The UK and the EU have reached a new deal setting out post-Brexit relations on areas including fishing rights, trade and defence.

The full details will be set out later.

But here’s a look at what we know is in the deal.

• A new deal will keep the current status quo giving EU boats continued access to UK waters until 2038
• The 2020 Brexit deal, which saw the UK regain 25% EU fishing quotas, was due to run out next year
• The UK will continue to agree yearly quotas with the EU and Norway and issue licences to control who fishes in its waters
• Later, the government is due to unveil a £360m “fishing and coastal growth fund” to invest in coastal communities

• In return for extending current fishing rules, the UK has secured a deal to reduce checks on food exports to the EU
• Officials will drop some routine border checks on animal and plant shipments to and from the EU
• The new sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement means the UK can sell raw burgers and sausages back into the EU for the first time since Brexit

• A formal UK-EU defence and security pact has been established
• Both sides have been pushing for closer cooperation and information-sharing since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump re-entered the White House
• The government says the agreement “paves the way” for UK-based arms firms to access the Security Action for Europe (Safe) – a £150bn EU fund providing loans for defence projects

• The UK and the EU have agreed to co-operate further on a “youth experience scheme” – but this will be subject to further negotiations
• The government says such a scheme “could see young people able to work and travel freely in Europe again” but would be “capped and time-limited”
• It says the idea would mirror existing schemes the UK has with countries like Australia and New Zealand, where there is an annual quota of visas allowing people between the ages of 18 and 35 to work in each other’s countries for up to three years

• British holidaymakers will be able to use e-gates at more European airports
• When Brexit ended freedom of movement, it changed the rules for people travelling to European countries. Now, British passport holders can’t use “EU/EEA/CH” lanes at EU border crossings
• A new passport system will make it easier for UK pets to travel, ending the need for repeat vet certificates

• The UK and EU will link their carbon markets to avoid taxes on carbon-intensive goods like steel and cement travelling between the UK and EU
• The UK launched its own carbon system after exiting the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
• The government says it will save £800m in taxes and shield British steel from EU tariffs, thanks to a UK-only deal worth £25m a year

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Gary Lineker is set to leave the BBC, with an announcement expected on Monday.

Speculation is mounting the 64-year-old will step down after he presents his final Match of the Day next weekend.

It is understood that Lineker, listed as the highest-paid BBC presenter, will also no longer present the corporation’s coverage of the World Cup in 2026.

But last week he had to apologise after sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, historically used as an antisemitic insult.

Lineker said he very much regretted the references, adding he would never knowingly share anything antisemitic and that he had deleted the post once he had learned about the symbolism of the image.

The presenter’s imminent departure was first reported by the Sun late on Sunday.

Last week, BBC Director General Tim Davie said: “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone, and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us.”

It is understood that BBC bosses considered Lineker’s position untenable.

The former England striker has attracted criticism before for his posts on social media in the past.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over a post in which he said language used to promote a government asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC’s social media rules were then rewritten to say presenters of flagship programmes outside news and current affairs – including Match of the Day – have “a particular responsibility to respect the BBC’s impartiality, because of their profile on the BBC”.

In November 2024, Lineker announced his departure from Match of the Day, but said he would remain with the BBC to front FA Cup and World Cup coverage.

Last month, Lineker said in an interview that he believed the BBC wanted him to leave Match of the Day as he was negotiating a new contract last year, saying: “Well, perhaps they want me to leave. There was the sense of that.”

The BBC didn’t comment on Lineker’s suggestion at the time but called him a “world-class presenter” and added that Match of the Day “continually evolves for changing viewing habits”.

Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan have been announced as new presenters of the show for the start of the 2025-26 season.

Lineker has not publicly commented on his departure from the BBC.

In his interview last month, Lineker also reflected on his 2023 tweets, saying that he did not regret the comments and adding: “Would I, in hindsight, do it again? No I wouldn’t, because of all the nonsense that came with it.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Amol Rajan, he indicated his next career move “won’t be more telly”, adding: “I think I’ll step back from that now” and “I think I’ll probably focus more on the podcast world”.

Roger Mosey, a former director of BBC Sport and BBC television news, said Lineker could not “both be the BBC’s highest-paid presenter and a social media activist”.

