President Donald Trump has said the US has “no stronger partner” than Saudi Arabia during his first major foreign trip – a whirlwind visit of Gulf countries mainly focused on shoring up investment.

Speaking in Riyadh, the US president also pledged to lift all sanctions against Syria, saying it was now time for the country to move forward with “a chance at greatness”.

Day one of the tour saw the US and Saudi Arabia announce a $142bn (£107bn) arms deal, as well as other investments that the country’s crown prince said could eventually be worth $1tn.

Trump also made Saudi Arabia the first foreign stop during his first term, in 2017. The rest of his trip will include stops in Qatar and the UAE.

Trump’s arrival in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was met with a grand reception, including a lavish lavender-coloured carpet rolled out to greet him. He had even chosen a purple tie to match it.

Riyadh swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, saying that it was a symbol of the kingdom’s desert wildflowers and generosity.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Trump on the tarmac and provided an honour guard of Arabian horses to accompany his presidential limo.

In his remarks at an investment forum, Trump lauded the US-Saudi relationship as “more powerful than ever before”.

“From the moment we started we’ve seen wealth that has poured – and is pouring – into America,” he said.

Trump is trying to woo foreign investors to the US to boost the American economy, a key focus of his administration in the nearly four months of his second term.

“I like him too much,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. “That’s why we give so much.”

The pomp and ceremony was a step up from the muted welcome for former US President Joe Biden, who travelled to the oil-rich kingdom in 2022 to seek their help in lowering petrol prices, fist-bumping the crown prince.

That visit came two years after he declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state following the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump flew to the Gulf to strike financial deals and argued in his speech that it is through this kind of commerce and economic development that the Middle East would transcend violence and division.

Underscoring his commitment to deal-making, Trump was joined by a number of business leaders including billionaire ally Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

The high-profile executives are meeting a Saudi Arabia eager to diversify its oil-rich economy by increasing its artificial intelligence capabilities.

Mr Huang announced during the visit that Nvidia will sell more than 18,000 of its latest AI chips to Saudi company Humain.

During his address, Trump said it was his “dream” to have Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a deal brokered in his first administration that saw relations between Israel and some Gulf countries normalised for the first time.

But his good friend, Mohammed bin Salman, has made it clear that will not happen until there is a permanent end to the war in Gaza and a clear path to Palestinian statehood.

There is a limit to what this friendship can deliver.

Trump only briefly addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He told those in attendance that people in Gaza deserved a “better future”, which had been held back by Hamas choosing “to kidnap, torture and target” for “political ends” – a reference to the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Trump also announced he was lifting sanctions on Syria to improve the country’s new government, a move he suggested was requested by Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” the US leader said.

American sanctions on Syria had been in place for over a decade, meant to apply pressure and economic pain against the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December.

Syria has since elected a new transitional president, creating an opening for renewed US diplomacy efforts.

The surprise announcement to lift the sanctions represents a sea change for Syria, described by its foreign minister Asaad Shibani as a “new start” in the country’s reconstruction path.

Robert Ford, who served as US ambassador to Syria under President Barack Obama, applauded the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions.

“I visited Syria three months ago and the country is simply devastated after the 13-year civil war. It needs to rebuild, it needs reconstruction, it needs foreign financing to do that,” he told the BBC.

“So removing the sanctions, that will enable international capital flows to go into Syria from Gulf states, from other Arab states and from different aid agencies is absolutely vital.”

Trump was expected to meet Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

From Riyadh, Trump will head to both Qatar and the UAE, which has already committed to investing $1.4tn in the US over the next decade.

A Los Angeles judge has resentenced two brothers who are serving life in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents in a Beverly Hills mansion, making them eligible for parole.

Judge Michael Jesic gave Erik and Lyle Menendez a new sentence of 50 years to life. The brothers will now have to argue for their release in front of the state’s parole board.

The pair acknowledged killing Kitty and Jose Menendez, but said they acted out of self-defence after years of abuse.

Prosecutors argued the brothers planned the shotgun killings to access their parents’ fortune, are yet to take responsibility and should not be released. The case, which has prompted books and documentaries, still divides America.

After the judge agreed to resentence them, the brothers delivered an emotional statement to the court. They went through details of the brutal killings and their decision to reload and continue shooting their parents at point-blank range in their living room.

Both apologised for their actions and talked about their hopes to work with sex abuse victims and help those incarcerated if they were to be released.

“I had to stop being selfish and immature to really understand what my parents went though in those last moments,” Erik Menendez told the court.

He describes the “shock, confusion and betrayal” they must have felt seeing their sons holding guns and opening fire.

Lyle Menendez’s voice cracked as he talked about the impact of his “unfathomable” actions on their family.

“I lied to you and forced you into a spotlight of public humiliation,” he said to his family.

He said they had “cried with me and expressed their suffering” and he was “grateful for your love and forgiveness”.

Judge Jesic called the brothers’ work while in prison “remarkable”, but noted their original sentence was justified at the time.

He said under the guidelines, they were eligible for resentencing, issuing his new sentence of 50 years to life. The brothers have already served more than 30 years in prison.

The brothers’ lawyer Mark Geragos said “today is a great day after 35 years”. They were “one huge step closer to bringing the boys home”, he added.

Anamaria Baralt, the brothers’ cousin who testified inside court earlier in the day, said their family was elated.

“It is a difficult process,” she said of the parole hearing that awaits the brothers, but noted they will “eagerly step through those doors if it means we can have them home”.

Inside court earlier, relatives pleaded with the judge to allow the siblings’ release.

Ms Baralt, who said she has been close with them since they were children, told the judge they deserved a “second chance at life”.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “I am desperate for this process to be over.”

Ms Baralt told the court she speaks with the brothers frequently and testified that they had taken “ownership of their actions”.

She said Lyle Menendez had acknowledged to her he had asked a witness to lie when testifying at their previous trial.

But she added: “They are very different men from the boys they were.”

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, has told the hip-hop mogul’s sex-trafficking trial that he controlled her life and coerced her into “humiliating” sex acts.

The prosecution’s star witness testified about the alleged physical and emotional abuse she endured at the hands of the rapper during so-called “freak-offs”, or sexual encounters the couple had with male escorts.

Family and friends have come to court in large numbers to support Mr Combs, whose legal team has not yet questioned Ms Ventura.

Mr Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Prosecutors began by questioning Ms Ventura – one of their two central witnesses in the case – about her 11-year, on-and-off relationship with Mr Combs.

Now 38 and pregnant with her third child, she met Mr Combs when she was a 19-year-old aspiring singer and he was 37.

His record label would later sign Ms Ventura as an artist, and shortly afterwards their romantic relationship began.

At the time, she testified, she felt like they were in a monogamous relationship, though she knows now that he had other girlfriends.

She said she “fell in love” with the “larger-than-life entrepreneur and musician”. But it was not long before she noticed another side to him, she said.

Mr Combs wanted to “control” her life, Ms Ventura said. She said he paid for her home, her cars, her phone and other technology that he would sometimes take away to “punish” her.

“Control was everything, from the way that I looked… to what I was working on,” Ms Ventura said.

Eventually, she claimed, the control turned violent. Mr Combs would “bash on my head, knock me over, drag me and kick me” frequently, Ms Ventura testified, sometimes through tears.

She alleged that she was left with swollen lips, black eyes and knots on her forehead.

Prosecutors spent hours on Tuesday asking Ms Ventura about so-called “freak-offs”.

Ms Ventura told the court how Mr Combs introduced her to the sexual events during the first year of their relationship. They would hire a male escort or stripper to have sex with Ms Ventura while Mr Combs watched.

Ms Ventura told the court that she first tried the encounters to make Mr Combs “happy”. But she said they humiliated her, and sometimes lasted three to four days.

“I felt pretty horrible about myself,” she told the court, wiping away tears. “It made me feel worthless.”

Ms Ventura told the court she never wanted to have sex with anyone but Mr Combs, and claimed she would take myriad drugs – marijuana, ecstasy and ketamine – to help her perform to Mr Combs’ satisfaction, but also to “disassociate”.

The drugs were “a way to not feel it for what it really was”, she said, “having sex with a stranger I didn’t really want to be having sex with”.

As prosecutors pressed Ms Ventura about the “freak-offs”, she told the court of how Mr Combs would direct her to find male escorts, strippers or dancers to have sex with while he watched.

She alleged that Mr Combs would pay the men anywhere from $1,500 to $6,000 in cash, depending on their performance.

They found the men through stripper companies and sites like Craigslist. Some of their photos were displayed to the jurors, including Daniel Phillip, who finished his testimony earlier on Tuesday.

Ms Ventura and Mr Combs had the enounters in cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and Ibiza, Spain, Ms Ventura testified.

Sometimes, men would be flown in during vacations, she alleged, and Mr Combs would direct her to ask staff to pay for and arrange their travel, calling them new employees.

Among other charges, prosecutors are trying to prove that Mr Combs engaged in sex trafficking – human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation – and transportation to engage in prostitution.

As prosecutors pressed Ms Ventura for graphic details, one key element emerged: Ms Ventura claimed that Mr Combs controlled every part of the encounters.

He chose the outfits she wore – down to the extremely high heels she kept on for hours – as well as the sexual acts that transpired and the lighting, Ms Ventura told jurors.

“If Sean wanted something to happen, that was what was going to happen,” she said. “I couldn’t say no.”

Sometimes, Ms Ventura said, she would take the lead on which male escorts to hire because Mr Combs was “very busy”, but she only did so at his direction, she said.

She said freak-offs had a very specific “pattern” of sexual acts each time.

“He was controlling the whole situation,” she alleged. “He was directing it.”

At times, Ms Ventura said, she tried to tell Mr Combs that she felt “horrible”. But when he dismissed her concerns, she said, she relented, worried he would get angry or question their relationship.

Ms Ventura is expected to continue her testimony on Wednesday, when she could also face cross-examination.

Céline Dion made a rare appearance during the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest with a brief, pre-recorded message.

The star won the contest for Switzerland in 1988, and it had been rumoured she would take the stage as the ceremony returns to the country this year.

“I’d love nothing more than to be with you,” she said in a video, apparently ruling out that possibility. “Switzerland will forever hold a special place in my heart. It’s the country that believed in me and gave me the chance to be part of something so extraordinary.”

The semi-final saw 10 acts qualify for Saturday’s grand finale, including Swedish entrants KAJ, whose song Bara Bada Bastu is the runaway favourite.

Their song, an accordion-led comedy number whose title translates to “let’s take a sauna”, has a 40% chance of winning, according to bookmakers.

If the prediction comes true, it would be Sweden’s eighth Eurovision title – making them the most victorious country in the contest’s history (they are currently tied with Ireland, on seven wins each).

Fifteen acts performed at Tuesday’s semi-final in Basel’s St Jakobshalle. These are the ones who made the cut.

• Norway: Kyle Alessandro – Lighter
• Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm
• Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
• Iceland: VÆB – RÓA
• Netherlands: Claude – C’est La Vie
• Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA
• San Marino: Gabry Ponte – Tutta L’Italia
• Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
• Portugal: NAPA – Deslocado
• Ukraine: Ziferblat – Bird of Pray

That means that the Eurovision dreams of Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia and Slovenia have all ended for 2025.

