Even before his name was announced from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, the crowds below were chanting “Viva il Papa” – Long live the Pope.

Robert Prevost, 69, will be the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV.

He is the first American to fill the role of Pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru, before becoming a bishop there.

Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Prevost served as an altar boy and was ordained as a priest in 1982. Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city.

He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges.

He spent 10 years as a local parish pastor and as a teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in northwestern Peru.

• LIVE UPDATES: New Pope speaks from Vatican
• Pope Leo XIV’s first speech in full
• Pope Leo’s first public address from the Vatican balcony – watch in full
• US President Donald Trump calls election of first American pope a ‘great honour’

In his first words as Pope, Leo XIV spoke fondly of his predecessor Francis.

“We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us,” he said.

“United and hand in hand with God, let us advance together,” he told cheering crowds.

He also spoke of his role in the Augustinian Order. He was 30 when he moved to Peru as part of an Augustinian mission.

Francis made him Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru a year after becoming Pope.

He is well known to cardinals because of his high-profile role as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Latin America which has the important task of selecting and supervising bishops.

He became archbishop at the same time in January 2023 and within a few months Francis made him a cardinal.

As 80% of the cardinals who took part in the conclave were appointed by Francis, it is not all that surprising that someone like Prevost was elected, even if he was only recently appointed.

He will be seen as a figure who favoured the continuity of Francis’ reforms in the Catholic Church.

Prevost is believed to have shared Francis’ views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

A former roommate of his, Reverend John Lydon, described Prevost to the BBC as “outgoing”, “down to earth” and “very concerned with the poor”.

On his personal background, Prevost told Italian network RAI before the conclave that he grew up in a family of immigrants.

“I was born in the United States…But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish…I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish,” he said.

Although Prevost is an American, and will be fully aware of the divisions within the Catholic Church, his Latin American background also represents continuity after a Pope who came from Argentina.

The Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas, after Pope Francis, as well as the the first Augustinian pope.

During his time in Peru he has not escaped the sexual abuse scandals that have clouded the Church, however his diocese fervently denied he had been involved in any attempted cover-up.

Before the conclave, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that during gatherings of the College of Cardinals in the days before the conclave they emphasised the need for a pope with “a prophetic spirit capable of leading a Church that does not close in on itself but knows how to go out and bring light to a world marked by despair”.

In choosing the name Leo, Prevost has signified a commitment to dynamic social issues, according to experts.

The first pope to use the name Leo, whose papacy ended in 461, met Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to attack Rome. The last Pope Leo led the Church from 1878 to 1903 and wrote an influential treatise on worker rights.

Former Archbishop of Boston Seán Patrick O’Malley wrote on his blog that the new pontiff “has chosen a name widely associated with the social justice legacy of Pope Leo XIII, who was pontiff at a time of epic upheaval in the world, the time of the industrial revolution, the beginning of Marxism, and widespread immigration”.

His LGBT views are unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less welcoming to those groups than Pope Francis.

He has shown support for a papal declaration from Francis which permits blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular situations”, although he added that the declaration shows the need for bishops to interpret directives given local contexts and cultures.

Speaking last year about climate change, Prevost said that it was time to move “from words to action”.

“Dominion over nature” should not become “tyrannical,” he said. He called on mankind to build a “relationship of reciprocity” with the environment.

He also spoke about the Vatican’s commitment to the environment, noting the installation of solar panels in Rome and the adoption of electric vehicles.

He has supported Pope Francis’ decision to allow women to join the Dicastery for Bishops for the first time, giving them input on those appointments.

“On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment,” he told Vatican News in 2023.

In 2024, he told the Catholic News Service that their presence “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry”.

US President Donald Trump has called the election of the first American pope a “great honour” for the country and said he looks forward to meeting him.

Trump is among the many American political figures applauding the historic appointment of Robert Francis Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo XIV, to lead the Catholic Church.

“To have the Pope from America is a great honour,” Trump said when asked for reaction to the news.

Pope Leo, 69, was born in Chicago and attended university outside Philadelphia, before becoming a missionary in Peru.

The US has the fourth largest number of Catholics in the world, and congratulations started pouring in soon after the first American pope’s name was announced.

Vice-President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, praised the pope’s election.

“I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church,” Vance wrote on X.

Former President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic who has spoken about his warm relationship with Pope Francis, also offered his congratulations.

“Habemus papam – May God bless Pope Leo XIV of Illinois,” Biden, the second Catholic president in US history, wrote on social media.

Former President Barack Obama, who launched his political career in Chicago, wrote on X: “Michelle and I send our congratulations to a fellow Chicagoan, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.”

“This is a historic day for the United States, and we will pray for him as he begins the sacred work of leading the Catholic Church and setting an example for so many, regardless of faith.”

Former President George Bush issued a statement, saying that he and his wife Laura were “delighted” by the news.

“This an historic and hopeful moment for Catholics in America and for the faithful around the world,” he said.

“We join those praying for the success of Pope Leo XIV as he prepares to lead the Catholic church, serve the neediest, and share God’s love.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson also congratulated the new pope and wrote on social media: “May God bless the first American papacy in these historic days.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic, also extended his congratulations.

“This is a moment of profound significance for the Catholic Church, offering renewed hope and continuity amid the 2025 Jubilee Year to over a billion faithful worldwide,” Rubio said.

“The United States looks forward to deepening our enduring relationship with the Holy See with the first American pontiff.”

As cardinal, it appears Prevost did not shy away from occasionally challenging the views of the Trump administration.

An account under his name reposted a post on social media platform X which was critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of a US resident to El Salvador, and shared a critical comment piece written about a TV interview given by Vance to Fox News.

“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” read the post, repeating the headline from the commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website.

The BBC has contacted the Vatican but has not independently confirmed the account, which was created in 2011, belongs to the new pontiff.

• Who is Robert Prevost, the new Pope?
• Watch Pope Leo XIV being unveiled as new pontiff
• Pope Leo’s first public address from the Vatican balcony – watch in full

Meanwhile, in Prevost’s hometown, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson offered a note of congratulations.

“Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago! Congratulations to the first American Pope Leo XIV! We hope to welcome you back home soon,” he wrote.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called the moment “historic”.

“Hailing from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV ushers in a new chapter that I join those in our state welcoming in at a time when we need compassion, unity, and peace,” he wrote on social media.

India has accused Pakistan of attacking three of its military bases with drones and missiles, a claim which has been denied by Islamabad.

The Indian Army said it had foiled Pakistan’s attempts to attack its bases in Jammu and Udhampur, in Indian-administered Kashmir, and Pathankot, in India’s Punjab state.

Blasts were reported on Thursday evening in Jammu city in Indian-administered Kashmir as the region went into a blackout.

Pakistan’s defence minister told the BBC they were not behind the attack.

“We deny it, we have not mounted anything so far,” Khawaja Asif told the BBC, adding: “We will not strike and then deny”.

Earlier on Thursday, India said it had struck Pakistan’s air defences and “neutralised” Islamabad’s attempts to hit military targets in India on Wednesday night.

Pakistan called that action another “act of aggression”, following Indian missile strikes on Wednesday on targets in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

India’s strikes on Wednesday sparked a chorus of calls for de-escalation from the international community with the UN and world leaders calling for calm.

The attacks and incidents of shelling along the border have fanned fears of wider conflict erupting between the nuclear-armed states.

It is being viewed as the worst confrontation between the two countries in more than two decades.

India said it hit nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites on Wednesday in retaliation for a militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

Pakistan has strongly denied Indian claims that it backed the militants who killed 26 civilians in the mountainous town of Pahalgam.

It was the bloodiest attack on civilians in the region for years, sending tensions soaring. Most of the victims were Indian tourists.

Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a decades-long insurgency against Indian rule which has claimed thousands of lives.

Kashmir has been a flashpoint between the countries since they became independent after British India was partitioned in 1947. Both claim Kashmir and have fought two wars over it.

There were calls for restraint from around the world after India launched “Operation Sindoor” early on Wednesday.

But on Thursday both sides accused each other of further military action.

Pakistan’s military spokesman said drones sent by India had been engaged in multiple locations.

“Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said. “These locations are Lahore, Gujranwala, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Attock, Bahawalpur, Miano, Chor and near Karachi.”

He said one civilian had been killed in Sindh province and four troops injured in Lahore.

The US consulate in Lahore told its staff to shelter in the building.

India said its latest action had been taken in response to Pakistan’s attempts to “engage a number of military targets in northern and western India” overnight.

“It has been reliably learnt that an Air Defence system at Lahore has been neutralised,” a Defence Ministry statement said. Pakistan denied the claim.

There was no independent confirmation of the two countries’ versions of events.

Later in the day India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri told a news conference in Delhi: “Our intention has not been to escalate matters, we are only responding to the original escalation.”

Meanwhile, casualty numbers continue to rise. Pakistan says 31 people have been killed and 57 injured by Indian air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and firing along the Line of Control, since Wednesday morning.

India’s army said the number of people killed by Pakistani firing in the disputed Kashmir region had risen to 16, including three women and five children.

India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam but on 7 May it accused the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group of carrying it out.

Indian police have alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, a claim denied by Islamabad. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

In a late-night address on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to avenge those killed in India’s strikes.

He repeated Pakistan’s claim that it had shot down five Indian fighter jets, saying that was a “crushing response”. India has not commented on that claim.

Following the reports of Thursday’s explosions in Jammu, local media cited Indian military sources on Thursday in reporting that blasts across the Jammu region were also reported in the towns of Akhnoor, Samba and Kathua.

After the sorrow of death, the joy of a new beginning.

The warm May sun was still high in the sky when a roar echoed out in the streets surrounding St Peter’s Square.

One street over, startled people looked at each other, then at their phones. Then, they began to run down the narrow alleyways leading to the Vatican. “White smoke, they’re saying white smoke!”, they called out.

By the time they reached the square, a white haze was still hovering over the left hand side of the Apostolic Palace where 133 cardinals had been locked away since the day before, voting to elect the new head of the Catholic Church.

As the evening sunshine streamed through the statues of the apostles on the ledge of St Peter’s Basilica and bells tolled joyously over the square, young and older people zig-zagged through the crowd, and a group of nuns held hands as they swerved journalists and cameras.

• LIVE UPDATES: Robert Prevost becomes first American pope

It was less than three weeks ago that Pope Francis blessed the crowds from the balcony at St Peter’s, and his memory hung over the square on Thursday; almost everyone asked to share their impressions mentioned Francis and the need for the new Pope to follow in his footsteps.

“We just arrived today from America,” one woman named Amanda told the BBC. “It feels like a blessing. We came here for this and here it is.”

“Divine timing!” she joked. Two stylish women in their 20s said they were “about to cry”. “It’s a historic moment, it’s crazy,” one said, adding she hoped the next Pope would be “at least as good as the last one”.

This was a sentiment echoed by many in those last minutes before Pope Leo XIV was announced.

“It doesn’t matter to us where he’s from as long as he follows in on Francis’ footsteps and creates unity for all of us Catholics,” said a French woman as she herded her five children to get closer to the front of the square.

By the time Dominique Mamberti – the proto-deacon tasked with delivering the iconic “Habemus Papam” address to the square – appeared on the balcony, St Peter’s was full to the brim. It fell silent, though, once Robert Francis Prevost’s name was read out.

Those in the know may have identified the Chicago-born 69-year-old cardinal – who worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made a bishop there – as a potential pontiff early on.

But many people in the square looked puzzled at first, and the complete lack of phone coverage meant that most couldn’t look him up on the internet – so the first impression most got of Pope Leo XIV came down to the way he introduced himself from the ornate balcony.

Visibly moved at first, and dressed in white and red vestments and speaking in confident – if lightly accented – Italian, he read out a much lengthier speech than the remarks made by his predecessor Francis in 2013.

“I would like this greeting of peace to reach all your hearts and families… and people around the world. May peace be with you,” the new Pope began as the square fell silent.

At other moments, his address was met with frequent warm applause, especially when he mentioned “peace” – which he did on nine occasions – and the late Francis.

A section of the speech delivered in Spanish in which Pope Leo XIV remembered his time in Peru was met with cheers from various pockets of South Americans dotted across the square.

He also insisted on the need for unity, and at the end asked everyone to join together in prayer. When he began reciting Ave Maria, a deep hum rose as the square followed suit, with some praying in their own languages.

The crowd began to slowly amble out of the square shortly after. As people streamed past them, a young couple held each other close, beaming. “I still have goosebumps,” said Carla, from Barcelona.

“The energy is contagious, it’s amazing – it’s our first time here, and for me it’s 100% surreal,” said Juan, who is from Ecuador and had never been to the Vatican before. Asked what his hope for Pope Leo XIV was, he said: “That the Holy Spirit guides him. I hope that means we can all be united together going forward.”

Gemma, a Rome resident, said she hadn’t even heard the name Robert Prevost until she came across it on Instagram this morning. “The reaction of the square wasn’t that warm,” her friend Marco added.

“If he’d been Italian everyone would have kicked off.” “But it was a beautiful evening, a beautiful occasion,” said Gemma. “It was my first conclave. And this new Pope is only 69, so who knows when the next one will be?”

The square emptied. The restaurants around the Vatican filled up with pilgrims, clergy, and tourists. Couples snapped the last selfies outside the basilica.

Over in the Apostolic Palace – now unsealed – Robert Prevost held a moment of private prayer.

Then, for the first time, he re-entered the Sistine Chapel as Leo XIV, the 267th Pope.

The auction house Sotheby’s has postponed its sale in Hong Kong of hundreds of sacred jewels linked to the Buddha’s remains, after a threat of legal action by the Indian government.

The sale of the collection – described as one of the most astonishing archaeological finds of the modern era – had drawn criticism from Buddhist academics and monastic leaders. India had said it offended the global Buddhist community.

Sotheby’s said the suspension would allow for discussions between the parties.

A British official named William Claxton Peppé unearthed the relics in northern India nearly 130 years ago, alongside bone fragments identified as belonging to the Buddha himself.

The auction of the collection, known as the Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha Mauryan Empire, Ashokan Era, circa 240-200 BCE, was due to take place on 7 May.

In a letter to the auction house two days earlier, the Indian government said that the relics constituted “inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community. Their sale violates Indian and international laws, as well as United Nations conventions”.

A high-level Indian government delegation then held discussions with Sotheby’s representatives on Tuesday.

In an emailed statement, Sotheby’s said that in light of the matters raised by India’s government “and with the agreement of the consignors, the auction … has been postponed”.

It said updates on the discussions would be shared “as appropriate”.

Notice of the gems sale had been removed from its auction house by Wednesday and the website page promoting the auction is no longer available.

William Claxton Peppé was an English estate manager who excavated a stupa at Piprahwa, just south of Lumbini, the believed birthplace of Buddha. He uncovered relics inscribed and consecrated nearly 2,000 years ago.

The findings included nearly 1,800 gems, including rubies, topaz, sapphires and patterned gold sheets, stored inside a brick chamber. This site is now in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Sotheby’s had said in February that the 1898 discovery ranked “among the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of all time”.

The leader of Australia’s third-largest political party, the Greens, has conceded his seat in Melbourne after a tight electoral vote count that lasted several days.

Adam Bandt, who had safely held the seat of Melbourne since 2010, told reporters on Thursday afternoon that he had called Labor candidate Sarah Witty to congratulate her on her victory.

