bit difficult to understand what the ultimate effect is,” he said.

“Lowering prices and lowering quality typically doesn’t work… so what you have to do… is find ways to maintain quality while bringing the cost down”.

They join a growing list of examples of companies around the world that have warned about the impact of Trump’s trade policies.

South Korean car making giant Hyundai announced on Friday that it has set up a task force to find ways to deal with the fallout from tariffs.

“We expect a challenging business outlook to continue due to intensifying trade conflicts and other various unpredictable macroeconomic factors,” it said.

It added that it is considering moving some manufacturing out of South Korea.

The firm has already shifted some production from Mexico to the US, which accounts for about a third of its global sales.

Meanwhile, there were signs that talks on Thursday between US and South Korean trade officials in Washington DC, aimed at removing tariffs, have been positive.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had a “very successful” meeting.

“We may be moving faster than I thought, and we will be talking technical terms as early as next week,” he told reporters after the meeting.

South Korea’s industry minister, Ahn Duk-geun, who also took part in the talks, echoed Bessent’s optimism and added that they are working toward a “July package”.

A 90-day pause on higher tariffs affecting dozens of countries is set to expire on 8 July.

Trump has said more than 70 countries have reached out to start negotiations since the tariffs were announced.

A Rwandan beekeeper living in the US has been arrested over his alleged involvement in the 1994 genocide in his country.

Faustin Nsabumukunzi is accused of committing “heinous acts of violence abroad” when he served as a local leader at the start of genocide, the Justice Department said.

The 65-year-old suspect was also charged with visa fraud and attempted naturalisation fraud when he moved to the US in 2003. He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on bail.

“Nsabumukunzi repeatedly lied to conceal his involvement in the horrific Rwandan genocide while seeking to become a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the United States,” said John Durham, a federal prosecutor.

In just 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists.

The mainly Tutsi forces who took power following the genocide were alleged to have killed thousands of Hutu people in Rwanda in retaliation.

• Rwanda genocide: World failed us in 1994, President Paul Kagame says

Nsabumukunzi is alleged to have set up roadblocks during the genocide to detain and kill Tutsis and to have participated in killings, prosecutors said, citing witnesses.

“Nsabumukunzi used his leadership position to oversee the violence and killings of Tutsis in his local area and directed groups of armed Hutus to kill Tutsis,” the federal prosecutors said.

He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison in absentia by a Rwandan genocide court, according to US legal papers.

The suspect was arrested on Thursday at his home in Bridgehampton, New York, where he had settled as a gardener and beekeeper in an exclusive enclave on Long Island, according to the US media.

Prosecutors said he had lied to US officials in his immigration application, including by falsely denying any involvement as a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide when he sought refugee status in 2003.

He allegedly repeated those lies in his subsequent applications for a green card and naturalisation.

“For over two decades, he got away with those lies and lived in the United States with an undeserved clean slate,” said prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York.

He pleaded not guilty and was released on a bond of $250,000 (£188,000).

The bail package requires home detention and GPS monitoring, but he will be allowed to continue working as a gardener.

Nsabumukunzi faces a maximum of 30 years in prison, if convicted.

In Rwanda, Nsabumukunzi oversaw 150 beekeepers and 1,500 hives, according to the New York Times which profiled him in 2006.

In the US, he oversaw about 100 hives for the Hamptons Honey Company, which had hired him to scale up its production, the report said.

Gabriel Alfaya, the owner of Hamptons Honey since 2009, said he was unaware that Nsabumukunzi had worked for the company and had never met him, the New York Times reported.

Nsabumukunzi’s lawyer, Evan Sugar, described his client as “a law-abiding beekeeper and gardener”, in an interview with the AP news agency.

The lawyer said Nsabumukunzi was “a victim of the Rwandan genocide who lost scores of family members and friends to the violence”.

He said his client was rightfully granted refugee status and lawful permanent residence and planned to “fight these 30-year-old allegations” while maintaining his innocence.

Several people who fled Rwanda to other countries have been arrested on charges related to the killings, as the East African country continues to pursue more genocide suspects from their safe havens abroad.

• BBC reporter returns home to Rwanda – 30 years after genocide
• Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter
• ‘I forgave my husband’s killer – our children married’

Will India be able to stop the Indus river and two of its tributaries from flowing into Pakistan?

That’s the question on many minds, after India suspended a major treaty governing water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries, following Tuesday’s horrific attack in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) survived two wars between the nuclear rivals and was seen as an example of trans-boundary water management.

The suspension is among several steps India has taken against Pakistan, accusing it of backing cross-border terrorism – a charge Islamabad flatly denies. It has also hit back with reciprocal measures against Delhi, and said stopping water flow “will be considered as an Act of War”.

The treaty allocated the three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – of the Indus basin to India, while 80% of the three western ones – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – to Pakistan.