Of those, the biggest surprise was Belgium’s Red Sebastian, whose rave anthem Strobe Lights had been predicted to finish among the top five.

His disqualification came on the day of his 26th birthday.

Ten more acts will progress to the main competition after Thursday’s second semi-final.

The “Big Five” countries, who contribute the most financially to the competition (France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy) qualify automatically, as do last year’s winners, Switzerland.

Dion’s video message came during the ceremony’s interval, as votes were being cast.

Although she was unable to be there in person, it was a coup for organisers. The singer has stepped away from the limelight in recent years due to health issues related to stiff-person syndrome (SPS), a neurological condition that causes muscle spasms and makes it difficult for her to walk.

After a four-year break, she made an emotional comeback at last summer’s Paris Olympics, singing Edith Piaf’s classic Hymne à l’Amour from the Eiffel Tower.

Speculation over a potential Eurovision appearance has been mounting since Swiss singer Nemo won the 2024 contest.

In her video, Dion said it was “beautiful and emotional” to see the young singer lift the trophy, and recalled that her victory in 1988 “was a life-changing moment for me”.

“To the people of Switzerland, thank you for your love,” she continued. “This night is yours and I hope you feel as proud as I do.”

After repeating her message in French, several former Eurovision contestants appeared on stage to cover Dion’s winning song from 1988, Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (Don’t Leave Without Me).

However, organisers said they had not given up hope of the star appearing at the final this weekend.

“We are still in close contact with her,” they said in a statement.

Tuesday’s semi-final opened with Icelandic group VÆB, two brothers with the unregulated energy of former Irish entrants Jedward.

They were followed by Polish star Justyna Steczkowska, who hung precariously above the stage on two ropes, as she sang her witchy hymn to mother earth, Gaja.

The acrobatics continued with Slovenian musician Klemen, who was suspended upside down during his ballad How Much Time Do We Have Left?

The song was a tribute to his wife, who has recently recovered from cancer, but the emotional performance wasn’t enough to clinch him a position in the final.

Taking a lighter note was Estonia’s Tommy Cash, whose quirky anthem Espresso Macchiato was interrupted by a “stage invader” – actually a dancer who replicated his noodle-limbed dance moves.

The arena was awash with Ukranian flags for Ziferblat, whose prog-pop anthem Bird Of Pray is a message of hope and resilience to families separated by the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

Italy’s Lucio Corsi brought 70s glam rock vibes with his track Volevo Esse Un Duro, which even featured a visual call-back to David Bowie and Mick Ronson’s iconic 1972 performance of Starman on Top Of The Pops.

Bosnian singer Marko Bošnjak was all black eyeliner and sinister energy for his kill-your-enemies anthem Poison Cake, while Dutch singer Claude took the opposite approach, brimming with positivity throughout his upbeat performance of C’est La Vie.

And Swiss singer Zoë Më was bathed in a sea of mobile phone lights as she performed Voyage , an understated and rather beautiful plea for kindness and understanding.

However, KAJ were the artists to beat – with the entire audience stomping along to their goofy sauna anthem (“!”)

The song, performed in the Vörå dialect, is a radical departure from Sweden’s tried and tested formula of slick pop anthems.

It was the surprise winner at the Melodifestivalen, the hotly-contested show that selects the country’s Eurovision entry, and has gone on to top the Swedish pop charts for 11 weeks.

Speaking to the BBC, the band – who are actually from the Swedish-speaking part of Finland – said it was strange to enter the contest as the presumed favourite.

“We are feeling the pressure a bit,” they admitted, “but we’re gonna go out there, have fun, bring the steam, bring the sauna culture, and we’ll see how far it goes.”

Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, has died at the age of 89.

The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world’s “poorest president” because of his modest lifestyle.

Current President Yamandú Orsi announced his predecessor’s death on X, writing: “thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.”

The politician’s cause of death is not known but he had been suffering from oesophageal cancer.

Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which, among other things, meant Uruguay became the first country to legalise the recreational use of marijuana – Mujica became a well-known political figure in Latin America and beyond.

His global popularity is unusual for a president of Uruguay, a country with just 3.4 million inhabitants where his legacy has also generated some controversy.

In fact, even though many tended to see Mujica as someone outside the political class, that was not the case.

He said his passion for politics, as well as for books and working the land, was passed on to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle-class home in Montevideo, the capital city.

As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay’s traditional political forces, which later became the centre-right opposition to his government.

In the 1960s, he helped set up the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T), a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, although he always maintained that he did not commit any murder.

Influenced by the Cuban revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which at the time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused it of being increasingly authoritarian.

During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly died.

He escaped from prison twice, on one occasion through a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the largest escapes in Uruguayan prison history.

When the Uruguayan military staged a coup in 1973, they included him in a group of “nine hostages” who they threatened to kill if the guerrillas continued their attacks.

During the more than 14 years he spent in prison during the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent most of that time in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He used to say that during his time in prison, he experienced madness first hand, suffering from delusions and even talking to ants.

The day he was freed was his happiest memory, he says: “Becoming president was insignificant compared to that.”

A few years after his release, he served as a lawmaker, both in the Chamber of Representatives and in the Senate, the country’s lower and upper houses respectively.

In 2005, he became minister in the first government of the Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan leftist coalition, before becoming Uruguay’s president in 2010.

He was 74 years old at the time, and, to the rest of the world, still unknown.

His election marked an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at that time. Mujica became leader alongside other left-wing presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

However, Mujica governed in his own way, demonstrating pragmatism and audacity on several occasions, political commentators say.

During his administration, amid a fairly favourable international context, the Uruguayan economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.4%, poverty was reduced, and unemployment remained low.

Uruguay also drew global attention for the social laws passed by parliament during those years, such as the legalisation of abortion, the recognition of same-sex marriage, and state regulation of the marijuana market.

While in office, Mujica rejected moving into the presidential residence (a mansion), as heads of state around the world usually do.

Instead, he remained with his wife – politician and former guerrilla Lucía Topolansky – in their modest home on the outskirts of Montevideo, with no domestic help and little security.

This combined with the fact that he always dressed casually, that he was often seen driving his light blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle and gave away a large portion of his salary, led some media outlets to call him “the world’s poorest president”.

But Mujica always rejected that title: “They say I’m the poorest president. No, I’m not,” he told me in a 2012 interview at his home. “Poor are those who want more […] because they’re in an endless race.”

Despite Mujica preaching austerity, his government did significantly increase public spending, widening the fiscal deficit and leading his opponents to accuse him of waste.

Mujica was also criticised for failing to reverse the growing problems in Uruguayan education, despite having promised that education would be a top priority for his administration.

However, unlike other leaders in the region, he was never accused of corruption or of undermining his country’s democracy.

By the end of his administration, Mujica had a high domestic popularity rating (close to 70%) and was elected senator, but also spent part of his time travelling the world after he stepped down as president.

“So what it is that catches the world’s attention? That I live with very little, a simple house, that I drive around in an old car? Then this world is crazy because it’s surprised by [what is] normal,” he reflected before leaving office.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020 though he remained a central figure in Uruguay.

His political heir, Yamandú Orsi, was elected president of Uruguay in November 2024 and his group within the Frente Amplio obtained the largest number of parliamentary seats since the country’s return to democracy.

Last year, Mujica announced he had cancer and references to his age and the inexorable proximity of death became more frequent – but he always accepted the final outcome as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview he gave the BBC in November last year, he said: “One knows that death is inevitable. And perhaps it’s like the salt of life.”

In the latest India-Pakistan stand-off, there were no ultimatums, no red buttons.

Yet the cycle of military retaliation, veiled signals and swift international mediation quietly evoked the region’s most dangerous shadow. The crisis didn’t spiral towards nuclear war, but it was a reminder of how quickly tensions here can summon that spectre.

Even scientists have modelled how easily things could unravel. A 2019 study by a global team of scientists opened with a nightmare scenario where a terrorist attack on India’s parliament in 2025 triggers a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.

Six years later, a real-world stand-off – though contained by a US-brokered ceasefire on Saturday – stoked fears of a full-blown conflict. It also revived uneasy memories of how fragile stability in the region can be.

As the crisis escalated, Pakistan sent “dual signals” – retaliating militarily while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting, a calculated reminder of its nuclear capability. The NCA oversees control and potential use of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Whether this move was symbolic, strategic or a genuine alert, we may never know. It also came just as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly stepped in to defuse the spiral.

President Trump said the US didn’t just broker a ceasefire – it averted a “nuclear conflict”. On Monday, in an address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “[There] is no tolerance for nuclear blackmail; India will not be intimidated by nuclear threats.

“Any terrorist safe haven operating under this pretext will face precise and decisive strikes,” Modi added.

India and Pakistan each possess about 170 nuclear weapons, according to the think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). As of January 2024, Sipri estimated there were 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of these, about 9,585 were held in military stockpiles, with 3,904 actively deployed – 60 more than the previous year. The US and Russia together account for more than 8,000 nuclear weapons.

The bulk of both India’s and Pakistan’s deployed arsenals lies in their land-based missile forces, though both are developing nuclear triads capable of delivering warheads by land, air and sea, according to Christopher Clary, a security affairs expert at the University at Albany in the US.

“India likely has a larger air leg (aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons) than Pakistan. While we know the least of Pakistan’s naval leg, it is reasonable to assess that India’s naval leg is more advanced and more capable than Pakistan’s sea-based nuclear force,” he told the BBC.

One reason, Mr Clary said, is that Pakistan has invested nowhere near the “time or money” that India has in building a nuclear-powered submarine, giving India a “clear qualitative” edge in naval nuclear capability.

Since testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Pakistan has never formally declared an official nuclear doctrine.

India, by contrast, adopted a no-first-use policy following its own 1998 tests. But this stance has shown signs of softening. In 2003, India reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks – effectively allowing for first use under certain conditions.

Further ambiguity emerged in 2016, when then–defence minister Manohar Parrikar suggested India shouldn’t feel “bound” by the policy, raising questions about its long-term credibility. (Parrikar clarified that this was his own opinion.)

The absence of a formal doctrine doesn’t mean Pakistan lacks one – official statements, interviews and nuclear developments offer clear clues to its operational posture, according to Sadia Tasleem of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Pakistan’s nuclear threshold remains vague, but in 2001, Khalid Kidwai – then head of the Strategic Plans Division of the NCA – outlined four red lines: major territorial loss, destruction of key military assets, economic strangulation or political destabilisation.

In 2002, then-president Pervez Musharraf clarified that “nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India”, and would only be used if “the very existence of Pakistan as a state” was at stake.

In his memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that he was jolted awake at night to speak with an unnamed “Indian counterpart” who feared Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear weapons during the 2019 stand-off with India.

Around the same time, Pakistani media quoted a senior official issuing a stark warning to India: “I hope you know what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I said that we will surprise you. Wait for that surprise… You have chosen a path of war without knowing the consequences for the peace and security of the region.”

During the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed warned that the country would not “hesitate to use any weapon” to defend its territory. Years later, US official Bruce Riedel revealed that intelligence indicated Pakistan was preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible deployment.

But there is scepticism on both sides over such claims.

Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria wrote in his memoir that Pompeo overstated both the risk of nuclear escalation and the US role in calming the conflict in 2019. And during Kargil, Pakistan “knew the Indian Air Force wouldn’t cross into its territory” – so there was no real trigger for even an implicit nuclear threat, insist Pakistani analysts.

“Strategic signalling reminds the world that any conflict can spiral – and with India and Pakistan, the stakes are higher due to the nuclear overhang. But that doesn’t mean either side is actively threatening nuclear use,” Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, told the BBC.

But nuclear escalation can happen by accident too. “This could happen by human error, hackers, terrorists, computer failures, bad data from satellites and unstable leaders,” Prof Alan Robock of Rutgers University, lead author of the landmark 2019 paper by a global team of scientists, told the BBC.

In March 2022, India accidentally fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile which travelled 124km (77 miles) into Pakistani territory before crashing, reportedly damaging civilian property. Pakistan said India failed to use the military hotline or issue a public statement for two days. Had this occurred during heightened tensions, the incident could have spiralled into serious conflict, experts say. (Months later, India’s government sacked three air force officers for the “accidental firing of a missile”.)

Yet, the danger of nuclear war remains “relatively small” between India and Pakistan, according to Mr Clary.

“So long as there is not major ground combat along the border, the dangers of nuclear use remain relatively small and manageable,” he said.

“In ground combat, the ‘use it or lose it’ problem is propelled by the possibility that your ground positions will be overrun by the enemy.” (‘Use it or lose it‘ refers to the pressure a nuclear-armed country may feel to launch its weapons before they are destroyed in a first strike by an adversary.)

Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, believes that “neither India nor Pakistan wants to be labelled as the first violator of the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo”.

“Furthermore, any side that resorts to the use of nuclear weapons would face substantial retaliation and suffer unacceptable casualties,” Mr Ganguly told the BBC.

At the same time, both India and Pakistan appear to be beefing up their nuclear arsenal.

With new delivery systems in development, four plutonium reactors and expanding uranium enrichment, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could reach around 200 warheads by the late 2020s, according to The Nuclear Notebook, researched by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

And as of early 2023, India was estimated to have about 680kg of weapons-grade plutonium – enough for roughly 130-210 nuclear warheads, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Despite repeated crises and close calls, both sides have so far managed to avoid a catastrophic slide into nuclear conflict. “The deterrent is still holding. All Pakistanis did was to respond to conventional strikes with counter-conventional strikes of their own,” writes Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst.

Yet, the presence of nuclear weapons injects a constant undercurrent of risk – one that can never be entirely ruled out, no matter how experienced the leadership or how restrained the intentions.

“When nuclear weapons can be involved, there is always an unacceptable level of danger,”John Erath, senior policy director at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told the BBC.

“The Indian and Pakistani governments have navigated these situations in the past, so the risk is small. But with nuclear weapons, even a small risk is too large.”

An Israeli air strike has killed 28 people and injured dozens at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a spokesman for the Hamas-run civil defence agency has said.

Israeli warplanes dropped six bombs simultaneously on the Gaza hospital, hitting both its inner courtyard and surrounding area, according to local sources.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on “Hamas terrorists in a command and control centre” which it claimed was beneath the hospital.

A freelance journalist working for the BBC in Gaza was among those injured in the air strike, and is now in a stable condition after receiving medical attention.

• Gaza journalist Hassan Aslih killed in Israeli strike on hospital

The strike at European Hospital resulted in several deep craters inside the hospital compound, which buried several vehicles including part of a large bus.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli drones maintained a tight aerial siege over the building, preventing rescue teams from reaching the site.

A quadcopter drone reportedly wounded two civil defence officers as they attempted to approach the European Hospital.

Dr Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon working with the Ideals international aid charity, was in the hospital when it was hit.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour programme, he described “six enormous explosions one after the other” that directly hit the hospital with “no warning whatsoever”.

“There was complete panic,” he added.

The dead and wounded have been transferred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, local sources said, where medical teams are reportedly struggling to deal with the casualties.

The emergency department of Nasser Hospital was hit by another strike earlier on Tuesday, according to medical sources and eyewitnesses.

They said a well-known Palestinian photojournalist was among two people killed.

Hassan Aslih, who was being treated for injuries from a previous Israeli strike, was targeted in what witnesses described as a drone attack on the hospital’s surgical wing.

A doctor there confirmed that Aslih had been at the hospital for nearly a month after surviving an air strike on the same facility in April.

The Israeli military had previously accused him of involvement in the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel. The strike in April killed Aslih’s colleague Helmi al-Faqawi and wounded several other journalists.

In a joint statement the IDF and the Israeli Securities Authority (ISA) said Hamas “continues” to use hospitals in Gaza for its activities – a long-standing Israeli allegation which the group denies.

Israeli media reported the target of the strike was senior Hamas figure Mohammed Sinwar – the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Hamas has not commented on these reports.

Mohammed Sinwar is believed to have taken command of the group’s military wing, following the death of Mohammed Deif in an Israeli strike last summer.

Separately on Tuesday evening, the Israel army said it intercepted “two projectiles” launched from Gaza. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility and said it shot rocket fire from Gaza at Israel.

Virat Kohli’s retirement from Tests has left Indian cricket beleaguered and the sporting world gasping in surprise.

Coming on the heels of captain Rohit Sharma quitting a few days earlier, it adds up to a double whammy for India who embark on a tough tour of England for a five-Test series come June without their two most experienced batters.

Like Sharma, Kohli took to Instagram, where he commands more than 270 million followers, to make his retirement public.

“As I step away from this format, it’s not easy – but it feels right…” he explained to his disconsolate fans.

Tributes for Kohli have come in a deluge since: from fellow cricketers, past and present, old and young, and also legends from other disciplines like tennis ace Novak Djokovic and football star Harry Kane, which highlights the sweep and heft of Kohli’s global appeal.

Leading India to victory in the Under-19 World Cup in 2008, Kohli was fast tracked into international cricket by the then-chairman of selectors, former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar, against the judgement of others in the cricket establishment.

“Many in the Indian cricket board felt he was too young but he was scoring heavily in domestic cricket, and the hunger to succeed was palpable in him,” recalls Vengsarkar.

An example of Kohli’s obsessive passion for the sport comes imbued with poignancy. Kohli was playing his second Ranji Trophy match for Delhi. His father passed away suddenly with his team in a crisis. After the funeral, he went back and scored a battling 90.

Vengsarkar’s approving eye earned Kohli an ODI debut in 2009. At 23, he was the youngest member of India’s 2011 ODI World Cup winning team under MS Dhoni. A few weeks later, he made his Test debut in the West Indies. Some months on, the disastrous tour of Australia with his place under threat, Kohli made a gritty maiden century and never looked back. Within a couple of years he established himself as the pre-eminent batter of his generation.

Brash and provocative, without a benign muscle in his body, he was as volatile as potassium on water in his early years. He was unafraid to take on the most reputed opponents, often indulging in on-field fracases that sometimes earned him criticism.

Happily, this was not to become his defining identity in cricket. Prolific run-getting in dashing style across formats provided another more compelling dimension and was to take him to the pinnacle.

When his idol Sachin Tendulkar retired in 2013, Kohli, allying unbridled ambition with his abundant skills, grabbed the baton hungrily and went on to sketch one of the most stellar careers in cricket history.

He wielded the bat like a Jedi, with great skill and telling thrust to slay opponents, as it were. Coupled with his high-octane persona, his scintillating batting made him a cult hero whose very presence ensured blockbuster box-office returns everywhere he played.

Kohli always wore his passion on his sleeve. He was always demonstrative and dramatic on the field but over a period of time, misplaced angst was sublimated into a raging inner pursuit of excellence that took him to dizzying heights.

Marriage to film star Anushka Sharma made them the country’s foremost power couple, putting both under the glare of even more intense spotlight.

Metaphorically, Kohli’s outstanding exploits, especially in the first decade of his career, epitomised the emerging India of the 21st century: unabashedly, unrelentingly ambitious, discarding all past demons, willing to take on the best in the world.

His achievements across formats are monumental.

In ODIs, he is third in run aggregate behind Tendulkar and Kumar Sangakarra, but boasts the best average (57.88) among batters who have played more than 100 games. His ability to win ODI matches in the most daunting run chases is the stuff of folklore, many of his record 51 centuries coming in such pursuit.

In T20s, his run aggregate and centuries don’t put him the top 5, but he’s immortalised himself with incredible knocks, notably 82 not out in a emotion-charged, pulsating match against arch-rivals Pakistan in the 2022 World Cup and a vital 76 in the 2024 final against South Africa which helped India win the title.

He is also the highest run scorer in the history of the Indian Premier League.

At one point, Kohli averaged 50-plus in all three formats, making him the most productive and versatile batter of his era – way ahead of contemporaries Joe Root, Kane Williamson and Steve Smith. The four were locked in a fascinating, long-running race for batting supremacy.

When it appeared he would break all batting records, Kohli’s career took an inexplicable downturn. From the start of the pandemic, the flow of runs began to ebb and centuries became a trickle. In his pomp – between 2014 and 2019 – he had been unstoppable, at one time scoring six double centuries in just 18 months.

The drought of runs hit him most adversely in Test cricket where his average, from a high of 55-plus in 2019 slumped to the current 46.75. In this period, Kohli also lost the captaincy, though his stellar standing in international cricket remained untouched.

Kohli finishes his Test career with 9,230 runs, which puts him 19th overall in aggregate, and fourth among Indians behind Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar, all of whom finished with a 50-plus average and more centuries. But to judge him only on this yardstick would diminish the massive impact he has had on this format .

As captain, Kohli easily hurdles over Gavaskar, Tendulkar and Dravid. In Test cricket, winning 40 of the 68 matches he led in, making him the fourth most successful in the format. In the Indian context, this assumes Himalayan proportions.

Former Australia captain Greg Chappell says that Kohli’s energy, grit, sense of purpose and aura was “transformative” for Indian cricket. Chappell marks him out as the most influential Indian captain, ahead of even Sourav Ganguly and M S Dhoni.

Former India captain and chief coach Ravi Shastri, who collaborated with Kohli for years, gives first-hand perspective.

“Kohli made India into a fighting unit, especially when playing overseas,” says Shastri.

The lack of ICC and IPL titles according to Shastri, is misleading as an index to his captaincy ability.

“He always played to win, sought and nurtured fast bowlers to win overseas, demanded high intent and supreme fitness from all players, putting himself in the forefront, not as a backseat driver.”

For seven years when Kohli and Shastri collaborated, India were in the top three in ICC rankings in all formats almost continuously which is unprecedented.

The most cherished and significant triumph of this period came in 2018 when India beat Australia in its own backyard in a Test series for the first time ever.

Australia is where Kohli had launched himself into batting greatness, scoring 692 runs in four Tests in 2014-15. In 2018, he contributed as captain and batter to break an hitherto unassailable psychological barrier. In 2020 touring Australia, Kohli played only one match (which was lost) returning home for the birth of his child. But India, having overcome the mental barrier two years earlier, went on to win the rubber in a melodramatic see-saw series.

Australia was Kohli’s happy hunting ground and his last visit Down Under in late 2024 grabbed worldwide attention. He began with a roar, hitting a century in the first test at Perth. But his form fizzled out alarmingly and made only 190 runs in the five Tests.