Australia’s centre-left Labor party won Saturday’s federal election by a landslide, decimating the conservative Liberal-National Coalition while also gutting the left-leaning Greens.

While the Greens got the highest vote in Melbourne, Bandt said the main reason for their loss was the preference votes for Liberal and the far-right One Nation party.

Australia uses a preferential voting system, where candidates are ranked in order of preference.

If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in the first tally, the votes from the least popular candidates are redistributed, and that process is repeated until someone secures a majority.

“To win in Melbourne we needed to overcome Liberal, Labor and One Nation combined, and it’s an Everest we’ve climbed a few times now, but this time we fell just short,” Bandt said.

“We came very close,” he added, “but we couldn’t quite get there.”

Bandt also cited the so-called Trump effect as a “key defining feature of the election” – the Coalition’s PM candidate Peter Dutton was often compared to the US President, which he rejected but it stuck.

Bandt said that contributed to a five-week “riptide” that saw votes swing away from Liberal and Dutton, and towards Labor.

This same effect also pulled votes away from the Greens, he added: “The riptide from Liberal to Labor had an effect on us as well.”

“People in Melbourne hate Peter Dutton, and with very good reason. They’ve seen his brand of toxic racism for many years… and like me, many wanted him as far away from power as possible.

“My initial take is some votes leaked away from us, as people saw Labor as the best option to stop Dutton.”

Like Bandt, Dutton also lost his seat in the election, adding to his resounding defeat at the polls by incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Bandt, who has been leader of the Greens since 2020, said he wanted to thank the Melbourne community for “regularly giving me the highest vote, including this election, and to thank you for the last 15 years and the chance to do some amazing things together”.

He listed off a string of achievements by the Greens under his leadership, including the party’s pivotal role in the marriage equality plebiscite, the First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum, and advancing “world-leading climate legislation”.

“Fighting the climate crisis is the reason I got into politics, and I want to thank everyone in Melbourne for helping us make a difference,” Bandt said.

He also thanked his party colleagues, noting that he leaves the party with “the vote for the Greens higher than when i started, and our biggest ever representation in parliament”.

Bandt thanked the African and Muslim communities in Melbourne, as well as “everyone that had the courage to speak up against the invasion of Gaza, and spoke up for peace in Palestine”.

Finally, he thanked his wife, Claudia.

“Not only could I have not done this without her, we’ve done it together,” he said.

In his closing remarks, Bandt offered some “free advice to the media”.

“We’re in a climate crisis,” he said. “I really want the media to stop reporting on climate as a political issue, and start thinking of it as if our country were being invaded. We should treat the climate crisis as if there was a war on.”

“Please, please start taking the climate crisis seriously, and holding this government and any future government to account.”

The US has agreed to reduce import taxes on a set number of British cars and allow some steel and aluminium into the country tariff-free, as part of a new agreement between the US and UK.

The announcement offers relief for key UK industries from some of the new tariffs President Donald Trump has announced since his return to the White House in January.

But it will leave a 10% duty in place on most goods from the UK.

Though hailed by the leaders of the two countries as significant, analysts said it did not appear to meaningfully alter the terms of trade between the countries, as they stood before the changes introduced by Trump this year.

No formal deal was signed on Thursday and the announcements from both governments were light on details.

Speaking from a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the West Midlands, Sir Keir Starmer described the agreement as a “fantastic platform”.

“This historic deal delivers for British business and British workers protecting thousands of British jobs in key sectors including car manufacturing and steel,” he said, adding that the “the UK has no greater ally than the United States”.

At the White House, Trump called it a “great deal” and pushed back against criticism that he was overstating its importance.

“This is a maxed out deal that we’re going to make bigger,” he said.

The two sides said the US had agreed to reduce the import tax on cars – which Trump had raised by 25% last month – to 10% for 100,000 cars a year.

That will help luxury carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls Royce, but could limit growth in the years ahead, as it amounts to roughly what the UK exported last year.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC the UK was days away from losing thousands of jobs at carmakers facing US tariffs.

“This was very serious,” he said. “It would have meant people would have lost their jobs without this breakthrough.”

Tariffs on steel and aluminium, which Trump raised earlier this year to 25%, have also been slashed, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. The US said instead it would establish a quota, as had existed previously.

The two countries also each agreed to allow the import of up to 13,000 metric tonnes of beef from the other country without tariffs, according to documents released by the US Trade Representative.

The US said the change would significantly expand its sales of beef to the UK, which had previously faced 20% duties and were capped at 1,000 metric tonnes.

Overall, the US said the deal would create a $5bn (£3.8bn) “opportunity” for exports, including $700m in ethanol and $250m in other agricultural products.

“It can’t be understated how important this deal is,” US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

UK Steel director General Gareth Stace welcomed the agreement, saying it would offer “major relief” to the steel sector.

“The UK government’s cool-headed approach and perseverance in negotiating with the US clearly paid off,” he said.

Other business groups expressed more uncertainty.

“It’s better than yesterday but it’s definitely not better than five weeks ago,” said Duncan Edwards, chief executive of BritishAmerican Business, which represents firms in the two countries and supports free trade.

“I’m trying to be excited but I’m struggling a bit.”

While Labour MPs praised the deal, opposition parties asked for more detail and scrutiny in Parliament.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch criticised the deal, saying it amounted to tariffs being lowered by the UK, while being hiked in the US.

“This is not a historic deal with the US,” she said. “We’ve been shafted.”

The Liberal Democrats demanded a vote on the deal in Parliament, saying it would show “complete disrespect to the public” if MPs were denied a say.

Sir Ed Davey said: “When it comes to any trade deal – and especially one with someone as unreliable as Donald Trump – the devil will be in the detail.

“One thing is clear, Trump’s trade tariffs are still hitting key British industries, threatening the livelihoods of people across the UK.”

Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage said the deal was a “step in the right direction”.

He told the BBC there was more detail to come but in the round it was a welcome development.

“The important point is that we are doing stuff, we are making a move,” he said. “It’s a Brexit benefit we were able to do this.”

The US and UK have been discussing a trade deal since Trump’s first term. They came close to signing a mini-agreement at that time.

But the US has long pushed for changes to benefit its farmers and pharmaceutical issues, which had been non-starters politically for the UK.

It was not clear how much those issues had advanced.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the agreement in-principle had delivered a “tremendous win” for American ranchers but the US Meat Export Federation, which tracks trade barriers for farmers in the US, said it was still trying to pin down information about the changes.

The UK said there would be no weakening in food standards for imports.

While the UK appears to have made some commitments, “the devil will be in the details,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief economist at Oxford Economics, which said it was making no change to its economic forecasts as a result of the announcement.

Other issues loom.

Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to tax imports of pharmaceuticals, in a bid to ensure the US has a strong manufacturing base for critical medicines.

The UK said the US had agreed to give British firms “preferential treatment”.

But Ewan Townsend, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter, who works with health care firms, said the industry was now “left waiting to see exactly what this preferential treatment will mean”.

From a woman waving a colonial-era flag in a shopping mall, to bakery staff selling cakes with protest symbols on them – dozens of Hongkongers have been reported to the police by one man for what he believes were national security violations.

“We’re in every corner of society, watching, to see if there is anything suspicious which could infringe on the national security law,” former banker Innes Tang tells the BBC World Service.

“If we find these things, we go and report it to the police.”

When the UK returned Hong Kong to China 28 years ago, internationally binding treaties guaranteed the city’s rights and freedoms for 50 years. But the national security law (NSL), imposed by Beijing a year after Hong Kong’s 2019 mass pro-democracy protests, has been criticised for scuttling free speech and press, and for ushering in a new culture of informing.

The law criminalises activities considered to be calls for “secession” (breaking away from China), “subversion” (undermining the power or authority of the government), and collusion with foreign forces.

An additional security law called Article 23, voted in last year, has further tightened restrictions.

With new laws and arrests, there has been limited reporting on Hong Kong’s pro-China “patriots” – the people who are now running and policing the city, as well as the ordinary citizens who openly support them. But the BBC has spent weeks interviewing Innes Tang, 60, a prominent self-described patriot.

He and his volunteers have taken screen grabs from social media of any activities or comments they believe could be in breach of the NSL.

He also established a hotline for tip-offs from the public and encouraged his online followers to share information on the people around them.

Nearly 100 individuals and organisations have been reported to the authorities by him and his followers, he says.

“Does reporting work? We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t,” Mr Tang says. “Many had cases opened by the police… with some resulting in jail terms.”

Mr Tang says he hasn’t investigated alleged law breakers himself, but simply reported incidents he thinks warrant scrutiny – describing it as “proper community-police co-operation”.

Mr Tang is not the only so-called patriot to engage in this kind of surveillance.

Hong Kong’s authorities have set up their own national security hotline, receiving 890,000 tip-offs from November 2020 to February this year – the city’s security bureau told the BBC.

For those who are reported to the authorities, pressure can be relentless.

Since the NSL was enacted in 2020, up until February this year, more than 300 people had been arrested for national security offences. And an estimated 300,000 or more Hongkongers have permanently left the city in recent years.

Pong Yat-ming, the owner of an independent bookshop that hosts public talks, says he often receives inspections from government departments which cite “anonymous complaints”.

He received 10 visits in one 15-day period, he says.

Kenneth Chan, political scientist and university lecturer, who has been involved in the city’s pro-democracy movement since the 1990s, jokes he has “become a bit radioactive these days”.

Some friends, students and colleagues now keep their distance because of his outspoken views, he says. “But I would be the last person to blame the victims. It’s the system.”

In response, Hong Kong’s government said it “attaches great importance to upholding academic freedom and institutional autonomy”. But it adds that academic institutions “have the responsibility to ensure their operations are in compliance with the law and meet the interests of the community at large”.

Innes Tang says he is motivated to report people by a love of Hong Kong, and that his views on China were cultivated when he was young, when the city was still a British colony.

“The colonial policies weren’t really that great,” he says. “The best opportunities were always given to the British and we [the locals] did not really have access.”

Like many of his generation, he nursed a longing to be united with China and taken out of colonial governance. But he says many other Hongkongers at the time were more concerned with their livelihoods than their rights.

“Democracy or freedom. These were all very abstract ideas which we didn’t really understand,” he says.

An average citizen should not become too involved in politics, he says, explaining he only became politically active to restore what he calls “balance” to Hong Kong society following the turbulence of 2019.

He is giving a voice, he says, to what he calls “the silent majority” of Hongkongers who do not support independence from China, nor the disruption created by the protests.

But other Hongkongers consider rallies and demonstrations a longstanding tradition, and one of the only ways to voice public opinion in a city that now does not have a fully democratically elected leadership.

“We are no longer a city of protests,” says Kenneth Chan, who specialises in Eastern European politics. “So what are we? I don’t have the answer yet.”

And patriotism isn’t inherently a negative thing, he says.

It is “a value, maybe even a virtue”, he argues, although it needs to allow citizens to keep “a critical distance” – something that is not happening in Hong Kong.

Electoral reform was pushed through in 2021 – stating that only “patriots” who “swore loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party” could hold important positions in government or the Legislative Council [LegCo] – Hong Kong’s parliament.

As a result, the council struggles to function, believes Hong Kong-based China commentator Lew Mon-hung, a former member of the Chinese government advisory body, the CPPCC.

“The public think a lot of these patriots are ‘verbal revolutionaries’ or political opportunists – they don’t really represent the people,” he says.

“That’s why ridiculous policies still pass with a huge majority. There is no-one to constrain or oppose, no-one to scrutinise.”

Even patriot Innes Tang says he wants to see the current system challenged.

“I don’t want to see every policy passing with 90% of the vote,” he tells the BBC.

There is a danger the National Security Law will be weaponised, he says, with people saying: “If you don’t agree with me, I accuse you of infringement of the national security law.”

“I don’t agree with this type of stuff,” says Mr Tang.

Hong Kong’s government said: “The improved LegCo is now rid of extremists who wish to obstruct and even paralyse the operation of the government without any intention of entering into constructive dialogue to represent the interests of all Hong Kong people.”

For now, says Mr Tang, he has stopped reporting on people. Balance and stability, he believes, has returned to Hong Kong.

The number of large-scale protests has dwindled to none at all.

In academia, fear of surveillance – and how life might change for someone who infringes the laws – means self-censorship and censorship have become the “order of the day”, says Kenneth Chan.

Pro-democracy parties are no longer represented in the Legislative Council and many have disbanded – including the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, once the most powerful party.

Innes Tang has now set his sights overseas.

“There aren’t any particular issues in Hong Kong now, so I asked myself – shouldn’t I have a look at how I can continue to serve my community and my country?” he says.

“For a non-politician and civilian like me, this is an invaluable opportunity.”

He now works as a representative for one of several pro-Beijing non-profit groups, regularly visiting the UN in Geneva to speak at conventions giving China’s perspective on Hong Kong, human rights and other issues.

Mr Tang is also in the process of establishing a media company in Switzerland, and registering as a member of the press.

For Kenneth Chan in Hong Kong, his future hangs in the balance.

“One third of my friends and students are now in exile, another third of my friends and students are in jail, and I’m sort of… in limbo,” he says.

“Today I’m speaking freely with you… no-one would promise me that I would continue doing it for the rest of my life.”

In a written reply to the BBC, a Hong Kong government spokesperson said that national security is a top priority and inherent right for any country. It “only targets an extremely small minority of people and organisations that pose a threat to national security, while protecting the lives and property of the general public”.

The UK and the US have reached a deal over tariffs on some goods traded between the countries.

President Donald Trump’s blanket 10% tariffs on imports from countries around the world remains in place and still applies to most UK goods entering the US.

But the deal has reduced or removed tariffs on some of the UK’s exports, including cars, steel and aluminium.

Here’s an at-a-glance look at what’s in the deal.

Trump declared on social media this announcement would be a “major trade deal” – it’s not.

He does not have the authority to sign the type of free-trade agreement India and the UK finalised earlier this week – this lies with Congress.

Congress would need to approve a trade agreement, which would take longer than the 90-day pause in place on some of Trump’s tariffs.

This is an agreement which has reversed or cut some of those tariffs on specific goods.

What was announced today is only the bare bones of a narrow agreement.

There will be months of negotiations and legal paperwork to follow.

Trump had placed import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts coming into the US on top of the existing 2.5%.

This has been cut to 10% for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars, which matches the number of cars the UK exported last year.

But any cars exported above that 100,000 will be subject to a 27.5% import tax.

Cars are the UK’s biggest export to the US – worth about £9bn last year.

Car industry leaders have told the BBC the quota could effectively put a ceiling on the number they can export competitively.

The UK currently imposes a 10% on US car imports, but it is not yet clear if there had been any change to this.

The US has previously demanded the import tax be cut to 2.5%, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has indicated she is open to such a cut.

Trump also announced that Rolls Royce engines and plane parts will be able to be exported from the UK to the US tariff-free.

He also said the UK was buying $10bn worth of Boeing planes from the US.

A 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports into the US that came into effect in March has been scrapped as part of this deal.

This is huge news for firms such as British Steel which was brought under government control as it struggled to stay operational.

The UK exports a relatively small amount of steel and aluminium to the US, around £700m in total.

However the tariffs also cover products made with steel and aluminium, including things such as gym equipment, furniture and machinery.

These are worth much more, about £2.2bn, or about 5% of UK exports to the US last year.

It is not yet clear whether the scrapping of tariffs will apply to steel derivative products and whether only steel melted and poured in the UK will benefit.

What will be agreed on pharmaceuticals is still unknown.