Disputes have flared in the past, with Pakistan objecting to some of India’s hydropower and water infrastructure projects, arguing they would reduce river flows and violate the treaty. (More than 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and around a third of its hydropower depend on the Indus basin’s water.)

India, meanwhile, has been pushing to review and modify the treaty, citing changing needs – from irrigation and drinking water to hydropower – in light of factors like climate change.

Over the years, Pakistan and India have pursued competing legal avenues under the treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But this is the first time either side has announced a suspension – and notably, it’s the upstream country, India, giving it a geographic advantage.

But what does the suspension really mean? Could India hold back or divert the Indus basin’s waters, depriving Pakistan of its lifeline? And is it even capable of doing so?

Experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes.

“The infrastructure India has are mostly run-of-the-river hydropower plants that do not need massive storage,” said Himanshu Thakkar, a regional water resources expert with the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People.

Such hydropower plants use the force of running water to spin turbines and generate electricity, without holding back large volumes of water.

Indian experts say inadequate infrastructure has kept India from fully utilising even its 20% share of the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus waters under the treaty – a key reason they argue for building storage structures, which Pakistan opposes citing treaty provisions.

Experts say India can now modify existing infrastructure or build new ones to hold back or divert more water without informing Pakistan.

“Unlike in the past, India will now not be required to share its project documents with Pakistan,” said Mr Thakkar.

But challenges like difficult terrain and protests within India itself over some of its projects have meant that construction of water infrastructure in the Indus basin has not moved fast enough.

After a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016, Indian water resources ministry officials had told the BBC they would speed up construction of several dams and water storage projects in the Indus basin.

Although there is no official information on the status of such projects, sources say progress has been limited.

Some experts say that if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season, when water availability is already at its lowest.

“A more pressing concern is what happens in the dry season – when the flows across the basin are lower, storage matters more, and timing becomes more critical,” Hassan F Khan, assistant professor of Urban Environmental Policy and Environmental Studies at Tufts University, wrote in the Dawn newspaper.

“That is where the absence of treaty constraints could start to be felt more acutely.”

The treaty requires India to share hydrological data with Pakistan – crucial for flood forecasting and planning for irrigation, hydropower and drinking water.

Pradeep Kumar Saxena, India’s former IWT commissioner for over six years, told the Press Trust of India news agency that the country can now stop sharing flood data with Pakistan.

The region sees damaging floods during the monsoon season, which begins in June and lasts until September. But Pakistani authorities have said India was already sharing very limited hydrological data.

“India was sharing only around 40% of the data even before it made the latest announcement,” Shiraz Memon, Pakistan’s former additional commissioner of the Indus Waters Treaty, told BBC Urdu.

Another issue that comes up each time there is water-related tension in the region is if the upstream country can “weaponise” water against the downstream country.

This is often called a “water bomb”, where the upstream country can temporarily hold back water and then release it suddenly, without warning, causing massive damage downstream.

Could India do that?

Experts say India would first risk flooding its own territory as its dams are far from the Pakistan border. However, it could now flush silt from its reservoirs without prior warning – potentially causing damage downstream in Pakistan.

Himalayan rivers like the Indus carry high silt levels, which quickly accumulate in dams and barrages. Sudden flushing of this silt can cause significant downstream damage.

There’s a bigger picture: India is downstream of China in the Brahmaputra basin, and the Indus originates in Tibet.

In 2016, after India warned that “blood and water cannot flow together” following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which India blamed on Pakistan, China blocked a tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo – that becomes the Brahmaputra in northeast India.

China, that has Pakistan as its ally, said they had done it as it was needed for a hydropower project they were building near the border. But the timing of the move was seen as Beijing coming in to help Islamabad.

After building several hydropower plants in Tibet, China has green-lit what will be the world’s largest dam on the lower reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo.

Beijing claims minimal environmental impact, but India fears it could give China significant control over the river’s flow.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has told the BBC that Ukraine may have to give up land as part of a peace deal with Russia, amid a growing pressure from President Donald Trump to accept territorial concessions.

“One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” he said.

But the 53-year-old former boxing champion-turned politician stressed that the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.

He was speaking hours after a Russian missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv killed 12 people and injured more than 80.

It was one of the deadliest Russian assaults on the Ukrainian capital in months.

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

Klitschko is now one of the most senior Ukrainian politicians to indicate publicly that his country may have to give up territory, albeit temporarily.

The Kyiv mayor and Zelensky are political opponents. The mayor has repeatedly accused the president and his team of trying to undermine his authority.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from his office in central Kyiv on Thursday, Klitschko noted that he was “responsible for the capital of Ukraine”, describing it as “the heart” of the war-torn country.

He said President Volodymyr Zelensky might be forced to take a “painful solution” to achieve peace.

When asked whether Zelensky has been discussing with him any details of a possible settlement, Klitschko replied bluntly: “No.”