How much this contributed to his decision to retire is moot. Advancing years, the dislike of being constantly under harsh scrutiny, wanting to be close to his young family and behind the scene shenanigans that abound in Indian cricket have doubtless played a part too.

Kohli ends his retirement post on Instagram enigmatically.

“I’ll always look back at my Test career with a smile. #269 signing off,” he wrote.

The greatest ambassador for the five-day format in the last decade and a half had moved into the sunset.

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”.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has unveiled his cabinet, promising “decisive action” on his ambitious economic agenda, amid a trade war with the US.

The new cabinet of 28 ministers and 10 secretaries of state heralds some significant changes, including a new foreignminister to handle the US-Canada relationship.

The reshuffle, two weeks after the election, brings some familiar names as well as political newcomers – a team “purpose-built for this hinge moment”, Carney told reporters.

There are 24 new faces in cabinet, including 13 first-time MPs. Several veterans of former PM Justin Trudeau’s government, such as Melanie Joly and Chrystia Freeland, return to cabinet.

Other holdovers from the Trudeau era include Anita Anand, Gary Anandasangaree, Sean Fraser and Dominic LeBlanc.

But housing, immigration and energy – key departments for which the Trudeau government was heavily criticised – have been given to first-time ministers.

Carney is also continuing Trudeau’s policy of maintaining gender parity in his cabinet.

“Canada’s new ministry is built to deliver the change Canadians want and deserve,” Carney said on Tuesday.

He has made a number of changes to the core team of ministers handling the strained relationship with the US.

It comes after Carney recently met Trump at the White House, after which he said the US leader was willing to negotiate a new trade deal.

Veteran member of parliament (MP), Dominic LeBlanc, who has overseen a number of cabinet positions, most recently international trade, will now focus on Canada-US trade and breaking down internal trade barriers within the country – a key campaign pledge.

Toronto-area MP Maninder Sidhu, takes over as minister of international trade.

Carney has also named a new foreign minister, Anita Anand, who held a number of top roles in Trudeau’s cabinet, including defence.

Melanie Joly was shuffled out of foreign affairs and given the industry portfolio.

Former justice minister Gary Anandasangaree now takes on the role of public safety, a department that will oversee border security, which Trump has cited as a key reason for imposing tariffs on Canada as well as Mexico.

David McGuinty, who previously held that position, now oversees defence.

Two prominent names have been pushed out of the cabinet – Bill Blair, who oversaw defence, and Jonathan Wilkinson, natural resources minister.

Rookie MP Tim Hodgson, first elected in April, is taking over at natural resources. Carney worked with him at the Bank of Canada, where Hodgson served as a special adviser.

• Along the Canada border, small-town America feels sting of Trump’s trade war
• How Canada voted – in charts
• Canada has been ‘over reliant on the US for too long’, says Joly

The 10 secretaries of state will assist the senior ministers on key portfolios.

Some notable names remaining in their roles include Francois-Philippe Champagne, who stays on as finance minister, a position he has held since March.

Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister under Trudeau and a former foreign affairs and finance minister in his government, stays in transport.

Steven Guilbeault will continue to oversee Canadian culture and official languages.

Federal cabinets in Canada by tradition balance representation of the country’s regional, linguistic and ethnic diversity.

The new cabinet includes representation from Canada’s prairie provinces – a minister and secretary of state – where there are growing musings about separation amid a broader sense of western alienation from the power centre in Ottawa.

Some of the new faces include former broadcaster Evan Solomon, who will be minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

Toronto MP Julie Dabrusin joins cabinet for the first time as environment minister after having served as parliamentary secretary for the file since 2021.

Halifax MP Lena Metlege Diab is also new to cabinet in the role of minister for immigration.

Vancouver’s former mayor, Gregor Robertson, takes on a significant role overseeing housing. Carney has pledged to significantly ramp up construction amid a housing affordability crisis in Canada.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre criticised Carney for keeping so many ministers who served in Trudeau’s cabinet.

“That isn’t the change that Mr Carney promised,” he said.

A masked gang have tried to abduct the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a violent struggle they drove off empty-handed.

The botched kidnap bid was captured on video by an onlooker in Paris’s 11th district, in the east of the French capital.

Police sources said the woman was the daughter of a cryptocurrency company boss. She and her husband fought off three attackers until passers-by rushed to their aid and the men fled in a van.

A Paris police brigade that tackles armed robbery is expected to investigate the attack, which is the latest in a series of abductions targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.

The attack unfolded at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, according to local media, when three men leapt from a white van and tried to kidnap the mother and her child.

The pair are described as relatives of the co-founder of French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, the AFP news agency said.

The woman’s husband who was with his family at the time tried to protect them and was beaten repeatedly over the head. The couple shouted for help as the masked men tried to pull them apart.

At one point she was seen to grab a firearm off the attacker and throw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a replica air gun.

The street was relatively busy at the time and a group of children were on their way to a local primary school.

Initially, passers-by appeared too afraid to intervene, but as locals began to react the three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. One man hurled a fire extinguisher at the van as it sped off.

The family were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

The botched kidnapping in the Rue Pache came little more than a week after French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped in another area of the capital while walking his dog and held for ransom.

In an indication of the brutality of the gangs involved, the victim was freed three days later after his kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers.

Several people were arrested.

Last January, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet firm Ledger, was abducted with his wife at their home in central France.

French media say the victim had one finger missing when he was rescued from a house in Palaiseau, south of Paris.

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 announced 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.

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.”

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kenya’s President William Ruto is a man of many nicknames.

Deputy Jesus, El Chapo, Hustler and Chicken Seller are just some that he has acquired in recent years.

As is often the case when people are given alternative monikers, some are affectionate but some are intended to mock and reflect a profound anger.

A history of the president’s aliases offer a window into how the perception of him has changed.

Ruto has acknowledged the rechristening trend, joking recently that Kenyans are “finishing” him with the numerous labels.

“You have given me so many names. I had the name William Kipchirchir Samoei Ruto. You added Survivor… Zakayo… now you are at Kasongo (the title of a Congolese song about abandonment and heartbreak). Will you stop at ten, or should I prepare for more?” he recently asked.

The crowd, at a rally in the capital, Nairobi, responded that they had yet more.

Before he was elected president in 2022, Ruto attracted handles that bolstered his reputation as a man of the people.

Hustler – Kenyan parlance for someone eking out a living against the odds – helped portray him as someone who would prioritise the needs of the struggling folk.

Chicken Seller, referring to his childhood when he hawked poultry on the roadside, resonated with many who saw his life as an epitome of their own.

“These were very positive [names]. They sold him to the public in terms of votes,” political analyst Prof Herman Manyora told the BBC arguing that they helped catapult him into the top job.

“Names really stick with Ruto,” he added.

But the president has been a high-profile figure in Kenyan politics for a long time, including serving as deputy president for nine years up until 2022, and has never been far from controversy.

Prof Manyora recalls the label Arap Mashamba – which translates as “son of farms” – coined just under a decade ago and relates to Ruto’s ownership of vast tracts of land across the country. Concerns have been raised about how some of these have been acquired.

In 2013, a court ordered Ruto to surrender a 100-acre (40-hectare) farm and compensate a farmer who had accused him of grabbing it during the 2007 post-election violence. He denied any wrongdoing.

Ruto’s penchant for quoting Bible verses also earned him the Deputy Jesus tag.

However, it is since his rise to the presidency that the nickname manufacturers have been working overtime – with at least a dozen being created – and they have become increasingly critical.

One that has stood out is Zakayo – Swahili for the name Zaccheaus, a Biblical figure who is portrayed as a greedy tax collector who climbed a tree to see Jesus.

• The ‘tax collector’ president sparking Kenyan anger
• BBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protesters

Ruto’s government ntroduced a raft of unpopular taxes and many Kenyans began to say that he had betrayed the “hustlers”.

“He failed to deliver after becoming president,” Prof Manyora said.

The pain of paying more taxes, and a perception that the extra money will be wasted, is often the focus many conversations.

Last year, young people came out onto the streets of Nairobi for weeks of protests, which turned deadly, against a fresh government proposal to raise taxes that was later dropped.

The chant “Ruto must go” became a rallying call for the demonstrators and now Must Go has become another way to refer to the leader.

The creative christeners have also focussed on the allegation that the president enjoys foreign travel.

Hence the title Vasco da Ganya – a play on the name of the 15th Century Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, and the Swahili word danganya, which means “to lie”.

• Africa’s ‘flying presidents’ under fire

Ruto’s honesty has also been called into question with Kaunda Uongoman, which mimics late Congolese musician Kanda Bongoman.

The first part refers to the president’s love for the Kaunda suit – a safari jacket with matching trousers – and Uongoman, which incorporates the Swahili word uongo, meaning “lies”.

But the president seems impervious to this volley of verbal attacks.

Government spokesman Isaac Mwaura said the manifold nicknames “don’t raise concerns” in the office of the president but simply “capture how people view a person”.

Ruto is “very hands on and doing his best to transform the economy… It’s normal for any leader to have many nicknames as this signifies his various attributes and initiatives as a leader”, he told the BBC.

Mwaura also argued that in spite of the Zakayo nickname, the government has had to raise taxes to pay for new projects, reduce the budget deficit and fix the economy.

Nevertheless, when people have gone beyond inventing new names and used satire and forms of art to ridicule the president, there has been a negative reaction from officials.

Some cartoons and AI-generated images, including showing the president in a casket, have been described as “reckless” and “distasteful”.

Some of the alleged producers of this online content have been victims of abductions. This, Prof Manyora said, should been seen as a sign of intolerance by the government.

Lachon Kiplimo, a 23-year-old university student, said that while he supported the president, some of the promises he has made are sometimes “unrealistic”, which fuels the nicknames.

He cited the use of El Chapo, referring to the former Mexican drug lord, after Ruto promised a machine that would produce a million chapatis (also known as chapo in Kenya) every day to feed schoolchildren in the capital.

Mr Kiplimo however reckons that the way the president brushes off the monikers, and in fact seems to embrace them, shows how strong he is.

Prof Manyora believes the young people who come up with the alternative labels for the president do it as a form of catharsis, a way of releasing tension.

This view is backed up by 24-year-old student Margaret Wairimu Kahura, who said that many Kenyans “are in a lot of pain”.

She feels that the mockery is a way of letting Ruto know how the youth are feeling.

She says that no other Kenyan president has been subjected to this level of lampooning, and “so this is unique [but] in a bad way”.

It is true that previous heads of state had had nicknames but they have not been so numerous.

The last President, Uhuru Kenyatta, was called Kamwana (“young boy”), Jayden (a Kenyan reference to a pampered or lazy child) and Wamashati (for his love of print shirts).

His predecessor, Mwai Kibaki, was known as General Kiguoya (a general who is afraid) and Fence Sitter.

Perhaps the age of social media, with its insatiable appetite for new content to keep people amused has increased the trend towards name calling.

But for many, like Ms Kahura, the volume of nicknames for Ruto are a genuine reflection of “the different problems that people are facing”.

