How do you measure misery? For journalists the usual way is to see it, to feel it, to smell it.

Beleaguered Palestinian colleagues in Gaza are doing that, still doing invaluable reporting at great risk to themselves. More than 200 have been killed doing their jobs.

Israel does not allow international journalists into Gaza.

Denied the chance of eyewitness reporting – one of the best tools of the job – we can study, from a distance, the assessments of aid organisations operating in Gaza.

• Gaza parents desperate as children face starvation under Israeli blockade

Pascal Hundt, deputy director of operations at the International Committee of the Red Cross said last week that civilians in Gaza faced “an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance.”

He added: “This situation must not—and cannot—be allowed to escalate further.”

But it might, if Israel continues the plunge deeper into war that resumed on 18 March when it broke a two-month ceasefire with a massive series of air strikes.

Israel had already sealed the gates of Gaza. Since the beginning of March, it has blocked all shipments of humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies.

The return to war ended any chance of moving on to the ceasefire’s proposed second phase, which Israel and Hamas had agreed would end with the release of all the remaining hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

That was unacceptable to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the ultra-nationalist religious extremists who keep him in power.

They want Gaza’s Palestinians to be replaced by Jewish settlers. They threatened to topple Netanyahu’s government if he did not go back to war, and the end of Netanyahu’s political career would bring the day of reckoning for his part in Israel’s failure to prevent the deadly Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. It might also force a conclusion in his long trial on corruption charges.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is now promising a new “intense” offensive into Gaza in the days after President Donald Trump finishes his swing through the wealthy Arab oil monarchies in the Gulf later this week.

The offensive includes a plan to displace massive numbers of Palestinian civilians on top of waves of artillery, air strikes and death. “To displace” is a cold verb. It means families having only handfuls of minutes to flee for their lives, from an area that might be hit immediately to one that might be hit later. Hundreds of thousands have done so repeatedly since the war began.

Gaza was one of the most overcrowded places on earth before the war. Israel’s plan is to force as many Gazans as possible into a tiny area in the south, near the ruins of the town of Rafah, which has been almost entirely destroyed.

Before that happens, the UN humanitarian office estimates that 70% of Gaza is already effectively off limits to Palestinians. Israel’s plan is to leave them in an even smaller area. The UN and leading aid groups reject Israeli claims that Hamas steals and controls food that comes into Gaza. They have refused to cooperate with a scheme proposed by Israel and the US that would use private security firms, protected by Israeli troops, to distribute basic rations.

Far from Gaza, in London, I talked to Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of Unrwa, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees. He told me that he was running out of words “to describe the misery and the tragedy affecting the people in Gaza. They have been now more than two months without any aid”.

“Starvation is spreading, people are exhausted, people are hungry… we can expect that in the coming weeks if no aid is coming in, that people will not die because of the bombardment, but they will die because of the lack of food. This is the weaponisation of humanitarian aid.”

If words are not enough, look at the most authoritative data-driven assessment of famine and food emergencies in the regular reports issued by Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC. It is a joint venture by UN agencies, aid groups and governments that measures whether a famine is happening.

The latest IPC update says Gaza is close to famine. But it says that the entire population, more than two million people, almost half of whom are children, is experiencing acute food insecurity. In plain English, that means they are being starved by Israel’s blockade.

The IPC says that 470,000 Gazans, 22% of the population, are in a classification it calls “Phase 5 – catastrophe.” The IPC defines it as a condition in which “at least one in five households experience an extreme lack of food and face starvation resulting in destitution, extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition and death.”

In practical terms, the phase five classification, the most acute used by the IPC, estimates that “71,000 children and more than 17,000 mothers will need urgent treatment for acute malnutrition”.

Thousands of tons of the food, medical aid and humanitarian supplies that they need are sitting only a few miles away, on the other side of the border in Egypt.

In London I asked Mr Lazzarini whether he agreed with those who have accused Israel of denying food and humanitarian aid to civilians as a weapon of war.

“I have absolutely no doubt,” he said, “that this is what we have witnessed during this last 19 months, especially during this last two months. That’s a war crime. The quantification will come from the ICJ [International Court of Justice] not from me, but what I can say, what we see, what we observe, food and humanitarian assistance is indeed being used to meet the political or military objective in the context of Gaza.”

I asked Mr Lazzarini whether the blockade, on top of a year and half of war and destruction, might amount to genocide. That is the accusation against Israel levelled by South Africa and other states at the ICJ in The Hague.

“Listen, by any account, the destruction is massive. The number of people who have been killed is huge and certainly underestimated. We have seen the systematic destruction also of a school, of a health centre. People have been constant pinballs within Gaza, moving all the time. So there is absolutely no doubt that we are talking about massive atrocities. Genocide? It could end up to genocide. There are many elements which could go in this direction.”

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz has made no secret of Israel’s tactics. Last month Katz said that the blockade was a “main pressure lever” to secure victory over Hamas and to get the all the hostages out. The National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir agreed. He wrote that: “The cessation of humanitarian aid is one of the main levers of pressure on Hamas. The return of aid to Gaza before Hamas gets on its knees and releases all of our hostages would be a historic mistake.”

Netanyahu’s plans for another offensive, and the remarks made by Katz, Ben-Gvir and others, horrified Israeli families with hostages still inside Gaza. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum which represents many of them, said minister Katz was pushing an “illusion… Israel is choosing to seize territory before the hostages.”

Dissident Israeli military reservists also protested, saying that they were being forced to fight again not for Israeli security but for the political survival of the Israeli government. In the air force reserve, 1,200 pilots signed an open letter saying that prolonging the war served mainly “political and personal interests and not security ones”. Netanyahu blamed a small group of “bad apples” for the open letter.

For many months Netanyahu and his government have also accused Mr Lazzarini of lying. One official report posted online in January of this year was headed “Dismantling Unrwa Chief Lazzarini’s Falsehoods”. It claimed that he had “consistently made false statements which have profoundly misinformed the public debate on this issue”. Unrwa, Israel says, has been infiltrated and exploited by Hamas to an unprecedented degree. It says some Unrwa employees took part in the attacks of 7 October.

Mr Lazzarini denies the personal accusations directed at him by Israel and the broader ones aimed at Unrwa. He says Unrwa investigated 19 staff named by Israel and concluded nine of them may have a case to answer. All 19 were suspended. Mr Lazzarini said that since then Unrwa had received “hundreds of allegations from the State of Israel. Each time, as a rule-based organisation, we keep asking for substantiated information”. He said they had never received it.

All wars are political, and none more than the ones between Israel and the Palestinians. The war engages and enrages the outside world as well the belligerents.

Israel argues that self-defence justifies its actions since 7 October 2023 when Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others attacked Israel, killed around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Any other government, it says, would have done the same.

Palestinians and an increasingly concerned and outraged chorus of states, including some of Israel’s key European allies, say that does not justify the continuation of the most devastating assault on Palestinians since the war of 1948, when Israel gained its independence, which Palestinians call “the catastrophe”.

Even President Trump shows signs of distancing himself from Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that the people of Gaza must be fed.

The allegation that the total denial of food to Gazan civilians is more evidence of an Israeli genocide against Palestinians has outraged Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and many Israeli citizens. It produced rare political unity in Israel. The leader of the opposition Yair Lapid, normally a stern critic of Netanyahu, condemned “a moral collapse and a moral disaster” at the ICJ.

Genocide is defined as the destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate body, has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister on war crimes charges, which they reject. The three Hamas leaders who were also the subject of ICC warrants have all been killed by Israel.

It is not too soon to think about the longer-term impact of this devastating war, even though its end is not in sight. Mr Lazzarini told me that “in the coming years we will realise how wrong we have been… on the wrong side of the history. We have under our watch let a massive atrocity unfold.”

It started, he said, with the Hamas attacks on Israel on the 7 October: “The largest killing of Israeli and Jewish in the region since World War II” had been followed by a “massive” military response by Israel.

It was, he said, “disproportionate, basically almost leading to the annihilation of an entire population in their homeland… I think there is a collective responsibility from the international community, the level, the passivity, the indifference being shown until now, the lack of political, diplomatic, economic action. I mean, it’s absolutely monstrous, especially in our countries where we have said ‘never again’.”

Ahead may be an attempt to realise Donald Trump’s dangerous fantasy of Gaza as the Dubai of the Mediterranean, rebuilt and owned by America and without Palestinians. It has given shape to cherished dreams of Israeli extremists who threaten of the removal of Palestinians from the land between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.

Whatever lies ahead, it will not be peace.

More than 200 marine species off the coast of South Australia (SA) have been killed by a weeks-long toxic algae explosion, in what conservationists have described as “a horror movie for fish”.

The algal bloom – a rapid increase in the population of algae in water systems – has been spreading since March, growing to about 4,500 sq km (3,400 sq miles), or roughly the size of nearby Kangaroo Island.

“It’s an unprecedented event, because the bloom has continued to build and build,” said Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist.

Other scientists say the algae produces poisons which “act like a toxic blanket that suffocates” a wide range of marine life, including fish, rays and sharks.

Brad Martin, SA project manager for OzFish, a non-profit organisation that protects fishing habitats, said that while algal blooms are not uncommon, the “massive” scale of the current event has had a dramatic impact on marine life.

Toxins produced by the algae can cause “gill and tissue damage” by attacking the red blood cells, Mr Martin told the BBC.

The large density of the bloom also means that oxygen is being taken out of the water, “so we know that the fish are suffocating”.

“It is like a horror movie for fish,” he said.

The event has been widely documented by people sending in pictures of dead wildlife washed up on beaches.

The effect on sharks and rays has been particularly graphic, with large numbers washing up on beaches “bright red”, showing indications of haemorrhaging.

A three-metre great white shark was among those found dead in recent weeks.

Among the more than 200 species that have been killed, which range from the smallest of baby fish to great whites, some are more vulnerable than others.

Reef species like crabs and pufferfishes have been the worst hit, as they are less mobile and can’t swim away from the toxic algae.

While the algae isn’t harmful to humans, those exposed to high doses can experience skin irritation and respiratory symptoms such as coughing or breathing issues.

The SA government has advised people to avoid swimming at beaches where there is discoloured water and foam.

Algal blooms occur during sunny and warm conditions, and SA has had a marine heatwave since last September, with temperatures about 2.5 degrees warmer than average.

Australia has also been experiencing unseasonably warm conditions since March, which has further driven the size and duration of the current algal bloom.

The last time SA recorded a large event of this type of toxic algae was in 2014, according to the state’s environment and water department.

The spread has also affected some commercial fisheries, which have pre-emptively closed harvest areas.

Local coastal businesses have also seen a dip in visitors due to the sheer number of dead marine life washing up on shore.

Meanwhile, researchers and the SA government are continuing to monitor the bloom as it moves west.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will travel to Turkey’s capital Ankara to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will be available for direct talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul on Thursday.

“We will do everything to ensure that this meeting takes place,” he told reporters in a hastily-arranged briefing in Kyiv.

Russia has not yet said who will fly to Istanbul, only that it would be announced “as soon as [Putin] deems it necessary”. Putin and Zelensky have not themselves met since December 2019.

Direct talks between the two countries last took place in Istanbul, in March 2022, in the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin had initially called for direct talks in Turkey’s largest city “without pre-conditions”, before Zelensky announced that he would go in person and expected the Russian president to travel as well.

The US is also expected to send a high-level delegation.

By confirming his visit to Turkey at Tuesday’s briefing, Zelensky clearly sought to intensify pressure on Russia to respond. The Kremlin has already warned that exerting pressure on Moscow is “useless” and it does not respond to ultimatums.

Russia has instead sought to focus on a long-term settlement that tackles what Moscow sees as the “root causes” of the war – a set of tough pre-conditions set before the 2022 invasion and repeatedly rejected by Kyiv.

The Ukrainian leader said while he was prepared to meet Putin in Istanbul his priority was to secure a 30-day ceasefire, which he said all Ukraine’s allies – including the US – were agreed on.

Zelensky said he believed Putin’s late night offer on Sunday for direct talks in Turkey was designed to catch Kyiv out, so that he would “not react” or “react in a negative way for Ukraine”.

US President Donald Trump, who is on a visit to the Gulf, has hinted that he could fly to to Istanbul himself “if I think things can happen”.

That seems unlikely for now, and unconfirmed reports suggest two senior US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, are planning to be in Istanbul on the day.

The Kremlin has sought to dampen speculation that Putin himself might himself go.

“Russia continues preparations for the negotiations due on Thursday. That’s all that can be said right now,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Moscow was prepared to hold talks “responsibly” taking into account “realities on the ground” – in a veiled reference to Ukraine’s four south-eastern regions partially seized by Russia since 2022.

He also repeated Moscow’s initial pre-invasion demands for a settlement to be achieved – Ukraine and its Western allies see this as an ultimatum tantamount to Kyiv’s de facto capitulation.

Ryabkov also cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stick to agreements.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would be a good move for Zelensky and Putin to sit down and talk, but added: “I don’t think he dares, Putin.”

Zelensky also accused Putin of “being scared” to meet him. His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said if the Russian leader refused to go to Istanbul it would the “final signal” that he did not want to end the war.

The leaders of Ukraine’s main allies – the UK, Germany, Poland and France – travelled to Kyiv at the weekend to warn of immediate further sanctions if Russia did not accept a 30-day ceasefire.

The European Union is currently working on a 17th package of measures.

A self-declared “king” of Germany and three of his senior “subjects” have been arrested and their group banned for attempting to overthrow the state.

Peter Fitzek, 59, was among those arrested in morning raids across seven states on Tuesday, which involved about 800 security personnel.

The government banned their group, the Reichsbürger, or “citizens of the Reich”, which seeks to establish the Königreich Deutschland, or “Kingdom of Germany”.