“President Zelensky does [it] himself. It’s not my function,” he added.

Referring to a very public bust-up between Zelensky and Trump at the White House in February, the mayor suggested that key issues between top politicians would be better discussed “without video cameras”.

Earlier this week, Trump accused Zelensky of harming peace negotiations, after the Ukrainian leader again ruled out recognising Russian control of Crimea, a southern Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Trump said Crimea “was lost years ago” and was currently “not even a point of discussion”.

But Zelensky pointed to a 2018 “Crimea declaration” by Trump’s then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying the US “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation”.

Ukraine and its European allies have in recent weeks expressed alarm over what many on the continent see as Trump’s warming of relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

• Trump criticises Zelensky as Ukraine refuses Russian control of Crimea
• Why Zelensky can’t and won’t give up Crimea

California’s economy has overtaken that of the country of Japan, making the US state the fourth largest global economic force.

Governor Gavin Newsom touted new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis showing California’s growth.

The data shows California’s gross domestic product (GDP) hit $4.10 trillion (£3.08 trillion) in 2024, surpassing Japan, which was marked at $4.01 trillion. The state now only trails Germany, China and the US as a whole.

“California isn’t just keeping pace with the world – we’re setting the pace,” Newsom said.

The new figures come as Newsom has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s tariffs and voiced concern about the future of the state’s economy.

California has the largest share of manufacturing and agricultural production in the US. It is also home to leading technological innovation, the centre of the world’s entertainment industry and the country’s two largest seaports.

Newsom, a prominent Democrat and possible presidential candidate in 2028, filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose the levies, which have caused disruption to global markets and trade.

Trump has enacted 10% levies on almost all countries importing to the US, after announcing a 90-day pause on higher tariffs.

Another 25% tariff was imposed on Mexico and Canada. The levies on China, however, have led to an all-out trade war with the world’s second largest economy.

Trump imposed import taxes of up to 145% on Chinese goods coming into the US and China hit back with a 125% tax on American products.

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

Newsom noted his worries about the future of the state’s economy.

“While we celebrate this success, we recognise that our progress is threatened by the reckless tariff policies of the current federal administration,” he said. “California’s economy powers the nation, and it must be protected.”

Trump has argued his trade war is only levelling the playing field after years of the US being taxed.

The tariffs are an effort to encourage factories and jobs to return to the US. It is one major pillar of his economic agenda, as is a cut in interest rates, aimed at reducing the cost of borrowing for Americans.

The new data shows California’s GDP behind the US at $29.18 trillion, China at $18.74 trillion and Germany at $4.65 trillion. It also shows California was the fastest growing among those countries.

Japan’s economy is under pressure because of its decreasing and ageing population, which means its workforce is shrinking and social care costs are ballooning.

This week, the IMF cut its economic growth forecast for Japan and projected that the central bank would raise interest rates more slowly than previously expected because of the impact of higher tariffs.

“The effect of tariffs announced on April 2 and associated uncertainty offset the expected strengthening of private consumption with above-inflation wage growth boosting household disposable income,” its World Economic Outlook report said.

Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese has pledged to invest A$1.2bn (£580m) in a strategic reserve for critical minerals if he wins next month’s election, as trade tensions escalate.

The announcement came after China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, essential to the production of advanced technologies – including electric vehicles, fighter jets, and robots.

China’s controls apply to all countries but were widely seen as retaliation to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Albanese said Australia would prioritise minerals that are key to its security, and that of its partners, including rare earths. But could his plan challenge China’s dominance?

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements – named “rare” because they are notoriously difficult to extract and refine.

Rare earths, like samarium and terbium, are critical to the production of technologies set to shape the world in the coming decades – including electric vehicles and highly advanced weapons systems.

Albanese’s proposed reserve includes rare earths as well as other critical minerals of which Australia is a top producer – like lithium and cobalt.

Both China and Australia have rare earth reserves. But 90% of rare earth refining – which makes them usable in technology – takes place in China, giving the country significant control over supply.

And that has spooked Western governments.

Beijing said its restrictions on rare earths were in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports to the US, currently at 145%.

But analysts say Washington’s inability to secure the supply of rare earths has become one of the Trump administration’s chief anxieties, especially as diplomatic tensions with Beijing have deepened.

Around 75% of US rare earth imports came from China between 2019 and 2022, according to the US Geological Survey.

Philip Kirchlechner, director of Iron Ore Research in Perth, Western Australia, told the BBC that the US and EU had “dropped the ball” on recognising the importance of the rare earths over recent decades, as China swiftly developed a monopoly over refinement.

“China has its foot on the blood vein… of US and European defence systems,” he added.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, this week said that China halting exports of rare earths used in advanced magnets was affecting the company’s ability to develop humanoid robots, in an early symbol of the pain Beijing has the power to inflict on US companies.