“Work will continue on the remaining sectors – such as pharmaceuticals and remaining reciprocal tariffs,” a statement from the UK government said.

Most countries, including the US, imposed few or no tariffs on finished drugs, as part of an agreement aimed at keeping medicines affordable.

Pharmaceuticals are a major export for the UK when it comes to US trade – last year sales of medicinal and pharmaceutical products were worth £6.6bn ($8.76bn) making it the UK’s second-biggest export to the US.

It’s also America’s fourth biggest export to the UK, valued at £4bn ($5.3bn) last year.

The president has not announced any trade restrictions on medicines yet.

• FOLLOW LIVE: US and UK to announce deal to reduce tariffs today
• QUICK GUIDE: What tariffs has Trump announced and why?
• ANALYSIS: Trump deal is a significant achievement for Starmer

There was no change to the UK’s 2% digital services tax on US firms in this deal, despite reports there could be.

Businesses that run social media, search engines or online marketplaces pay this tax which applies to revenues derived from UK users.

Firms only have to pay it if they raise more than £500m in global revenues and £25m from UK users annually.

But this is a threshold easily met by US tech giants like Meta, Google, Apple.

The UK reportedly netted nearly £360m from American tech firms via the tax in its first year.

Instead of any change to the digital services tax the UK and US had “agreed to work on a digital trade deal”, the UK government said.

It said this would “strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy”.

The UK has removed tariffs on American beef and other agricultural products, Trump said.

UK farmers have also been given a tariff free quota for 13,000 metric tonnes of exports, which trade ministers said was the “first time” British farmers had been given this kind of deal.

There will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports, the UK government statement said.

Many American farmers use growth hormones as a standard part of their beef production, something that was banned in the UK and the European Union in the 1980s.

The US has previously pushed for a relaxation of rules for its agricultural products, including beef from cattle that have been given growth hormones.

This is an area where the UK has chosen alignment with EU – and the forthcoming “Brexit reset” with the EU – over the US.

The tariff on ethanol which is used to produce beer coming into the UK from the US has also been scrapped.

“They’ll also be fast tracking American goods through their customs process, so our exports go to a very, very quick form of approval, and there won’t be any red tape,” Trump said.

Hours into the ceasefire Russia had called for, we drove into the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine to see what, if any, impact it was having.

The Ukrainian military escorted us to an artillery position, south-west of the fiercely contested city of Pokrovsk.

Overcast skies made the drive through mud tracks running past wide open fields slightly less vulnerable to attacks from drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had proposed a three-day ceasefire starting at midnight local time on 8 May, to coincide with the anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe – a public holiday in Russia on Friday known as Victory Day.

But from the artillery position we heard the sounds of continuous explosions – incoming and outgoing mortar fire – evidence that there was no ceasefire in the trenches and on the frontlines.

I asked Serhii, one of the soldiers of the 3rd Operational Brigade of the National Guard if there had been any attacks from Russia overnight.

“Yes, they have been attacking overnight. We have had glide bombs and drones here. Russia can’t be trusted. In the evening they call a truce and in the morning they attack. There is no truce. We are always prepared for anything,” he said.

Some minutes later, he was sent the co-ordinates of a target over the radio. A few soldiers ran through deep muddy trenches, to a clearing where a howitzer was hidden from sight, covered by branches and leaves. They uncovered it, pointed it in the right direction and fired. It let out a deafening sound, and the recoil blew up leaves and dust from the ground.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had rejected Russia’s unilateral three-day ceasefire. Instead, he has called for a longer 30-day truce, as proposed by the US, a proposal that has once again been reiterated by its President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform on Thursday night.

Trump has even threatened that Washington and its partners would impose further sanctions if the ceasefire is not respected.

As the war of attrition grinds on, each side trying to wear the other down, I asked, Max, a 26-year-old soldier how he felt about global diplomatic efforts pushing for a ceasefire.

“You don’t think about things like that when you are here. You have to have ‘tunnel vision’. You can’t let emotions dictate your actions. You wait for a command and act, and if there is no command you find a way to spend your time. But you don’t let thoughts like this enter your mind,” he said.

We drive north from the artillery position, to the city of Dobropillya, which is roughly 12 miles (19km) from Russian positions. Thousands of people still live in the city, among them are many of those who’ve been forced to move here because their home towns have become too dangerous to live in.

We meet Svitlana who is from Pokrovsk but has now relocated to Dobropillya. I asked her if she thought Russia’s ceasefire call had made any difference on the ground. “You can hear the sounds here,” she said, referring to the continuous sounds of explosion, like rolling thunder, that we could hear from the outskirts of the city. “That is the sound of Russia’s ceasefire. That’s why I say we should never trust them.”

Twenty-six-year-old Serhiy chimes in: “The ceasefire is announced just to confuse people and deceive them, and so they (Russia) can say to the world ‘we are so good, we are trying to get Ukraine through peaceful means’ but in reality, everything they do is the opposite of it.”

In Dobropillya’s main market, we meet 65-year-old Oleksandr. “It was quieter last night. Before that we used to hear Shahed drones flying regularly,” he said. “But now we are hearing alarms again, and I’m not sure I can see any truce.”

As he talks, his face crumples into a sob. “I’m afraid. I have my wife and son here. I’m very scared for my family. I’m scared we might be forced to flee our homes,” he said, breaking down.

Royals, politicians and veterans have commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe – on what could be the last major VE Day attended by veterans.

The King and the Prince of Wales attended a Service of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey, before leading a two-minute silence that was observed across the UK.

Then as night fell over London, VE Day celebrations continued with a concert at Horse Guards Parade attended by 10,000 people.

There the King called for a global commitment to restoring peace, as he paid tribute to service and sacrifice of the wartime generation.

The event, presented by Zoe Ball, featured performances by artists including Fleur East, Calum Scott and The Darkness, as well as storytelling and tributes to veterans.

Eighty years to the hour since his grandfather, King George VI, announced that war had passed, the King said that veterans’ debt “can never truly be repaid”.

But he reminded all that as the wartime generation diminishes, the duty falls on the public to carry their stories forward – just as communities across the country have done all week in countless acts of remembrance.

The King also said that while we rejoice, “we must also remember those” who are “still fighting, still living with conflict and starvation on the other side of the world”.

He called on Britons to “re-dedicate” themselves “not only to the cause of freedom”, but to “renewing global commitments to restoring a just peace where there is war, to diplomacy, and to the prevention of conflict.”

Earlier in the day, MPs and peers re-enacted a historic walk from Parliament to the abbey that had taken place when victory in Europe was declared in 1945.

After the laying of wreaths and a welcome, an excerpt of Winston Churchill’s speech announcing the unconditional surrender of Germany rang throughout the abbey.

The former prime minister’s great-great-grandson, Alexander Churchill, 10, lit a candle for peace and invited people to “pray for peace in Europe and around the world”.

Children handed veterans white roses, while service members carried conflict artefacts, including a child’s gas mask.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivered a reading from the Bible, while others read memoirs and re-dedications to peace.

In a message to the crowd, the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell thanked those “whose sacrifice made our victory possible”.

“All this good is under threat again in our world today,” he said. “Let us then, on this 80th anniversary, with some of the veterans who fought for those freedoms with us here, make a new commitment to be those who, in the words of Jesus, make peace.”

• Watch VE Day 80 celebrations live
• Three women’s bittersweet memories of VE Day

After the service, royals greeted and chatted to World War Two veterans, some of whom were in wheelchairs and decorated with medals.

Among the guests was Harry Winter, a 103-year-old RAF veteran.

He told the BBC he was shot down over Germany in January 1945 and held as a prisoner of war until VE Day five months later. While in captivity, he had to walk 150 miles in 17 days without any food, pushing cattle trucks in extremely cold temperatures, he said.

On 8 May 1945, he was met by American trucks and crossed out of Germany.

“I just felt, ‘I’m free! I can do as I like again! I can go around without anybody trying to hold me back’,” he said.

Speaking outside Westminster Abbey, D-Day veteran Peter Kent said it meant “a lot” to see people still honouring those who served.

The 100-year-old, from Westminster, served in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Adventurer and took part in the Normandy landings.

The father-of-two said: “So many young boys got killed, so many dead bodies on the beach – it was just a big waste of life. It was terrible.

We wouldn’t have the freedom we have today if it wasn’t for those men.”

At 18:30 BST, churches and cathedrals across the country rang their bells, which the Church of England said echoed the sounds that swept across the country in 1945.

In Scotland, the national piper played a lament at dawn for the fallen on Portobello Beach in Edinburgh, and a convoy of Norwegian fishing boats were travelling to Shetland to commemorate the “Shetland Bus” operation that rescued many refugees during the war.

Northern Ireland marked VE Day with a series of events, including a tea dance at Belfast City Hall.

In Wales, attendees at church services observed silence and laid wreaths, and a knitted poppy cascade of 1,000 individual flowers was displayed outside the veterans’ hub in Connah’s Quay.

The Royal British Legion hosted a tea party with veterans at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, England.

Celebrations are likely to continue until late into the night, with pubs and bars given permission to stay open for two extra hours.

The 80th anniversary celebrations of VE day began on Monday with a military procession and Red Arrows flypast, with thousands lining the Mall near Buckingham Palace to watch.

An exhibit of nearly 30,000 ceramic poppies also returned to the Tower of London.

Armed Israeli security forces have forced the closure of three schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

Hundreds of Palestinian students were sent home from the schools in Shuafat refugee camp just after classes began on Thursday morning.

Unrwa’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, said Israeli authorities were denying children their basic right to learn and accused them of a “blatant disregard of international law”.

An Israeli ban on Unrwa took effect earlier this year and Israel accuses the agency of being infiltrated by Hamas. Unrwa denies this claim and insists on its impartiality.

Videos showed girls in uniform hugging each other outside one school in Shuafat following the arrival of Israeli forces outside.

A closure order fixed to the wall of the school read: “It will be prohibited to operate educational institutions, or employ teachers, teaching staff or any other staff, and it will be forbidden to accommodate students or allow the entry of students into this institution.”

Unrwa said that more than 550 pupils aged six to 15 were present and that one of its staff members was detained, in what its director in the occupied West Bank called “a traumatising experience for young children who are at immediate risk of losing their access to education”.

The agency said that Israeli police were also deployed at three other schools in East Jerusalem, forcing them to send their students home too.

“Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law,” Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X. “These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations.”

He added: “By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn.

“Unrwa schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children.”

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank not under Israeli control, said the move was a “violation of children’s right to education”.

The British consulate in Jerusalem said the UK, EU, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Japan strongly opposed the closure orders issued against the Unrwa schools and stood “in solidarity with students, parents, and teachers”.

“Unrwa has operated in East Jerusalem under its UN General Assembly mandate since 1950. Israel is obliged under international humanitarian law to facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the education of children,” they added.

Last year, Israel’s parliament passed laws forbidding contact between Israeli officials and Unrwa, as well as banning activity by the agency in Israeli territory.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, along with the rest of the West Bank, in the 1967 Middle East war.

It effectively annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 in a move not recognised by most of the international community, and sees the whole city as its capital.

Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for future state.

Approximately 230,000 Israeli settlers currently live in East Jerusalem alongside 390,000 Palestinians.

Most of the international community considers the settlements built there and elsewhere in the West Bank to be illegal under international law – a position supported by an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) last year – although Israel disputes this.

Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold “accountable” those responsible for the 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in that attack, described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

Sharif on Wednesday said the Pahalgam attack “wasn’t related” to Pakistan, and that his country was “accused for the wrong” reasons.

• Follow the latest updates
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir
• BBC reports from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan’s military said at least 31 people were killed and 57 injured in the strikes on Tuesday night. India’s army said at least 15 civilians were killed and 43 injured by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

Pakistan’s military says it shot down five Indian aircraft and a drone. India has yet to respond to these claims.

Late on Wednesday, Sharif said the air force made its defence – which was a “reply from our side to them”.

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

In the initial aftermath of the attacks, Pakistan said three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab. Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif, later said six locations had been hit.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV in the early hours of Wednesday that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” was false.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370, which gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status, in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists.

The killings have sparked widespread anger in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the country would hunt the suspects “till the ends of the Earth” and that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.

However, India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam.

But Indian police alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

On 7 May, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group carried out the attack.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various nations and diplomats around the world to prevent this.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres quickly called for “maximum restraint” – a sentiment echoed by the European Union and numerous countries, including Bangladesh.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “dialogue” and “de-escalation”.

US President Donald Trump – who was one of the first to respond – told reporters at the White House that he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said he was keeping a close eye on developments.

In a dramatic overnight operation, India said it launched missile and air strikes on nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, targeting what it called militant positions based on “credible intelligence”.

The strikes, lasting just 25 minutes between 01:05 and 01:30 India time (19:35 and 20:00 GMT on Tuesday), sent shockwaves through the region, with residents jolted awake by thunderous explosions.

Pakistan said only six locations were hit and claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone – a claim India has not confirmed.

Islamabad said 26 people were killed and 46 injured in Indian air strikes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s army reported that 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

• Follow the latest updates
• What we know about the air strikes

This sharp escalation comes after last month’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, pushing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to dangerous new heights. India says it has clear evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists and external actors to the attack – a claim Pakistan flatly denies. Islamabad has also pointed out that India has not offered any evidence to support its claim.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the LoC.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Experts say the retaliation for the Pahalgam attack stands out for its broader scope, targeting the infrastructure of three major Pakistan-based militant groups simultaneously.

India says it struck nine militant targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, hitting deep into key hubs of Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Among the closest targets were two camps in Sialkot, just 6-18km from the border, according to an Indian spokesperson.

The deepest hit, says India, was a Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, 100km inside Pakistan. A LeT camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the LoC and capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was linked to recent attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, the spokesperson said.

Pakistan says six locations have been hit, but denies allegations of there being terror camps.

“What’s striking this time is the expansion of India’s targets beyond past patterns. Previously, strikes like Balakot focused on Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the Line of Control – a militarised boundary,” Srinath Raghavan, a Delhi-based historian, told the BBC.

“This time, India has hit into Pakistan’s Punjab, across the International Border, targeting terrorist infrastructure, headquarters, and known locations in Bahawalpur and Muridke linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. They’ve also struck Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen assets. This suggests a broader, more geographically expansive response, signalling that multiple groups are now in India’s crosshairs – and sending a wider message,” he says.

The India-Pakistan International Border is the officially recognised boundary separating the two countries, stretching from Gujarat to Jammu.

Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told the BBC that what India did was a “Balakot plus response meant to establish deterrence, targeting known terrorist hubs, but accompanied by a strong de-escalatory message”.

“These strikes were more precise, targeted and more visible than in the past. Therefore, [they are] less deniable by Pakistan,” Mr Bisaria says.

Indian sources say the strikes were aimed at “re-establishing deterrence”.

“The Indian government thinks that the deterrence established in 2019 has worn thin and needs to be re-established,” says Prof Raghavan.

“This seems to mirror Israel’s doctrine that deterrence requires periodic, repeated strikes. But if we assume that hitting back alone will deter terrorism, we risk giving Pakistan every incentive to retaliate – and that can quickly spiral out of control.”

The majority of experts agree that a retaliation from Pakistan is inevitable – and diplomacy will come into play.

“Pakistan’s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” says Mr Bisaria.

“Pakistan will be getting advice to exercise restraint. But the key will be the diplomacy after the Pakistani response to ensure that both countries don’t rapidly climb the ladder of escalation.”