Alexander Dobrindt, German’s interior minister, accused the group of attempting to “undermine the rule of law” by creating an alternative state and spreading “antisemitic conspiracy narratives to back up their supposed claim to authority”.

His ministry announced the dissolution of the group, and accused it of financing itself through “economic criminal structures”.

Fitzek, a former chef and karate instructor, calls himself “king” and identified himself to judges as “Peter the First” in a previous court case.

He had himself crowned in 2012 while dressed in ermine robes and brandishing a medieval sword. Since then he has been buying land and property across Germany.

Reichsbürgers have their own currency, flag and ID cards, and want to set up separate banking and health systems.

Fitzek claims to have thousands of followers – or “subjects”.

In an interview with the BBC in 2022 he denied having any violent intentions, but also described the German state as “destructive and sick”.

“I have no interest in being part of this fascist and satanic system,” he told the BBC’s Jenny Hill, when she visited his “kingdom” in eastern Germany.

Fitzek has repeatedly clashed with the authorities and refused to abide by German laws, often in what appears to be in a publicity-seeking manner.

He has previously been jailed for repeatedly driving without a licence, following a decision to hand his back in a symbolic rejection of the law. At the end of one trial session, Fitzek was seen getting into his car in front of the court and driving off.

Fitzek is one of around 25,000 Reichsbürger in Germany. Numbers have been growing over the last few years.

Many are right-wing extremists who peddle racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They refuse to recognise the authority of security forces and many possess illegal arms, which has led to shoot-outs with police. Officials say that around 2,500 are potentially violent and that 1,350 are classed as right-wing extremists.

In 2022 dozens of people were arrested, many of them Reichsbürger, for plotting to overthrow the German government in Berlin. They were accused of planning a violent coup, which included kidnapping the health minister, to create “civil war conditions” to bring down German democracy.

In the past, Reichsbürger were often dismissed as eccentric cranks because of their outlandish ideas.

But as the far right has grown in strength politically in Germany over the last decade, officials now see them as a serious threat.

The federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe said Fitzek was arrested along with three other suspected ringleaders of the group, which it classified as a criminal organisation.

As the “so-called supreme sovereign”, Fitzek had “control and decision-making power in all key areas”, the office said.

“The ‘Kingdom of Germany’ considers itself a sovereign state within the meaning of international law and strives to extend its claimed ‘national territory’ to the borders of the German Empire of 1871,” it added in a statement.

As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power.

As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022.

But as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties.

And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past.

But not this time.

Only six of the 12 winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this is a poor result.

Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely.

The decision by the president’s allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos sent Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her.

The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election.

Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos’s.

But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps.

Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations.

While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president’s father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 – probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

In the president’s home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win.

Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country.

Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years.

The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment.

“Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion.

“So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions.”

In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president’s side.

Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity.

His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila’s international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president.

“They didn’t just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she told the cheering crowd.

Also on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat.

It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they call the winning senators.

What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won’t be easy.

This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year.

One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election.

But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president’s battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side.

No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly.

It is going to be a turbulent year.

President Donald Trump has slashed the tariff on small parcels sent from mainland China and Hong Kong to the US, just hours after the world’s two biggest economies said they would cut levies on each other’s goods for 90 days.

The new tariffs on small packages worth up to $800 (£606) have been cut from 120% to 54%, according to a White House statement.

The flat fee per parcel will remain at $100, while a $200 charge due to apply from 1 June has been cancelled.

Chinese online retail giants Shein and Temu had previously relied on the so-called “de minimis” exemption to ship low-value items directly to customers in the US without having to pay duties or import taxes.

Neither Shein or Temu immediately responded to BBC requests for comment.

The duty-free rule was closed by the Trump administration earlier this month.

Some shoppers told the BBC that they rushed through purchases ahead of that deadline.

The latest rates came after the US and China released a joint statement announcing they would temporarily reduce their tit-for-tat tariffs and start a new round of trade negotiations.

Share markets jumped on Monday after Trump said weekend talks had resulted in a “total reset” in trade terms between the two countries, a move that went some way to ease concerns about a trade war between the two countries.

Under the agreement, the US will lower those tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods will drop to 10% from 125%.

Trump told reporters, that, as some of the levies have been suspended rather than cancelled altogether, they might rise again in three months time, if no further progress was made.

But the president said he did not expect them to return to the previous 145% peak.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Trump said after the agreement was announced, adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

Trump added that he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week”.

A man who has served almost 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – had referred Mr Sullivan’s case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

Mr Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.

• Who is Peter Sullivan and why was he jailed?

Now aged 68, he is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.

The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

“The truth shall set you free.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said “no-one had won” and expressed sympathy for Miss Sindall’s family.

“They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back, and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again,” she said.

“It’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”

Both Merseyside Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the technology to test the semen samples did not exist at the time of the murder.

Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the CPS, had said the service agreed the DNA evidence undermined Mr Sullivan’s conviction and there would be no application to seek a retrial.

Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, quashed the conviction and said they had “no doubt that it is both necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to admit the new DNA evidence.

He said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

Lord Holroyde said injuries to the victim “plainly did point to a sexual aspect of the attack on Miss Sindall” and the “inference was very strong” that the semen had been left by the real killer.

He continued: “There is no evidence to suggest more than one man was involved in the murder, and no evidence to suggest semen may have deposited in the process of consensual sexual activity.”

The BBC understands Mr Sullivan left HMP Wakefield in a prison van shortly after 14:15 BST.

His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody.

About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Miss Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA.

The DNA profile was not a match for Miss Sindall’s fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.

Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said “unfortunately” searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.

The force said it “did not underestimate” the impact of the conviction on Mr Sullivan.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.

“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.

“We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor Diane’s fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene.”

Nick Price, director of legal services at the CPS, said: ”We recognise the enormous impact this conviction has had on Peter Sullivan’s life and the profound implications of the Court’s decision in respect of this conviction.

“The prosecution case was brought on the basis of all the evidence available to us at the time.”

He said after the new DNA evidence was presented to the service it concluded it “could not oppose” the appeal.

Miss Sindall, who worked as a florist but was also doing part-time bar work to save up for her wedding, was believed to have run out of petrol while driving home from her shift at the Wellington pub in Bebington, Wirral, shortly after midnight on 2 August 1986.

Detectives believed she was walking to an all-night garage or a bus-stop on Borough Road in Birkenhead when she was attacked and dragged into an alley.

She suffered repeated blows to the head which caused her death, and also had injuries including bite marks and lacerations.

The day after her killing her clothes were found burning on Bidston Hill.

Mr Sullivan became a suspect after witnesses reported seeing a man who they recognised as “Pete” running out of some bushes near the site of the fire.

During the course of the investigation Mr Sullivan gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts and offered “confessions”, the court heard.

However, his defence said he had learning difficulties and was “highly suggestible”.

He had also been interviewed without a solicitor or an appropriate adult.

At his original trial, the prosecution also relied on evidence matching bite marks on Miss Sindall’s body to Mr Sullivan’s dental impressions.

But the court heard forensic scientists now have expressed serious doubt as to the quality of bite mark evidence.

Mr Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.

He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.

Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.

Mr Sullivan’s defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.

Dominated by a fiery feud between two political dynasties, the Philippine mid-term elections have thrown up unexpected results that may shake President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s hold on the senate.

According to the latest count of 80% of the votes, Marcos allies appear to have captured fewer senate seats than expected.

Meanwhile his rival, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte who is detained in The Hague over his drug war that killed thousands, has been elected mayor of his family’s stronghold.

The fate of his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing an impeachment trial, remains in the balance.

The mid-terms held on Monday saw 18,000 seats contested, from local officials to governors and senators. It served as a proxy war between Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte, who were one-time allies.

The senate race, where 12 seats were up for grabs, was closely watched as it affects Sara Duterte’s trial, which she has called “political persecution”.

The popular vice-president, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, is facing the prospect of a ban from politics, should a jury made up of senators vote to impeach her.

Many people had expected Marcos Jr’s picks to win most of the 12 seats. But according to the latest count of 80% of the votes, only six from his camp appear to have won seats, and one of them has also been endorsed by the Dutertes.

In the top five ranking – a barometer of public popularity – only one Marcos-backed candidate, broadcaster Erwin Tulfo, made it.

Meanwhile, at the very top of the list is a Duterte loyalist – long-time aide Christopher “Bong” Go – while at number three is another Duterte ally, former police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

The Duterte camp appears to have won at least four seats. They include Marcos Jr’s older sister Imee, who recently bolted from her brother’s alliance to side with the Dutertes.

What complicates things is that it is still unclear how Marcos’ allies in the senate will move on Sara Duterte’s impeachment. Their loyalty can shift, as senators also balance their own interests and ambitions with their political allegiances.

Meanwhile, two people who are not affiliated with either camp appear to have also won senate seats.

They are Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, and an Aquino ally, Francis Pangilinan.

Bam Aquino, the cousin of a former president, has in fact clinched second place in the rankings, in what he called a “very, very surprising” result.

It marks the first time in years that voters had chosen outside the Marcos and Duterte dynasties.

The Aquino family was the Marcoses’ main political nemesis in the 1980s and early 1990s before the rise of the Dutertes.

It was the assassination of opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr in 1983 that galvanised protests against Ferdinand Marcos Sr – the current president’s father – culminating in the Marcos family’s ouster and exile in 1986.

Monday’s result signals their comeback after being wiped out of national politics in recent years.

Results so far also show the Dutertes have managed to retain their power base in the south of the country, just two months after the 80-year-old populist leader Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila Airport and flown to the Netherlands on the same day to face the International Criminal Court.

It was his arrest – approved by Marcos Jr – which pushed the rivalry between his daughter and the current president to boiling point, a few weeks after the president’s allies in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice-President Duterte.

Rodrigo Duterte was always expected to win as mayor, given the family has held the post since the mid-1980s.

Duterte himself led Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for two decades before he was elected president in 2016. There, he showcased his drug war that he credited for the city’s success, and won him the support of millions far beyond its borders.

His youngest son, Sebastian, the incumbent mayor, was elected vice-mayor, meaning he can discharge his father’s duties in his absence. Another Duterte son, Paolo, was re-elected as congressman. His grandchildren won local posts.

Duterte’s name remained on the ballot as he has not been convicted of any crime. He beat the scion of a smaller rival political family.

Maintaining a political base in Davao city in the south is crucial for the Dutertes – it is where they get the most voter support.

The election was not just a battle between the two families, however.

Monday’s vote saw long queues under temperatures of 33C (91F) and sporadic reports of violence and vote machines malfunctioning.

Like past elections, song-and-dance, showbusiness-style campaigns played out on stage and on social media, underscoring the country’s personality and celebrity politics that sometimes overshadow more pressing issues such as corruption, high cost of living and creaking infrastructure.

A vandal has daubed an image of a penis on a wall at a centuries-old Peruvian city recognised by Unesco as a World Heritage Site.

The man was filmed while spraying the graffiti on one of the original walls of Chan Chan, a pre-Columbian city 500km (300 miles) north of Lima that is visited by thousands of people a month.

Peru’s ministry of culture said the culprit showed “a grave disrespect toward our history and cultural heritage, as well as a violation of the regulations that protect archaeological heritage sites”.

Some Peruvians questioned how he was able to damage the wall unchallenged, while others said they were disappointed that the site was not better protected.

The video of the incident was widely shared on social media. The culprit could face up to six years in prison if caught.

Chan Chan was the capital of the Chimú kingdom before it fell to the Incas in the 15th century and it remains one of Peru’s most important archaeological sites.

Unesco describes it as the largest city in pre-Columbian America, stretching for miles and divided into several “citadels” by thick walls.

The spray paint attack comes just months after a man chipped the 12-Angle Stone, a famous Incan artefact in the city of Cusco.

French film star Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in Paris and given a suspended jail term of 18 months.

The 76-year-old actor was accused by the two women of groping them during work on a film in 2021. Depardieu had denied the allegations against him and his lawyer said he would appeal.

A court in Paris found that one of the women, a set dresser named Amélie, had given consistent evidence while the actor’s accounts had changed over time.

She told reporters afterwards she was “very moved” and satisfied with the verdict, which for her was “a victory, a major step forward”.

Depardieu was also convicted of assaulting an assistant director called Sarah, which was not her real name.

The actor was not in court to hear the verdict but was instead working on a film set in the Azores.

Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, the lawyer acting for the two women, said she hoped the verdict marked the end of impunity for an artist in the film industry.

“It’s a victory for two women on a film set but it’s a victory for all the women behind this case and I’m thinking of all of Depardieu’s other victims,” she told reporters.

The lawyer also noted the case had come to an end hours before the Cannes film festival was due to start.

The judge said there was no reason to doubt the word of the two women victims, who had told the court how Depardieu had touched them on intimate parts of the body, using lewd language.

He placed Depardieu on a list of sex offenders and ordered him to pay compensation of €1,000 (£840) each to Amélie and Sarah for “secondary victimisation”, a recent innovation covering the additional suffering for the women from the trial itself.

Depardieu’s lawyer Jérémie Assous had accused the women of lying during their evidence.

The assaults took place in September 2021 when Depardieu was making a film called Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) about an ageing actor coming to terms with his declining powers.

This was Depardieu’s first trial on sexual assault charges. Several other women have made similar allegations in the media, and an alleged rape case could come to trial in the future.

After the trial, the actor was invited to join his close friend and fellow actor Fanny Ardant for a film-shoot in the Azores.

At the end of the trial in Paris in late March, prosecutor Laurent Guy said: “It’s perfectly possible to be an excellent actor and a great father – and still commit a crime.

“You are not here to pass judgment on French cinema. You are here to judge Gérard Depardieu, just as you would any other citizen.”