Albanese’s proposal says that minerals in the reserve will be available to both “domestic industry and international partners”, in a likely reference to allies such as the US and EU.

But Kirchlechner, while welcoming the move as “long overdue”, added that the proposal is “not going to solve the problem”.

The fundamental issue is that even if Australia stockpiles more critical minerals, the refining process of rare earths will still largely be controlled by China.

Lithium – not a rare earth, but a crucial metal in the production electric vehicle batteries and solar panels – is a good example. Australia mines 33% of the world’s lithium, but only refines and exports a tiny fraction. China, on the other hand, mines just 23% of the world’s lithium, but refines 57% of it, according to the International Energy Agency.

Australia has been investing in refining rare earths as part of its Future Made in Australia plan, aimed at leveraging the country’s critical minerals reserves to drive the green transition.

Arafura Rare Earths, headquartered in Perth, Western Australia, last year received A$840m in funding to create the country’s first combined mine and refinery for rare earths. And in November, Australia opened its first rare earths processing plant, also in Western Australia, operated by Lynas Rare Earths.

But the country is expected to depend on China for refining until at least 2026, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, headquartered in Washington.

China has been trying to seize on the volatility brought by Trump.

In a series of editorials in Australian newspapers, China’s ambassador to Canberra lambasted Washington’s approach to global trade, and called on Australia to “join hands” with Beijing – something that Albanese quickly rejected.

Australia has touted its resource industry in its talks with Trump. Some critical minerals were exempt from a 10% tariff he imposed on imports of most Australian products.

But analysts say Albanese’s proposal is mainly aimed at protecting Australia and its partners from strategic adversaries like China.

Alicia García-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, told the BBC that Albanese’s plan was “more sophisticated” than previous proposals, because it included the ability to sell Australia’s resources at moments of economic tension.

If China imposes export controls, she added, Australia could begin selling more of its mineral reserves to help lower prices on global markets, and loosen the control China has had on setting prices.

But she said that Australia still cannot completely replace China.

“If [Australia’s] goal is to serve the West, become more instrumental to the West – especially the US – there are weak spots China can enter – and the most important is refining.”

Donald Trump has signed a controversial executive order aimed at stepping up deep-sea mining within US and in international waters.

Thursday’s order is the latest issued by the US president to try to increase America’s access to minerals used by the aerospace, green technology and healthcare sectors.

The deep sea contains billions of tonnes of potato-shaped rocks, called polymetallic nodules, which are rich in critical minerals like cobalt and rare earths.

Many other countries and environmental groups oppose deep-sea mining in international waters without further research.

The latest US executive order was issued to “establish the United States as a global leader in responsible seabed mineral exploration”, it reads.

The move appears to bypass a long-running round of UN negotiations on mining in international waters.

“The US authorisation… violates international law and harms the overall interests of the international community,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday.

China dominates the production of rare earths and critical metals like cobalt and lithium.

Trump has been frustrated by this relative weakness of the US position, analysts say.

“We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” a US official said on Thursday.

To achieve this, the order says the US will speed up the process of issuing exploration licences and recovery permits both in its own waters and in “areas beyond national jurisdiction”.

The administration estimates that deep-sea mining could boost the country’s GDP by $300bn (£225bn) over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs

The EU, the UK and others support a moratorium on the practice until further scientific research is carried out.

Environmentalists and scientists are concerned that undiscovered species living in the deep sea could be harmed by the process.

“Deep-sea mining is a deeply dangerous endeavour for our ocean,” said Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, a US-based environmental group.

“The harm caused by deep-sea mining isn’t restricted to the ocean floor: it will impact the entire water column, top to bottom, and everyone and everything relying on it,” he added in a statement released on Friday.

It is not clear how quickly deep-sea mining could begin but one mining company, The Metals Company (TMC), has already applied for permits in international waters.

TMC’s CEO Gerard Barron has previously said he hopes to begin mining by the end of the year.

Along with others in the mining industry, he disputes the environmental claims made and has argued that the abyssal zone – 3,000m to 6,000m below sea level – has very low concentrations of life.

“Here there’s zero flora. And if we measure the amount of fauna [animal life], in the form of biomass, there is around 10g per square metre. That compares with more than 30kg of biomass where the world is pushing more nickel extraction, which is our equatorial rainforests,” he previously told the BBC.

Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting a new earthquake in a viral TikTok video.

John Moe The posted his prediction on 9 April, just two weeks after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,500 people and destroyed centuries-old temples in the South East Asian nation.

He was arrested Tuesday for making “false statements with the intention of causing public panic”, Myanmar’s information ministry said.

John Moe The had warned that an earthquake would “hit every city in Myanmar” on 21 April. But experts say earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.

In his video, which got more than three million views, John Moe The urged people to “take important things with you and run away from buildings during the shaking.”

“People should not stay in tall buildings during the day,” read its caption.