“In my view, if you are the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, you should not be taking the kind of political lead he has been doing,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Many people this morning may be thinking, ‘well, I agree with Gary about Palestine, or I agreed with Gary about the EU’. But imagine if he had been tweeting pro-Leave, or pro-Israel, would you still support that right to speak out?”

He added that it was no longer viable for Lineker to front the World Cup, because if he did, it would have “been through psychodrama of what does Gary think about Trump, what Gary think about the latest international developments”.

Police in India have arrested a local YouTuber on suspicions of spying for Pakistan.

Jyoti Malhotra, a travel influencer from the northern Indian state of Haryana, allegedly travelled to the neighbouring country several times – her last trip was in March 2025.

Police in Haryana allege that she was in touch with a Pakistan High Commission official, who was expelled from India earlier this month.

The YouTuber’s father has denied allegations that she was a spy, saying she went to Pakistan after acquiring necessary permissions.

Ms Malhotra describes herself on social media as a “modern girl with old ideas”, and has 377,000 subscribers on YouTube and 133,000 followers on Instagram.

But officers have questioned how she financed her travel around the globe, with her videos documenting visits to places like Bangladesh, China, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. She has also visited several Indian destinations and religious places. Police say it defies her known source of income.

Police claim Ms Malhotra was in touch with “Pakistani intelligence operatives” and had continuous contact with a Pakistani citizen.

Ms Malhotra is also being investigated for any links with the Pahalgam attack, Shashank Kumar Sawan, the superintendent of police in Haryana’s Hisar district, told ANI news agency.

They say they have leads on others who may have collaborated with the influencer, who does not have direct access to any military or defence information.

“She was in touch with other YouTube influencers… She used to go to Pakistan on sponsored trips,” Mr Sawan added.

Her arrest comes after the Indian government asked Ahsan-ur-Rahim, the Pakistan High Commission official with whom the YouTuber was alleged to have been in contact, to leave the country on 13 May, alleging he had indulged in activities “not in keeping with his official status in India”.

Pakistan also asked an Indian embassy staff member in Islamabad to leave for indulging in activities “incompatible” with his privileged status.

According to a complaint registered by the police, Ms Malhotra met Ahsan-ur-Rahim for the first time in 2023 when she had visited the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, seeking a visa to visit the neighbouring country.

Her last video on Pakistan was uploaded in March, in which she was seen in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi attending a Ramadan dinner.

In other videos from Pakistan, she is seen visiting Hindu and Sikh temples, famous local markets, and interacting with locals.

Arrests in India and Pakistan over allegations of spying are not uncommon.

Ms Malhotra’s arrest comes following days of military tensions between the neighbours earlier this month.

On 7 May, India struck what it calls “terror infrastructure” inside Pakistan, days after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam, a picturesque valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the attacks.

After four tense days of deadly clashes between the nuclear-armed neighbours, both countries agreed to a ceasefire on 10 May, announced by US President Donald Trump.

Just as India showed flickers of progress toward its long-held dream of becoming the world’s factory, Washington and Beijing announced a trade “reset” that could derail Delhi’s ambitions to replace China as the global manufacturing hub.

Last week, Trump’s tariffs on China dropped overnight – from 145% to 30%, vs 27% for India – as the two sides thrashed out an agreement in Switzerland.

As a result, there’s a chance manufacturing investment that was moving from China to India could either “stall” or “head back”, feels Ajay Srivastava of the Delhi-based think tank, Global Trade Research Institute (GTRI).

“India’s low-cost assembly lines may survive, but value-added growth is in danger.”

The change in sentiment stands in sharp relief to the exuberance in Delhi last month when Apple indicated that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India.

That may well still happen, even though US President Donald Trump revealed that he had told Apple CEO Tim Cook not to build in India because it was “one of the highest tariff nations in the world”.

“India is well positioned to be an alternative to China as a supplier of goods to the US in the immediate term,” Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investor note before the deal was announced. He pointed out that 40% of India’s exports to the US were “similar to those exported by China”.

There were early signs that Indian exporters were already stepping in to fill the gap left by Chinese producers. New export orders surged to a 14-year high, according to a recent survey of Indian manufacturers.