Claude Vincent, representing one of the two women plaintiffs, described Depardieu as a “misogynist” and a “case-study in sexism”.

Depardieu’s lawyer had demanded an acquittal and called the plaintiffs’ team “more militants than lawyers”.

“They cannot bear that there should even be a defence. They think any defence is a supplementary assault,” he told the court.

The first plaintiff – 54-year-old set decorator Amélie – told the court that after a minor argument with Depardieu, he caught her between his legs and held her by the hips.

The second woman – a 34-year-old assistant film director – said the actor had touched her buttocks and breasts through her clothes on three separate occasions. She chose to maintain her anonymity and was not in court to hear the verdict.

Depardieu denied the allegations, saying only that he might have touched the women accidentally or to keep his balance.

At the end of the hearings, Depardieu said: “My name has been dragged through the mud by lies and insults.

“A trial can be a very special experience for an actor. Seeing all this anger, the police, the press. It’s like being in a science fiction film, except it’s not science fiction. It’s life.”

He thanked the prosecution and defence teams for giving him insights into how courts operate. “These lessons may be an inspiration for me one day if I get to play a lawyer,” he said.

Depardieu said he had not worked as an actor for three years since the sexual allegations against him began to circulate.

However earlier this month it was reported that he had begun working on a film directed by Fanny Ardant. Depardieu is playing a magician on a mysterious island, according to media reports.

Ardant appeared with Depardieu in Les Volets Verts and spoke in his defence at the trial.

“Genius – in whatever form it takes – carries within it an element of the extravagant, the untamed, the dangerous. (Depardieu) is the monster and the saint,” she said.

Another veteran French actress took Depardieu’s side on Monday. In a rare interview with French television, Brigitte Bardot, 90, deplored how “talented people who touch the buttocks of a girl are consigned to the deepest dungeon.”

“Feminism isn’t my thing,” Bardot said. “Personally, I like men.”

For decades, if there’s one thing that’s been a taboo in the Indian foreign ministry, it is third-party mediation – particularly in the long-running dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.

Those in the know, then, are not surprised that US President Donald Trump – known for his unorthodox diplomacy – has touched a raw nerve in Delhi.

On Saturday, he took to social media to announce that India and Pakistan – after four tense days of cross-border clashes – had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”, brokered by the US.

Later, in another post he said: “I will work with you both to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at, concerning Kashmir.”

The Kashmir dispute dates back to 1947, when India got independence from British rule and was partitioned to create Pakistan. Both neighbours claim the Kashmir region in whole, but administer it only in part.

Several rounds of bilateral talks over the decades have not yielded any resolution. India treats Kashmir as an integral part of its territory and rules out any negotiation, particularly through a third party.

The latest flare-up began after India carried out air strikes on what it called terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, killing 26 people, mainly tourists.

India blames Pakistan of involvement in the incident, a charge denied by Islamabad.

Trump’s intervention came as fighting between the two nuclear-armed rivals was threatening to spiral into a full-blown conflict.

The two sides were using fighter jets, missiles and drones and said they were targeting each other’s military installations, mainly in the border areas.

While US mediators, alongside diplomatic backchannels, prevented a bigger conflagration, President Trump’s offer has put Delhi in a spot.

“Obviously, it would not be welcome by the Indian side. It goes against our stated position for many years,” Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, tells the BBC.

Islamabad, on the other hand, has welcomed Trump’s comments.

“We also appreciate President Trump’s expressed willingness to support efforts aimed at the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute – a longstanding issue that has serious implications for peace and security in South Asia and beyond,” a foreign ministry statement said..

Delhi’s position on Kashmir has hardened, especially after it withdrew the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, triggering widespread protests in Kashmir.

President Trump’s recent comments have irked many Indians, who see this as an attempt to “internationalise” the Kashmir dispute.

The main opposition Congress party wanted an explanation from the government and an all-party meeting on the “ceasefire announcements made from Washington DC first”.

“Have we opened the doors to third-party mediation? The Indian National Congress would like to ask if diplomatic channels between India and Pakistan are being reopened,” said the Congress party spokesman Jairam Ramesh.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement announcing the ceasefire also said that the two countries have also agreed “to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”. This has caught the Indians by surprise.

Delhi has refused to hold discussions with Islamabad, accusing its neighbour of supporting what it calls cross-border terrorism.

Historically, India has opposed any third-party mediation, quoting an agreement signed in 1972 after a war between the two countries a year earlier. As per the Simla agreement signed by the country’s leaders, they “resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations”.

Indian officials also argue that even when they reach an understanding with a civilian government in Pakistan, the country’s powerful military launched operations undermining those deals. They point to the Kargil war in 1999, when another conflict between the two countries began after a group of Pakistan-backed militants occupied strategic areas in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The conflict took place months after the then Indian and Pakistani prime ministers agreed to resolve issues through bilateral negotiations and refrain from interfering in each other’s internal matters.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not formally responded to President Trump’s offer to mediate.

But Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said: “India has consistently maintained a firm and uncompromising stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It will continue to do so.”

It is being seen as an indication that India may not be restarting direct bilateral talks soon.

The view from Pakistan is different.

“Pakistan has always wanted third-party mediation in the Kashmir issue in the absence of mutual trust between the two countries,” Imtiaz Gul, the executive director of Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, tells the BBC.

“Now a superpower is willing to stick its neck out. Pakistan will see this as a moral victory,” Mr Gul says.

Pakistani strategic experts like Syed Muhammad Ali argue it is because of India’s consistent refusal to engage with Pakistan that the international community should step in to avoid any future conflict.

“Kashmir is one of the most critical issues for the international community. The recent rapid escalation proves that the sabre-rattling can go out of hand,” Mr Ali says.

India’s assertive diplomacy, particularly since Modi took over in 2014, has been seen as a sign of its confidence as a rising global economic power.

But it will have to pull off a tough balancing act, to stave off Trump’s advances.

The US has courted India in recent years as a bulwark against an increasingly assertive China. India is a key member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue group (Quad), along with the US, Australia and Japan, that was formed to counter Chinese expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.

In recent decades, Washington has also sold modern transport planes, helicopters and other military equipment to Delhi, which is keen to modernise its 1.4 million strong military, that relies heavily on Russian weaponry.

The previous American administrations were aware of India’s sensitivities towards the Kashmir issue and largely stayed away from interfering with it. But with Trump, there’s a question mark over whether that position still holds.

The US is the largest trading partner of India with bilateral trade reaching about $130bn (£98bn) in 2024. Modi’s government is currently negotiating a trade deal with Washington to avoid tariffs.

Delhi will have to walk a fine line. It will be averse to taking up Trump’s offer to mediate, or see the US-brokered ceasefire, or “understanding” as it calls it, going beyond the current military tensions. But it’s also keen to have a favourable trading relationship with the US.

Any attempt to broaden the talks – on contentious bilateral issues like the now suspended river water-sharing treaty or the status of Kashmir – will invite strong criticism at the domestic level, a trap that Modi is well aware of.

Days after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, questions remain over what lies ahead for the two South Asian neighbours.

Early on 7 May, India launched air strikes into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir (Islamabad has denied involvement in the attack).

What followed were four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions between the two nuclear-armed countries, until the surprise ceasefire announcement on Saturday.

But – even accounting for the usually tense relationship between India and Pakistan – things are nowhere close to normal yet.

The fragile ceasefire, now in its fourth day, is still holding as life slowly begins to return to normal in towns along the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, days before launching the military operation, India had announced a flurry of diplomatic measures against Pakistan, including suspending a key water-sharing treaty, halting most visas and stopping all trade.

In response, Islamabad announced its own set of tit-for-tat actions, including the suspension of visas for Indians, a trade ban and the closure of its airspace to Indian flights.

None of these punitive measures have been reversed by both countries so far. Here’s where things currently stand between the two neighbours in terms of the measures announced since the Pahalgam attack:

On Monday, in his first public comments on the strike, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India’s stand is absolutely clear – terror and talks cannot go hand in hand.”

“Water and blood cannot flow together,” he added.

His comments align with media reports citing sources that say that the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), remains suspended.

The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries.

The IWT has survived two wars between the countries and was held up as an example of trans-boundary water management, until the suspension late last month.

• READ: Can India really stop river water from flowing into Pakistan?

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had earlier said that he believed the water issue with India would be resolved through peaceful negotiations.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty marks a significant diplomatic shift. Pakistan depends heavily on these rivers for agriculture and civilian water supply.

“Water cannot be weaponised,” Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters news agency on Monday, adding that “unilateral withdrawal has no legal basis”.

But experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes. However, if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season.

Soon after India suspended the IWT, Pakistan threatened to suspend a 1972 peace treaty called the Simla Agreement, which established the Line of Control, or de facto border between the countries. It hasn’t suspended this so far.

India scaled down its diplomatic relations with Pakistan as part of its retaliatory measures.

It expelled all Pakistani defence attachés, declaring them “persona non grata” (unwelcome) and announced it would withdraw its own defence advisers from its high commission in Islamabad.

Pakistan responded with similar steps. Both countries reduced the staff at their respective high commissions.

Both India and Pakistan also suspended almost all visas given to people from the other country.

As part of their retaliatory measures, both India and Pakistan shut down the Attari-Wagah border, the only land crossing between the two countries.

The border, which is heavily guarded and requires special permits to cross, has long been used by people visiting family members, attending weddings or reconnecting with loved ones across the border.

Both countries initially gave their citizens nearly a week to return, but the deadline was later extended.

For days, emotional scenes unfolded at the border, as families were separated, with some people staying behind.

• ‘What is our fault?’: Families separated at India-Pakistan border

After the 7 May strikes, India also announced that it would be closing entry from its side to the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, which allows Indian pilgrims to visit one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines in Pakistan without a visa.

Almost 200,000 Indians visited the Kartarpur shrine between 2021 and 2023, Indian officials said last year. The latest figures have not yet been released.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters last week that the suspension would remain in place until further notice.

As part of its retaliatory measures, Pakistan also announced the closure of its airspace to all Indian flights.

In the following days, India responded with similar restrictions, closing its airspace to all Pakistani flights, both military and commercial.

International flights are now being forced to take longer, costlier detours, increasing both travel time and fuel expenses.

The two countries have also suspended all direct and indirect trade.

Experts say the impact on India would be minimal because it does not import much from Pakistan. However, it creates bigger problems for Pakistan.

Already struggling with high inflation and a weak economy, Pakistan could face more pressure as it loses access to trade routes and crucial goods from India, such as raw materials and medicines.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has been dealt an unexpected blow in the midterms, with his Senate candidates set to pick up fewer seats than expected, according to early results.

The election was a showdown between Marcos and his Vice-President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The pair, who represent the country’s most powerful families, won the 2022 election together – but their alliance has since collapsed.

Monday’s election, which included multiple races from the council to the Congress, was an important test for 67-year-old Marcos, the son of an ousted dictator who rebranded his father’s reign to make a comeback in the 2022 election.

Born in 1957 to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, Bongbong was just eight years old when his father became president. He was the second of three children, and the only son. The couple later adopted another girl.

Bongbong’s father, a former lawyer, served in the Congress and Senate, while his mother was a singer and former beauty pageant winner. Both would achieve notoriety – as the family amassed enormous wealth under a brutal regime, they became synonymous with excess and corruption.

During his first term between 1965 and 1969, Ferdinand Marcos Sr was fairly popular, and was re-elected by a landslide. But in 1972, a year before his second term was due to end, he declared martial law.

What followed was more than a decade of dictatorship, during which the country’s foreign debt grew, prices soared and ordinary Filipinos struggled to make ends meet. It was also a period of repression as opposition figures and critics were jailed, disappeared or killed.

Through it all, Marcos Sr was grooming his son for leadership.

Bongbong’s childhood bedroom in llocos Norte, the family’s stronghold in the north, which is now a museum, has a portrait of him wearing a golden crown and riding a white stallion.

But the elder Marcos was also worried about whether his son would step up to the role. A diary entry from 1972 read: “Bongbong is our principal worry. He is too carefree and lazy”.

Marcos enrolled in Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics, but it was later revealed that he did not graduate with a bachelor’s degree as he claimed.

Oxford said in 2021 that he was awarded a special diploma in social studies in 1978. That too, local media reports alleged, was the result of lobbying by Philippine diplomats in the UK after Marcos Jr failed his exams.

He returned home and joined politics, becoming the vice-governor and then governor of Ilocos Norte.

But the political career his parents had envisioned for him would be cut short by a revolution in 1986.

An economic crisis had already triggered unrest – but the assassination of a prominent opposition leader brought tens of thousands onto the streets.

A sustained campaign eventually convinced a significant faction of the army to withdraw its support for the Marcos regime, and hastened its downfall.

The family fled to Hawaii with whatever valuables they could bring, but left behind enough proof of the lavish lives they had led.

Protesters who stormed the presidential palace found fanciful oil portraits of the family, a jacuzzi with gold-plated fixtures and the now-infamous 3,000 pairs of designer shoes owned by Imelda Marcos.

The family is accused of plundering an estimated $10bn of public money while in power. By the time Marcos Sr died in exile in 1989, his was a tarnished name.

And yet, some three decades later, his son was able to whitewash that past enough to win the presidential election.

After they returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, Marcos became a provincial governor, congressman and senator, before running – and winning – the presidential race in 2022.

Social media was a big part of this rebranding, winning Marcos new supporters – especially among the younger generation in a country where the median age is around 25.

On Facebook, the Marcos family legacy has been rewritten, with propaganda posts claiming that Marcos Sr’s regime was actually a “golden period” for the country.

On TikTok, a martial law anthem from the Marcos Sr era became the soundtrack to a cute challenge for Gen Z users, who would record older family members marching to the beat.