A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbours believed in the prediction. They refused to stay in their homes and camped outside the day John Moe The said the earthquake would happen.

His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300,000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.

He was arrested during a raid on his home in Sagaing, central Myanmar.

The areas of Mandalay and Sagaing were hit especially hard by the earthquake on 28 March, which prompted a rare request from the Myanmar junta for foreign aid.

That earthquake was felt some 1,000km away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he will step back from his role with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting team known as Doge.

Those at the White House, including the president, have said it has long been the plan that Musk would soon step away, but the news came as the billionaire’s car business saw earnings plunge.

Musk’s announcement left many unanswered questions, including when he will actually leave the administration and what will happen to Doge, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

When asked by the BBC on Wednesday, President Donald Trump reinforced the message that the administration was preparing for Musk’s departure.

“We have to, at some point, let him go and do that. We expected to be doing it about this time. I’ll talk to Elon about it,” Trump said at the White House.

The president also said Tesla will “be taken care of” once Musk returns and alleged that Musk was being “treated very unfairly, I guess, by some of the public”.

“He’s a great patriot, and [that] should have never happened to him,” Trump added.

However, under government rules, spending fewer days at Doge could actually prolong Musk’s stint in government.

Musk has been designated a “special government employee” (SGE) – a label that allows him to work at a paid or unpaid government job for 130 days each year.

According to a 2007 Department of Justice memo, cited in an October 2024 guidance document from the Office of Government Ethics, any day on which an SGE performs any work for the government counts as a full day towards that limit.

Measured from Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the 130-day limit – assuming Musk, who brags about working weekends, clocks roughly five days a week at Doge – would run out toward the end of May.

But scaling back would extend that timeframe. Additionally, the 130-day limit would reset in January 2026.

Musk has not given details on his intended schedule. He made the announcement on Tuesday, after Tesla reported financial troubles including a 71% drop in profits.

The drop came after repeated “Tesla takedown” protests across the globe and calls for boycotts against the car manufacturer amid Musk’s government role. While organisers have said most protests have been peaceful, some have been destructive with fires set at Tesla showrooms or at charging stations.

• Musk’s Tesla facilities in US face ‘Takedown’ protests
• Trump says anti-Tesla protesters will face ‘hell’
• Musk to reduce Doge role after Tesla profits plunge

The company warned investors that the pain could continue, declining to offer a growth forecast while saying “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully hurt demand for the vehicles.

Musk told investors on an earnings call that the time he allocates to Doge “will drop significantly” and that he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla”.

After the comments, Tesla’s languishing stock price rose.

It’s also unclear how many days Musk has already worked for the government, whether the government is keeping a tally, and how the limit would be enforced.

There has been criticism that the Trump administration may have flouted government rules in creating Musk’s unprecedented role, and concerns that he may not follow the time limit.

Under rules for SGEs, Musk would have to undergo ethics training, provide a confidential financial disclosure statement, and avoid conflicts of interest.

His corporate empire includes large companies that do business with the US government and foreign governments, including SpaceX, which has $22 billion in US government contracts, according to the company’s chief executive.

The rules also prohibit special government employees from partisan activities, including wearing clothing with political slogans, while in government offices or carrying out official duties. Musk has been pictured wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in the Oval Office.

Still, in February, an anonymous White House official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that Musk would file a confidential financial disclosure at some point, and had been given an ethics briefing.

The following month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the BBC: “Elon Musk is selflessly serving President Trump’s administration as a special government employee, and he has abided by all applicable federal laws.”

For now, Musk appears to serve at Trump’s behest, with no clear oversight other than the president himself.

In a report released last week, progressive think-tank Public Citizen criticised the Trump administration and said the White House was “wildly abusing” the SGE rules.

“Right now, the public has no way to know whether SGEs like Musk who don’t file public financial disclosure reports or are permitted to oversee themselves are putting the people’s interests ahead of their own,” said report author Jon Golinger.

The BBC has contacted Musk and the Office of Personnel Management – the agency overseeing special government employees, and one where Doge employees have reportedly taken over several functions – for comment.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that around 100 Doge employees would remain in various government departments after Musk departs this year.

Musk and Trump set a deadline for Doge to finish its work, which corresponds to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

The executive order setting up Doge, signed by Trump on Inauguration Day in January, mentioned 4 July 2026 as the ending date.

Earlier, in December, Musk responded to a tweet that also said Doge would finish entirely on that date.

“The final step of DOGE is to delete itself,” he wrote.

Who will be the next pope? The decision could have a profound impact on the Catholic Church and the world’s 1.4 billion baptised Roman Catholics.

It also promises to be a highly unpredictable and open process for a host of reasons.

The College of Cardinals will meet in conclave in the Sistine Chapel to debate and then vote for their preferred candidates until a single name prevails.