• India and Pakistan are in crisis again – here’s how they de-escalated in the past

Pakistan-based experts like Ejaz Hussain, a Lahore-based political and military analyst, say Indian surgical strikes targeting locations such as Muridke and Bahawalpur were “largely anticipated given the prevailing tensions”.

Dr Hussain believes retaliatory strikes are likely.

“Given the Pakistani military’s media rhetoric and stated resolve to settle the scores, retaliatory action, possibly in the form of surgical strikes across the border, appears likely in the coming days,” he told the BBC.

But Dr Hussain worries that surgical strikes on both sides could “escalate into a limited conventional war”.

Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US believes given the scale of India’s strikes, “visible damage at key sites”, and reported casualties, Pakistan is highly likely to retaliate.

“Doing otherwise essentially would give India permission to strike Pakistan whenever Delhi feels aggrieved and would run contrary to the Pakistan military’s commitment to retaliating with ‘quid pro quo plus’,” Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

“Given India’s stated targets of groups and facilities associated with terrorism and militancy in India, I think it is likely – but far from certain – that Pakistan will confine itself to attacks on Indian military targets,” he said.

Despite the rising tensions, some experts still hold out hope for de-escalation.

“There is a decent chance we escape this crisis with just one round of reciprocal standoff strikes and a period of heightened firing along the Line of Control,” says Mr Clary.

However, the risk of further escalation remains high, making this the “most dangerous” India-Pakistan crisis since 2002 – and even more perilous than the 2016 and 2019 standoffs, he adds.

Experts in Pakistan note that despite a lack of war hysteria leading up to India’s strike, the situation could quickly shift.

“We have a deeply fractured political society, with the country’s most popular leader behind bars. Imran Khan’s imprisonment triggered a strong anti-military public backlash,” says Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst and a former correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“Today, the Pakistani public is far less eager to support the military compared to 2016 or 2019 – the usual wave of war hysteria is noticeably absent. But if public opinion shifts in central Punjab where anti-India feelings are more prevalent, we could see increased civilian pressure on the military to take action. And the military will regain popularity because of this conflict.”

Dr Hussain echoes a similar sentiment.

“I believe the current standoff with India presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to regain public support, particularly from the urban middle classes who have recently criticised it for perceived political interference,” he says.

“The military’s active defence posture is already being amplified through mainstream and social media, with some outlets claiming that six or seven Indian jets were shot down.

“Although these claims warrant independent verification, they serve to bolster the military’s image among segments of the public that conventionally rally around national defence narratives in times of external threat.”

India is once again walking a fine line between escalation and restraint.

Shortly after the attack in Pahalgam, India swiftly retaliated by closing the main border crossing, suspending a water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals. Troops on both sides have exchanged small-arms fire, and India barred all Pakistani aircraft from its airspace, mirroring Pakistan’s earlier move. In response, Pakistan suspended a 1972 peace treaty and took its own retaliatory measures.

This mirrors India’s actions after the 2019 Pulwama attack, when it swiftly revoked Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, imposed heavy tariffs and suspended key trade and transport links.

The crisis had escalated when India launched air strikes on Balakot, followed by retaliatory Pakistani air raids and the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, further heightening tensions. However, diplomatic channels eventually led to a de-escalation, with Pakistan releasing the pilot in a goodwill gesture.

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience,” Mr Bisaria told me last week.

In the village of Salamabad in Indian-administered Kashmir on Wednesday morning, ruined homes were still smouldering.

This small settlement lies close to the Line of Control which separates Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the scene of rapidly escalating tensions in recent weeks that led to strikes from India on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Tuesday night.

The streets of Salamabad were almost completely empty the next morning. Locals said the village was struck by Pakistani shelling.

Most of the residents had fled the bombardment, leaving chickens pecking in their cages in gardens.

Bashir Ahmad, a local shopkeeper who witnessed the destruction, told the BBC that around 02:00 local time (20:30 GMT), “while we were fast asleep, a loud explosion jolted us awake.

Mortar shells had landed near a water dam, and by 03:00 more shells struck several houses, setting them ablaze.

The government issued no warning or advisory about the cross-border shelling, and we have no safety bunkers to take shelter in.”

Salamabad is no stranger to this kind of shelling: until 2021, incidents of cross-border fire were reported regularly.

However, a ceasefire agreement signed between the militaries of both countries saw the number of attacks sharply decrease.

Life returned to normal for most, free of fear – that was, until Wednesday morning.

Uncertainty now hangs over the villages scattered along the Line of Control once more.

Mr Ahmad estimated that only a handful of Salamabad’s 100 or so residents had remained, the rest having left in search of safety from what he described as the most intense shelling in years.

In the village, two homes had been torn apart by mortars.

Through a hole in the wall of one house, some crockery had remained impossibly upright on a shelf – while everything else around lay shattered or burned.

The small homes were no match for the scale of the firepower they encountered overnight.

They had been entirely hollowed out by explosions and fire, their tin roofs buckled above them.

At a hospital 40km away, Badrudin said he was injured in the shelling, along with this eight-year-old son and sister-in-law.

He identified one of the destroyed houses in a picture as his.

He said: “We were all in deep sleep when… a mortar shell landed near our homes. The children were also asleep.

The shelling was intense, we somehow managed to flee.”

Badrudin said he had taken out a loan of ₹3 lakh ($3,540 ; £2,653) to build his home in Salamabad.

“Everything is gone now,” he said. “We’re too afraid to return.”

He continued: “Rebuilding the house will be incredibly difficult—we need the government to step in and help.

We want peace, not war.”

On Wednesday morning, dozens of people gathered on the perimeter of a sprawling complex in the Pakistani city of Muridke to see the damage for themselves.

Overnight, Indian missiles had pounded buildings at this site, which lies not far from the border with India in Pakistan’s Punjab region, and just a short drive from the major city of Lahore.

No one was being allowed into the complex – but even from a distance as BBC reporters peered through the barbed wire fence surrounding it, the damage was unmistakable.

The BBC spoke to people on the ground who witnessed the bombardment first-hand.

“It was the main mosque that got targeted,” one man said. “The sky lit up and it felt like the sky turned red.”

Another said: “A sudden missile appeared and there was a blast. I immediately got out the house.

“I had only reached the mosque near my house when there were three more consecutive blasts. I heard all three, they were really loud.”

When a BBC team arrived in Muridke, security service personnel were closely controlling access to the site.

From a road surrounded by dense housing, the BBC’s team could see a partially collapsed building and rubble spread over a huge area.

Emergency workers were still searching the wreckage for any injured or dead.

This complex houses a hospital, school and mosque, while India said it had hit sites linked to what it calls terror organisations – so why was it targeted? The answer appears to lie in its past.

Until a few years ago, it was originally used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group which is designated as a terror organisation by the United Nations.

It was later used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which observers have described as a front group for LeT.

Both groups have been banned by the Pakistani government, which has since taken over the facilities in Muridke.

But on Tuesday night, this complex was in the crosshairs of an Indian military which has vowed to respond to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

India’s government says its strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir targeted what it described as terrorist infrastructure. Pakistan’s government has denied any links to the Pahalgam attack.

One man told us the Muridke complex usually houses children from miles around who come to study at the madrasa, though it was largely evacuated a week ago.

Later in the day, camera crews were allowed to access the site and see the damage up close.

The roof of one building had crumpled under the force of an explosion.

Holes had been torn through the walls of another and a large amount of debris was scattered across the ground.

Across this region, people are hoping there is not more debris before long.

Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought two wars and a limited conflict over Kashmir.

But why do they dispute the territory – and how did it start?

• What we know about India’s strike on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
• Indian air strikes – how will Pakistan respond? Four key questions
• LIVE: Tensions escalate as Pakistan vows response to Indian strikes after Pahalgam killings

Kashmir is an ethnically diverse Himalayan region famed for the beauty of its lakes, meadows and snow-capped mountains.

Even before India and Pakistan won their independence from Britain in August 1947, the area was hotly contested.

Under the partition plan provided by the Indian Independence Act, Muslim-majority Kashmir was free to accede to either India or Pakistan.

The maharaja (local ruler), Hari Singh, initially wanted Kashmir to become independent – but in October 1947 chose to join India, in return for its help against an invasion of tribesmen from Pakistan.

• Kashmir profile – Timeline

A war erupted and India asked the United Nations to intervene. The UN recommended holding a plebiscite to settle the question of whether the state would join India or Pakistan. However, the two countries could not agree to a deal to demilitarise the region before the referendum could be held.

In July 1949, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to establish a ceasefire line as recommended by the UN and the region became divided.

A second war followed in 1965. Then in 1999, India fought a brief but bitter conflict with Pakistani-backed forces.

By that time, India and Pakistan were declared nuclear powers. Today, Delhi and Islamabad both claim Kashmir in full, but control only parts of it.

Within Indian-administered Kashmir, opinions about the territory’s rightful allegiance are diverse and strongly held. Many do not want it to be governed by India, or prefer a return to the semi-autonomous status that they had until 2019. Some also want outright independence.

Religion is also an important factor: Indian-administered Kashmir is more than 60% Muslim, making it the only part of India where Muslims are in the majority.

An armed revolt has been waged against Indian rule in the region since 1989, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

India accuses Pakistan of backing militants in Kashmir – a charge its neighbour denies.

In 2019, Indian-administered Kashmir was stripped of its semi-autonomous status by the government in Delhi amid a huge security crackdown.

For several years after the revocation of the region’s special status, militancy waned and tourist visits soared.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting alleged militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left more than 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted Indian airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Tensions rose again in April 2025 after years of relative calm when militants killed 26 people in an attack on tourists near the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades.

India responded two weeks later with missile strikes on targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, once again raising fears of further escalation and calls for restraint.

Kashmir remains one of the most militarised zones in the world.

India and Pakistan did agree a ceasefire in 2003.

In 2014, India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power promising a tough line on Pakistan, but also showed interest in holding peace talks.

Nawaz Sharif, then prime minister of Pakistan, attended Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in Delhi.

But a year later, India blamed Pakistan-based groups for an attack on its airbase in Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab. Modi also cancelled a scheduled visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, for a regional summit in 2017.

Since then, there hasn’t been any progress in talks between the neighbours.

For the past three years, when peers of Australia’s former Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton were grilled over his divisive persona, they’d often profess his celebrity status in the north.

“Peter is one of us… He’s very popular in Queensland,” said the leader of the Nationals, the Liberal’s coalition partner, earlier this year.

But on election night, it was Dutton’s home state that delivered Labor its election win, with the red landslide ousting the veteran MP from his own seat of Dickson.

While votes are still being counted, Labor could pick up as many electorates in Queensland as it did across every other state and territory combined.

And that’s thanks, in no small part, to a new bloc of young voters and women who are disillusioned with the Coalition, and attribute the party’s emphatic loss to the “Dutton effect”.

As 65-year-old coalition voter Sue, who didn’t share her last name, bluntly puts it: “This is where [Dutton’s] from… People know him and they don’t like him.”

The Moreton Bay region, about an hour north of Brisbane, is supposed to be Dutton heartland. Before Australia’s federal election on 3 May, all three seats here were Liberal-held – though only by small leads, with Dutton’s electorate of Dickson having the narrowest in the state.

Dutton’s family have deep roots here, with his dairy farming great-grandparents having settled in the area in the 1860s.

When he first entered parliament 24 years ago, the region was made up of urban pockets and industrial estates surrounded by swathes of semi-rural land. Not quite metropolitan or rural, is how the former police officer described it in his maiden speech as MP.

Now Brisbane is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, and these outer northern suburbs are one of the main places it is squeezing people in. Residential development has exploded, and more families, priced out of locations closer to the city, have moved in to Moreton Bay.

Full of the “quiet Australians” Dutton said would deliver him the election, outer-suburban neighbourhoods like these were at the heart of the Coalition’s strategy.

The average household in Moreton Bay earns less than both the state and national average, with many of them relying on the health, trade and hospitality sectors for work. The Coalition hoped promises to cut fuel expenses, improve housing affordability and back small businesses would woo voters concerned about the cost of living.

Many Moreton Bay residents, like campaign volunteer Kenneth King, also felt Dutton’s links to the area would give them a boost.

“I’ve known Peter Dutton for a lot of years,” the Dickson local told the BBC on polling day. “He’s always been someone of high character, serious about effective policies and a lot of empathy for ordinary Australians.”

“He’s very well respected in the community… People know him.”

But there’s a difference between being well known and well liked, says Aleysha, a swing voter in the neighbouring electorate of Petrie, who declined to give her surname.

“I don’t know whether he appeals to the everyday person,” the 26-year-old nurse says. “He doesn’t put himself in the people’s shoes.”

Her vote over the years has gone to a range of parties from right across the political spectrum – except the Greens, she adds with a quick laugh.

“I don’t sit with any party. Being a Christian, it’s whatever party aligns closest to my values,” she says, adding that the future of her two young children is the other major consideration.

This election, that meant her vote went to Coalition incumbent Luke Howarth, who she knows personally from her church.

But while she’s praying for a miracle, with the final votes still being counted, she’s not surprised to find Howarth may be on his way out.

She says Labor ran very visible campaigns in the area, but tells the BBC that it was driving past the image of Howarth and his leader on billboards which stuck in her mind.

“Unfortunately I think that’s what did it,” she says.

“Peter Dutton’s face behind him was a huge turnoff – for me personally too.”

Sue, who lives in the same electorate and is generally a conservative voter, says this election she was torn at the ballot box.

“I had a huge hesitation over it,” she says. “I don’t like Albanese; I think he’s like, weak.

“[But] Dutton’s an unattractive personality… He thinks he’s presenting himself as strong, but he presents himself as a bit of a bully.”

“Way back when, he seemed like a really good local member, but as he climbed the ladder, I don’t know, something changed.”

Ultimately Sue also voted for Howarth – and she’s similarly convinced Dutton lost him the seat.

“I spoke to a few friends… some did change their votes because of Peter Dutton,” she says. “People, rightly or wrongly, aligned Dutton with Trump. And that’s very negative for just about any sane person.”

Many of the constituents the BBC spoke to stressed they did not want American style politics here.

Drew Cutler grew up in the seat of Longman, which shares borders with both Dickson and Petrie – and though he no longer lives in the area, the 28-year-old was so invested in the outcome he came back to campaign for Labor.

Won by Coalition MP Terry Young on a margin of 3% last election, it is now too close to call.

Mr Cutler, a former Labor party staffer, believes Labor ran very strong local campaigns. But he also thinks Dutton’s policy flip-flopping and the aura of instability that projected was potent.

That included announcing, and then walking back, public service job cuts and plans to end work-from-home arrangements, as well as a fluctuating stance on electric vehicle taxes.

Such optics were especially damaging, Mr Cutler argues, when contrasted with the image of strong, decisive leadership Dutton tries to convey.

“I almost think the Australian people would have respected him more if he stuck to it… and said, ‘This is what I’m putting forward – if you don’t like it, don’t vote for it’,” Mr Cutler tells the BBC.

Back in Dickson, Rick – a retiree and fresh Liberal Party member – said on election night that he also felt confusion played a role in the party’s defeat, particularly among young people.

“I think people couldn’t understand Dutton’s policies,” he said.

But 30-year-old April, who didn’t provide her last name, says it is Dutton who didn’t understand.

She can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in power in Dickson, and feels that over time he has lost touch with his own constituents and the country more broadly.