As his popularity grew, Marcos launched his presidential bid with Sara Duterte running for vice-president. She vowed to work with Bongbong to unify the country and make it “rise again”.

They called themselves the “uniTeam”, and combined the two families’ powerful bases: the Dutertes in the south, and the Marcos’s in the north.

It paid off. Marcos won with a thumping 31 million votes, more than double the total of his closest rival.

“Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos said as victory became apparent, vowing to “be a president for all Filipinos”.

Three years into his presidency, Marcos has brought Manila closer to the US and increasingly confronted an assertive China in the South China Sea – a key departure from Duterte’s presidency.

That wasn’t the only thing that caused a crack in his alliance with Sara Duterte, which eventually descended into a public spat.

He gave her the Education portfolio, when she had openly sought the more powerful Defence portfolio. His allies in Congress then initiated impeachment proceedings against her over alleged misuse of state funds.

And Marcos cleared the way for her father to be arrested and taken to the Hague for his role in a deadly war on drugs that killed thousands.

Marcos, experts say, took a big risk by picking a fight with the Dutertes – for it to pay off, control of the senate was crucial.

But the midterm results complicate his chances – and his political future.

China’s defiance as it faced down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs has been a defining image of this trade war.

It has prompted viral memes of Trump waiting for the Chinese leader to call.

“We will not back down,” has been an almost daily message from Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the tariffs and the rhetoric from Washington escalated, China dug its heels in.

Even as Chinese officials headed to Switzerland for talks, a state-run social media account published a cartoon of the US Treasury secretary pushing an empty shopping trolley.

There were even conflicting versions of who initiated the talks in Geneva.

But after two days of “robust” talks, the situation appears to have changed.

So, is this a major turning point for Washington and Beijing? The answer is yes and no.

• Faisal Islam: US and China step back from beyond brink
• ‘We don’t care’: A defiant China looks beyond Trump’s America

“The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling,” said US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a press conference in Geneva.

“And what had occurred with these very high tariffs… was the equivalent of an embargo, and neither side wants that. We do want trade.”

Economists admit that this agreement is better than expected.

“I thought tariffs would be cut to somewhere around 50%,” Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management in Hong Kong, told Reuters news agency.

But in fact, US tariffs on Chinese imports will now fall to 30%, while Chinese tariffs on US goods will drop to 10%.

“Obviously, this is very positive news for economies in both countries and for the global economy, and makes investors much less concerned about the damage to global supply chains in the short term,” he added.

Trump hailed the progress on Sunday on his Truth Social site: “Many things discussed, much agreed to. A total reset negotiated in a friendly, but constructive, manner.”

Beijing has also softened its tone considerably– and perhaps for good reason.

China can take the pain of an economic war with America – to an extent. It is the lead trade partner for more than 100 other countries.

But officials have become increasingly concerned about the impact the tariffs could have on an economy that is already struggling to deal with a property crisis, stubbornly high youth unemployment and low consumer confidence.

Factory output has slowed and there are reports that some companies are having to lay off workers as production lines of US-bound goods grind to a halt, bringing trade to a standstill.

Data on Saturday showed China’s consumer price index dropped 0.1 percent in April, the third month in a row of decline as consumers hold back from spending and businesses drop prices to compete for customers.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the agreement reached with the US was an important step to “resolve differences” and “lay the foundation to bridge differences and deepen cooperation”.

Such a positive statement from Beijing would have seemed inconceivable just a month ago.

The two sides have also agreed to more talks, or an “economic and trade consultation mechanism”, as Beijing puts it.

But Trump’s characterisation of a “total reset” in relations may be overly optimistic as there is a slight sting in the tail in Beijing’s statement.

The Commerce Ministry ended with a reminder of who it sees as being in the wrong.

“We hope that the US will continue to work with China to meet each other halfway based on this meeting, thoroughly correct the wrong practice of unilateral tariff increases,” said the spokesperson.

Chinese state media also had a warning for Washington. Xinhua News Agency’s commentary claimed China’s “goodwill and patience has its limits, and it will never be used on those who repress and blackmail us without pause or have no qualms about going back on their word”.

Leaders in Beijing will want to portray an image of strength both to its own people and to the international community. They will want to appear as if they have not budged an inch. The message from China is that it is being responsible and rational and doing what it can to avoid a global recession.

• Xi’s real test is not Trump’s trade war

“This is a victory for conscience and rationality,” said Zhang Yun from the School of International Relations at Nanjing University.

“The talks also established the necessary framework for continued dialogue and negotiations in the future.”

This “victory” is only for 90 days. The tariffs are only paused temporarily to allow for negotiations.

It will allow some trade to flow, and it will soothe worried markets.

But the root of the problem still exists. China still sells far more to the United States than it buys. And there are other, far thornier differences to unpick, from Chinese government subsidies, to key industries, to geopolitical tensions in the Taiwan Strait and beyond.

The fight for a more balanced trade relationship is far from over – it has simply moved.

The frontline has shifted from China’s factory floors and American supermarkets to negotiating tables in both Beijing and Washington.

Listen to Theo read this article

“What you have there is about £250,000 worth of gold,” Emma Siebenborn says as she shows me a faded plastic tub filled with old, shabby jewellery – rings, charm bracelets, necklaces and orphaned earrings.

Emma is the strategies director of Hatton Garden Metals, a family-run gold dealership in London’s Hatton Garden jewellery district, and this unprepossessing tub of bric-a-brac is a small sample of what they buy over the counter each day. It is, in effect, gold scrap, which will be melted down and recycled.

Also on the table, rather more elegantly presented in a suede-lined tray, is a selection of gold coins and bars. The largest bar is about the size and thickness of a mobile phone. It weighs a hefty 1kg, and it’s worth about £80,000.

The coins include biscuit-sized Britannias, each containing precisely one ounce of 24 carat bullion, as well as smaller Sovereigns. These are all available to buy – and the recent surge in gold prices has led to a surge in demand.

Zoe Lyons, who is Emma’s sister and the managing director, has never seen anything like it – often she finds would-be sellers queuing in the street. “There’s excitement and buzz in the market but also nervousness and trepidation,” she tells me.

“There’s anxiety about which way the market is going to go next, and when you get those emotions, ultimately it creates quite big trades.”

At MNR jewellers a couple of streets away, a salesman agrees: “Demand for gold has increased, definitely,” he says.

Gold is certainly on a roll. Its price has increased by more than 40% over the past year. In late April it rose above $3,500 (£2,630) per troy ounce (a measurement for precious metals). This marked an all-time record, even allowing for inflation, exceeding the previous peak reached in January 1980. Back then the dollar price was $850, or $3,493 in today’s money.

Economists have attributed this to a variety of factors. Principal among them has been the unpredictable changes in US trade policy, introduced by the Trump administration, the effects of which have shaken the markets. Gold, by contrast, is seen by many as a solid investment. Fears about geopolitical uncertainty have only added to its allure. Many investors have come to appreciate the relative stability offered by a commodity once dismissed by the billionaire Warren Buffett as “lifeless” and “neither of much use nor procreative”.

“It’s the kind of conditions that we consider a bit of a perfect storm for gold,” explains Louise Street, senior markets analyst at the World Gold Council, a trade association funded by the mining industry.

“It’s the focus on potential inflationary pressures. Recessionary risks are rising, you’ve seen the IMF [International Monetary Fund] downgrading economic forecasts very recently…”

But what goes up can also come down. While gold has a reputation as a stable asset, it is not immune to price fluctuations. In fact, in the past, major surges in the price have been followed by significant falls.

So what is the risk this could happen again, leaving many of today’s eager investors nursing big losses?

Helped by its relative rarity, gold has been seen as an intrinsic store of value for centuries. The global supply is limited. Only around 216,265 tonnes have ever been mined, according to the World Gold Council, (the total is currently increasing by about 3,500 tonnes per year). This means that it is widely perceived as a “safe haven” asset that will retain its value.

As an investment, however, it has both advantages and disadvantages.

Unlike shares, it will never pay a dividend. Unlike bonds, it will not provide a steady, predictable income, and its industrial applications are relatively limited.

The draw, however, is that it is a physical product that exists outside of the banking system. It is also used as an insurance policy against inflation: while currencies tend to lose value over time, gold does not.

“Gold can’t be printed by central banks, and it can’t be conjured out of thin air,” says Russ Mould, investment director at stockbroker AJ Bell. “In recent times, a big policy response from authorities when there’s been a crisis has been: slash interest rates, boost money supply, quantitative easing, print money. Gold is seen as a haven from that, and therefore a store of value.”

There has recently been a significant rise in demand for gold from so-called Exchange Traded Funds, investment vehicles that hold an asset such as gold themselves, while investors can buy and sell shares in the fund.

They are popular with large institutional investors – and their actions have helped to push up the price.

When gold hit its previous record in January 1980, the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. Oil prices were surging, driving up inflation in developed economies, and investors were looking to protect their wealth. The price also rose sharply in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, leading to another peak in 2011.

The recent increases appear to owe a great deal to the way markets have responded to the confusion triggered by the Trump administration.

The most recent surge came after US President Donald Trump launched an online attack on Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve. Calling for immediate interest rate cuts, he described Mr Powell as a “major loser” for failing to reduce the cost of borrowing quickly enough.

His comments were interpreted by some as an attack on the independence of the US central bank. Share markets fell, as did the value of the dollar compared to other major currencies – and gold hit its most recent record.

But gold’s recent strength is not wholly explained by the Trump factor.

The price has been on a steep upward curve since late 2022, partly, according to Louise Street, because of central banks. “[They] have been net buyers of gold, to add to their official reserves, for the past 15 years,” she explains. “But we saw that really accelerate in the past three years.”

Central banks have collectively bought more than 1,000 tonnes of gold each year since 2022, up from an average of 481 tonnes a year between 2010 and 2021. Poland, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan and China were among the leading buyers last year.

Analysts say central banks may themselves have been trying to build up buffers at a time of growing economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

According to Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities research at Goldman Sachs: “In 2022 the reserves of the Russian Central Bank got frozen in the context of the invasion of Ukraine, and reserve managers of global central banks around the world realised, ‘Maybe my reserves aren’t safe either, what if I buy gold and hold it in my own vaults?’

“And so we have seen this big structural fivefold increase in demand for gold from central banks”.

Simon French, chief economist and head of research at investment firm Panmure Liberum also believes that independence from dollar-based banking systems has been a major driver for central banks. “I would look at China, but also Russia, their central bank is a big buyer of gold, also Turkey.

“There are a number of countries who fear weaponisation of the dollar system and potentially the Euro system,” he says.

“If they are not aligning themselves with the US or the Western view, on diplomatic grounds, on military grounds… having an asset in their central bank that is not controlled by their military or political foes is quite an attractive feature.”

Another factor may now be helping to drive the gold market upwards: FOMO, or fear of missing out. With new all-time records being set, it has filtered through into everyday conversation in some quarters.

Zoe Lyons believes that this is the case in Hatton Garden. “[People] want a piece of the golden pie,” she says, “and they’re willing to do that through buying physical gold.”

The big question, though, is what happens next. Some experts believe the upward trend will continue, fuelled by unpredictable US policy, inflationary pressures and central bank buying. Indeed Goldman Sachs has forecast gold will reach $3,700/oz (£2,800/oz) by the end of 2025 and $4,000 (£3,000) by mid 2026.

But it adds that in the event of a recession in the US or an escalation of the trade war it could even hit $4,500 (£3,400) later this year.

“The US stock market is 200 times bigger than the gold market, so even a small move out of the big stock market or the big bond market would mean a big percent increase in the much smaller gold market,” explains Daan Struyven.

In other words, it wouldn’t take a huge amount of turbulence in major investment markets to drive gold upwards.

Yet others are concerned that the price of gold has risen so far, so fast that a market bubble is forming – and bubbles can burst.

Back in 1980, for example, the dramatic spike in the gold price was followed by an equally remarkable correction, dropping from $850 (£640) in late January to just $485 (£365) in early April. By mid-June the following year, it stood at just $297 (£224) – a decline of 65% from its peak.

The peak in 2011, meanwhile, was followed by a sharp dip, then a period of volatility. Within four months it had dropped by 18%. After plateauing for a while, it continued to fall, reaching a low point in mid-2013 that was 35% down from its highest.

The question that remains is, could something similar happen now?

Some analysts do think prices will ultimately fall significantly. Jon Mills, an industry expert at Morningstar, made headlines in March when he suggested the cost of an ounce of gold could drop to just $1,820 over the next few years.

His view was that as mining firms increased their production and more recycled gold entered the market, the supply would increase. At the same time central banks would ease off their buying spree, while other short-term pressures stimulating demand would subside, bringing prices down.

Those forecasts have since been revised upwards slightly, largely because of increased mining costs.

Daan Struyven disagrees. He believes there could be a short-term dip, but prices will generally continue to rise. “If we were to get a Ukraine peace deal, or a rapid trade de-escalation, I think hedge funds would be willing to take some of their money out of gold and put it into risky assets, such as the stock market…

“So you could see temporary dips. But we are quite confident that in this highly uncertain geopolitical setup, where central banks want safer reserve holdings, that they will continue to push demand higher over the medium term.”

Russ Mould believes there will, at the very least, be a lull in the upwards trend. “Given that it has had such a stunning run, it would be logical to expect it to have a pause for breath at some stage,” he says.

But he believes that if there is a sharp economic slowdown and interest rates are slashed, the gold price could go higher in the long run.

One problem for investors is working out whether the recent record price for gold was simply a staging point in a continued upward climb – to more than $4,000 for example – or the peak.

Simon French at Panmure Liberum believes the peak may now be very close, and people piling into the market now in the hope of making big money are likely to be disappointed. Others have warned that those recently lured into buying gold by hype and headlines could lose out if the market goes into reverse.