• How Kenya’s evangelical president has fallen out with churches
• Kenyan president’s humbling shows power of African youth
• Protesters set fire to Kenya’s parliament – but also saved two MPs

Kim Kardashian has given emotional testimony to a Paris court, telling judges she thought she was going to die at the hands of masked gunmen who stole millions of dollars of jewellery from her in a luxury hotel suite in 2016.

The reality TV star and businesswoman – who was bound and had a gun held to her head during the ordeal – faced her alleged attackers for the first time while giving evidence in the case.

Nine men and one woman are on trial for the armed burglary of £10m (£7.55m) worth of jewellery, including a diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband Kanye West.

Kardashian, who gave testimony in a seat in front of the BBC, spoke for more than three hours in court on Tuesday.

Her evidence was at times interrupted by apologies from two defendants.

After one of the defendants, Aomar Ait Khedache, 71, sitting metres from Kardashian in the courtroom expressed his regret, she turned to him and said she forgave him.

Referencing her activism in the US to improve the justice system and her dreams of becoming a lawyer, she thanked Khedache for his apology letter.

“I do appreciate it, I forgive you,” she said to him in the stand, while crying.

“But it doesn’t change the emotion, the feelings and the trauma and the way my life has changed.”

“I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth,” the TV star told the court on Tuesday which was packed with media.

The trial for the crime committed more than nine years ago has been long-anticipated and closely followed by press.

Wearing a tailored black suit and diamond jewellery, Kardashian was supported in the courtroom by her mother, Kris Jenner, several friends, and a bevy of bodyguards.

She faltered at times in her first hour of giving testimony, fidgeting with her long nails, and pausing when overwhelmed by emotion and fighting back tears. However she appeared to relax and gather strength the longer she went on, her voice becoming steadier.

She also expressed forgiveness for one of the defendants, who issued an apology to her during her testimony.

Tuesday’s session in court was the first time Kardashian had relayed to a criminal court her account of the armed burglary, and the extent of her fears during and after the attack.

She recounted how she had been in town for Paris Fashion Week on 2 October, and had retired for the night at around 03:00 when two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms burst into her room, dragging with them the hotel’s receptionist who had been bound and gagged.

She managed to call her bodyguard before one of the men then took her phone off her. They snatched her engagement ring, which had been lying on the bedside table, and then “picked me up off the bed and grabbed me and took me down the hallway” to look for more jewellery,” she said.

One of the men held a gun to her back at this point, and “that was the first moment I thought, should I run for it? But it wasn’t an option so I just stayed,” she said, adding that she realised she should just “do whatever they say” for her safety.

Kardashian said she was then thrown onto the bed and her hands bound with zip ties. At this point, she told the concierge: “Please translate to them that I have babies, I have to make it home.”

One of the men then pulled her towards him, which opened her robe, under which she wasn’t wearing anything.

She told the court she was afraid she was going to be raped, saying she said a prayer to mentally prepare herself.

But then her legs were tied together and a gun pointed at her. She said at that point, “I was sure that’s when they were going to shoot me.”

She thought of her family at that point, offering them a “prayer” that they would not have to experience her killing.

She expressed fear for her sister, Kourtney, having to walk into the hotel room to find that “I would be shot dead on the bed and she would see that and have that memory forever.”

When asked by the judge David de Pas if she thought she was going to die she replied in a small voice: “I absolutely did think I was gonna die.”

Kardashian said she looked in the eyes of the man who tied her up to try to remember details – and that he told her if she remained quiet, she would be ok.

After the robbers took the jewellery, they dashed out of the suite, leaving Kardashian in the bathroom. She said she then managed to free her hands from the cable ties and hopped down the staircase to the first floor of the suite, where her stylist and friend Simone Harouche helped release the other ties.

The two then ran out onto the balcony where they called for help while hiding in the bushes. Kardashian said she was worried the men would return, and that when Parisian police turned up, she couldn’t trust them because the robbers had also been wearing police uniforms.

During the testimony in the packed courtroom, Kardashian also answered several questions from the judge about why her security were not present at the time.

Her usual team had been sent to accompany her sister Kourtney to the club, while Kim had stayed in.

She told the court she did not have a bodyguard with her because up until the robbery, she and her family had not believed they needed that level of security. She said she had previously always felt safe to go out on the streets of Paris on her own, and they had been comfortable with their security team staying at a different hotel.

“Everything changed” after Paris, she said, noting that she employs up to six people to guard her house at night now, and that she started to get a “phobia of going out” because she thought people would “see me out and know my home was empty”.

“I can’t even sleep at night if I know there’s not multiple security” guards, she said, noting her concern about copycat attacks, and that her Los Angeles house was robbed even before the family returned from the Paris trip.

Kardashian’s testimony on Tuesday was interrupted at several points by offers of apology from two of the defendants in the court room, who have pleaded guilty to the charge. While she accepted Khedache’s apology, she did not acknowledge the presence of the other defendants who are contesting the charges.

She ignored her former driver Gary Madar who is accused of having tipped off the burglary ring about her whereabouts. He has denied the charges.

She also expressed anger over one of the defendants who has pleaded guilty, Yunice Abbas, who published a memoir in 2021 prior to the trial titled ‘”I Held Up Kim Kardashian”.

Kardashian told the court on Tuesday she was “really shocked when I saw there was a book”.

“Not only did he do this, but now [he’s] making money off that – my jewellery, my memories, the watch my dad who passed away gave me when I graduated high school. I can’t get that back.”

She also told the court she wanted closure from the trial’s proceedings.

“I wanted to be a part of today because I am a victim in this case and it’s the first time I’m able to really hear from everyone and follow along,” she said.

“This is what I do. I want to become a lawyer and I do believe everyone has the opportunity to speak their truth, and this is my closure and my opportunity to put this to rest after everything I’ve been through.”

Kardashian added that her job is “to tell my truth and hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.

“It was terrifying and life-changing and I don’t wish that kind of terror on anyone – to think you could be killed or raped – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

Australia’s Liberal Party has for the first time chosen a woman as its leader, with Sussan Ley to take over from Peter Dutton after he led the party to a bruising election loss.

Ley, from the moderate faction of the party, beat Angus Taylor – who ran on a promise to restore conservative values – by four votes.

At the election on 3 May, the Liberal-National coalition, currently Australia’s main opposition party, suffered what many are calling the worst defeat in its history.

Pundits and MPs have blamed the result on polarising leaders, a messy campaign and “Trumpian” policies, which alienated women and young people in particular.

Ley’s appointment comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was sworn in at Government House on Tuesday, following his Labor Party’s landslide election win.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Labor has won at least 93 seats – increasing their majority by 16 – while the Coalition has 42 electorates, down from 58. Some seats are still too close to call.

Ley has held the massive regional New South Wales seat of Farrer since 2001 and has served as a senior minister in a variety of portfolios – making her one of the Liberal Party’s most experienced hands. She was also the party deputy under Dutton.

Ted O’Brien, a Queensland MP who was the energy spokesman in charge of selling the coalition’s controversial nuclear power proposal, was elected Ley’s deputy.

Ley said she wanted to help the party rebuild its relationship with Australians – particularly the women and young people who felt they’d been neglected.

“We have to have a Liberal Party that respects modern Australia, that reflects modern Australia, and that represents modern Australia. And we have to meet the people where they are,” she said.

She told reporters the party’s loss would be subject to a review – as would all of its policies, including its position on nuclear and its net zero emissions goal.

“I want to do things differently, and we have to have a fresh approach,” she said.

“I committed to my colleagues that there would be no captain’s calls from anywhere by me… that we would work through every single policy issue and canvas the different views and take the time to get it right.”

In a statement after the leadership vote, unsuccessful contender Taylor congratulated Ley and called for unity.

“Sussan has led a remarkable life and becoming the first woman to lead the Liberal Party is a milestone for Sussan and our party,” he said.

The junior coalition partner, the Nationals, re-elected leader David Littleproud on Monday, after he too was challenged by a hardline conservative colleague.

Albanese’s new cabinet was also sworn in on Tuesday.

The biggest changes include former Labor deputy Tanya Plibersek swapping from the environment portfolio to social services, and former communications minister Michelle Rowland becoming attorney general.

Former Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Ed Husic – the first Muslim to become an Australian government minister – were both removed from the frontbench.

“I have got people who are, I think, in the best positions and that’s across the board,” Albanese said when announcing the positions on Monday.

Born in Nigeria to English parents, Ley grew up in the United Arab Emirates before moving to Australia at age 13.

“Travelling, and being at boarding school on my own, I think you either sink or swim,” Ley said in a previous interview. “Obviously, I was someone who decided very early on in life that I wasn’t going to sink.”

It was as a young woman that she changed her name from Susan to Sussan, inspired by numerology – an ancient belief that numbers have a mystical impact on people’s lives.

“I read about this numerology theory that if you add the numbers that match the letters in your name you can change your personality,” she told The Australian.

“I worked out that if you added an ‘s’ I would have an incredibly exciting, interesting life and nothing would ever be boring. It’s that simple.”

“And once I’d added the ‘s’ it was really hard to take it away.”

As an adult she has had a “wonderfully varied” career path, Ley says, obtaining degrees in economics and accounting while raising three young children, earning a commercial pilot licence, and working in the outback mustering livestock.

Elected in 2001 to represent an area the size of New Zealand, Ley was promoted to Health Minister under Malcom Turnbull in 2014, but resigned two years later amid an expenses scandal.

Ley apologised after using a taxpayer-funded trip to purchase an apartment on Queensland’s Gold Coast.

She re-joined the frontbench in 2019 after Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election win, as the Minister for Environment.

In that role, she was taken to court by a group who claimed she had a duty of care towards children to protect them from harm caused by climate change. Eight teenagers and an 87-year-old nun convinced a court that the government had a legal duty towards them when assessing fossil fuel projects, but the landmark decision was later overturned.

Ley has also drawn headlines for her comments about Palestinians. She was a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, an informal cross-party group which aimed to raise the experiences of Palestinian people and has spoken in the chamber in support of Palestinian autonomy.

However, speaking after the vote on Tuesday, one of her colleagues Andrew Wallace said she has “seen the light on Israel in recent years”.

Yuval Raphael never dreamt she’d be at Eurovision.

The last major music event she attended was the Nova festival, in Israel, where she was nearly killed. On 7 October 2023, the singer fled the festival when Hamas gunmen started shooting.

Now she’s preparing to go on stage at the world’s largest music event.

“It’s something I deal with every day,” she told the BBC. “It feels like a personal win, just to be having this experience and representing my country and doing it with such pride.”

On that day – one and a half years ago – Ms Raphael was attending her first outdoor rave. As rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, and Hamas gunmen started shooting at revellers, she attempted to flee the carnage.

She and her friends took refuge in a concrete bomb shelter at the side of a road. Around 50 people were crammed in, lying on top of each other.

But there was no escape as the gunmen shot repeatedly into the mass of bodies in the shelter and then threw in hand grenades.

Ms Raphael managed to call her father in tears, as heard in a recording played in an Israeli documentary. “Dad, lots of people are dead. Send the police here. Please dad, send the police, it’s urgent.. they’re crushing me,” she said.

“Be quiet,” he replied. “Yuvali my daughter. Yuvali, breathe deep. Hide. Play dead.”

“Bye,” she said, thinking that was the end.