With 80% of the cardinals appointed by Pope Francis himself, they are not only electing a pope for the first time, but will offer a broad global perspective.

For the first time in history, fewer than half of those given a vote will be European.

And although the college may be dominated by his appointments, they were not exclusively “progressive” or “traditionalist”.

For those reasons, it is harder than ever to predict who will be elected the next pope.

Could the cardinals elect an African or an Asian pope, or might they favour one of the old hands of the Vatican administration?

Here are some of the names being mentioned as Francis’s potential successor.

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Nationality: Italian

Age: 70

Softly spoken Italian Cardinal Parolin was the Vatican’s secretary of state under Pope Francis – making him the pope’s chief adviser. The secretary of state also heads the Roman Curia, the Church’s central administration.

Having acted effectively as deputy pope, he could be considered a frontrunner.

He is viewed by some as more likely to prioritise diplomacy and a global outlook than the purity of Catholic dogma. His critics consider that a problem, while his supporters see a strength.

But he has been critical of the legalisation of same-sex marriage around the world, calling a landmark 2015 vote in favour in the Republic of Ireland “a defeat for humanity”.

The bookmakers may back him but Cardinal Parolin will be well aware of an old Italian saying that stresses the uncertainty of the pope-picking process: “He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal.”

Some 213 of the previous 266 popes have been Italian and even though there has not been an Italian pope in 40 years, the pivot of the upper echelons of the Church away from Italy and Europe may mean there may not be another for now.

Nationality: Filipino

Age: 67

Could the next pope come from Asia?

Cardinal Tagle has decades of pastoral experience – meaning he has been an active Church leader among the people as opposed to a diplomat for the Vatican or cloistered expert on Church law.

The Church is massively influential in the Philippines, where about 80% of the population is Catholic. The country currently has a record five members of the College of Cardinals – which could make for a significant lobbying faction if they all back Cardinal Tagle.

He is considered a moderate within the Catholic definition, and has been dubbed the “Asian Francis” because of a dedication to social issues and sympathy for migrants that he shared with the late pope.

He has opposed abortion rights, calling them “a form of murder” – a position in line with the Church’s broader stance that life begins at conception. He has also spoken against euthanasia.

But in 2015 when he was Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Tagle called for the Church to reassess its “severe” stance towards gay people, divorcees and single mothers, saying past harshness had done lasting harm and left people feeling “branded”, and that each individual deserved compassion and respect.

The cardinal was considered a candidate to be pope as far back as the 2013 conclave in which Francis was elected.

Asked a decade ago how he viewed suggestions he could be next, he replied: “I treat it like a joke! It’s funny.”

Nationality: Congolese

Age: 65

It’s very possible the next pope could be from Africa, where the Catholic Church continues to add millions of members. Cardinal Ambongo is a leading candidate, hailing from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He has been Archbishop of Kinshasa for seven years, and was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis.

He is a cultural conservative, opposing blessings for same-sex marriage, stating that “unions of persons of the same sex are considered contradictory to cultural norms and intrinsically evil”.

Though Christianity is the majority religion in the DRC, Christians there have faced death and persecution at the hands of jihadist group Islamic State and associated rebels. Against that backdrop, Cardinal Ambongo is viewed as a fierce advocate for the Church.

But in a 2020 interview, he spoke in favour of religious plurality, saying: “Let Protestants be Protestants and Muslims be Muslims. We are going to work with them. But everyone has to keep their own identity.”

Such comments could lead some cardinals to wonder if he fully embraces their sense of mission – in which Catholics hope to spread the Church’s word throughout the world.

Nationality: Ghanaian

Age: 76

If chosen by his peers, the influential Cardinal Turkson would likewise have the distinction of being the first African pope for 1,500 years.

Like Cardinal Ambongo, he has claimed not to want the job. “I’m not sure whether anyone does aspire to become a pope,” he told the BBC in 2013.

Asked if Africa had a good case to provide the next pope based on the Church’s growth on the continent, he said he felt the pope shouldn’t be chosen based on statistics, because “those types of considerations tend to muddy the waters”.

He was the first Ghanaian to be made a cardinal, back in 2003 under Pope John Paul II.

Like Cardinal Tagle, Cardinal Turkson was considered a potential pope a decade later, when Francis was chosen. In fact, bookmakers made him the favourite ahead of voting.

A guitarist who once played in a funk band, Cardinal Turkson is known for his energetic presence.

Like many cardinals from Africa, he leans conservative. However, he has opposed the criminalisation of gay relationships in African countries including his native Ghana.

In a BBC interview in 2023, while Ghana’s parliament was discussing a bill imposing harsh penalties on LGBTQ+ people, Turkson said he felt homosexuality should not be treated as an offence.

In 2012, he was accused of making fear-mongering predictions over the spread of Islam in Europe at a Vatican conference of bishops, for which he later apologised.