“Short-term speculating can backfire, even though there will be a temptation to hang on to the coat-tails of the record run upwards,” is how Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, has put it.

“Investors considering investing in gold should do so as part of a diversified portfolio – they shouldn’t put all their eggs in a golden basket.”

I grew up in Nepal’s capital watching the Himalayas. Ever since I left, I’ve missed sweeping, panoramic views of some of the highest mountain peaks on Earth.

Each time I visit Kathmandu, I hope to catch a glimpse of the dramatic mountain range. But these days, there’s usually no luck.

The main culprit is severe air pollution that hangs as haze above the region.

And it’s happening even during the spring and autumn months, which once offered clear skies.

Just last April, the international flight I was in had to circle in the sky nearly 20 times before landing in Kathmandu, because of the hazy weather impacting visibility at the airport.

The hotel I checked in at was at a reasonable height from which mountains are visible on a clear day – but there was no such day during my two-week stay.

Even from the major vantage point of Nagarkot, just outside Kathmandu, all that could be seen was haze, as if the mountains did not exist.

“I no longer brand the place for views of ‘sunrise, sunset and Himalayas’ as I did in the past,” said Yogendra Shakya, who has been operating a hotel at Nagarkot since 1996.

“Since you can’t have those things mostly now because of the haze, I have rebranded it with history and culture as there are those tourism products as well here.”

During an earlier trip a year ago, I was hopeful I would be able to see the mighty Himalayan peaks on a trek in the mesmerising Annapurna region – but had hardly any luck there either.

Scientists say hazy conditions in the region are becoming increasingly intense and lasting longer, reducing visibility significantly.

Haze is formed by a combination of pollutants like dust and smoke particles from fires, reducing visibility to less than 5,000m (16,400ft). It remains stagnant in the sky during the dry season – which now lasts longer due to climate change.

June to September is the region’s rainy season, when Monsoon clouds rather than haze keep the mountains covered and visibility low.

Traditionally, March to May and October to November were the best times for business because that was when skies remained clear and visibility was best.

But with rising temperatures and a lack of rain, and worsening air pollution, the spring months are now seeing thick haze with low visibility. Those conditions are beginning as early as December.

Lucky Chhetri, a pioneering female trekking guide in Nepal, said hazy conditions had led to a 40% decrease in business.

“In one case last year, we had to compensate a group of trekkers as our guides could not show them the Himalayas due to the hazy conditions,” she added

An Australian tourist who has visited Nepal more than a dozen times since 1986 described not seeing the mountains as a “major let-down”.

“It wasn’t like this 10 years ago but now the haze seems to have taken over and it is extraordinarily disappointing for visitors like me,” said John Carrol.

Krishna Acharya, the provincial chair of the Trekking Agents Association of Nepal in the western Gandaki province, says the trekking industry is in deep trouble.

“Our member trekking operators are getting depressed because no sighting of the Himalayas means no business. Many of them are even considering changing professions,” he told the BBC.

On the Indian side, near the central Himalayas, hoteliers and tour operators say haze is now denser and returns quicker than before.

“We have long dry spells and then a heavy downpour, unlike in the past. So with infrequent rain the haze persists for much longer,” said Malika Virdi, who heads a community-run tourism business in the state of Uttarakhand.

However, Ms Virdi says tourists are persistent – with many who didn’t catch the mountain range returning to try their luck again.

The western Himalayas in Pakistan have been relatively less affected by the haze because the mountains are relatively far from cities.

But locals say that even the ranges that were once easily visible from places like Peshawar and Gilgit are often no longer seen.

“The sheet of haze remains hanging for a longer period and we don’t see the mountains that we could in the past,” said Asif Shuja, the former head of Pakistan’s environmental protection agency.

South Asian cities regularly top lists of places with highest levels of air pollution in the world.

Public health across the region has been badly impacted by the toxic air, which frequently causes travel disruption and school closures.

Vehicular and industrial emissions, dust from infrastructure construction and dry gravel roads as well as the open burning of waste are major sources of air pollution year-round.

This is compounded by soot from massive forest fires – which are increasing due to a longer dry season – and the burning of crop residues after the harvest by farmers in northern India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Weather conditions keeping warmer air above cooler air trap these pollutants and limit vertical air movement – preventing pollution from dispersing.

“Hazes and dust storms are increasing in South Asia, and this trend is projected to continue due to climate change and other factors,” Dr Someshwor Das from the South Asia Meteorological Association told the BBC.

In 2024, the number of hazy days recorded at the airport in Pokhara, a major tourism hub in western Nepal, was 168 – up from 23 in 2020 and 84 in 2021, according to Nepal’s department of hydrology and meteorology.

Experts believe the Himalayas are probably the worst affected mountain range in the world given their location in a populous and polluted region.

This could mean the scintillating view of the Himalayas could now largely be limited to photographs, paintings and postcards.

“We are left to do business with guilt when we are unable to show our clients the mountains that they pay us for,” said trekking leader Ms Chhetri.

“And there is nothing we can do about the haze.”

Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines you need to start the day. Sign up here.

Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence and Tom Cruise are among the Hollywood stars who are expected to hit the red carpet at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which starts on Tuesday.

Cannes is one of the most prestigious festivals in the film calendar, and gives premieres to productions that often go on to earn awards and acclaim.

Here are five things to keep a critical eye out for on the French Riviera.

In recent years, Cannes has re-established itself as the main launchpad for award contenders.

Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May before going on to win best picture at the this year’s Oscars. Four of the last five Palme d’Or winners have been nominated for best picture.

This year’s jury is led by French screen star Juliette Binoche and includes fellow actors Halle Berry and Jeremy Strong.

Contenders for the Palme d’Or this year include Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel Die My Love, which stars Lawrence and Robert Pattinson.

English actor Josh O’Connor – known for portraying a tennis player in Challengers and Prince Charles in The Crown – stars in two films in competition, including The History of Sound opposite Paul Mescal, and The Mastermind, playing an amateur art thief.

Wes Anderson’s new film The Phoenician Scheme has the most star-studded line-up at Cannes this year, with Johansson, Benicio Del Toro, Tom Hanks and Benedict Cumberbatch all featuring, as well as Riz Ahmed, Bryan Cranston and Richard Ayoade.

Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone appear in Eddington, a pandemic-era dark comedy Western from Ari Aster.

Director Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague is described as telling the story of the making of Jean Luc Godard’s 1960 classic Breathless, in the same style and spirit as the original.

Black Widow star Johansson has stepped behind the camera and will premiere her directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, about a 94-year-woman who is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight.

Fellow US actress Kristin Stewart will also bring a film she has directed – The Chronology of Water, adapted from writer Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name.

Meanwhile, British star Harris Dickinson is another actor moving behind the camera, with Urchin telling the story of a rough sleeper in London who struggles to turn his life around.

Their films will all compete in the festival’s secondary Un Certain Regard strand.

Elsewhere, Hollywood legend Robert De Niro will collect the honorary Palme d’Or.

Spike Lee’s fifth film with Denzel Washington, Highest 2 Lowest, will get its premiere out of competition. It’s a reinterpretation of Japanese film-maker Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low, “played out on the mean streets of modern day New York City”.

Jodie Foster plays a psychiatrist who investigates the apparent murder of one of her patients in Vie Privée (A Private Life), a French-language comedy that is also being screened out of competition.

And Cruise will attend the premiere of the final instalment of Mission: Impossible… should he choose to accept the invitation.

Notable documentaries this year include Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk, about Palestinian war photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who was killed along with her family in an Israeli strike on her home in Gaza last month – on the day after the festival announced its line-up.

The anger over her death has increased interest in the feature.

Another film, Once Upon a Time In Gaza, by Palestinian twins Tarzan and Arab Nasser, will be shown in the Un Certain Regard section.

Other documentaries in the line-up include a hotly-awaited film about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, The Six-Billion-Dollar Man, which was pulled from the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Meanwhile, a documentary about U2 frontman Bono is also on the festival bill, alongside one about 1984 novelist George Orwell.

The opening day could be overshadowed by the arrival of the verdict in Gerard Depardieu’s sexual assault trial.

The international star of French cinema, 76, was found guilty of assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The issue of sexual violence in the film industry is a hot topic – a French parliamentary inquiry criticised “endemic” abuse last month, while on Monday screen legend Brigitte Bardot defended two accused actors, including Depardieu, saying they should be allowed to “get on with their lives”.

Those aren’t the only external events that will make their presence felt on La Croisette.

Film stars and industry deal-makers may also have a word or two to say on the red carpet about US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose 100% tariffs on foreign-made films.

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati recently said the imposition of any such tariffs would lead to “the American industry being penalised, not ours”.

When the Philippines voted on Monday, Sara Duterte’s name was not on the ballot.

But the results of the election, which includes 12 senate races, impacts her political future.

It affects both her role as the Philippines’ current vice-president and any hopes she might have of running for the country’s presidency one day, as she faces the prospect of a ban from politics – decided by lawmakers in the Senate.

The 46-year-old is the eldest daughter of the Philippines’ former President Rodrigo Duterte. She trained as a lawyer before entering politics in 2007, when she was elected as her father’s vice-mayor in their family’s hometown Davao.

Rodrigo Duterte has described her as the “alpha” character of the family, who always gets her way.

The younger Duterte was filmed in 2011 punching a court official in the face after he refused her request, leading one local news outlet to bestow the nickname of “the slugger” upon her.

She and her father are known to share similar traits, as well as a passion for riding big motorbikes. Sara is said to be her father’s favourite child, though she has also said they share a “love-hate relationship”.

One cable from the US embassy in Manila in 2009, leaked by Wikileaks, described her as “a tough-minded individual who, like her father, is difficult to engage”.

• Follow live updates: Millions vote in Philippines midterms as Marcos-Duterte feud heats up

Born in 1978, Sara is Rodrigo Duterte’s second child with his first wife, flight attendant Elizabeth Zimmerman.

In 1999 she graduated with a major in BS Respiratory Therapy. During her inauguration as vice-president in 2022, she said that in her youth she was “consumed by a dream to become a doctor” but was “directed toward another way”.

In 2005 she graduated with a law degree and passed the Philippine Bar Examination. But it wasn’t long before her father expressed his wish for her to enter politics as his running mate in mayoral elections – hoping that if and when he ran for president, Sara would help protect his mayoral legacy.

Rodrigo would only go ahead with his presidential bid once Sara had agreed to succeed him as mayor of Davao – and in 2010, at 32, she succeeded her father to become the city’s first female mayor.

In response to many people’s apparent confusion as to how they should address her, Sara Duterte ended her inaugural address with a specific appeal: “call me Inday Sara”.

“Inday”, an honorific in the south, means a respected elder woman. It also played into the Duterte’s optics: of a family from the regional south facing off against imperial Manila.

In Manila, “inday” was previously used to refer to house help from the south – but Sara reclaimed the term. Now even her father calls her by that name.

It was in 2021 that Sara decided to make her way to national politics.

The next year she ran on a joint ticket with the scion of another political dynasty – Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He was going for the top job, with Duterte as his deputy.

The assumption was that she would then be in a prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028, as presidents are limited only to one six-year term in the Philippines.

The strategy proved effective and the duo won by a landslide. But then it quickly started to unravel.

Cracks started to emerge in their alliance even before the euphoria of their election win faded. Duterte publicly expressed her preference to be defence secretary but she was instead handed the education portfolio.

The House of Representatives soon after scrutinised Duterte’s request for confidential funds – millions of pesos that she could spend without stringent documentation.

Then, Rodrigo Duterte spoke at a late night rally, accusing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of being a junkie and a weak leader.

Soon after, First Lady Liza Marcos snubbed Sara Duterte at an event, in full view of news cameras. She admitted that it was intentional, saying Duterte should not have stayed silent in the background while her father accused the president of drug use.

After Duterte resigned from the cabinet in July last year, her language became increasingly inflammatory.

She said she had “talked to someone” to “go kill” Marcos, his wife and his cousin, who is also the speaker of the House. She also told reporters her relationship with Marcos had become toxic and she dreamed of cutting off his head.

Such remarks are shocking for someone who is not acquainted with Philippine politics. But Duterte’s strong personality has only endeared her to the public and she remains popular in the south, as well as among the millions of overseas Filipino workers.

But in February this year, lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted to impeach Duterte, accusing her of misusing public funds and threatening to have President Marcos assassinated.

She will be tried by the Senate and, if found guilty, removed from office and banned from running in future elections.

Duterte has denied the charges and alleges she is the victim of a political vendetta.

Another blow came in March when her father was arrested and extradited to the Hague over the thousands of killings during his war on drugs. She then flew to the Netherlands to meet him while he was in custody.

He is still in jail, awaiting trial, but has been elected mayor of Davao in one of several local races that also took place on Monday.

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest was a big part of his daughter’s campaign for her senate picks, with Sara and the candidates often chanting “bring him home”.

Those candidates included two key family loyalists who look set to win their seats, according to early, partial results.

This would be an important victory for Sara, because the composition of the house determines whether or not she will be impeached.

For her to be impeached, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote for it.

But Monday’s results, which include some surprise wins, make it harder to predict the outcome of the trial.

For now, Sara Duterte’s fate hangs in the balance.

A new treatment approach can significantly improve survival rates for patients with aggressive, inherited breast cancer, a study suggests.

The trial, led by Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, and published in Nature Communications, involved women with early-stage breast cancer who have inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations.

Giving them the targeted drug olaparib before surgery greatly reduced the chances of the cancer coming back.

More than 1,200 patients a year in the UK could benefit from the change in practice if a larger clinical trial can confirm the findings.

The Hollywood star Angelina Jolie raised awareness of inherited breast cancer genes in 2013 when she had a double mastectomy to cut her risk of getting the disease.