For her, the last straw was his instrumental role in the defeat of the Voice to Parliament referendum, which sought to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution and simultaneously establish a parliamentary advisory body for them.

“I think he has caused a lot of harm to a lot of minority groups across the scale,” she says.

For others in the electorate though, the last straw was watching Dutton fly to a fundraiser in Sydney as the area in and around Dickson was hit by Cyclone Alfred in February.

April didn’t feel like Labor Party’s offering was strong either, especially on climate action, so she decided to campaign for Ellie Smith, the so-called ‘teal’ independent running in the seat.

Disappointment – borderline embarrassment – that Dutton was from her local area had crystallised into determination: “I felt like it was a duty in a way… our responsibility to get him out.”

Ultimately, the Coalition lost at least six seats to Labor in Queensland – all bar one in Brisbane. And while they are a few votes ahead in Longman as the count continues, they could still lose that too.

Queensland has long been a bit of a political wildcard, and often finds itself in the “spotlight” at federal elections, says Frank Mols.

The University of Queensland politics lecturer points out the state helped deliver Kevin Rudd’s historic election win in 2007 and Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory in 2019. Last election, as a record number of people across the nation voted for candidates outside the two major parties, Queensland surprised the nation by giving the Greens three seats – up from none.

There are a couple of factors that make the state more “volatile” and likely to deliver upsets, Dr Mols says.

Firstly, it is the only state or territory, except for the island of Tasmania, where more than half of the population live outside the capital city of Brisbane.

“We talk about Queensland always being two elections, one in the south-east corner, and then the rest – and they often get very different patterns.”

There’s also more political fragmentation in the state, Dr Mols says, which combined with Australia’s preferential voting system can make political equations here tighter, and trends harder to predict.

But he – like many of the voters the BBC spoke to – largely puts last weekend’s surprise for the Coalition down to Dutton and his broadly-criticised campaign performance.

While there’s a tendency to attribute success or failure to policy issues, more often its really about voters’ emotional response to candidates and leaders, Dr Mols says.

“If you do the barbecue test, is Dutton a person you would walk up to? Is he somebody you would warm to or gravitate towards?

“You can wonder: was Peter Dutton, in hindsight, the Labor Party’s best asset?”

But Dutton may have had the opposite effect for the Greens Party, which has lost at least two of the three seats it gained in Brisbane in 2022. Their party leader, Adam Bandt, also appears to have been defeated in Melbourne, an electorate he’d held for 15 years.

“Perhaps in desperation, [Dutton] was gravitating towards culture war issues, sort of echoing Trumpian themes, if you like, and that has been punished,” Dr Mols says. “But also the Greens… who were perhaps seen as being at the other end of that shouting match, have not done well.”

Dr Mols also believes that desperation to keep Dutton out may have seen some former Greens voters prioritise Labor this time – though he points out more centrist Teal independents appear to have bucked that trend.

In any case, he doesn’t see the result in Queensland as a groundswell of love for Labor. The state was still the only jurisdiction in Australia where there were more first preference votes for the Coalition than Labor.

“There has to be enough of a swing towards a party, but it’s often that preferencing that actually tilts it over the line,” he says.

“This is more of a Liberal loss.”

For many Coalition voters, that loss is deeply felt. Rick describes it as a “real rout”.

But among others, like Aleysha, there is an inexplicable element of mirth.

“I think it’s quite funny, that he slipped as much as he did,” she says. “And I can’t tell you why.”

It’s going to be a very sexy summer, a touch of romantic, cowboy and rock and roll.

That’s according to Mehdi Sousanne, at least. And he should know. He’s a designer for Zara who helps create the clothes for a brand that’s one of the most successful stories in High Street fashion.

Zara is owned by Inditex, the world’s biggest fashion retailer, which runs a string of store chains including Massimo Dutti and Pull & Bear.

It relies on 1,800 suppliers across the world, but nearly all the clothes are brought to Spain where the company is based, to be despatched to stores in 97 countries.

Zara doesn’t advertise and rarely gives interviews. But as it marks 50 years since the opening of its first store, I’ve come to its vast campus in Galicia to meet the boss and workers for a rare glimpse into how the secretive brand operates.

It’s a time when the company finds itself having to navigate fast-changing markets, with growing competition from ultra-cheap online players Shein and Temu, who ship their goods direct from China, as well as uncertainty surrounding US tariffs.

But Oscar Garcia Maceiras, Inditex’s CEO, says US President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t disrupt its supply chains or change Zara’s plans to expand further in the US, now its second biggest market.

“Bear in mind that for us, diversification is key. We are producing in almost 50 different markets with non-exclusive suppliers so we are more than used to adapt ourselves to change,” he tells me.

The business has certainly adapted and grown since its first store opened a short drive away in the town of A Coruna.

It now has 350 designers, with the staff coming from some 40 different countries.

“There are no rules in general. It’s all about feelings,” says Mehdi, who works on delivering the key pieces for the season.

He says inspiration can come from anyone ranging from the “street” to the cinema  as well as the catwalks. He likes to sketch his ideas once an all-important mood board has been created.

In the pattern cutting room, the designs are turned into paper samples, and are pinned on to mannequins. Dozens of seamstresses then run up the first fabric samples on the spot for a first fitting.

Pattern maker Mar Marcote has been with the business 42 years and still uses a magnifying glass to examine each item of clothing before it finally goes into production.

“When you finish the item and see that it looks good, and then sometimes sells out, it’s marvellous,” she says.

Zara is a business that has changed the way we shop.

In the old days, retailers released just two main collections a year, Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. For decades, most chains have outsourced manufacturing to lower-cost factories in the far east with the clothes arriving up to six months later.

Zara went against conventional wisdom by sourcing a lot of its clothes closer to home and changing products much more frequently. That meant it could respond much faster to the latest trends and drop new items into stores every week.

Just over half of its clothes are made in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Turkey. There’s a factory doing small production runs on site at HQ, with another seven nearby, which it also owns.

As a result, it can turn around products in a matter of weeks.

More basic fashion staples are produced with longer lead times in countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Logistics and data are other factors behind its success. Every piece of clothing is packaged and despatched from its distribution centres in Spain, as well as one in the Netherlands.

“What is absolutely critical is the level of accuracy,” says CEO Mr Maceiras.

“It’s something that allows us to make the right decision in the last possible minute, in order to assess properly the appetite from our customers, in order to adapt our fashion proposition to the profile of our customers in different locations.”

In other words, getting the right products to the right shops.

At HQ, product managers then receive real-time data on how clothes are selling in stores worldwide, and – crucially – feedback from customers, which is then shared with designers and buyers, who can adjust the ranges along the season according to demand.

Unlike some other High Street rivals, it only discounts when it stages its twice-yearly sales.

But is Zara starting to lose its shine after posting slower sales growth at the start of this year?

“The key challenge for Inditex is continuing to be relevant in a fashion world that continues to get faster and cheaper,” says William Woods, European retail analyst for Bernstein.

Not only are mainstream rivals like H&M, Mango and Uniqlo trying to catch up, the market has been disrupted by Shein and Temu.

Shein racked up $38bn in global sales last year, just a whisker behind Inditex.

Asked how much of a threat Shein and Temu’s success poses to Zara, Mr Maceiras stresses that its business model doesn’t rely on price.

“Of course, we are looking at providing our customers our products at an affordable price. But for us, it’s critical to provide customers fashion that should be inspirational, with quality, creativity and sustainable.”

Zara has come a long way since its founder Amancio Ortega started the business.

The company is still majority-owned by his family and his daughter Marta is now chairwoman of the group.

Now aged 89, Mr Ortega remains famously reclusive but still pops in, according to Mr Maceiras.

“He’s a presence, a physical or moral presence, absolutely every day.”

Within moments of the briefing with the business secretary beginning, Jonathan Reynolds described it to us as a case study in the government’s claim to be going further and faster in doing what it can to improve living standards.

Little wonder ministers want to lean into this deal with Delhi, grappling as they are with political heat at home from their own side and their opponents.

The latest intervention comes from a caucus of Labour MPs known as the Red Wall Group, primarily representing seats in the north of England and the Midlands.

In response to last week’s elections, they are publicly critical of the government, including its handling of the removal of the Winter Fuel Payment from millions of pensioners.

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Jonathan Reynolds wants to point to what he sees as the “tangible benefits” of making it easier for the fifth and sixth largest economies in the world to trade and made a point of claiming it would be the north of England, the Midlands and Scotland that would be the primary economic beneficiaries.

But remember this is the “conclusion of talks moment,” as it is described in government, not the conclusion of the deal.

Thousands of pages of text still need to be pored over and vast amounts of detail scrutinised.

And there will, in time, be a signature moment, hinted at by the prime minister in publicly accepting an invitation to visit India.

It is thought it could be another year before this is done.

The domestic political reaction to this deal has focused on one element of it: an agreement that India workers transferred to the UK and their employers won’t have to pay national insurance in the UK in their first three years here.

This, the Conservative leader and former business secretary Kemi Badenoch argued, is “lop sided” and why she didn’t sign off on the deal when she was in government.

The Liberal Democrats and Reform UK have also criticised this part of the agreement.

British officials acknowledge this is an element of the deal India really wanted, but they argue it is worth it in the round and standard practice in deals like this.

And, strikingly, the Conservative reaction isn’t consistent: Sir Oliver Dowden, who sat around the same cabinet table as Kemi Badenoch as deputy prime minister, welcomed it.

There are a few key bits of context to this deal and one final observation I would make.

The context is this: the ongoing turbulence of President Trump’s tariffs and the ongoing negotiations with both the United States and the European Union over improving trade deals with both.

Progress on both is expected soon – a summit with the EU will take place in the UK later this month.

And that one last thing.

Sir Keir Starmer voted against Brexit and campaigned for another referendum in the hope of stopping it.

And yet, in a twist of fate and timing, he is the first post-Brexit British prime minister to have the political space and time to grapple with the tools leaving the EU gave whoever occupies his office, with the trade-offs and arguments that brings.

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Events are taking place across the UK to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe.

The King and Queen, as well as the prime minister and other senior royals, attended a service of thanksgiving and remembrance at Westminster Abbey.

The service was preceded by a two-minute national silence to remember those who served in World War Two.

King Charles and the Prince of Wales laid wreaths at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier.

The Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, the dean of Westminster, led the service with a tribute to those “who have died the death of honour”.

Alexander Churchill, the 10-year-old great-great-grandson of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill lit a Candle of Peace, whilst young members of the congregation handed out flowers to veterans.

Artefacts from the Second World War were processed through Westminster Abbey by members of the Armed Services.

The Princess of Wales placed flowers at the Innocent Victims’ Memorial, following a Service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.

MPs and peers walked in procession from the Palace of Westminster to Westminster Abbey, re-enacting the historic walk MPs did from Parliament on VE Day in 1945.

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was towards the front of the procession, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, a little way behind.

Some 1,800 guests attended the service including many veterans.

Among the politicians attending today’s service, were several former PMs, including Lord David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Sir John Major.

Members of the public observed the two-minute national silence.

Earlier, Scotland’s National Piper, Louise Marshall, played a lament at dawn to the fallen on Portobello Beach in Edinburgh.

This week saw Roman Catholic cardinals meet to choose the next pope, people across Europe mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, and Donald Trump declare war on foreign films.

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.

Part of a Soviet-era spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth this week after being stuck in orbit for more than half a century.

Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972 as part of a mission to Venus but it never escaped low Earth orbit and separated into four pieces, according to Nasa.

One of those pieces, believed to be the lander probe, is expected to re-enter our atmosphere around 10 May and at least part of it could survive the journey without burning up, according to Nasa.

There is much we don’t know about the re-entry, including where it might land, but even if any of it does survive, 70% of the planet is covered by sea so it is unlikely to cause significant damage.

“It’s much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris.” said Mr Stijn Lemmens, Senior Space Debris Mitigation Analyst at the European Space Agency.

The lander capsule is a tough, spherical object about a metre wide and weighs nearly half a tonne.

It was built to survive the extreme heat and pressure of Venus’s atmosphere, meaning it has a robust heat shield and durable structure.

This is why experts think it may survive an uncontrolled descent through Earth’s atmosphere.

The parachute system, originally intended to slow the lander’s descent towards Venus, is likely long since degraded after more than 50 years in space.

The risk to people on the ground is considered low, but the capsule’s projected flight path could see it land anywhere between 51.7° north and south latitude, covering most of the inhabited world.

This means it could potentially land anywhere from as far north as London to as far south as the southern tip of South America.

Uncontrolled space debris incidents have occurred before.

Mr Lemmens explained that the “re-entry of human-made objects into Earth’s atmosphere occurs quite frequently,” happening weekly for bigger spacecraft and daily for smaller ones. Objects typically burn up in the earth’s atmosphere before they reach the ground.

China’s Long March 5B booster re-entered over the Indian Ocean in 2022, and the Tiangong-1 space station mostly burned up over the Pacific in 2018.

Kosmos 482 is now being closely tracked by international space agencies.

Mr Lemmens said that future spacecraft “should be designed in such a way that they can take themselves out of orbit safely, preferably by doing controlled re-entries”.

This allows for precise predictions of landing locations, reducing the risk of any debris impacting populated areas, thereby protecting people and property while “managing the environmental impact of space debris.”

The bodies of a journalist and his partner have been found in South Africa in an advanced stage of decomposition, more than two months after they went missing, local media groups have said.

Police said they had found human remains, but DNA tests still needed to be conducted to confirm they were those of radio journalist Sibusiso Aserie Ndlovu and his partner Zodwa Precious Mdhluli.

In a joint statement, two media groups said that police had achieved a breakthrough after arresting five suspects.

The couple were murdered and their bodies dumped in a bush in northern Limpopo province, the media groups said, adding that the deaths had left them in shock and disbelief.

The suspects had reportedly been arrested with stolen furniture, appliances and the parts of a car belonging to the couple who had been missing since 18 February.

Ndlovu was the founder of a local radio station, Capital Live, in South Africa’s capital Pretoria.

The African Media and Communicators Forum (AMCF) and the National Press Club (NPC) said that a forensic team had already identified the remains as those of the couple.

“I am terribly sad. We held out hope that despite the number of days that the couple had gone missing, they would still be found alive. Our deepest condolences go out to the families of our brother and sister,” said AMCF chairperson Elijah Mhlanga.

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with many people living in fear.

Official data showed that 26,232 murders took place in 2024, an average of 72 per day.

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Brad Arnold, the singer with US rock band 3 Doors Down, has revealed he has been diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer.

The 46-year-old said in an Instagram video that he has “clear cell renal carcinoma that had metastasised into my lung”, adding: “And that’s stage four, and that’s not real good.”

The band made it big in the early 2000s with hits like Kryptonite, Here Without You and It’s Not My Time, and have sold more than 13 million albums in the US.

“Now, I believe It’s Not My Time is really my song,” Arnold wrote to fans in an accompanying caption. “This’ll be a battle so we need our prayers warriors!”

3 Doors Down emerged from Mississippi to break through with their hit Kryptonite, which reached number three in the US in 2000.

Their debut album The Better Life was the 11th biggest-selling album of the year in their home country.

They returned to the top five with the 2002 singles Here Without You and When I’m Gone, and scored US number one albums with Seventeen Days in 2005 and a self-titled LP in 2008.

They also performed at President Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.

In his video, the singer and drummer said: “You know what, we serve almighty God, and he can overcome anything. So I have no fear. I am really, sincerely not scared of it at all.