Nomura, a Japanese broking house, also pointed to growing “anecdotal evidence” of India emerging as a winner from “trade diversion and supply-chain shift in low and mid-tech manufacturing” particularly in sectors like electronics, textiles and toys.

Some analysts do believe that despite the so-called trade “reset” between Beijing and Washington, a larger strategic decoupling between China and the US will continue to benefit India in the long run.

For one, there’s greater willingness by Narendra Modi’s government to open its doors to foreign companies after years of protectionist policies, which could provide tailwind.

India and the US are also negotiating a trade deal that could put Asia’s third-largest economy in a sweet spot to benefit from the so-called “China exodus” – as global firms shift operations to diversify supply chains.

India has just signed a trade pact with the UK, sharply cutting duties in protected sectors like whiskey and automobiles. It offers a glimpse of the concessions Delhi might offer Trump in the ongoing India-US trade talks.

But all of this optimism needs to be tempered for more reasons than one.

Apart from the fact that China is now back in the running, companies are also “not entirely writing off other Asian competitors, with countries like Vietnam still on their radars”, economists Sonal Verma and Aurodeep Nandi from Nomura said in a note earlier this month.

“Hence, for India to capitalise on this opportunity, it needs to complement any tariff arbitrage with serious ease-of-doing-business reforms.”

A tough business climate has long frustrated foreign investors and stalled India’s manufacturing growth, with its share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stuck at around 15% for two decades.

The Modi government’s efforts, such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, have delivered only limited success in boosting this figure.

The government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, has acknowledged India’s “limited success” in attracting investment shifting from China. It noted that factors like cheaper labour, simpler tax laws, lower tariffs, and proactive Free Trade Agreements helped countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia expand exports – while India lagged behind.

Another major concern, says Nomura, is India’s ongoing reliance on China for raw materials and components used in electronics like iPhones, limiting Delhi’s ability to fully capitalise on supply chain shifts.

“India’s earnings from making iPhones will only rise if more of the phone is made locally,” Mr Srivastava told the BBC.

According to him, right now Apple earns over $450 per iPhone sold in the US while India keeps less than $25 – even though the full $1,000 is counted as an Indian export.

“Just assembling more iPhones in India won’t help much unless Apple and its suppliers also start making components and doing high-value work here. Without that, India’s share stays small, and the export numbers go up only on paper -possibly triggering more scrutiny from the US without real economic gain for India,” Mr Srivastava said.

The jobs created by such assembly lines aren’t very high quality either, says GTRI.

Quite unlike companies like Nokia which set up a factory in the southern city of Chennai in 2007 where suppliers moved in together, “today’s smartphone makers mostly import parts and push for lower tariffs instead of building supply chains in India”, explained Mr Srivastava. He noted that, in certain instances, the investment made could be lower than the subsidies received under India’s PLI scheme.

Finally there are concerns that Chinese exporters could try to use India to reroute products to the US.

India doesn’t seem averse to this idea despite the pitfalls. The country’s top economic adviser said last year that the country should attract more Chinese businesses to set-up export oriented factories and boost its manufacturing industry – a tacit admission that its own industrial policy hadn’t delivered.

But experts caution, this could further curtail India’s ability to build local know-how and grow its own industrial base.

All of this shows that beyond the headline-grabbing announcements by the likes of Apple, India is still a long way from realising its factory ambitions.

“Slash production costs, fix logistics, and build regulatory certainty,” Mr Srivastava urged policymakers in a social media post.

“Let’s be clear. This US-China reset is damage control, not a long-term solution. India must play the long game, or risk getting side-lined.”

Mexicans are mourning the death of two young Navy cadets who were killed on Saturday when the training tall ship ARM Cuauhtémoc crashed into Brooklyn Bridge.

América Sánchez, 20, and 23-year-old Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos were among the 277 crew members on board the Mexican Navy’s sailing ship when its three masts snapped as they hit the bridge.

According to Mexican media, Sánchez was one of the cadets who was standing on top of the masts at the time of the accident.

Twenty-two other crew members were injured, three of them critically, the Mexican Navy said.