Jackie Van Bochoven, 59, from Cambridgeshire, has a family history of breast cancer and carries a faulty copy of the BRCA1 gene, which significantly raises her risk of the disease during her lifetime.

She was diagnosed with an aggressive breast tumour in 2019 and took part in the trial.

“When I had the diagnosis I was completely shocked,” she told BBC News.

“Six years on, I’m well and cancer free. It’s amazing.”

Jackie’s mother and sister both had breast cancer. She has three daughters and the eldest, Danielle, also carries the inherited BRCA gene mutation.

“For my future generations, if they have got the BRCA gene, it is a new hope,” Jackie said.

Around one in 400 people carry mutations in either the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Cancer Research UK estimates about seven in 10 women with changes in these genes will develop breast cancer, compared to about one in seven women without these mutations.

For men with BRCA mutations, the risks of developing breast cancer are much lower.

Olaparib is the first targeted drug treatment for cancers with mutations in the BRCA genes and is given as a tablet. It works by stopping cancer cells from being able to repair their DNA by blocking a protein called PARP, which causes the cancerous cells to die.

The trial, named Partner, took place at 23 sites in England, Scotland and Wales. Before surgery, 39 women with early stage breast cancer were given olaparib, also known as Lynparza, together with chemotherapy.

They started olaparib tablets 48 hours after each chemotherapy infusion. After three years, all had survived.

By contrast there were six deaths among 45 women in the study who received chemotherapy before surgery but did not get olaparib.

Prof, Jean Abraham, a consultant at Addenbrookes and professor of precision breast cancer medicine at the University of Cambridge, who led the trial, described the results as were “really exciting”.

“It is rare that you see 100% survival at 36 months for this subtype of breast cancer. We’re incredibly excited about the potential of this new approach.”

The findings have the potential to be applied to other BRCA-related cancers, such as ovarian, prostate and pancreatic.”

Prof Abraham said a larger, multinational trial is planned next year, involving some 600 patients. She predicted that if the findings are repeated, it will lead to a major change in clinical practice for more than 1,200 patients a year in the UK.

Currently patients are given olaparib for a year after surgery, whereas on the trial patients took the tablets over 12 weeks pre-surgery, and at half the dose.

Prof Abraham said: “From a cost perspective, it would save the NHS a considerable amount of money because it’s a fraction of the time and dose of the drug.”

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “While this research is still in its infancy, it is an exciting discovery that adding olaparib at a carefully-timed stage of treatment can potentially give patients with this specific type of breast cancer more time with their loved ones.”

Although the trial involved only women, Prof Abraham said the olaparib results would also apply to the much smaller number of men with the BRCA mutation who get breast cancer.

The trial was funded by Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca, and was supported by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre and Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT).

Russia was responsible for the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight, MH17, over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, the United Nations aviation agency has ruled.

All 298 people on board the passenger plane were killed when it was shot down by a Russian-made missile.

The Kremlin has always denied any responsibility for the air disaster.

On Monday, the UN’s Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) voted that the Russian Federation failed to uphold its obligations under international air law, which requires states to “refrain from resorting to the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight”.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was struck down over the Donbas region of Ukraine, during a conflict between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces.

The majority of passengers and crew, 196 people, were from the Netherlands.

There were also 38 people from Australia, 10 British citizens, as well as Belgian and Malaysian nationals on board.

The case to the UN was brought in 2022 by the Australian and Dutch governments, who have both welcomed the ICAO’s ruling.

“We call upon Russia to finally face up to its responsibility for this horrific act of violence and make reparations for its egregious conduct”, said Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong in a statement.

The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, said it marked an “important step towards establishing the truth and achieving justice and accountability”.

It sends a clear messaged to the international community, he added: “states cannot violate international law with impunity” .

In 2022, a Dutch court ruled that a Russian-controlled group had downed the plane and two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian national were convicted of murder in absentia.

The trio were all sentenced to life in prison however, as they were not extradited, they have not served time in jail.

A UN-backed assessment has said that Gaza’s population of around 2.1 million Palestinians is at “critical risk” of famine and faces “extreme levels of food insecurity” as an Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid continues.

The latest report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said there had been a “major deterioration” since October 2024, but concluded famine was not currently occurring.

The two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “led to a temporary reprieve” in Gaza, the report said, but renewed hostilities and an Israeli blockade on aid – ongoing since early March – had “reversed” any improvements.

Some 244,000 people were currently experiencing the most severe, or “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity, it said, and called for urgent action to prevent the “increasingly likely” risk of famine.

Israel renewed its military operations in Gaza in mid-March and has prevented food, medication and other aid from entering Gaza for 70 days, saying it is putting pressure on Hamas to release its remaining hostages.

• Jeremy Bowen: Netanyahu’s plan for Gaza risks dividing Israel, killing Palestinians and horrifying the world
• Malnutrition rises in Gaza as Israeli blockade enters third month

There has been international condemnation of the blockade, including from the UN which has said it has supplies at Gaza’s border crossings, ready to enter if Israel allows. Aid agencies have said the blockade could be a war crime and amounts to a policy of starvation.

The IPC assessment, released on Monday, found half a million people – or one in five – were facing starvation in Gaza. It said nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months to April 2026.

It added: “Many households are resorting to extreme measures to find food, including begging, and collecting garbage to sell to buy something to eat.”

The report said the current situation, compared to its October 2024 analysis, represented “a major deterioration in one of the world’s most severe food and nutrition crises driven by conflict and characterised by untold human suffering”.

Its analysis found that 1.95 million people, or 93% of Gaza’s population, were living through high levels of acute food insecurity, including 244,000 experiencing “catastrophic” levels.

The IPC – a global initiative by UN agencies, aid groups and governments – is the primary mechanism the international community uses to conclude whether a famine is happening.

Israeli officials have denied there is a hunger crisis in Gaza because of the quantity of aid that entered during the ceasefire.

It comes as Hamas said it would release Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander as part of efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement. The group said it was also intended to facilitate a deal for the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Israeli PM’s office said it had not committed to any ceasefire but only to a “safe corridor” for Mr Alexander’s release.

US President Donald Trump arrives in the Middle East on Tuesday, and Israel has vowed to expand its military offensive against Hamas if no deal is reached by the end of his visit.

Israeli officials have said the plans for their expanded offensive include seizing all of the territory indefinitely, forcibly displacing Palestinians to the south, and taking over aid distribution with private companies despite opposition from the UN and its humanitarian partners, who say they will not co-operate because it appears to “weaponise” aid.

In its report, the IPC said the aid distribution plans were estimated to be “highly insufficient” and it was expected that large parts of the population would “face significant issues in accessing the proposed distribution sites”.

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which saw about 1,200 people killed and more than 250 taken hostage. Some 59 hostages remain in Gaza, up to 24 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israel’s military campaign has killed 52,862 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

A long-awaited resentencing hearing on Tuesday is set to determine whether two brothers who killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion could be freed from prison after three decades.

After months of delays, a judge will begin hearing two days of arguments both for and against Erik and Lyle Menendez’s bid to receive a lesser sentence – which could ultimately lead to their paroled release.

Prosecutors have argued the brothers meticulously planned the 1989 killings to access their parents’ fortune, still have not taken accountability and should not be released. The brothers have said they acted out of self-defence after years of abuse.

The notorious case, which has prompted books, documentaries and dramas, still divides America.

During the two-day hearing, which will not be televised or streamed, the judge is expected to look at evidence, hear testimony from witnesses and ultimately determine whether the brothers, who were sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, should receive a lesser sentence.

It is expected to include testimony from a variety of people, including members of the Menendez family and potentially those involved with the original case.

Erik and Lyle could even take the stand, although such a move would open them up to questioning from prosecutors who oppose their release. The BBC has asked whether they will testify or who else might be called to testify.

On an episode of his podcast, their lawyer Mark Geragos said he had not decided whether to call them to the stand.

“I know right now that I’m going to put family members on the stand,” Mr Geragos said. “I know right now, I’ll put correctional officers on the stand. I know right now I may put behavioural scientists on the stand.”

The district attorney’s office has not said who it plans to call to testify.

• Three possible paths to freedom: What’s next for the Menendez brothers?
• What to know about the Menendez brothers resentencing hearing

The hearing will not be a re-trial and the brothers’ guilt will not be questioned.

Instead, much of the focus is likely to be on what they have done during their 30 years in prison and whether they have been rehabilitated.

During their trials, prosecutors painted them as entitled and eager to access their parents’ $14m (£10.7m) fortune.

They argued that the duo methodically planned the killings, buying shotguns and opening fire on their parents 13 times as the couple watched TV – before going gambling, to parties and on shopping sprees.

The brothers ultimately admitted to the killings, but argued they acted out of self-defence after years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse by their father Jose, a high-powered film and record label executive.

The brothers’ trial in 1993 was one of the first high-profile murder cases to be shown live on television, gripping audiences in the US and globally.

• Los Angeles DA opposes move to resentence Menendez brothers
• Family of Menendez brothers call for their release in killing of parents

Their first trial ended in a deadlock, but in 1996, the brothers were convicted of first-degree murder in a retrial. Many of their claims of sexual abuse were not allowed as part of the proceedings.

The hearing comes after a Netflix drama thrust the case back into the spotlight, and support for resentencing them has notably come from the previous Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón.

His replacement, Nathan Hochman, has vehemently opposed the brothers’ efforts to be freed and argued they have not “demonstrated true accountability” and instead have clung to a litany of “lies” about the case.

Popular streamer Hasan Piker claims he was detained for hours by US airport officials over his political views.

The influencer, who has more than six million followers across Twitch, Instagram, TikTok and X, says he was held when he returned to Chicago from France.

Mr Piker, who is known for his pro-Gaza stance and criticism of Donald Trump, says he was quizzed on his views about the Middle East and the president and accused the US government attempting to silence opposition voices with intimidation.

Officials rejected suggestions Mr Piker had been targeted over his beliefs during the “routine and lawful” inspection.

Mr Piker first posted on Sunday, telling followers he had been stopped by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

On Monday, the US-born streamer told followers: “It was an insane situation, it’s very obvious that they knew exactly who I was.

“It’s very obvious that they knew how to navigate the conversation and it was a really interesting conversation that took place.

“It was very cordial… I thought it was strange how cordial it was.”

But US government official Tricia McLaughlin accused Mr Piker of “lying for likes”.

In a post on X, she said the “routine” inspection could have happened to anyone travelling.

“Claims that his political beliefs triggered the inspection are baseless,” she wrote.

“Once his inspection was complete, he was promptly released.”

In a further statement, CBP said: “Our officers are following the law, not agendas,” adding that Mr Piker was “promptly released” once the inspection was complete.

Mr Piker questioned this response, inquiring why he was asked about his views on Donald Trump, Israel, Houthi rebels, Hamas and his bans from Twitch.

Mr Piker accused the government of attempting to create “an environment of fear” in an effort to silence critics.

His experience follows the detention of student protesters Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk by US immigration officials.

Both were taken into custody after expressing pro-Palestine views, as part of what the White House has called a crackdown on anti-semitism on US college campuses.

Opponents have accused the government of attempts to suppress free speech, and Mr Khalil’s lawyers have rejected claims he was promoting anti-semitism.

The White House has said it is “committed to the enforcement of our immigration laws and will take swift action to remove aliens who pose serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.

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

As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power.

As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022.

But as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties.

And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past.

But not this time.

Only six of the 12 winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this is a poor result.

Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely.

The decision by the president’s allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos sent Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her.

The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election.

Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos’s.

But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps.

Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations.

While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president’s father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 – probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

In the president’s home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win.

Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country.

Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years.

The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment.

“Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion.

“So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions.”

In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president’s side.

Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity.

His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila’s international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president.

“They didn’t just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she told the cheering crowd.

Also on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat.

It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they call the winning senators.

What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won’t be easy.

This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year.

One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election.

But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president’s battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side.

No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly.

It is going to be a turbulent year.

A man who has served almost 38 years in prison for the murder of a woman has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence emerged.

Peter Sullivan was jailed over the 1986 killing of 21-year-old barmaid Diane Sindall, who was subjected to a frenzied sexual attack in Birkenhead, Merseyside, as she walked home from a shift.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – the statutory body set up to investigate potential miscarriages of justice – had referred Mr Sullivan’s case back to the appeal court last year after fresh testing found a DNA profile pointing to an unknown attacker in semen samples preserved from the crime scene.

Mr Sullivan, appearing on video-link from HMP Wakefield, sobbed and held his hand over his mouth as he was told he would be released.

• Who is Peter Sullivan and why was he jailed?

Now aged 68, he is believed to be the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice involving a living prisoner in British legal history.

In a statement read by his solicitor, Mr Sullivan said he was “not angry, I’m not bitter”.

The statement read: “What happened to me was very wrong but does not detract that what happened was a heinous and most terrible loss of life.

“The truth shall set you free.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Sullivan’s sister Kim Smith said “no-one had won” and expressed sympathy for Miss Sindall’s family.

“They’ve lost their daughter, they are not going to get her back. We’ve got Peter back, and now we’ve got to try and build a life around him again,” she said.

“It’s such a shame this has had to happen in the first place.”

Both Merseyside Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the technology to test the semen samples did not exist at the time of the murder.

Duncan Atkinson KC, representing the CPS, had said the service agreed the DNA evidence undermined Mr Sullivan’s conviction and there would be no application to seek a retrial.

Lord Justice Holroyde, sitting with Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Bryan at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, quashed the conviction and said they had “no doubt that it is both necessary and expedient in the interests of justice” to admit the new DNA evidence.

He said: “In the light of that evidence, it is impossible to regard the appellant’s conviction as safe.”

Lord Holroyde said injuries to the victim “plainly did point to a sexual aspect of the attack on Miss Sindall” and the “inference was very strong” that the semen had been left by the real killer.