Ms Raphael was one of only 11 people in the shelter to survive. She hid under a pile of dead bodies for eight hours until they were rescued.

That day, around 1,200 people were killed by gunmen led by Hamas, and 251 were taken hostage.

Ms Raphael’s professional singing career started after the attack. “I wished for myself to be happy and to really understand the gift that I had been given, and that’s to live,” she says. “To have more experiences, to be happy and to live fully.”

On Thursday, the 24-year-old will sing her song, New Day Will Rise, at the Eurovision semi-final with shrapnel still in her leg.

The rules of the European Broadcasting Union – which is in charge of Eurovision – means no political statements can be made. The singer won’t describe what happened to her at Nova during the run-up to the competition. She previously gave testimony about her experience to the United Nations.

The Israeli entrant has had to contend with protests about her country’s participation in the song contest.

Irish national broadcaster RTÉ asked the EBU for a discussion on Israel’s inclusion. Its director general, Kevin Bakhurst, said he was “appalled by the ongoing events in the Middle East and by the horrific impact on civilians in Gaza, and the fate of Israeli hostages”. Spain and Slovenia’s broadcasters also asked for a discussion.

Last week, more than 70 former Eurovision contestants signed a letter calling on the organisers to ban Israel from the competition.

More than 52,800 people have been killed in Gaza since the 7 October attacks, including 2,700 since the Israeli offensive resumed, according to the territory’s health ministry.

In previous years, other countries have been banned from the contest. Belarus was suspended in 2021 after submitting an overtly political entry and a year later Russia was barred over the war in Ukraine.

Ms Raphael said she was trying not to deal with those who say her country shouldn’t be competing. “Everybody has opinions,” she said. “I’m really putting everything aside and just concentrating on the most important thing. The slogan this year is ‘united by music’ and that’s what we are here for.”

Eurovision said it understood the concerns and views about the current situation in the Middle East, but insisted members should ensure Eurovision remained a “universal event that promotes connections, diversity and inclusion through music”.

Nevertheless, Israeli fans have been warned by their country’s National Security Council not to wear Jewish or Israeli symbols while attending Eurovision.

On Sunday, during the Eurovision opening parade in the Swiss host city of Basel, the Israeli broadcasting delegation made a complaint to the police and the EBU after accusing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator of making a throat-slitting gesture and spitting at the delegation.

“It was scary at times, even uncomfortable, but it makes me keep reminding myself why I’m here and my agenda, which is spreading as much love as I can and bringing pride to my country,” Ms Raphael said.

Last year, the Israeli singer Eden Golan, who said she received death threats, was booed as she sang. “I think I’m expecting it,” admitted Ms Raphael, when she was asked if she too anticipated booing. “But we are here to sing and I’m going to sing my heart out for everyone.”

She said they had done a few rehearsals with sounds in the background so she could practise with distractions. Asked if that was upsetting, she told the BBC she had a lot of emotions she was putting aside to stay focused.

“I really think I have a lot of weight on my shoulders, I have a very big responsibility. I have a lot of people at home that are expecting something.”

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.

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.

Rapper Tory Lanez has been rushed to hospital after he was stabbed 14 times in a California prison.

The Canadian hip-hop artist was attacked by another inmate on Monday morning in a housing unit at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, about 75 miles (120km) north of Los Angeles, prison officials told the BBC.

The 32-year-old rapper suffered wounds across his body – causing both of his lungs to collapse, according to a post on his Instagram account.

Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting fellow musician Megan Thee Stallion in 2020.

The star’s Instagram post said he was stabbed in the back, torso, head and face. He was temporarily placed on a breathing apparatus but is now able to breathe on his own, the Instagram post adds.

“Despite being in pain, he is talking normally, in good spirits, and deeply thankful to God that he is pulling through,” the post said.

The attack happened around 07:20 local time (15:20 GMT), said Pedro Calderón Michel of the state’s corrections department.

Prison staff began first aid before Lanez was taken to a local medical facility for further treatment, he said.

An investigation is underway into the stabbing, Mr Calderón Michel told the BBC. He did not comment on the attacker’s motive.

Lanez was sentenced in 2023 for three felony gun-related charges, including assault with a semi-automatic firearm.

He shot Megan Thee Stallion, whose legal name is Megan Pete, as they were leaving a pool party at reality star Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood mansion.

The pair argued inside a vehicle about their previous sexual relationship and careers, Megan Thee Stallion testified during the trial.

She said that she had demanded to be let out of the vehicle, at which point Lanez started shooting at the ground and shouted at her to “dance”.

She required surgery to remove bullet fragments from her foot.

Lanez refused to apologise and maintained his innocence in the shooting.

The case divided the hip-hop world with rappers – including 50 Cent and Iggy Azalea – appearing to take sides in the conflict. Some of them wrote to the court to ask for leniency in Lanez’s sentencing.

Lanez had seven US top 10 albums in the seven years before his conviction. He has teased the release of a new album from prison titled Peterson.

A Los Angeles judge has resentenced two brothers who are serving life in prison for the 1989 murders of their parents in a Beverly Hills mansion, making them eligible for parole.

Judge Michael Jesic gave Erik and Lyle Menendez a new sentence of 50 years to life. The brothers will now have to argue for their release in front of the state’s parole board.

The pair acknowledged killing Kitty and Jose Menendez, but said they acted out of self-defence after years of abuse.

Prosecutors argued the brothers planned the shotgun killings to access their parents’ fortune, are yet to take responsibility and should not be released. The case, which has prompted books and documentaries, still divides America.

After the judge agreed to resentence them, the brothers delivered an emotional statement to the court. They went through details of the brutal killings and their decision to reload and continue shooting their parents at point-blank range in their living room.

Both apologised for their actions and talked about their hopes to work with sex abuse victims and help those incarcerated if they were to be released.

“I had to stop being selfish and immature to really understand what my parents went though in those last moments,” Erik Menendez told the court.

He describes the “shock, confusion and betrayal” they must have felt seeing their sons holding guns and opening fire.

Lyle Menendez’s voice cracked as he talked about the impact of his “unfathomable” actions on their family.

“I lied to you and forced you into a spotlight of public humiliation,” he said to his family.

He said they had “cried with me and expressed their suffering” and he was “grateful for your love and forgiveness”.

Judge Jesic called the brothers’ work while in prison “remarkable”, but noted their original sentence was justified at the time.

He said under the guidelines, they were eligible for resentencing, issuing his new sentence of 50 years to life. The brothers have already served more than 30 years in prison.

The brothers’ lawyer Mark Geragos said “today is a great day after 35 years”. They were “one huge step closer to bringing the boys home”, he added.

Anamaria Baralt, the brothers’ cousin who testified inside court earlier in the day, said their family was elated.

“It is a difficult process,” she said of the parole hearing that awaits the brothers, but noted they will “eagerly step through those doors if it means we can have them home”.

Inside court earlier, relatives pleaded with the judge to allow the siblings’ release.

Ms Baralt, who said she has been close with them since they were children, told the judge they deserved a “second chance at life”.

“It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “I am desperate for this process to be over.”

Ms Baralt told the court she speaks with the brothers frequently and testified that they had taken “ownership of their actions”.

She said Lyle Menendez had acknowledged to her he had asked a witness to lie when testifying at their previous trial.

But she added: “They are very different men from the boys they were.”

In the latest India-Pakistan stand-off, there were no ultimatums, no red buttons.

Yet the cycle of military retaliation, veiled signals and swift international mediation quietly evoked the region’s most dangerous shadow. The crisis didn’t spiral towards nuclear war, but it was a reminder of how quickly tensions here can summon that spectre.

Even scientists have modelled how easily things could unravel. A 2019 study by a global team of scientists opened with a nightmare scenario where a terrorist attack on India’s parliament in 2025 triggers a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.

Six years later, a real-world stand-off – though contained by a US-brokered ceasefire on Saturday – stoked fears of a full-blown conflict. It also revived uneasy memories of how fragile stability in the region can be.

As the crisis escalated, Pakistan sent “dual signals” – retaliating militarily while announcing a National Command Authority (NCA) meeting, a calculated reminder of its nuclear capability. The NCA oversees control and potential use of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Whether this move was symbolic, strategic or a genuine alert, we may never know. It also came just as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly stepped in to defuse the spiral.

President Trump said the US didn’t just broker a ceasefire – it averted a “nuclear conflict”. On Monday, in an address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “[There] is no tolerance for nuclear blackmail; India will not be intimidated by nuclear threats.

“Any terrorist safe haven operating under this pretext will face precise and decisive strikes,” Modi added.

India and Pakistan each possess about 170 nuclear weapons, according to the think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). As of January 2024, Sipri estimated there were 12,121 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of these, about 9,585 were held in military stockpiles, with 3,904 actively deployed – 60 more than the previous year. The US and Russia together account for more than 8,000 nuclear weapons.

The bulk of both India’s and Pakistan’s deployed arsenals lies in their land-based missile forces, though both are developing nuclear triads capable of delivering warheads by land, air and sea, according to Christopher Clary, a security affairs expert at the University at Albany in the US.

“India likely has a larger air leg (aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons) than Pakistan. While we know the least of Pakistan’s naval leg, it is reasonable to assess that India’s naval leg is more advanced and more capable than Pakistan’s sea-based nuclear force,” he told the BBC.

One reason, Mr Clary said, is that Pakistan has invested nowhere near the “time or money” that India has in building a nuclear-powered submarine, giving India a “clear qualitative” edge in naval nuclear capability.

Since testing nuclear weapons in 1998, Pakistan has never formally declared an official nuclear doctrine.

India, by contrast, adopted a no-first-use policy following its own 1998 tests. But this stance has shown signs of softening. In 2003, India reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to chemical or biological attacks – effectively allowing for first use under certain conditions.

Further ambiguity emerged in 2016, when then–defence minister Manohar Parrikar suggested India shouldn’t feel “bound” by the policy, raising questions about its long-term credibility. (Parrikar clarified that this was his own opinion.)

The absence of a formal doctrine doesn’t mean Pakistan lacks one – official statements, interviews and nuclear developments offer clear clues to its operational posture, according to Sadia Tasleem of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Pakistan’s nuclear threshold remains vague, but in 2001, Khalid Kidwai – then head of the Strategic Plans Division of the NCA – outlined four red lines: major territorial loss, destruction of key military assets, economic strangulation or political destabilisation.

In 2002, then-president Pervez Musharraf clarified that “nuclear weapons are aimed solely at India”, and would only be used if “the very existence of Pakistan as a state” was at stake.

In his memoir, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote that he was jolted awake at night to speak with an unnamed “Indian counterpart” who feared Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear weapons during the 2019 stand-off with India.

Around the same time, Pakistani media quoted a senior official issuing a stark warning to India: “I hope you know what the [National Command Authority] means and what it constitutes. I said that we will surprise you. Wait for that surprise… You have chosen a path of war without knowing the consequences for the peace and security of the region.”

During the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistan’s then-foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmed warned that the country would not “hesitate to use any weapon” to defend its territory. Years later, US official Bruce Riedel revealed that intelligence indicated Pakistan was preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible deployment.

But there is scepticism on both sides over such claims.