Nationality: Hungarian

Age: 72

A cardinal since the age of 51, Peter Erdo is highly regarded in the Church in Europe, having twice led the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences from 2006 to 2016.

He is well known among African cardinals and he has worked on Catholic relations with the Orthodox Church.

The archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary grew up in a Catholic family under communism, and he is considered a potential compromise candidate.

Erdo played a prominent role in Pope Francis’s two visits to Hungary in 2021 and 2023, and he was part of the conclaves that elected Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict.

His conservative views on the family have found favour with some parts of the Church and he has navigated the “illiberal democracy” of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. During Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, he said the Church would not take in migrants as it was tantamount to human trafficking.

Nationality: Italian

Age: 83

Only cardinals under 80 can vote in the conclave, but Angelo Scola could still be elected.

The former Archbishop of Milan was a frontrunner in 2013 when Francis was chosen, but he is thought to have fallen victim to the adage of entering the conclave as Pope and leaving as cardinal.

His name has resurfaced ahead of the conclave, because of a book he is publishing this week on old age. The book features a preface written by Pope Francis shortly before he was admitted to hospital in which he said “death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something”.

Francis’s words show genuine affection for Scola, but the college of cardinals might not see his focus on old age as ideal for a new pope.

Nationality: German

Age: 71

Germany’s top Catholic cleric is also very much a Vatican insider too.

The Archbishop of Munich and Freising was chosen as an adviser when Francis became pope in 2013. For 10 years he advised the Pope on Church reform and still oversees financial reform of the Vatican.

He has advocated a more accommodating approach towards homosexuals or transgender people in Catholic teaching.

But in 2021 he offered to resign over serious mistakes in tackling child sexual abuse in Germany’s Catholic Church. That resignation was rejected by Francis.

Two years ago he left the Council of Cardinals, the Pope’s most important advisory body, in what was seen in Germany as a setback for his career in the Church.

Nationality: Canadian

Age: 80

Cardinal Ouellet has twice before been seen as a potential candidate for Pope, in 2005 and 2013.

For years he ran the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, which chooses candidates for the episcopate around the world, so he has played a significant and formative role in vetting the future members of the Catholic hierarchy.

As another octogenarian, he will not be able to play a part in the conclave itself, which may hinder his chances.

Ouellet is viewed as a conservative with a modern outlook, who is strongly in favour of maintaining the principle of celibacy for priests.

He opposes the ordination of women priests, but he has called for a greater role for women in running the Catholic Church, saying that “Christ is male, the Church is feminine”.

Nationality: American

Age: 69

Could the papacy go to an American for the first time?

Chicago-born Cardinal Prevost is certainly seen as having many of the necessary qualities for the role.

Two years ago Pope Francis chose Prevost to replace Marc Ouellet as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, handing him the task of selecting the next generation of bishops.

He worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there.

Prevost is not just considered an American, but as someone who headed the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

He is seen a reformer, but at 69 might be viewed as too young for the papacy. His period as archbishop in Peru was also clouded by allegations of covering up sexual abuse claims, which were denied by his diocese.

Nationality: Guinean

Age: 79

Well-liked by conservatives in the Church, Cardinal Sarah is known for his adherence to doctrine and traditional liturgy and was often considered opposed to Pope Francis’s reformist leanings.

The son of a fruit-picker, Sarah became the youngest archbishop aged 34 when Pope John Paul II appointed him prelate in Conakry in Guinea.

He has had a long and impressive career, retiring in 2021 as head of the Vatican’s office that oversees the Catholic Church’s liturgical rites.

While not considered a favourite for the papacy, he could attract strong support from conservative cardinals.

Nationality: Italian

Age: 60

Ordained in Italy when he was 25, Pizzaballa moved to Jerusalem the following month and has lived there ever since.

Pope Francis made him Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem five years ago and later cardinal, and Pizzaballa has spoken of the city as “the heart of the life of this world”.

Fellow cardinals will have been impressed by his deep understanding of Israelis and Palestinians and the ongoing war in Gaza.

However, his relative young age and inexperience as a cardinal may count against him, as could his affinity to Francis among cardinals seeking a change in direction.

Nationality: Canadian

Age: 78

Cardinal Czerny was appointed cardinal by Pope Francis and is like him a Jesuit, a leading order of the Catholic Church known for its charitable and missionary work around the world.

Although he was born in the former Czechoslovakia, his family moved to Canada when he was two.

He has worked widely in Latin America and in Africa, where he founded the African Jesuit Aids Network and taught in Kenya.

Czerny is popular with progressives in the Church and was considered close to Pope Francis. He is currently head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Human Integral Development.

Although a strong candidate, it seems unlikely the cardinals would choose a second Jesuit pope in succession.

A Dutch town hall has admitted that it “most likely” accidentally disposed of 46 artworks, including an Andy Warhol print of the former Dutch queen, during renovation works last year.