He continued: “There is no evidence to suggest more than one man was involved in the murder, and no evidence to suggest semen may have deposited in the process of consensual sexual activity.”

The BBC understands Mr Sullivan left HMP Wakefield in a prison van shortly after 14:15 BST.

His release came 38 years, seven months and 21 days after his arrest, a total of 14,113 days in custody.

About a year of that time was spent in custody on remand as he awaited trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

The court heard technology had only very recently been developed to the point where the semen sample, recovered from Miss Sindall’s abdomen, could be tested for DNA.

The DNA profile was not a match for Miss Sindall’s fiancé at the time, the court heard, while cross-contamination from the forensic investigator who collected the semen samples had been ruled out.

Merseyside Police has since re-opened its investigation into Miss Sindall’s murder but the force said “unfortunately” searches of the national DNA database had not come up with any matches.

The force said it “did not underestimate” the impact of the conviction on Mr Sullivan.

Det Ch Supt Karen Jaundrill said more than 260 men have been screened and eliminated from the renewed investigation since 2023.

“We have enlisted specialist skills and expertise from the National Crime Agency, and with their support we are proactively trying to identify the person the DNA profile belongs to, and extensive and painstaking inquiries are underway,” she said.

“We can confirm that the DNA does not belong to any member of Diane’s family, nor Diane’s fiancé at the time, and we believe it could be a vital piece of evidence linking the killer to the scene.”

Nick Price, director of legal services at the CPS, said: ”We recognise the enormous impact this conviction has had on Peter Sullivan’s life and the profound implications of the Court’s decision in respect of this conviction.

“The prosecution case was brought on the basis of all the evidence available to us at the time.”

He said after the new DNA evidence was presented to the service it concluded it “could not oppose” the appeal.

Miss Sindall, who worked as a florist but was also doing part-time bar work to save up for her wedding, was believed to have run out of petrol while driving home from her shift at the Wellington pub in Bebington, Wirral, shortly after midnight on 2 August 1986.

Detectives believed she was walking to an all-night garage or a bus-stop on Borough Road in Birkenhead when she was attacked and dragged into an alley.

She suffered repeated blows to the head which caused her death, and also had injuries including bite marks and lacerations.

The day after her killing her clothes were found burning on Bidston Hill.

Mr Sullivan became a suspect after witnesses reported seeing a man who they recognised as “Pete” running out of some bushes near the site of the fire.

During the course of the investigation Mr Sullivan gave conflicting accounts of his whereabouts and offered “confessions”, the court heard.

However, his defence said he had learning difficulties and was “highly suggestible”.

He had also been interviewed without a solicitor or an appropriate adult.

At his original trial, the prosecution also relied on evidence matching bite marks on Miss Sindall’s body to Mr Sullivan’s dental impressions.

But the court heard forensic scientists now have expressed serious doubt as to the quality of bite mark evidence.

Mr Sullivan first applied for his case to be reviewed by the CCRC in 2008, but at the time the body concluded there was little chance any new DNA profile would be recoverable.

He also applied directly to the court for permission to appeal in 2019 but that too was rejected.

Another application to the CCRC was lodged in 2021, but this time the body concluded that thanks to technological advances it was worth testing the semen samples preserved from 1986.

Mr Sullivan’s defence team, led in court by Jason Pitter KC, said he acknowledged that attempting to test the sample any earlier could have destroyed it permanently without yielding any results.

For decades, if there’s one thing that’s been a taboo in the Indian foreign ministry, it is third-party mediation – particularly in the long-running dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.

Those in the know, then, are not surprised that US President Donald Trump – known for his unorthodox diplomacy – has touched a raw nerve in Delhi.

On Saturday, he took to social media to announce that India and Pakistan – after four tense days of cross-border clashes – had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire”, brokered by the US.

Later, in another post he said: “I will work with you both to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at, concerning Kashmir.”

The Kashmir dispute dates back to 1947, when India got independence from British rule and was partitioned to create Pakistan. Both neighbours claim the Kashmir region in whole, but administer it only in part.

Several rounds of bilateral talks over the decades have not yielded any resolution. India treats Kashmir as an integral part of its territory and rules out any negotiation, particularly through a third party.

The latest flare-up began after India carried out air strikes on what it called terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last month, killing 26 people, mainly tourists.

India blames Pakistan of involvement in the incident, a charge denied by Islamabad.

Trump’s intervention came as fighting between the two nuclear-armed rivals was threatening to spiral into a full-blown conflict.

The two sides were using fighter jets, missiles and drones and said they were targeting each other’s military installations, mainly in the border areas.

While US mediators, alongside diplomatic backchannels, prevented a bigger conflagration, President Trump’s offer has put Delhi in a spot.

“Obviously, it would not be welcome by the Indian side. It goes against our stated position for many years,” Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, tells the BBC.

Islamabad, on the other hand, has welcomed Trump’s comments.

“We also appreciate President Trump’s expressed willingness to support efforts aimed at the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute – a longstanding issue that has serious implications for peace and security in South Asia and beyond,” a foreign ministry statement said..

Delhi’s position on Kashmir has hardened, especially after it withdrew the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019, triggering widespread protests in Kashmir.

President Trump’s recent comments have irked many Indians, who see this as an attempt to “internationalise” the Kashmir dispute.

The main opposition Congress party wanted an explanation from the government and an all-party meeting on the “ceasefire announcements made from Washington DC first”.

“Have we opened the doors to third-party mediation? The Indian National Congress would like to ask if diplomatic channels between India and Pakistan are being reopened,” said the Congress party spokesman Jairam Ramesh.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement announcing the ceasefire also said that the two countries have also agreed “to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”. This has caught the Indians by surprise.

Delhi has refused to hold discussions with Islamabad, accusing its neighbour of supporting what it calls cross-border terrorism.

Historically, India has opposed any third-party mediation, quoting an agreement signed in 1972 after a war between the two countries a year earlier. As per the Simla agreement signed by the country’s leaders, they “resolved to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations”.

Indian officials also argue that even when they reach an understanding with a civilian government in Pakistan, the country’s powerful military launched operations undermining those deals. They point to the Kargil war in 1999, when another conflict between the two countries began after a group of Pakistan-backed militants occupied strategic areas in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The conflict took place months after the then Indian and Pakistani prime ministers agreed to resolve issues through bilateral negotiations and refrain from interfering in each other’s internal matters.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has not formally responded to President Trump’s offer to mediate.

But Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said: “India has consistently maintained a firm and uncompromising stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It will continue to do so.”

It is being seen as an indication that India may not be restarting direct bilateral talks soon.

The view from Pakistan is different.

“Pakistan has always wanted third-party mediation in the Kashmir issue in the absence of mutual trust between the two countries,” Imtiaz Gul, the executive director of Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad, tells the BBC.

“Now a superpower is willing to stick its neck out. Pakistan will see this as a moral victory,” Mr Gul says.

Pakistani strategic experts like Syed Muhammad Ali argue it is because of India’s consistent refusal to engage with Pakistan that the international community should step in to avoid any future conflict.

“Kashmir is one of the most critical issues for the international community. The recent rapid escalation proves that the sabre-rattling can go out of hand,” Mr Ali says.

India’s assertive diplomacy, particularly since Modi took over in 2014, has been seen as a sign of its confidence as a rising global economic power.

But it will have to pull off a tough balancing act, to stave off Trump’s advances.

The US has courted India in recent years as a bulwark against an increasingly assertive China. India is a key member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue group (Quad), along with the US, Australia and Japan, that was formed to counter Chinese expansionism in the Indo-Pacific.

In recent decades, Washington has also sold modern transport planes, helicopters and other military equipment to Delhi, which is keen to modernise its 1.4 million strong military, that relies heavily on Russian weaponry.

The previous American administrations were aware of India’s sensitivities towards the Kashmir issue and largely stayed away from interfering with it. But with Trump, there’s a question mark over whether that position still holds.

The US is the largest trading partner of India with bilateral trade reaching about $130bn (£98bn) in 2024. Modi’s government is currently negotiating a trade deal with Washington to avoid tariffs.

Delhi will have to walk a fine line. It will be averse to taking up Trump’s offer to mediate, or see the US-brokered ceasefire, or “understanding” as it calls it, going beyond the current military tensions. But it’s also keen to have a favourable trading relationship with the US.

Any attempt to broaden the talks – on contentious bilateral issues like the now suspended river water-sharing treaty or the status of Kashmir – will invite strong criticism at the domestic level, a trap that Modi is well aware of.

Days after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire, questions remain over what lies ahead for the two South Asian neighbours.

Early on 7 May, India launched air strikes into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir in response to a deadly militant attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir (Islamabad has denied involvement in the attack).

What followed were four days of intense shelling and aerial incursions between the two nuclear-armed countries, until the surprise ceasefire announcement on Saturday.

But – even accounting for the usually tense relationship between India and Pakistan – things are nowhere close to normal yet.

The fragile ceasefire, now in its fourth day, is still holding as life slowly begins to return to normal in towns along the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, days before launching the military operation, India had announced a flurry of diplomatic measures against Pakistan, including suspending a key water-sharing treaty, halting most visas and stopping all trade.

In response, Islamabad announced its own set of tit-for-tat actions, including the suspension of visas for Indians, a trade ban and the closure of its airspace to Indian flights.

None of these punitive measures have been reversed by both countries so far. Here’s where things currently stand between the two neighbours in terms of the measures announced since the Pahalgam attack:

On Monday, in his first public comments on the strike, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India’s stand is absolutely clear – terror and talks cannot go hand in hand.”

“Water and blood cannot flow together,” he added.

His comments align with media reports citing sources that say that the key water-sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, known as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), remains suspended.

The 1960 treaty, brokered by the World Bank, governs water sharing of six rivers in the Indus basin between the two countries.

The IWT has survived two wars between the countries and was held up as an example of trans-boundary water management, until the suspension late last month.

• READ: Can India really stop river water from flowing into Pakistan?

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had earlier said that he believed the water issue with India would be resolved through peaceful negotiations.

India’s decision to suspend the treaty marks a significant diplomatic shift. Pakistan depends heavily on these rivers for agriculture and civilian water supply.

“Water cannot be weaponised,” Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters news agency on Monday, adding that “unilateral withdrawal has no legal basis”.

But experts say it’s nearly impossible for India to hold back tens of billions of cubic metres of water from the western rivers during high-flow periods. It lacks both the massive storage infrastructure and the extensive canals needed to divert such volumes. However, if India begins controlling the flow with its existing and potential infrastructure, Pakistan could feel the impact during the dry season.

Soon after India suspended the IWT, Pakistan threatened to suspend a 1972 peace treaty called the Simla Agreement, which established the Line of Control, or de facto border between the countries. It hasn’t suspended this so far.

India scaled down its diplomatic relations with Pakistan as part of its retaliatory measures.

It expelled all Pakistani defence attachés, declaring them “persona non grata” (unwelcome) and announced it would withdraw its own defence advisers from its high commission in Islamabad.

Pakistan responded with similar steps. Both countries reduced the staff at their respective high commissions.

Both India and Pakistan also suspended almost all visas given to people from the other country.

As part of their retaliatory measures, both India and Pakistan shut down the Attari-Wagah border, the only land crossing between the two countries.

The border, which is heavily guarded and requires special permits to cross, has long been used by people visiting family members, attending weddings or reconnecting with loved ones across the border.

Both countries initially gave their citizens nearly a week to return, but the deadline was later extended.

For days, emotional scenes unfolded at the border, as families were separated, with some people staying behind.

• ‘What is our fault?’: Families separated at India-Pakistan border

After the 7 May strikes, India also announced that it would be closing entry from its side to the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, which allows Indian pilgrims to visit one of Sikhism’s holiest shrines in Pakistan without a visa.

Almost 200,000 Indians visited the Kartarpur shrine between 2021 and 2023, Indian officials said last year. The latest figures have not yet been released.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters last week that the suspension would remain in place until further notice.

As part of its retaliatory measures, Pakistan also announced the closure of its airspace to all Indian flights.

In the following days, India responded with similar restrictions, closing its airspace to all Pakistani flights, both military and commercial.

International flights are now being forced to take longer, costlier detours, increasing both travel time and fuel expenses.

The two countries have also suspended all direct and indirect trade.

Experts say the impact on India would be minimal because it does not import much from Pakistan. However, it creates bigger problems for Pakistan.

Already struggling with high inflation and a weak economy, Pakistan could face more pressure as it loses access to trade routes and crucial goods from India, such as raw materials and medicines.

Dominated by a fiery feud between two political dynasties, the Philippine mid-term elections have thrown up unexpected results that may shake President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s hold on the senate.

According to the latest count of 80% of the votes, Marcos allies appear to have captured fewer senate seats than expected.

Meanwhile his rival, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte who is detained in The Hague over his drug war that killed thousands, has been elected mayor of his family’s stronghold.

The fate of his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing an impeachment trial, remains in the balance.

The mid-terms held on Monday saw 18,000 seats contested, from local officials to governors and senators. It served as a proxy war between Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte, who were one-time allies.

The senate race, where 12 seats were up for grabs, was closely watched as it affects Sara Duterte’s trial, which she has called “political persecution”.

The popular vice-president, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028, is facing the prospect of a ban from politics, should a jury made up of senators vote to impeach her.

Many people had expected Marcos Jr’s picks to win most of the 12 seats. But according to the latest count of 80% of the votes, only six from his camp appear to have won seats, and one of them has also been endorsed by the Dutertes.

In the top five ranking – a barometer of public popularity – only one Marcos-backed candidate, broadcaster Erwin Tulfo, made it.