“But it is going to force us to cancel our tour this summer, and we’re sorry for that.

“And I’d love for you to lift me up in prayer every chance you get, and I think it’s time for me to maybe go listen to It’s Not My Time a little bit, right?”

Clear cell renal carcinoma is the most common type of kidney cancer, and stage four is the most serious, meaning it has spread to another part of the body.

A major conservation charity linked to Prince Harry has admitted that human rights abuses were committed by its rangers in Congo-Brazzaville, following an independent review into allegations made by members of the Baka community against African Parks rangers.

In a report published last year by the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday, community members accused African Parks rangers of beating, waterboarding and raping locals to stop them from accessing their ancestral forests, which are now in a conservation area.

Despite commissioning an independent review into the actions of its rangers in Congo-Brazzaville, African Parks has not made the findings of the review public.

Instead, it has published a statement acknowledging that human rights abuses occurred in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park, which it manages. It has excluded details of the abuse.

The review, carried out by Omnia Strategy LLP, a London-based law firm, was handed directly to African Parks.

In a statement, Omnia said it has been carrying out an independent investigation into the alleged abuse in Odzala-Kokoua since December 2023.

Its statement did not include its findings and recommendations, which it said had been sent directly to African Parks.

The BBC reached out to both Omnia and barristers from Doughty Street Chambers, which was involved in the investigation, to request their findings, but they declined to comment beyond their published statement.

Prince Harry sits on the board of African Parks and has been involved with the charity since 2016. In 2023, after serving six years as president, he was made a member of the Board of Directors, the governing body of the organisation.

The BBC has requested comment from Prince Harry.

African Parks said it had improved its safeguarding processes in the past five years both in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park and institutionally. Additional measures it has put in place include appointing an anthropologist to ensure the Baka communities are better supported and working with local human rights NGOs to support the local community. It also said it would carry out an independent human rights impact assessment.

The charity Survival International, which lobbies for the rights of indigenous people, and has raised the issue of the abuse of the Baka people with Prince Harry, criticised African Park’s decision not to make the findings of the investigation public.

Survival told the BBC “African Parks has committed to more reports, more staff and more guidelines – but such approaches have not prevented horrific abuses and violations of international human rights law in the decade or more that African Parks has known of these atrocities, and there is no reason to believe they will do so now”.

When the allegation were first made public last year, Survival said that African Parks had known about the alleged abuse of the Baka people since 2013.

At the time, African Parks said it had reached out to Survival to find out more, but that the latter had refused to cooperate.

Survival said it wished to protect its sources in the local community for fear of retaliation.

African Parks, which is headquartered in Johannesburg, is arguably one of Africa’s largest conservation charities. It manages 23 protected areas in 13 African countries, and is backed by powerful patrons.

On its website, African Parks lists a number of high-profile donors including the European Union, Rob Walton, heir to the Walmart fortune, and Howard Buffett, son of Warren Buffet.

In its 2023 annual report, the charity said its funders provided it with more than $500,000 (£375,000) per year.

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Apple is asking an appeals court to pause a US district judge’s recent ruling in a case which could determine the future of its highly lucrative App Store.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found last week the tech giant wilfully violated an order she had previously made in a case filed by Fortnite-maker Epic Games.

That order – handed down in 2021 – demanded Apple refrain from anti-competitive conduct and pricing and allow outside payment options in the App Store.

Last week she determined Apple was flouting that demand – a finding Apple has now called “extraordinary.”

The iPhone maker has alleged in a court filing that her order unlawfully prevents the company from controlling “core aspects of its business operations.”

“A federal court cannot force Apple to permanently give away free access to its products and services, including intellectual property,” the company’s lawyers wrote.

Both of Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ judgements stem from an antitrust case filed by Epic Games.

In 2020, Epic accused the iPhone-maker of possessing an illegal monopoly with its App Store, which collected commissions of between 15% and 30% on in-app purchases.

The judge rejected Epic’s monopoly claims, but found Apple was stopping developers from giving users alternative payment options in violation of California competition rules.

She ordered Apple to make changes that would help developers steer customers to cheaper payment options outside of the Apple ecosystem.

Last year, Epic accused Apple of failing to comply by creating a new set of fees for developers instead.

In a contempt order last week, Judge Gonzalez Rogers found that Apple continued to interfere with competition, saying that internal company documents showed Apple deliberately violated her 2021 injunction.

On Wednesday, Apple requested an appeals court take action, including by lifting a ban that stops it from charging developers fees on purchases made outside the App Store.

The company wrote that such restrictions “will cost Apple substantial sums annually” and are based on conduct that has not been found unlawful.

“Rather, they were imposed to punish Apple for purported non-compliance with an earlier state-law Injunction that is itself invalid,” Apple wrote.

In response, Epic Games said Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ contempt order last week was already benefitting consumers.

“Apple has faced a surge of genuine competition as developers have updated their apps with better payment methods, better deals, and better consumer choice,” Epic wrote in a post on the social media platform X.

The company criticized Apple’s motion as “a last ditch effort to block competition and extract massive junk fees at the expense of consumers and developers.”

Epic says it is on track with plans to bring Fortnite back to iPhones and iPads.

Apple removed Fortnite from its App Store in 2020 after Epic unveiled an in-app payment system into the game.

The move led to the current court battle between the two companies.

Apple did not directly addresses Judge Gonzalez Rogers’ stunning rebuke of company executives in its court filing.

In her most recent order, she said CEO Tim Cook ignored executive Phillip Schiller’s urging to have Apple comply with her injunction, and allowed then-Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri to convince him not to.

“Cook chose poorly,” she wrote.

The company documents she reviewed reveal “that Apple knew exactly what it was doing and at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option”, she wrote.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers said she would refer the matter to the US Attorney for Northern District of California to investigate if a criminal contempt proceeding against Apple is appropriate.

Apple said last week it would comply with the court’s order while it appeals.

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India has accused Pakistan of attacking three of its military bases with drones and missiles, a claim which has been denied by Islamabad.

The Indian Army said it had foiled Pakistan’s attempts to attack its bases in Jammu and Udhampur, in Indian-administered Kashmir, and Pathankot, in India’s Punjab state.

Blasts were reported on Thursday evening in Jammu city in Indian-administered Kashmir as the region went into a blackout.

Pakistan’s defence minister told the BBC they were not behind the attack.

“We deny it, we have not mounted anything so far,” Khawaja Asif told the BBC, adding: “We will not strike and then deny”.

Earlier on Thursday, India said it had struck Pakistan’s air defences and “neutralised” Islamabad’s attempts to hit military targets in India on Wednesday night.

Pakistan called that action another “act of aggression”, following Indian missile strikes on Wednesday on targets in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

India’s strikes on Wednesday sparked a chorus of calls for de-escalation from the international community with the UN and world leaders calling for calm.

The attacks and incidents of shelling along the border have fanned fears of wider conflict erupting between the nuclear-armed states.

It is being viewed as the worst confrontation between the two countries in more than two decades.

India said it hit nine “terrorist infrastructure” sites on Wednesday in retaliation for a militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

Pakistan has strongly denied Indian claims that it backed the militants who killed 26 civilians in the mountainous town of Pahalgam.

It was the bloodiest attack on civilians in the region for years, sending tensions soaring. Most of the victims were Indian tourists.

Indian-administered Kashmir has seen a decades-long insurgency against Indian rule which has claimed thousands of lives.

Kashmir has been a flashpoint between the countries since they became independent after British India was partitioned in 1947. Both claim Kashmir and have fought two wars over it.

There were calls for restraint from around the world after India launched “Operation Sindoor” early on Wednesday.

But on Thursday both sides accused each other of further military action.

Pakistan’s military spokesman said drones sent by India had been engaged in multiple locations.

“Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said. “These locations are Lahore, Gujranwala, Chakwal, Rawalpindi, Attock, Bahawalpur, Miano, Chor and near Karachi.”

He said one civilian had been killed in Sindh province and four troops injured in Lahore.

The US consulate in Lahore told its staff to shelter in the building.

India said its latest action had been taken in response to Pakistan’s attempts to “engage a number of military targets in northern and western India” overnight.

“It has been reliably learnt that an Air Defence system at Lahore has been neutralised,” a Defence Ministry statement said. Pakistan denied the claim.

There was no independent confirmation of the two countries’ versions of events.

Later in the day India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri told a news conference in Delhi: “Our intention has not been to escalate matters, we are only responding to the original escalation.”

Meanwhile, casualty numbers continue to rise. Pakistan says 31 people have been killed and 57 injured by Indian air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and firing along the Line of Control, since Wednesday morning.

India’s army said the number of people killed by Pakistani firing in the disputed Kashmir region had risen to 16, including three women and five children.

India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam but on 7 May it accused the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group of carrying it out.

Indian police have alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, a claim denied by Islamabad. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

In a late-night address on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to avenge those killed in India’s strikes.

He repeated Pakistan’s claim that it had shot down five Indian fighter jets, saying that was a “crushing response”. India has not commented on that claim.

Following the reports of Thursday’s explosions in Jammu, local media cited Indian military sources on Thursday in reporting that blasts across the Jammu region were also reported in the towns of Akhnoor, Samba and Kathua.

Even before his name was announced from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, the crowds below were chanting “Viva il Papa” – Long live the Pope.

Robert Prevost, 69, will be the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter and he will be known as Leo XIV.

He is the first American to fill the role of Pope, although he is considered as much a cardinal from Latin America because of the many years he spent as a missionary in Peru, before becoming a bishop there.

Born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Prevost served as an altar boy and was ordained as a priest in 1982. Although he moved to Peru three years later, he returned regularly to the US to serve as a pastor and a prior in his home city.

He has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges.

He spent 10 years as a local parish pastor and as a teacher at a seminary in Trujillo in northwestern Peru.

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In his first words as Pope, Leo XIV spoke fondly of his predecessor Francis.

“We still hear in our ears the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed us,” he said.

“United and hand in hand with God, let us advance together,” he told cheering crowds.

He also spoke of his role in the Augustinian Order. He was 30 when he moved to Peru as part of an Augustinian mission.

Francis made him Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru a year after becoming Pope.

He is well known to cardinals because of his high-profile role as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Latin America which has the important task of selecting and supervising bishops.

He became archbishop at the same time in January 2023 and within a few months Francis made him a cardinal.

As 80% of the cardinals who took part in the conclave were appointed by Francis, it is not all that surprising that someone like Prevost was elected, even if he was only recently appointed.

He will be seen as a figure who favoured the continuity of Francis’ reforms in the Catholic Church.

Prevost is believed to have shared Francis’ views on migrants, the poor and the environment.

A former roommate of his, Reverend John Lydon, described Prevost to the BBC as “outgoing”, “down to earth” and “very concerned with the poor”.

On his personal background, Prevost told Italian network RAI before the conclave that he grew up in a family of immigrants.

“I was born in the United States…But my grandparents were all immigrants, French, Spanish…I was raised in a very Catholic family, both of my parents were very engaged in the parish,” he said.

Although Prevost is an American, and will be fully aware of the divisions within the Catholic Church, his Latin American background also represents continuity after a Pope who came from Argentina.

The Vatican described him as the second pope from the Americas, after Pope Francis, as well as the the first Augustinian pope.

During his time in Peru he has not escaped the sexual abuse scandals that have clouded the Church, however his diocese fervently denied he had been involved in any attempted cover-up.

Before the conclave, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that during gatherings of the College of Cardinals in the days before the conclave they emphasised the need for a pope with “a prophetic spirit capable of leading a Church that does not close in on itself but knows how to go out and bring light to a world marked by despair”.

In choosing the name Leo, Prevost has signified a commitment to dynamic social issues, according to experts.

The first pope to use the name Leo, whose papacy ended in 461, met Attila the Hun and persuaded him not to attack Rome. The last Pope Leo led the Church from 1878 to 1903 and wrote an influential treatise on worker rights.

Former Archbishop of Boston Seán Patrick O’Malley wrote on his blog that the new pontiff “has chosen a name widely associated with the social justice legacy of Pope Leo XIII, who was pontiff at a time of epic upheaval in the world, the time of the industrial revolution, the beginning of Marxism, and widespread immigration”.

His LGBT views are unclear, but some groups, including the conservative College of Cardinals, believe he may be less welcoming to those groups than Pope Francis.

He has shown support for a papal declaration from Francis which permits blessings for same-sex couples and others in “irregular situations”, although he added that the declaration shows the need for bishops to interpret directives given local contexts and cultures.

Speaking last year about climate change, Prevost said that it was time to move “from words to action”.

“Dominion over nature” should not become “tyrannical,” he said. He called on mankind to build a “relationship of reciprocity” with the environment.

He also spoke about the Vatican’s commitment to the environment, noting the installation of solar panels in Rome and the adoption of electric vehicles.

He has supported Pope Francis’ decision to allow women to join the Dicastery for Bishops for the first time, giving them input on those appointments.

“On several occasions we have seen that their point of view is an enrichment,” he told Vatican News in 2023.

In 2024, he told the Catholic News Service that their presence “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry”.

From a woman waving a colonial-era flag in a shopping mall, to bakery staff selling cakes with protest symbols on them – dozens of Hongkongers have been reported to the police by one man for what he believes were national security violations.

“We’re in every corner of society, watching, to see if there is anything suspicious which could infringe on the national security law,” former banker Innes Tang tells the BBC World Service.

“If we find these things, we go and report it to the police.”

When the UK returned Hong Kong to China 28 years ago, internationally binding treaties guaranteed the city’s rights and freedoms for 50 years. But the national security law (NSL), imposed by Beijing a year after Hong Kong’s 2019 mass pro-democracy protests, has been criticised for scuttling free speech and press, and for ushering in a new culture of informing.

The law criminalises activities considered to be calls for “secession” (breaking away from China), “subversion” (undermining the power or authority of the government), and collusion with foreign forces.

An additional security law called Article 23, voted in last year, has further tightened restrictions.

With new laws and arrests, there has been limited reporting on Hong Kong’s pro-China “patriots” – the people who are now running and policing the city, as well as the ordinary citizens who openly support them. But the BBC has spent weeks interviewing Innes Tang, 60, a prominent self-described patriot.

He and his volunteers have taken screen grabs from social media of any activities or comments they believe could be in breach of the NSL.

He also established a hotline for tip-offs from the public and encouraged his online followers to share information on the people around them.

Nearly 100 individuals and organisations have been reported to the authorities by him and his followers, he says.

“Does reporting work? We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t,” Mr Tang says. “Many had cases opened by the police… with some resulting in jail terms.”

Mr Tang says he hasn’t investigated alleged law breakers himself, but simply reported incidents he thinks warrant scrutiny – describing it as “proper community-police co-operation”.

Mr Tang is not the only so-called patriot to engage in this kind of surveillance.

Hong Kong’s authorities have set up their own national security hotline, receiving 890,000 tip-offs from November 2020 to February this year – the city’s security bureau told the BBC.

For those who are reported to the authorities, pressure can be relentless.

Since the NSL was enacted in 2020, up until February this year, more than 300 people had been arrested for national security offences. And an estimated 300,000 or more Hongkongers have permanently left the city in recent years.

Pong Yat-ming, the owner of an independent bookshop that hosts public talks, says he often receives inspections from government departments which cite “anonymous complaints”.

He received 10 visits in one 15-day period, he says.