Maashorst municipality said the works, including a 1980s silkscreen print of Queen Beatrix worth about €15,000 (£12,800), disappeared during work on a town hall last year.

An investigation said the artworks were stored in a basement during renovations and a lack of guidelines for storing the artworks could have been among the reasons why they ended up being thrown away.

Mayor Hans van der Pas told public broadcaster Omroep Brabant: “That’s not how you treat valuables. But it happened. We regret that.”

A statement by the municipality on Thursday said the artworks were put into storage during work on a town hall in Uden – which is being incorporated into the neighbouring municipality of Landerd to form the Maashorst municipality.

“It’s most likely that the artworks were accidentally taken away with the trash,” they said.

A report by investigators found that some of the artworks were stored in wheelie bins in the basement and were “not handled with care”, according to local newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

The report concluded: “Ownership was not properly established, no policies and procedures were established regarding the renovation and insufficient action was taken when the artworks turned out to be missing.”

It went on to say that a lack of guidelines for registration, storage, conservation and security of the artworks, were also contributing factors.

Local media reports that the 46 artworks altogether were worth around €22,000 (£18,800) and the Maashorst municipality said it was unlikely they will ever be found.

Queen Beatrix reigned as queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until she abdicated in 2013, when she was succeeded by her son King Willem-Alexander.

The Queen Beatrix print was part of Warhol’s series Reigning Queens, which comprised of 16 colourful prints of four monarchs, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, Margrethe II of Denmark – who abdicated in 2023 – and Queen Ntombi Twala of Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland.

Warhol, considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, created the prints in 1985 – two years before his death.

In November last year, Warhol prints of Queen Beatrix and Ntombi Twala were stolen – and abandoned – during a heist on a Dutch art gallery.

Local police at the time said thieves took four silkscreen prints from the MPV Gallery in the North Brabant province and fled by car.

But the portraits of Queen Beatrix and Queen Ntombi were later abandoned because they did not fit in the vehicle, NOS reported at the time.

At least two dozen people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a group of domestic tourists visiting a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, authorities have told the BBC.

The attack took place in Pahalgam, a picturesque town in the Himalayas often described as the “Switzerland of India”.

The region’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said the attack was “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years”. Reports suggest that there are a large number of wounded, with some in critical condition.

US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen were among world leaders who condemned the attacks.

“Deeply disturbing news out of Kashmir. The United States stands strong with India against Terrorism,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Von der Leyen called the Kashmir deaths a “vile terrorist attack”, while Putin expressed “sincere condolences” for the consequences of a “brutal crime”.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who cut short his trip to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the attack – said the perpetrators would “be brought to justice”.

“Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakeable and it will get even stronger,” Modi wrote in a statement on X.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it was “concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives” and expressed condolences to the victims and wished “the injured a speedy recovery”.

Tuesday’s attack is unusual in that, in three and a half decades of conflict, tourists have rarely been targeted – especially on such a scale.

Home Minister Amit Shah travelled to Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, on Tuesday to hold an emergency security meeting.

The region’s Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, said the army and police had been deployed to the scene.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. There has been a long-running insurgency in the Muslim-majority region since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years.

The attack took place in Baisaran, a mountain-top meadow three miles (5km) from Pahalgam.

Vehicles are unable to reach the area where the shooting occurred, Inspector General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Vidi Kumar Birdi told BBC Hindi.

A tourist from Gujarat, who was part of a group that was fired upon, said that chaos broke out after the sudden attack, and everybody started running, crying and shouting.

Video footage shared by Indian media outlets appears to show Indian troops running towards the scene of the attack, while in other footage victims can be heard saying that the gunmen had singled out non-Muslims.

Footage on social media, which has not been verified by the BBC, appears to show bodies lying on a meadow with people crying and pleading for help.

Police said multiple tourists had been taken to hospital with gunshot wounds. The area has been cordoned off and soldiers are stopping vehicles at checkpoints. A joint search operation by the Indian army and Jammu and Kashmir police is ongoing.

Several protests have been organised for Wednesday, according to Indian media.

Since the 1990s, an armed separatist insurgency against Indian rule in the region has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including those of civilians and security forces.

The Himalayan region was divided following India’s independence from Britain, partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

The two nuclear-armed states both claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars and a limited conflict over it in the decades since.

Some 500,000 Indian soldiers are permanently deployed in the territory.

The government claims the security situation has improved and violence has come down since Modi revoked Kashmir’s partial autonomy in 2019, although there are still incidents of violence.

The last major attack on civilians occurred in June 2024 when nine people were killed and 33 injured after militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims.

In 2019, a suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir killed at least 46 soldiers and prompted Indian airstrikes on targets in Pakistan.

Pahalgam is a popular tourist destination, both domestically and internationally, and in recent years the government has attempted to encourage further tourism to the region.

Around 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024, according to official figures.