Meanwhile, at the very top of the list is a Duterte loyalist – long-time aide Christopher “Bong” Go – while at number three is another Duterte ally, former police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

The Duterte camp appears to have won at least four seats. They include Marcos Jr’s older sister Imee, who recently bolted from her brother’s alliance to side with the Dutertes.

What complicates things is that it is still unclear how Marcos’ allies in the senate will move on Sara Duterte’s impeachment. Their loyalty can shift, as senators also balance their own interests and ambitions with their political allegiances.

Meanwhile, two people who are not affiliated with either camp appear to have also won senate seats.

They are Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino, and an Aquino ally, Francis Pangilinan.

Bam Aquino, the cousin of a former president, has in fact clinched second place in the rankings, in what he called a “very, very surprising” result.

It marks the first time in years that voters had chosen outside the Marcos and Duterte dynasties.

The Aquino family was the Marcoses’ main political nemesis in the 1980s and early 1990s before the rise of the Dutertes.

It was the assassination of opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr in 1983 that galvanised protests against Ferdinand Marcos Sr – the current president’s father – culminating in the Marcos family’s ouster and exile in 1986.

Monday’s result signals their comeback after being wiped out of national politics in recent years.

Results so far also show the Dutertes have managed to retain their power base in the south of the country, just two months after the 80-year-old populist leader Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila Airport and flown to the Netherlands on the same day to face the International Criminal Court.

It was his arrest – approved by Marcos Jr – which pushed the rivalry between his daughter and the current president to boiling point, a few weeks after the president’s allies in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice-President Duterte.

Rodrigo Duterte was always expected to win as mayor, given the family has held the post since the mid-1980s.

Duterte himself led Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for two decades before he was elected president in 2016. There, he showcased his drug war that he credited for the city’s success, and won him the support of millions far beyond its borders.

His youngest son, Sebastian, the incumbent mayor, was elected vice-mayor, meaning he can discharge his father’s duties in his absence. Another Duterte son, Paolo, was re-elected as congressman. His grandchildren won local posts.

Duterte’s name remained on the ballot as he has not been convicted of any crime. He beat the scion of a smaller rival political family.

Maintaining a political base in Davao city in the south is crucial for the Dutertes – it is where they get the most voter support.

The election was not just a battle between the two families, however.

Monday’s vote saw long queues under temperatures of 33C (91F) and sporadic reports of violence and vote machines malfunctioning.

Like past elections, song-and-dance, showbusiness-style campaigns played out on stage and on social media, underscoring the country’s personality and celebrity politics that sometimes overshadow more pressing issues such as corruption, high cost of living and creaking infrastructure.

A self-declared “king” of Germany and three of his senior “subjects” have been arrested and their group banned for attempting to overthrow the state.

Peter Fitzek, 59, was among those arrested in morning raids across seven states on Tuesday, which involved about 800 security personnel.

The government banned their group, the Reichsbürger, or “citizens of the Reich”, which seeks to establish the Königreich Deutschland, or “Kingdom of Germany”.

Alexander Dobrindt, German’s interior minister, accused the group of attempting to “undermine the rule of law” by creating an alternative state and spreading “antisemitic conspiracy narratives to back up their supposed claim to authority”.

His ministry announced the dissolution of the group, and accused it of financing itself through “economic criminal structures”.

Fitzek, a former chef and karate instructor, calls himself “king” and identified himself to judges as “Peter the First” in a previous court case.

He had himself crowned in 2012 while dressed in ermine robes and brandishing a medieval sword. Since then he has been buying land and property across Germany.

Reichsbürgers have their own currency, flag and ID cards, and want to set up separate banking and health systems.

Fitzek claims to have thousands of followers – or “subjects”.

In an interview with the BBC in 2022 he denied having any violent intentions, but also described the German state as “destructive and sick”.

“I have no interest in being part of this fascist and satanic system,” he told the BBC’s Jenny Hill, when she visited his “kingdom” in eastern Germany.

Fitzek has repeatedly clashed with the authorities and refused to abide by German laws, often in what appears to be in a publicity-seeking manner.

He has previously been jailed for repeatedly driving without a licence, following a decision to hand his back in a symbolic rejection of the law. At the end of one trial session, Fitzek was seen getting into his car in front of the court and driving off.

Fitzek is one of around 25,000 Reichsbürger in Germany. Numbers have been growing over the last few years.

Many are right-wing extremists who peddle racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They refuse to recognise the authority of security forces and many possess illegal arms, which has led to shoot-outs with police. Officials say that around 2,500 are potentially violent and that 1,350 are classed as right-wing extremists.

In 2022 dozens of people were arrested, many of them Reichsbürger, for plotting to overthrow the German government in Berlin. They were accused of planning a violent coup, which included kidnapping the health minister, to create “civil war conditions” to bring down German democracy.

In the past, Reichsbürger were often dismissed as eccentric cranks because of their outlandish ideas.

But as the far right has grown in strength politically in Germany over the last decade, officials now see them as a serious threat.

The federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe said Fitzek was arrested along with three other suspected ringleaders of the group, which it classified as a criminal organisation.

As the “so-called supreme sovereign”, Fitzek had “control and decision-making power in all key areas”, the office said.

“The ‘Kingdom of Germany’ considers itself a sovereign state within the meaning of international law and strives to extend its claimed ‘national territory’ to the borders of the German Empire of 1871,” it added in a statement.

President Donald Trump has slashed the tariff on small parcels sent from mainland China and Hong Kong to the US, just hours after the world’s two biggest economies said they would cut levies on each other’s goods for 90 days.

The new tariffs on small packages worth up to $800 (£606) have been cut from 120% to 54%, according to a White House statement.

The flat fee per parcel will remain at $100, while a $200 charge due to apply from 1 June has been cancelled.

Chinese online retail giants Shein and Temu had previously relied on the so-called “de minimis” exemption to ship low-value items directly to customers in the US without having to pay duties or import taxes.

Neither Shein or Temu immediately responded to BBC requests for comment.

The duty-free rule was closed by the Trump administration earlier this month.

Some shoppers told the BBC that they rushed through purchases ahead of that deadline.

The latest rates came after the US and China released a joint statement announcing they would temporarily reduce their tit-for-tat tariffs and start a new round of trade negotiations.

Share markets jumped on Monday after Trump said weekend talks had resulted in a “total reset” in trade terms between the two countries, a move that went some way to ease concerns about a trade war between the two countries.

Under the agreement, the US will lower those tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods will drop to 10% from 125%.

Trump told reporters, that, as some of the levies have been suspended rather than cancelled altogether, they might rise again in three months time, if no further progress was made.

But the president said he did not expect them to return to the previous 145% peak.

“We’re not looking to hurt China,” Trump said after the agreement was announced, adding that China was “being hurt very badly”.

Trump added that he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping “maybe at the end of the week”.

Ofcom has launched investigations into two pornographic websites it believes may be falling foul of the UK’s newly introduced child safety rules.

The regulator said Itai Tech Ltd – which operates a so-called “nudifying” site – and Score Internet Group LLC had failed to detail how they were preventing children from accessing their platforms.

Ofcom announced in January that, in order to comply with the Online Safety Act, all websites on which pornographic material could be found must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques from July.

It said the two services it was investigating did not appear to have any effective age checking mechanisms.

Firms found to be in breach of the Act face huge fines.

The regulator said on Friday that many services publishing their own porn content had, as required, provided details of “highly effective age assurance methods” they were planning to implement.

• What the Online Safety Act is – and how to keep children safe online

They added that this “reassuringly” included some of the largest services that fall under the rules.

It said a small number of services had also blocked UK users entirely to prevent children accessing them.

Itai Tech Ltd and Score Internet Group LLC did not respond to its request for information or show they had plans to introduce age checks, it added.

The “nudifying” technology that one of the company’s platforms features involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to create the impression of having removed a person’s clothing in an image or video.

The Children’s Commissioner recently called on the government to introduce a total ban on such AI apps that could be used to create sexually explicit images of children.

Under the Online Safety Act, platforms that publish their own pornographic content were required to take steps to implement age checks from January.

These can include requiring UK users to provide photo ID or running credit card checks.

But all websites where a user might encounter pornographic material are also required to demonstrate the robustness of the measures they are taking to verify the age of users.

These could even apply to some social media platforms, Ofcom told the BBC in January.

The rules are expected to change the way many UK adults will use or encounter some digital services, such as porn sites.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s chief executive, in January.

In April, Discord said it would start testing face-scanning as a way to verify some users’ ages in the UK and Australia.

Experts said it marked “the start of a bigger shift” for platforms as lawmakers worldwide look to impose strict internet safety rules.

Critics suggest such measures risk pushing young people to “darker corners” of the internet where there are smaller, less regulated sites hosting more violent or explicit material.

Japanese carmaker Nissan has said it will cut another 11,000 jobs globally and shut seven factories as it shakes up the business in the face of weak sales.

Falling sales in China and heavy discounting in the US, its two biggest markets, have taken a heavy toll on earnings, while a proposed merger with Honda and Mitsubishi collapsed in February.

The latest cutbacks bring the total number of layoffs announced by the company in the past year to about 20,000, or 15% of its workforce.

It was not immediately clear where the job cuts will be made, or whether Nissan’s plant in Sunderland will be affected.

The government said the plant was of “vital importance” to the north east of England, and that it would “engage closely” with Nissan over its restructuring plans.

Nissan employs about 133,500 people globally, with about 6,000 workers in Sunderland.

Two-thirds of the latest job cuts will come from manufacturing, with the rest from sales, administration jobs, research and contract staff, said the company’s chief executive, Ivan Espinosa.

The latest layoffs come on top of 9,000 job cuts Nissan announced in November as part of a cost saving effort that it said would reduce its global production by a fifth.

In February, talks between Nissan and its larger rival Honda collapsed after the firms failed to agree on a multi-billion-dollar tie-up.

The plan had been to combine their businesses to fight back against competition from rival firms, especially in China.

The merger would have created a $60bn (£46bn) motor industry giant, the fourth largest in the world by vehicle sales after Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai.

After the failure of the negotiations, then-chief executive Makoto Uchida was replaced by Mr Espinosa, who was the company’s chief planning officer and head of its motorsports division.

Nissan also reported an annual loss of 670 billion yen ($4.5bn; £3.4bn), with US President Donald Trump’s tariffs putting further pressure on the struggling firm.

Mr Espinosa said that the previous financial year had been “challenging”, with rising costs and an “uncertain environment”, adding that the results were a “wake-up call”.

The car giant did not give a forecast for income in the coming year due to the “uncertain nature of US tariff measures”.

It said it expected flat profit this year even without accounting for the impact of tariffs.

Last week, Nissan announced it had scrapped plans to build a battery and electric vehicle factory in Japan as it cuts back on investment.

The firm has been in trouble in key markets, including China where growing competition has led to falling prices.

In China, many foreign carmakers have struggled to compete with homegrown firms such as BYD.

China has become the world’s biggest producer of electric vehicles, with some established car-making nations having failed to anticipate demand for the new technology.

In the US, another major market for Nissan, inflation and higher interest rates have hit new vehicle sales, although Nissan retail sales rose slightly last year.

But sales fell 12% in China, and also dropped in Japan and Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will travel to Turkey’s capital Ankara to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and will be available for direct talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Istanbul on Thursday.

“We will do everything to ensure that this meeting takes place,” he told reporters in a hastily-arranged briefing in Kyiv.

Russia has not yet said who will fly to Istanbul, only that it would be announced “as soon as [Putin] deems it necessary”. Putin and Zelensky have not themselves met since December 2019.

Direct talks between the two countries last took place in Istanbul, in March 2022, in the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Putin had initially called for direct talks in Turkey’s largest city “without pre-conditions”, before Zelensky announced that he would go in person and expected the Russian president to travel as well.

The US is also expected to send a high-level delegation.

By confirming his visit to Turkey at Tuesday’s briefing, Zelensky clearly sought to intensify pressure on Russia to respond. The Kremlin has already warned that exerting pressure on Moscow is “useless” and it does not respond to ultimatums.

Russia has instead sought to focus on a long-term settlement that tackles what Moscow sees as the “root causes” of the war – a set of tough pre-conditions set before the 2022 invasion and repeatedly rejected by Kyiv.

The Ukrainian leader said while he was prepared to meet Putin in Istanbul his priority was to secure a 30-day ceasefire, which he said all Ukraine’s allies – including the US – were agreed on.

Zelensky said he believed Putin’s late night offer on Sunday for direct talks in Turkey was designed to catch Kyiv out, so that he would “not react” or “react in a negative way for Ukraine”.

US President Donald Trump, who is on a visit to the Gulf, has hinted that he could fly to to Istanbul himself “if I think things can happen”.

That seems unlikely for now, and unconfirmed reports suggest two senior US envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, are planning to be in Istanbul on the day.

The Kremlin has sought to dampen speculation that Putin himself might himself go.

“Russia continues preparations for the negotiations due on Thursday. That’s all that can be said right now,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that Moscow was prepared to hold talks “responsibly” taking into account “realities on the ground” – in a veiled reference to Ukraine’s four south-eastern regions partially seized by Russia since 2022.

He also repeated Moscow’s initial pre-invasion demands for a settlement to be achieved – Ukraine and its Western allies see this as an ultimatum tantamount to Kyiv’s de facto capitulation.

Ryabkov also cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stick to agreements.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it would be a good move for Zelensky and Putin to sit down and talk, but added: “I don’t think he dares, Putin.”

Zelensky also accused Putin of “being scared” to meet him. His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said if the Russian leader refused to go to Istanbul it would the “final signal” that he did not want to end the war.

The leaders of Ukraine’s main allies – the UK, Germany, Poland and France – travelled to Kyiv at the weekend to warn of immediate further sanctions if Russia did not accept a 30-day ceasefire.

The European Union is currently working on a 17th package of measures.