Kenneth Chan, political scientist and university lecturer, who has been involved in the city’s pro-democracy movement since the 1990s, jokes he has “become a bit radioactive these days”.

Some friends, students and colleagues now keep their distance because of his outspoken views, he says. “But I would be the last person to blame the victims. It’s the system.”

In response, Hong Kong’s government said it “attaches great importance to upholding academic freedom and institutional autonomy”. But it adds that academic institutions “have the responsibility to ensure their operations are in compliance with the law and meet the interests of the community at large”.

Innes Tang says he is motivated to report people by a love of Hong Kong, and that his views on China were cultivated when he was young, when the city was still a British colony.

“The colonial policies weren’t really that great,” he says. “The best opportunities were always given to the British and we [the locals] did not really have access.”

Like many of his generation, he nursed a longing to be united with China and taken out of colonial governance. But he says many other Hongkongers at the time were more concerned with their livelihoods than their rights.

“Democracy or freedom. These were all very abstract ideas which we didn’t really understand,” he says.

An average citizen should not become too involved in politics, he says, explaining he only became politically active to restore what he calls “balance” to Hong Kong society following the turbulence of 2019.

He is giving a voice, he says, to what he calls “the silent majority” of Hongkongers who do not support independence from China, nor the disruption created by the protests.

But other Hongkongers consider rallies and demonstrations a longstanding tradition, and one of the only ways to voice public opinion in a city that now does not have a fully democratically elected leadership.

“We are no longer a city of protests,” says Kenneth Chan, who specialises in Eastern European politics. “So what are we? I don’t have the answer yet.”

And patriotism isn’t inherently a negative thing, he says.

It is “a value, maybe even a virtue”, he argues, although it needs to allow citizens to keep “a critical distance” – something that is not happening in Hong Kong.

Electoral reform was pushed through in 2021 – stating that only “patriots” who “swore loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party” could hold important positions in government or the Legislative Council [LegCo] – Hong Kong’s parliament.

As a result, the council struggles to function, believes Hong Kong-based China commentator Lew Mon-hung, a former member of the Chinese government advisory body, the CPPCC.

“The public think a lot of these patriots are ‘verbal revolutionaries’ or political opportunists – they don’t really represent the people,” he says.

“That’s why ridiculous policies still pass with a huge majority. There is no-one to constrain or oppose, no-one to scrutinise.”

Even patriot Innes Tang says he wants to see the current system challenged.

“I don’t want to see every policy passing with 90% of the vote,” he tells the BBC.

There is a danger the National Security Law will be weaponised, he says, with people saying: “If you don’t agree with me, I accuse you of infringement of the national security law.”

“I don’t agree with this type of stuff,” says Mr Tang.

Hong Kong’s government said: “The improved LegCo is now rid of extremists who wish to obstruct and even paralyse the operation of the government without any intention of entering into constructive dialogue to represent the interests of all Hong Kong people.”

For now, says Mr Tang, he has stopped reporting on people. Balance and stability, he believes, has returned to Hong Kong.

The number of large-scale protests has dwindled to none at all.

In academia, fear of surveillance – and how life might change for someone who infringes the laws – means self-censorship and censorship have become the “order of the day”, says Kenneth Chan.

Pro-democracy parties are no longer represented in the Legislative Council and many have disbanded – including the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, once the most powerful party.

Innes Tang has now set his sights overseas.

“There aren’t any particular issues in Hong Kong now, so I asked myself – shouldn’t I have a look at how I can continue to serve my community and my country?” he says.

“For a non-politician and civilian like me, this is an invaluable opportunity.”

He now works as a representative for one of several pro-Beijing non-profit groups, regularly visiting the UN in Geneva to speak at conventions giving China’s perspective on Hong Kong, human rights and other issues.

Mr Tang is also in the process of establishing a media company in Switzerland, and registering as a member of the press.

For Kenneth Chan in Hong Kong, his future hangs in the balance.

“One third of my friends and students are now in exile, another third of my friends and students are in jail, and I’m sort of… in limbo,” he says.

“Today I’m speaking freely with you… no-one would promise me that I would continue doing it for the rest of my life.”

In a written reply to the BBC, a Hong Kong government spokesperson said that national security is a top priority and inherent right for any country. It “only targets an extremely small minority of people and organisations that pose a threat to national security, while protecting the lives and property of the general public”.

The US has agreed to reduce import taxes on a set number of British cars and allow some steel and aluminium into the country tariff-free, as part of a new agreement between the US and UK.

The announcement offers relief for key UK industries from some of the new tariffs President Donald Trump has announced since his return to the White House in January.

But it will leave a 10% duty in place on most goods from the UK.

Though hailed by the leaders of the two countries as significant, analysts said it did not appear to meaningfully alter the terms of trade between the countries, as they stood before the changes introduced by Trump this year.

No formal deal was signed on Thursday and the announcements from both governments were light on details.

Speaking from a Jaguar Land Rover factory in the West Midlands, Sir Keir Starmer described the agreement as a “fantastic platform”.

“This historic deal delivers for British business and British workers protecting thousands of British jobs in key sectors including car manufacturing and steel,” he said, adding that the “the UK has no greater ally than the United States”.

At the White House, Trump called it a “great deal” and pushed back against criticism that he was overstating its importance.

“This is a maxed out deal that we’re going to make bigger,” he said.

The two sides said the US had agreed to reduce the import tax on cars – which Trump had raised by 25% last month – to 10% for 100,000 cars a year.

That will help luxury carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls Royce, but could limit growth in the years ahead, as it amounts to roughly what the UK exported last year.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC the UK was days away from losing thousands of jobs at carmakers facing US tariffs.

“This was very serious,” he said. “It would have meant people would have lost their jobs without this breakthrough.”

Tariffs on steel and aluminium, which Trump raised earlier this year to 25%, have also been slashed, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. The US said instead it would establish a quota, as had existed previously.

The two countries also each agreed to allow the import of up to 13,000 metric tonnes of beef from the other country without tariffs, according to documents released by the US Trade Representative.

The US said the change would significantly expand its sales of beef to the UK, which had previously faced 20% duties and were capped at 1,000 metric tonnes.

Overall, the US said the deal would create a $5bn (£3.8bn) “opportunity” for exports, including $700m in ethanol and $250m in other agricultural products.

“It can’t be understated how important this deal is,” US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

UK Steel director General Gareth Stace welcomed the agreement, saying it would offer “major relief” to the steel sector.

“The UK government’s cool-headed approach and perseverance in negotiating with the US clearly paid off,” he said.

Other business groups expressed more uncertainty.

“It’s better than yesterday but it’s definitely not better than five weeks ago,” said Duncan Edwards, chief executive of BritishAmerican Business, which represents firms in the two countries and supports free trade.

“I’m trying to be excited but I’m struggling a bit.”

While Labour MPs praised the deal, opposition parties asked for more detail and scrutiny in Parliament.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch criticised the deal, saying it amounted to tariffs being lowered by the UK, while being hiked in the US.

“This is not a historic deal with the US,” she said. “We’ve been shafted.”

The Liberal Democrats demanded a vote on the deal in Parliament, saying it would show “complete disrespect to the public” if MPs were denied a say.

Sir Ed Davey said: “When it comes to any trade deal – and especially one with someone as unreliable as Donald Trump – the devil will be in the detail.

“One thing is clear, Trump’s trade tariffs are still hitting key British industries, threatening the livelihoods of people across the UK.”

Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage said the deal was a “step in the right direction”.

He told the BBC there was more detail to come but in the round it was a welcome development.

“The important point is that we are doing stuff, we are making a move,” he said. “It’s a Brexit benefit we were able to do this.”

The US and UK have been discussing a trade deal since Trump’s first term. They came close to signing a mini-agreement at that time.

But the US has long pushed for changes to benefit its farmers and pharmaceutical issues, which had been non-starters politically for the UK.

It was not clear how much those issues had advanced.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the agreement in-principle had delivered a “tremendous win” for American ranchers but the US Meat Export Federation, which tracks trade barriers for farmers in the US, said it was still trying to pin down information about the changes.

The UK said there would be no weakening in food standards for imports.

While the UK appears to have made some commitments, “the devil will be in the details,” said Michael Pearce, deputy chief economist at Oxford Economics, which said it was making no change to its economic forecasts as a result of the announcement.

Other issues loom.

Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to tax imports of pharmaceuticals, in a bid to ensure the US has a strong manufacturing base for critical medicines.

The UK said the US had agreed to give British firms “preferential treatment”.

But Ewan Townsend, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter, who works with health care firms, said the industry was now “left waiting to see exactly what this preferential treatment will mean”.

The auction house Sotheby’s has postponed its sale in Hong Kong of hundreds of sacred jewels linked to the Buddha’s remains, after a threat of legal action by the Indian government.

The sale of the collection – described as one of the most astonishing archaeological finds of the modern era – had drawn criticism from Buddhist academics and monastic leaders. India had said it offended the global Buddhist community.

Sotheby’s said the suspension would allow for discussions between the parties.

A British official named William Claxton Peppé unearthed the relics in northern India nearly 130 years ago, alongside bone fragments identified as belonging to the Buddha himself.

The auction of the collection, known as the Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha Mauryan Empire, Ashokan Era, circa 240-200 BCE, was due to take place on 7 May.

In a letter to the auction house two days earlier, the Indian government said that the relics constituted “inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community. Their sale violates Indian and international laws, as well as United Nations conventions”.

A high-level Indian government delegation then held discussions with Sotheby’s representatives on Tuesday.

In an emailed statement, Sotheby’s said that in light of the matters raised by India’s government “and with the agreement of the consignors, the auction … has been postponed”.

It said updates on the discussions would be shared “as appropriate”.

Notice of the gems sale had been removed from its auction house by Wednesday and the website page promoting the auction is no longer available.

William Claxton Peppé was an English estate manager who excavated a stupa at Piprahwa, just south of Lumbini, the believed birthplace of Buddha. He uncovered relics inscribed and consecrated nearly 2,000 years ago.

The findings included nearly 1,800 gems, including rubies, topaz, sapphires and patterned gold sheets, stored inside a brick chamber. This site is now in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Sotheby’s had said in February that the 1898 discovery ranked “among the most extraordinary archaeological discoveries of all time”.

The UK and the US have reached a deal over tariffs on some goods traded between the countries.

President Donald Trump’s blanket 10% tariffs on imports from countries around the world remains in place and still applies to most UK goods entering the US.

But the deal has reduced or removed tariffs on some of the UK’s exports, including cars, steel and aluminium.

Here’s an at-a-glance look at what’s in the deal.

Trump declared on social media this announcement would be a “major trade deal” – it’s not.

He does not have the authority to sign the type of free-trade agreement India and the UK finalised earlier this week – this lies with Congress.

Congress would need to approve a trade agreement, which would take longer than the 90-day pause in place on some of Trump’s tariffs.

This is an agreement which has reversed or cut some of those tariffs on specific goods.

What was announced today is only the bare bones of a narrow agreement.

There will be months of negotiations and legal paperwork to follow.

Trump had placed import taxes of 25% on cars and car parts coming into the US on top of the existing 2.5%.

This has been cut to 10% for a maximum of 100,000 UK cars, which matches the number of cars the UK exported last year.

But any cars exported above that 100,000 will be subject to a 27.5% import tax.

Cars are the UK’s biggest export to the US – worth about £9bn last year.

Car industry leaders have told the BBC the quota could effectively put a ceiling on the number they can export competitively.

The UK currently imposes a 10% on US car imports, but it is not yet clear if there had been any change to this.

The US has previously demanded the import tax be cut to 2.5%, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves has indicated she is open to such a cut.

Trump also announced that Rolls Royce engines and plane parts will be able to be exported from the UK to the US tariff-free.

He also said the UK was buying $10bn worth of Boeing planes from the US.

A 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports into the US that came into effect in March has been scrapped as part of this deal.

This is huge news for firms such as British Steel which was brought under government control as it struggled to stay operational.

The UK exports a relatively small amount of steel and aluminium to the US, around £700m in total.

However the tariffs also cover products made with steel and aluminium, including things such as gym equipment, furniture and machinery.

These are worth much more, about £2.2bn, or about 5% of UK exports to the US last year.

It is not yet clear whether the scrapping of tariffs will apply to steel derivative products and whether only steel melted and poured in the UK will benefit.

What will be agreed on pharmaceuticals is still unknown.

“Work will continue on the remaining sectors – such as pharmaceuticals and remaining reciprocal tariffs,” a statement from the UK government said.

Most countries, including the US, imposed few or no tariffs on finished drugs, as part of an agreement aimed at keeping medicines affordable.

Pharmaceuticals are a major export for the UK when it comes to US trade – last year sales of medicinal and pharmaceutical products were worth £6.6bn ($8.76bn) making it the UK’s second-biggest export to the US.

It’s also America’s fourth biggest export to the UK, valued at £4bn ($5.3bn) last year.

The president has not announced any trade restrictions on medicines yet.

• FOLLOW LIVE: US and UK to announce deal to reduce tariffs today
• QUICK GUIDE: What tariffs has Trump announced and why?
• ANALYSIS: Trump deal is a significant achievement for Starmer

There was no change to the UK’s 2% digital services tax on US firms in this deal, despite reports there could be.

Businesses that run social media, search engines or online marketplaces pay this tax which applies to revenues derived from UK users.

Firms only have to pay it if they raise more than £500m in global revenues and £25m from UK users annually.

But this is a threshold easily met by US tech giants like Meta, Google, Apple.

The UK reportedly netted nearly £360m from American tech firms via the tax in its first year.

Instead of any change to the digital services tax the UK and US had “agreed to work on a digital trade deal”, the UK government said.

It said this would “strip back paperwork for British firms trying to export to the US – opening the UK up to a huge market that will put rocket boosters on the UK economy”.

The UK has removed tariffs on American beef and other agricultural products, Trump said.

UK farmers have also been given a tariff free quota for 13,000 metric tonnes of exports, which trade ministers said was the “first time” British farmers had been given this kind of deal.

There will be no weakening of UK food standards on imports, the UK government statement said.

Many American farmers use growth hormones as a standard part of their beef production, something that was banned in the UK and the European Union in the 1980s.

The US has previously pushed for a relaxation of rules for its agricultural products, including beef from cattle that have been given growth hormones.

This is an area where the UK has chosen alignment with EU – and the forthcoming “Brexit reset” with the EU – over the US.

The tariff on ethanol which is used to produce beer coming into the UK from the US has also been scrapped.

“They’ll also be fast tracking American goods through their customs process, so our exports go to a very, very quick form of approval, and there won’t be any red tape,” Trump said.

In a dramatic overnight operation, India said it launched missile and air strikes on nine sites across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, targeting what it called militant positions based on “credible intelligence”.

The strikes, lasting just 25 minutes between 01:05 and 01:30 India time (19:35 and 20:00 GMT on Tuesday), sent shockwaves through the region, with residents jolted awake by thunderous explosions.

Pakistan said only six locations were hit and claimed to have shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone – a claim India has not confirmed.

Islamabad said 26 people were killed and 46 injured in Indian air strikes and shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) – the de facto border between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India’s army reported that 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

• Follow the latest updates
• What we know about the air strikes

This sharp escalation comes after last month’s deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, pushing tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to dangerous new heights. India says it has clear evidence linking Pakistan-based terrorists and external actors to the attack – a claim Pakistan flatly denies. Islamabad has also pointed out that India has not offered any evidence to support its claim.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the LoC.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Experts say the retaliation for the Pahalgam attack stands out for its broader scope, targeting the infrastructure of three major Pakistan-based militant groups simultaneously.