Former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria wrote in his memoir that Pompeo overstated both the risk of nuclear escalation and the US role in calming the conflict in 2019. And during Kargil, Pakistan “knew the Indian Air Force wouldn’t cross into its territory” – so there was no real trigger for even an implicit nuclear threat, insist Pakistani analysts.

“Strategic signalling reminds the world that any conflict can spiral – and with India and Pakistan, the stakes are higher due to the nuclear overhang. But that doesn’t mean either side is actively threatening nuclear use,” Ejaz Haider, a Lahore-based defence analyst, told the BBC.

But nuclear escalation can happen by accident too. “This could happen by human error, hackers, terrorists, computer failures, bad data from satellites and unstable leaders,” Prof Alan Robock of Rutgers University, lead author of the landmark 2019 paper by a global team of scientists, told the BBC.

In March 2022, India accidentally fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile which travelled 124km (77 miles) into Pakistani territory before crashing, reportedly damaging civilian property. Pakistan said India failed to use the military hotline or issue a public statement for two days. Had this occurred during heightened tensions, the incident could have spiralled into serious conflict, experts say. (Months later, India’s government sacked three air force officers for the “accidental firing of a missile”.)

Yet, the danger of nuclear war remains “relatively small” between India and Pakistan, according to Mr Clary.

“So long as there is not major ground combat along the border, the dangers of nuclear use remain relatively small and manageable,” he said.

“In ground combat, the ‘use it or lose it’ problem is propelled by the possibility that your ground positions will be overrun by the enemy.” (‘Use it or lose it‘ refers to the pressure a nuclear-armed country may feel to launch its weapons before they are destroyed in a first strike by an adversary.)

Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, believes that “neither India nor Pakistan wants to be labelled as the first violator of the post-Hiroshima nuclear taboo”.

“Furthermore, any side that resorts to the use of nuclear weapons would face substantial retaliation and suffer unacceptable casualties,” Mr Ganguly told the BBC.

At the same time, both India and Pakistan appear to be beefing up their nuclear arsenal.

With new delivery systems in development, four plutonium reactors and expanding uranium enrichment, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could reach around 200 warheads by the late 2020s, according to The Nuclear Notebook, researched by the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project.

And as of early 2023, India was estimated to have about 680kg of weapons-grade plutonium – enough for roughly 130-210 nuclear warheads, according to the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

Despite repeated crises and close calls, both sides have so far managed to avoid a catastrophic slide into nuclear conflict. “The deterrent is still holding. All Pakistanis did was to respond to conventional strikes with counter-conventional strikes of their own,” writes Umer Farooq, an Islamabad-based analyst.

Yet, the presence of nuclear weapons injects a constant undercurrent of risk – one that can never be entirely ruled out, no matter how experienced the leadership or how restrained the intentions.

“When nuclear weapons can be involved, there is always an unacceptable level of danger,”John Erath, senior policy director at the non-profit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told the BBC.

“The Indian and Pakistani governments have navigated these situations in the past, so the risk is small. But with nuclear weapons, even a small risk is too large.”

President Donald Trump has said the US has “no stronger partner” than Saudi Arabia during his first major foreign trip – a whirlwind visit of Gulf countries mainly focused on shoring up investment.

Speaking in Riyadh, the US president also pledged to lift all sanctions against Syria, saying it was now time for the country to move forward with “a chance at greatness”.

Day one of the tour saw the US and Saudi Arabia announce a $142bn (£107bn) arms deal, as well as other investments that the country’s crown prince said could eventually be worth $1tn.

Trump also made Saudi Arabia the first foreign stop during his first term, in 2017. The rest of his trip will include stops in Qatar and the UAE.

Trump’s arrival in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was met with a grand reception, including a lavish lavender-coloured carpet rolled out to greet him. He had even chosen a purple tie to match it.

Riyadh swapped red carpets for lavender in 2021, saying that it was a symbol of the kingdom’s desert wildflowers and generosity.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Trump on the tarmac and provided an honour guard of Arabian horses to accompany his presidential limo.

In his remarks at an investment forum, Trump lauded the US-Saudi relationship as “more powerful than ever before”.

“From the moment we started we’ve seen wealth that has poured – and is pouring – into America,” he said.

Trump is trying to woo foreign investors to the US to boost the American economy, a key focus of his administration in the nearly four months of his second term.

“I like him too much,” Trump said of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. “That’s why we give so much.”

The pomp and ceremony was a step up from the muted welcome for former US President Joe Biden, who travelled to the oil-rich kingdom in 2022 to seek their help in lowering petrol prices, fist-bumping the crown prince.

That visit came two years after he declared Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state following the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump flew to the Gulf to strike financial deals and argued in his speech that it is through this kind of commerce and economic development that the Middle East would transcend violence and division.

Underscoring his commitment to deal-making, Trump was joined by a number of business leaders including billionaire ally Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

The high-profile executives are meeting a Saudi Arabia eager to diversify its oil-rich economy by increasing its artificial intelligence capabilities.

Mr Huang announced during the visit that Nvidia will sell more than 18,000 of its latest AI chips to Saudi company Humain.

During his address, Trump said it was his “dream” to have Saudi Arabia join the Abraham Accords, a deal brokered in his first administration that saw relations between Israel and some Gulf countries normalised for the first time.

But his good friend, Mohammed bin Salman, has made it clear that will not happen until there is a permanent end to the war in Gaza and a clear path to Palestinian statehood.

There is a limit to what this friendship can deliver.

Trump only briefly addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He told those in attendance that people in Gaza deserved a “better future”, which had been held back by Hamas choosing “to kidnap, torture and target” for “political ends” – a reference to the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

Trump also announced he was lifting sanctions on Syria to improve the country’s new government, a move he suggested was requested by Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” the US leader said.

American sanctions on Syria had been in place for over a decade, meant to apply pressure and economic pain against the dictatorship of former President Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December.

Syria has since elected a new transitional president, creating an opening for renewed US diplomacy efforts.

The surprise announcement to lift the sanctions represents a sea change for Syria, described by its foreign minister Asaad Shibani as a “new start” in the country’s reconstruction path.

Robert Ford, who served as US ambassador to Syria under President Barack Obama, applauded the Trump administration’s move to lift sanctions.

“I visited Syria three months ago and the country is simply devastated after the 13-year civil war. It needs to rebuild, it needs reconstruction, it needs foreign financing to do that,” he told the BBC.

“So removing the sanctions, that will enable international capital flows to go into Syria from Gulf states, from other Arab states and from different aid agencies is absolutely vital.”

Trump was expected to meet Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia.

From Riyadh, Trump will head to both Qatar and the UAE, which has already committed to investing $1.4tn in the US over the next decade.

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.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex-girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, has told the hip-hop mogul’s sex-trafficking trial that he controlled her life and coerced her into “humiliating” sex acts.

The prosecution’s star witness testified about the alleged physical and emotional abuse she endured at the hands of the rapper during so-called “freak-offs”, or sexual encounters the couple had with male escorts.

Family and friends have come to court in large numbers to support Mr Combs, whose legal team has not yet questioned Ms Ventura.

Mr Combs has pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Prosecutors began by questioning Ms Ventura – one of their two central witnesses in the case – about her 11-year, on-and-off relationship with Mr Combs.

Now 38 and pregnant with her third child, she met Mr Combs when she was a 19-year-old aspiring singer and he was 37.

His record label would later sign Ms Ventura as an artist, and shortly afterwards their romantic relationship began.

At the time, she testified, she felt like they were in a monogamous relationship, though she knows now that he had other girlfriends.

She said she “fell in love” with the “larger-than-life entrepreneur and musician”. But it was not long before she noticed another side to him, she said.

Mr Combs wanted to “control” her life, Ms Ventura said. She said he paid for her home, her cars, her phone and other technology that he would sometimes take away to “punish” her.

“Control was everything, from the way that I looked… to what I was working on,” Ms Ventura said.

Eventually, she claimed, the control turned violent. Mr Combs would “bash on my head, knock me over, drag me and kick me” frequently, Ms Ventura testified, sometimes through tears.

She alleged that she was left with swollen lips, black eyes and knots on her forehead.

Prosecutors spent hours on Tuesday asking Ms Ventura about so-called “freak-offs”.

Ms Ventura told the court how Mr Combs introduced her to the sexual events during the first year of their relationship. They would hire a male escort or stripper to have sex with Ms Ventura while Mr Combs watched.

Ms Ventura told the court that she first tried the encounters to make Mr Combs “happy”. But she said they humiliated her, and sometimes lasted three to four days.

“I felt pretty horrible about myself,” she told the court, wiping away tears. “It made me feel worthless.”

Ms Ventura told the court she never wanted to have sex with anyone but Mr Combs, and claimed she would take myriad drugs – marijuana, ecstasy and ketamine – to help her perform to Mr Combs’ satisfaction, but also to “disassociate”.

The drugs were “a way to not feel it for what it really was”, she said, “having sex with a stranger I didn’t really want to be having sex with”.

As prosecutors pressed Ms Ventura about the “freak-offs”, she told the court of how Mr Combs would direct her to find male escorts, strippers or dancers to have sex with while he watched.

She alleged that Mr Combs would pay the men anywhere from $1,500 to $6,000 in cash, depending on their performance.

They found the men through stripper companies and sites like Craigslist. Some of their photos were displayed to the jurors, including Daniel Phillip, who finished his testimony earlier on Tuesday.

Ms Ventura and Mr Combs had the enounters in cities around the world, including Los Angeles, New York, Las Vegas and Ibiza, Spain, Ms Ventura testified.

Sometimes, men would be flown in during vacations, she alleged, and Mr Combs would direct her to ask staff to pay for and arrange their travel, calling them new employees.

Among other charges, prosecutors are trying to prove that Mr Combs engaged in sex trafficking – human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation – and transportation to engage in prostitution.

As prosecutors pressed Ms Ventura for graphic details, one key element emerged: Ms Ventura claimed that Mr Combs controlled every part of the encounters.

He chose the outfits she wore – down to the extremely high heels she kept on for hours – as well as the sexual acts that transpired and the lighting, Ms Ventura told jurors.

“If Sean wanted something to happen, that was what was going to happen,” she said. “I couldn’t say no.”

Sometimes, Ms Ventura said, she would take the lead on which male escorts to hire because Mr Combs was “very busy”, but she only did so at his direction, she said.

She said freak-offs had a very specific “pattern” of sexual acts each time.

“He was controlling the whole situation,” she alleged. “He was directing it.”

At times, Ms Ventura said, she tried to tell Mr Combs that she felt “horrible”. But when he dismissed her concerns, she said, she relented, worried he would get angry or question their relationship.

Ms Ventura is expected to continue her testimony on Wednesday, when she could also face cross-examination.

Former Uruguayan President José Mujica, known as “Pepe”, has died at the age of 89.

The ex-guerrilla who governed Uruguay from 2010 to 2015 was known as the world’s “poorest president” because of his modest lifestyle.

Current President Yamandú Orsi announced his predecessor’s death on X, writing: “thank you for everything you gave us and for your deep love for your people.”

The politician’s cause of death is not known but he had been suffering from oesophageal cancer.