India says it struck nine militant targets across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, hitting deep into key hubs of Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Among the closest targets were two camps in Sialkot, just 6-18km from the border, according to an Indian spokesperson.

The deepest hit, says India, was a Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, 100km inside Pakistan. A LeT camp in Muzaffarabad, 30km from the LoC and capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, was linked to recent attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir, the spokesperson said.

Pakistan says six locations have been hit, but denies allegations of there being terror camps.

“What’s striking this time is the expansion of India’s targets beyond past patterns. Previously, strikes like Balakot focused on Pakistan-administered Kashmir across the Line of Control – a militarised boundary,” Srinath Raghavan, a Delhi-based historian, told the BBC.

“This time, India has hit into Pakistan’s Punjab, across the International Border, targeting terrorist infrastructure, headquarters, and known locations in Bahawalpur and Muridke linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba. They’ve also struck Jaish-e-Mohammed and Hizbul Mujahideen assets. This suggests a broader, more geographically expansive response, signalling that multiple groups are now in India’s crosshairs – and sending a wider message,” he says.

The India-Pakistan International Border is the officially recognised boundary separating the two countries, stretching from Gujarat to Jammu.

Ajay Bisaria, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told the BBC that what India did was a “Balakot plus response meant to establish deterrence, targeting known terrorist hubs, but accompanied by a strong de-escalatory message”.

“These strikes were more precise, targeted and more visible than in the past. Therefore, [they are] less deniable by Pakistan,” Mr Bisaria says.

Indian sources say the strikes were aimed at “re-establishing deterrence”.

“The Indian government thinks that the deterrence established in 2019 has worn thin and needs to be re-established,” says Prof Raghavan.

“This seems to mirror Israel’s doctrine that deterrence requires periodic, repeated strikes. But if we assume that hitting back alone will deter terrorism, we risk giving Pakistan every incentive to retaliate – and that can quickly spiral out of control.”

The majority of experts agree that a retaliation from Pakistan is inevitable – and diplomacy will come into play.

“Pakistan’s response is sure to come. The challenge would be to manage the next level of escalation. This is where crisis diplomacy will matter,” says Mr Bisaria.

“Pakistan will be getting advice to exercise restraint. But the key will be the diplomacy after the Pakistani response to ensure that both countries don’t rapidly climb the ladder of escalation.”

• India and Pakistan are in crisis again – here’s how they de-escalated in the past

Pakistan-based experts like Ejaz Hussain, a Lahore-based political and military analyst, say Indian surgical strikes targeting locations such as Muridke and Bahawalpur were “largely anticipated given the prevailing tensions”.

Dr Hussain believes retaliatory strikes are likely.

“Given the Pakistani military’s media rhetoric and stated resolve to settle the scores, retaliatory action, possibly in the form of surgical strikes across the border, appears likely in the coming days,” he told the BBC.

But Dr Hussain worries that surgical strikes on both sides could “escalate into a limited conventional war”.

Christopher Clary of the University at Albany in the US believes given the scale of India’s strikes, “visible damage at key sites”, and reported casualties, Pakistan is highly likely to retaliate.

“Doing otherwise essentially would give India permission to strike Pakistan whenever Delhi feels aggrieved and would run contrary to the Pakistan military’s commitment to retaliating with ‘quid pro quo plus’,” Mr Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

“Given India’s stated targets of groups and facilities associated with terrorism and militancy in India, I think it is likely – but far from certain – that Pakistan will confine itself to attacks on Indian military targets,” he said.

Despite the rising tensions, some experts still hold out hope for de-escalation.

“There is a decent chance we escape this crisis with just one round of reciprocal standoff strikes and a period of heightened firing along the Line of Control,” says Mr Clary.

However, the risk of further escalation remains high, making this the “most dangerous” India-Pakistan crisis since 2002 – and even more perilous than the 2016 and 2019 standoffs, he adds.

Experts in Pakistan note that despite a lack of war hysteria leading up to India’s strike, the situation could quickly shift.

“We have a deeply fractured political society, with the country’s most popular leader behind bars. Imran Khan’s imprisonment triggered a strong anti-military public backlash,” says Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst and a former correspondent of Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“Today, the Pakistani public is far less eager to support the military compared to 2016 or 2019 – the usual wave of war hysteria is noticeably absent. But if public opinion shifts in central Punjab where anti-India feelings are more prevalent, we could see increased civilian pressure on the military to take action. And the military will regain popularity because of this conflict.”

Dr Hussain echoes a similar sentiment.

“I believe the current standoff with India presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to regain public support, particularly from the urban middle classes who have recently criticised it for perceived political interference,” he says.

“The military’s active defence posture is already being amplified through mainstream and social media, with some outlets claiming that six or seven Indian jets were shot down.

“Although these claims warrant independent verification, they serve to bolster the military’s image among segments of the public that conventionally rally around national defence narratives in times of external threat.”

India is once again walking a fine line between escalation and restraint.

Shortly after the attack in Pahalgam, India swiftly retaliated by closing the main border crossing, suspending a water-sharing treaty, expelling diplomats and halting most visas for Pakistani nationals. Troops on both sides have exchanged small-arms fire, and India barred all Pakistani aircraft from its airspace, mirroring Pakistan’s earlier move. In response, Pakistan suspended a 1972 peace treaty and took its own retaliatory measures.

This mirrors India’s actions after the 2019 Pulwama attack, when it swiftly revoked Pakistan’s most-favoured-nation status, imposed heavy tariffs and suspended key trade and transport links.

The crisis had escalated when India launched air strikes on Balakot, followed by retaliatory Pakistani air raids and the capture of Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, further heightening tensions. However, diplomatic channels eventually led to a de-escalation, with Pakistan releasing the pilot in a goodwill gesture.

“India was willing to give old-fashioned diplomacy another chance…. This, with India having achieved a strategic and military objective and Pakistan having claimed a notion of victory for its domestic audience,” Mr Bisaria told me last week.

Two weeks after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, India has launched a series of strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The Indian defence ministry said the strikes – named “Operation Sindoor” – were part of a “commitment” to hold “accountable” those responsible for the 22 April attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, which left 25 Indians and one Nepali national dead.

But Pakistan, which has denied any involvement in that attack, described the strikes as “unprovoked”, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif saying the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished”.

Sharif on Wednesday said the Pahalgam attack “wasn’t related” to Pakistan, and that his country was “accused for the wrong” reasons.

• Follow the latest updates
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir
• BBC reports from Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir

Pakistan’s military said at least 31 people were killed and 57 injured in the strikes on Tuesday night. India’s army said at least 15 civilians were killed and 43 injured by Pakistani shelling on its side of the de facto border.

Pakistan’s military says it shot down five Indian aircraft and a drone. India has yet to respond to these claims.

Late on Wednesday, Sharif said the air force made its defence – which was a “reply from our side to them”.

Delhi said in the early hours of Wednesday morning that nine different locations had been targeted in both Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Pakistan.

It said these sites were “terrorist infrastructure” – places where attacks were “planned and directed”.

It emphasised that it had not hit any Pakistani military facilities, saying its “actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.

In the initial aftermath of the attacks, Pakistan said three different areas were hit: Muzaffarabad and Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Bahawalpur in the Pakistani province of Punjab. Pakistan’s military spokesperson, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif, later said six locations had been hit.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV in the early hours of Wednesday that the strikes hit civilian areas, adding that India’s claim of “targeting terrorist camps” was false.

The strikes come after weeks of rising tension between the nuclear-armed neighbours over the shootings in the picturesque resort town of Pahalgam.

The 22 April attack by a group of militants saw 26 people killed, with survivors saying the militants were singling out Hindu men.

It was the worst attack on civilians in the region in two decades, and the first major attack on civilians since India revoked Article 370, which gave Kashmir semi-autonomous status, in 2019.

Following the decision, the region saw protests but also witnessed militancy wane and a huge increase in the number of tourists.

The killings have sparked widespread anger in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the country would hunt the suspects “till the ends of the Earth” and that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.

However, India initially did not name any group it believed was behind the attack in Pahalgam.

But Indian police alleged that two of the attackers were Pakistani nationals, with Delhi accusing Pakistan of supporting militants – a charge Islamabad denies. It says it has nothing to do with the 22 April attacks.

On 7 May, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group carried out the attack.

In the two weeks since, both sides had taken tit-for-tat measures against each other – including expelling diplomats, suspending visas and closing border crossings.

But many expected it would escalate to some sort of cross-border strike – as seen after the Pulwama attacks which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead in 2019.

Kashmir is claimed in full by India and Pakistan, but administered only in part by each since they were partitioned following independence from Britain in 1947.

The countries have fought two wars over it.

But more recently, it has been attacks by militants which have brought the two countries to the brink. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike.

In 2016, after 19 Indian soldiers were killed in Uri, India launched “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control – the de facto border between India and Pakistan – targeting militant bases.

In 2019, the Pulwama bombing, which left 40 Indian paramilitary personnel dead, prompted airstrikes deep into Balakot – the first such action inside Pakistan since 1971 – sparking retaliatory raids and an aerial dogfight.

Neither spiralled, but the wider world remains alert to the danger of what could happen if it did. Attempts have been made by various nations and diplomats around the world to prevent this.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres quickly called for “maximum restraint” – a sentiment echoed by the European Union and numerous countries, including Bangladesh.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “dialogue” and “de-escalation”.

US President Donald Trump – who was one of the first to respond – told reporters at the White House that he hoped the fighting “ends very quickly”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, said he was keeping a close eye on developments.

US President Donald Trump has called the election of the first American pope a “great honour” for the country and said he looks forward to meeting him.

Trump is among the many American political figures applauding the historic appointment of Robert Francis Prevost, who will be known as Pope Leo XIV, to lead the Catholic Church.

“To have the Pope from America is a great honour,” Trump said when asked for reaction to the news.

Pope Leo, 69, was born in Chicago and attended university outside Philadelphia, before becoming a missionary in Peru.

The US has the fourth largest number of Catholics in the world, and congratulations started pouring in soon after the first American pope’s name was announced.

Vice-President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, praised the pope’s election.

“I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church,” Vance wrote on X.

Former President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic who has spoken about his warm relationship with Pope Francis, also offered his congratulations.

“Habemus papam – May God bless Pope Leo XIV of Illinois,” Biden, the second Catholic president in US history, wrote on social media.

Former President Barack Obama, who launched his political career in Chicago, wrote on X: “Michelle and I send our congratulations to a fellow Chicagoan, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.”

“This is a historic day for the United States, and we will pray for him as he begins the sacred work of leading the Catholic Church and setting an example for so many, regardless of faith.”

Former President George Bush issued a statement, saying that he and his wife Laura were “delighted” by the news.

“This an historic and hopeful moment for Catholics in America and for the faithful around the world,” he said.

“We join those praying for the success of Pope Leo XIV as he prepares to lead the Catholic church, serve the neediest, and share God’s love.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson also congratulated the new pope and wrote on social media: “May God bless the first American papacy in these historic days.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Catholic, also extended his congratulations.

“This is a moment of profound significance for the Catholic Church, offering renewed hope and continuity amid the 2025 Jubilee Year to over a billion faithful worldwide,” Rubio said.

“The United States looks forward to deepening our enduring relationship with the Holy See with the first American pontiff.”

As cardinal, it appears Prevost did not shy away from occasionally challenging the views of the Trump administration.

An account under his name reposted a post on social media platform X which was critical of the Trump administration’s deportation of a US resident to El Salvador, and shared a critical comment piece written about a TV interview given by Vance to Fox News.

“JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others,” read the post, repeating the headline from the commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website.

The BBC has contacted the Vatican but has not independently confirmed the account, which was created in 2011, belongs to the new pontiff.

• Who is Robert Prevost, the new Pope?
• Watch Pope Leo XIV being unveiled as new pontiff
• Pope Leo’s first public address from the Vatican balcony – watch in full

Meanwhile, in Prevost’s hometown, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson offered a note of congratulations.

“Everything dope, including the Pope, comes from Chicago! Congratulations to the first American Pope Leo XIV! We hope to welcome you back home soon,” he wrote.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called the moment “historic”.

“Hailing from Chicago, Pope Leo XIV ushers in a new chapter that I join those in our state welcoming in at a time when we need compassion, unity, and peace,” he wrote on social media.

India’s strikes on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir have unleashed a wave of misinformation online, with unrelated videos purporting to be from the strikes gaining millions of views.

Dramatic clips debunked by BBC Verify have claimed to show attacks on an Indian army base and an Indian fighter jet shot down in Pakistan.

One video, which had more than 400,000 views on X at the time of writing, claiming to show an explosion caused by a Pakistani response was actually from the 2020 Beirut Port explosion in Lebanon.

An expert told BBC Verify that in moments of heightened tension or dramatic events, misinformation is more likely to spread and fuel distrust and hostility.

“It’s very common to see recycled footage during any significant event, not just conflict,” Eliot Higgins, the founder of the Bellingcat investigations website, said.

“Algorithmic engagement rewards people who post engaging content, not truthful content, and footage of conflict and disasters is particularly engaging, no matter the truth behind it.”

One of the most viral clips, which gained over 3 million views on X in a matter of hours, claimed to show blasts caused by the Indian strikes on Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A search for screengrabs from the video on Google found the footage actually showed Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on 13 October 2023.

• Follow live: Tensions escalate as Pakistan vows response to Indian strikes
• What we know about India’s strike on Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir
• Why India and Pakistan fight over Kashmir

While much of the debunked footage has purported to show the immediate aftermath of the Indian strikes, some clips analysed by BBC Verify appeared to be trying to portray the Pakistani response as being more severe than it actually was.

One video, which has racked up almost 600,000 views on X, claimed to show that the “Pakistan army blew up the Indian Brigade headquarters”. The clip, which shows blasts in the darkness, is actually from an unrelated video circulating on YouTube as early as last month.

Elsewhere, one set of photos purported to show an operation carried out by the Pakistan Air Force targeting “Indian forward air-bases in the early hours of 6 May 2025”. The images – which appeared to be captured by a drone – were actually screengrabs taken from the video game Battlefield 3.

The Pakistani military says it destroyed five jets on Wednesday morning local time. That announcement has led to some users sharing unrelated clips which they claimed showed the wreckage of Indian fighter jets. Some of these videos have obtained millions of views.

But two widely shared images actually showed previous Indian air force jet crashes – one from an incident in Rajasthan in 2024 and another in the Punjab state in 2021. Both crashes were widely reported.

Prof Indrajit Roy of York University said that the images “are being generated with a view to get support for the military in Pakistan”. One clip circulated by the Pakistani military itself was later withdrawn by news agencies after it turned out to be from an unrelated event.

“We have jingoists on both sides of the border, and they have a huge platform on Twitter (X). You can see how fake news, as well as some real news, gets amplified, distorted and presented in ways designed to generate hostility, animosity and hatred for the other side.”

The conflict in Kashmir has long attracted a high degree of misinformation online. In the aftermath of the deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month, AI images circulated – with some seeking to dramatise actual scenes from the attack.

Vedika Bahl, a journalist with France 24, said the Pahalgam attacks had prompted a sharp “uptake in misinformation from both sides surrounding the conflict”.

“Lots of this misinformation begins on X,” she said. “Eventually this trickles down over time from X to WhatsApp which is the communication tool which is most used in South Asian communities.”

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