Because of the simple way he lived as president, his criticism of consumerism and the social reforms he promoted – which, among other things, meant Uruguay became the first country to legalise the recreational use of marijuana – Mujica became a well-known political figure in Latin America and beyond.

His global popularity is unusual for a president of Uruguay, a country with just 3.4 million inhabitants where his legacy has also generated some controversy.

In fact, even though many tended to see Mujica as someone outside the political class, that was not the case.

He said his passion for politics, as well as for books and working the land, was passed on to him by his mother, who raised him in a middle-class home in Montevideo, the capital city.

As a young man, Mujica was a member of the National Party, one of Uruguay’s traditional political forces, which later became the centre-right opposition to his government.

In the 1960s, he helped set up the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement (MLN-T), a leftist urban guerrilla group that carried out assaults, kidnappings and executions, although he always maintained that he did not commit any murder.

Influenced by the Cuban revolution and international socialism, the MLN-T launched a campaign of clandestine resistance against the Uruguayan government, which at the time was constitutional and democratic, although the left accused it of being increasingly authoritarian.

During this period, Mujica was captured four times. On one of those occasions, in 1970, he was shot six times and nearly died.

He escaped from prison twice, on one occasion through a tunnel with 105 other MLN-T prisoners, in one of the largest escapes in Uruguayan prison history.

When the Uruguayan military staged a coup in 1973, they included him in a group of “nine hostages” who they threatened to kill if the guerrillas continued their attacks.

During the more than 14 years he spent in prison during the 1970s and 1980s, he was tortured and spent most of that time in harsh conditions and isolation, until he was freed in 1985 when Uruguay returned to democracy.

He used to say that during his time in prison, he experienced madness first hand, suffering from delusions and even talking to ants.

The day he was freed was his happiest memory, he says: “Becoming president was insignificant compared to that.”

A few years after his release, he served as a lawmaker, both in the Chamber of Representatives and in the Senate, the country’s lower and upper houses respectively.

In 2005, he became minister in the first government of the Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan leftist coalition, before becoming Uruguay’s president in 2010.

He was 74 years old at the time, and, to the rest of the world, still unknown.

His election marked an important moment for the Latin American left, which was already strong on the continent at that time. Mujica became leader alongside other left-wing presidents such as Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

However, Mujica governed in his own way, demonstrating pragmatism and audacity on several occasions, political commentators say.

During his administration, amid a fairly favourable international context, the Uruguayan economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.4%, poverty was reduced, and unemployment remained low.

Uruguay also drew global attention for the social laws passed by parliament during those years, such as the legalisation of abortion, the recognition of same-sex marriage, and state regulation of the marijuana market.

While in office, Mujica rejected moving into the presidential residence (a mansion), as heads of state around the world usually do.

Instead, he remained with his wife – politician and former guerrilla Lucía Topolansky – in their modest home on the outskirts of Montevideo, with no domestic help and little security.

This combined with the fact that he always dressed casually, that he was often seen driving his light blue 1987 Volkswagen Beetle and gave away a large portion of his salary, led some media outlets to call him “the world’s poorest president”.

But Mujica always rejected that title: “They say I’m the poorest president. No, I’m not,” he told me in a 2012 interview at his home. “Poor are those who want more […] because they’re in an endless race.”

Despite Mujica preaching austerity, his government did significantly increase public spending, widening the fiscal deficit and leading his opponents to accuse him of waste.

Mujica was also criticised for failing to reverse the growing problems in Uruguayan education, despite having promised that education would be a top priority for his administration.

However, unlike other leaders in the region, he was never accused of corruption or of undermining his country’s democracy.

By the end of his administration, Mujica had a high domestic popularity rating (close to 70%) and was elected senator, but also spent part of his time travelling the world after he stepped down as president.

“So what it is that catches the world’s attention? That I live with very little, a simple house, that I drive around in an old car? Then this world is crazy because it’s surprised by [what is] normal,” he reflected before leaving office.

Mujica retired from politics in 2020 though he remained a central figure in Uruguay.

His political heir, Yamandú Orsi, was elected president of Uruguay in November 2024 and his group within the Frente Amplio obtained the largest number of parliamentary seats since the country’s return to democracy.

Last year, Mujica announced he had cancer and references to his age and the inexorable proximity of death became more frequent – but he always accepted the final outcome as something natural, without drama.

In the last interview he gave the BBC in November last year, he said: “One knows that death is inevitable. And perhaps it’s like the salt of life.”

Céline Dion made a rare appearance during the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest with a brief, pre-recorded message.

The star won the contest for Switzerland in 1988, and it had been rumoured she would take the stage as the ceremony returns to the country this year.

“I’d love nothing more than to be with you,” she said in a video, apparently ruling out that possibility. “Switzerland will forever hold a special place in my heart. It’s the country that believed in me and gave me the chance to be part of something so extraordinary.”

The semi-final saw 10 acts qualify for Saturday’s grand finale, including Swedish entrants KAJ, whose song Bara Bada Bastu is the runaway favourite.

Their song, an accordion-led comedy number whose title translates to “let’s take a sauna”, has a 40% chance of winning, according to bookmakers.

If the prediction comes true, it would be Sweden’s eighth Eurovision title – making them the most victorious country in the contest’s history (they are currently tied with Ireland, on seven wins each).

Fifteen acts performed at Tuesday’s semi-final in Basel’s St Jakobshalle. These are the ones who made the cut.

• Norway: Kyle Alessandro – Lighter
• Albania: Shkodra Elektronike – Zjerm
• Sweden: KAJ – Bara Bada Bastu
• Iceland: VÆB – RÓA
• Netherlands: Claude – C’est La Vie
• Poland: Justyna Steczkowska – GAJA
• San Marino: Gabry Ponte – Tutta L’Italia
• Estonia: Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
• Portugal: NAPA – Deslocado
• Ukraine: Ziferblat – Bird of Pray

That means that the Eurovision dreams of Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cyprus, Croatia and Slovenia have all ended for 2025.

Of those, the biggest surprise was Belgium’s Red Sebastian, whose rave anthem Strobe Lights had been predicted to finish among the top five.

His disqualification came on the day of his 26th birthday.

Ten more acts will progress to the main competition after Thursday’s second semi-final.

The “Big Five” countries, who contribute the most financially to the competition (France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy) qualify automatically, as do last year’s winners, Switzerland.

Dion’s video message came during the ceremony’s interval, as votes were being cast.

Although she was unable to be there in person, it was a coup for organisers. The singer has stepped away from the limelight in recent years due to health issues related to stiff-person syndrome (SPS), a neurological condition that causes muscle spasms and makes it difficult for her to walk.

After a four-year break, she made an emotional comeback at last summer’s Paris Olympics, singing Edith Piaf’s classic Hymne à l’Amour from the Eiffel Tower.

Speculation over a potential Eurovision appearance has been mounting since Swiss singer Nemo won the 2024 contest.

In her video, Dion said it was “beautiful and emotional” to see the young singer lift the trophy, and recalled that her victory in 1988 “was a life-changing moment for me”.

“To the people of Switzerland, thank you for your love,” she continued. “This night is yours and I hope you feel as proud as I do.”

After repeating her message in French, several former Eurovision contestants appeared on stage to cover Dion’s winning song from 1988, Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi (Don’t Leave Without Me).

However, organisers said they had not given up hope of the star appearing at the final this weekend.

“We are still in close contact with her,” they said in a statement.

Tuesday’s semi-final opened with Icelandic group VÆB, two brothers with the unregulated energy of former Irish entrants Jedward.

They were followed by Polish star Justyna Steczkowska, who hung precariously above the stage on two ropes, as she sang her witchy hymn to mother earth, Gaja.

The acrobatics continued with Slovenian musician Klemen, who was suspended upside down during his ballad How Much Time Do We Have Left?

The song was a tribute to his wife, who has recently recovered from cancer, but the emotional performance wasn’t enough to clinch him a position in the final.

Taking a lighter note was Estonia’s Tommy Cash, whose quirky anthem Espresso Macchiato was interrupted by a “stage invader” – actually a dancer who replicated his noodle-limbed dance moves.

The arena was awash with Ukranian flags for Ziferblat, whose prog-pop anthem Bird Of Pray is a message of hope and resilience to families separated by the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

Italy’s Lucio Corsi brought 70s glam rock vibes with his track Volevo Esse Un Duro, which even featured a visual call-back to David Bowie and Mick Ronson’s iconic 1972 performance of Starman on Top Of The Pops.

Bosnian singer Marko Bošnjak was all black eyeliner and sinister energy for his kill-your-enemies anthem Poison Cake, while Dutch singer Claude took the opposite approach, brimming with positivity throughout his upbeat performance of C’est La Vie.

And Swiss singer Zoë Më was bathed in a sea of mobile phone lights as she performed Voyage , an understated and rather beautiful plea for kindness and understanding.

However, KAJ were the artists to beat – with the entire audience stomping along to their goofy sauna anthem (“!”)

The song, performed in the Vörå dialect, is a radical departure from Sweden’s tried and tested formula of slick pop anthems.

It was the surprise winner at the Melodifestivalen, the hotly-contested show that selects the country’s Eurovision entry, and has gone on to top the Swedish pop charts for 11 weeks.

Speaking to the BBC, the band – who are actually from the Swedish-speaking part of Finland – said it was strange to enter the contest as the presumed favourite.

“We are feeling the pressure a bit,” they admitted, “but we’re gonna go out there, have fun, bring the steam, bring the sauna culture, and we’ll see how far it goes.”

A masked gang have tried to abduct the daughter and young grandson of a cryptocurrency chief in Paris, but after a violent struggle they drove off empty-handed.

The botched kidnap bid was captured on video by an onlooker in Paris’s 11th district, in the east of the French capital.

Police sources said the woman was the daughter of a cryptocurrency company boss. She and her husband fought off three attackers until passers-by rushed to their aid and the men fled in a van.

A Paris police brigade that tackles armed robbery is expected to investigate the attack, which is the latest in a series of abductions targeting French cryptocurrency figures or their relatives.

The attack unfolded at about 08:20 local time on Tuesday, according to local media, when three men leapt from a white van and tried to kidnap the mother and her child.

The pair are described as relatives of the co-founder of French Bitcoin exchange platform Paymium, the AFP news agency said.

The woman’s husband who was with his family at the time tried to protect them and was beaten repeatedly over the head. The couple shouted for help as the masked men tried to pull them apart.

At one point she was seen to grab a firearm off the attacker and throw it into the street. The weapon was later described as a replica air gun.

The street was relatively busy at the time and a group of children were on their way to a local primary school.

Initially, passers-by appeared too afraid to intervene, but as locals began to react the three attackers eventually gave up and jumped into the van as a fourth gang member drove them away. One man hurled a fire extinguisher at the van as it sped off.

The family were treated for minor injuries in hospital.

The botched kidnapping in the Rue Pache came little more than a week after French police rescued the father of a cryptocurrency millionaire who had been kidnapped in another area of the capital while walking his dog and held for ransom.

In an indication of the brutality of the gangs involved, the victim was freed three days later after his kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers.

Several people were arrested.

Last January, David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet firm Ledger, was abducted with his wife at their home in central France.

French media say the victim had one finger missing when he was rescued from a house in Palaiseau, south of Paris.

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”.

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 announced 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.