The commander of the Mexican Navy, Admiral Pedro Raymundo Morales, said all the crew members well enough to travel would be taken back to their homeland soon.

The body of América Sánchez is scheduled to be transferred to the Naval Academy in her home state of Veracruz later on Monday.

Her mother, Rocío Hernández, described the 20-year-old cadet as “an exemplary daughter” who was “a dedicated student” aiming to become a naval engineer.

Standing before an impromptu altar adorned with flowers and photos of América Sánchez dressed up for her “quinceañera”, the party marking her 15th birthday, Ms Hernández paid tribute to her daughter.

“She was a warrior, a soldier who didn’t give up, who always fought for her goals,” she said, adding that her daughter only had one year left until her graduation.

“They [the Navy] will hold a private ceremony in her honour at the Veracruz Naval Academy for her and then I will bring her home,” Ms Hernández said thanking all of her daughter’s relatives, friends and teachers, whom she asked “to remember her [América] with affection”.

In San Mateo del Mar, a coastal town in Oaxaca state, friends and relatives of Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos have also been paying their respects after the young cadet was confirmed as the second fatal victim of the crash.

His friends told local media that the 23-year-old had always dreamt of following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a sailor.

Being on board the Cuauhtémoc, also known as “Knight of the Seas”, had been his greatest wish, they recalled.

“The sea saw him being born and the sea was a witness to his passing,” one friend to media, adding that “all of us who knew him will remember him as a role model of an intelligent youth”.

The investigation into how the accident happened is still under way.

New York police officials said it appeared that the Cuauhtémoc had lost power as it was leaving New York Harbour and was dragged towards Brooklyn Bridge by the current.

Its three masts, measuring more than 48m, hit the base of the bridge, which -according to the New York transport department’s website – only has a clearance of 41.1m.

All three masts collapsed and video footage taken by bystanders shows some of the crew members dangling from the yards and sails.

Mexico’s Navy Secretary Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles said in a statement the results of any investigation would be followed with “total transparency and responsibility”.

The Cuauhtémoc left Acapulco, Mexico, on 6 April on a tour that included stops in New York and Aberdeen, Scotland, for the city’s Tall Ships race in July.

British mountaineer Kenton Cool has scaled Mount Everest for the 19th time, breaking his own record for the most climbs up the world’s tallest mountain for a non-sherpa.

The 51-year-old, who was accompanied by Nepali sherpa Dorji Gyaljen, reached the 8,849m (29,000ft) high summit at 11:00 local time (04:15 GMT) on Sunday.

Mr Cool first climbed Everest in 2004 and has summited it almost yearly since.

Mr Gyaljen logged his 23rd climb up Everest. Another Nepali sherpa, Kami Rita, holds the record for making the most number of Everest summits at 30, and is also currently on the mountain attempting to set a new record.

Mr Cool’s record-setting feat comes after at least two climbers – Subrata Ghosh from India and Philipp “PJ” Santiago II from the Philippines – died on Mount Everest this week.

After his 16th Everest ascent in 2022, Mr Cool appeared to play down his record, noting that many Nepali climbers have surpassed it.

“I’m really surprised by the interest… considering that so many of the sherpas have so many more ascents,” he told AFP in an interview then.

Four days before the latest feat, Mr Cool told his Instagram followers that he “finally [had] a positive forecast” that will allow him to go ahead with the attempt.

“Let’s hope that we manage to thread the needle with regard to numbers of climbers and we have a safe and enjoyable time up high,” he wrote.

Fellow climbers hailed the achievement.

Mr Cool is a “great person to share stories from two decades on the mountain”, American adventurer Adrian Ballinger told Reuters news agency.

“His experience, charisma, and strength make him a valuable part of the Everest community,” says Mr Ballinger, who is currently guiding a team up Everest.

“Amazing, Kenton,” wrote Jordanian mountaineer Mostafa Salameh, who is one of only 20 people to climb the highest mountains on all seven continents and conquer the North and South Poles.

Mr Cool is also a mountain guide who has led British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, among others, on several notable climbs including Everest.

Pope Leo XIV has held “cordial” talks with US Vice-President JD Vance, according to the Vatican.

It comes a day after Vance – a practicing Catholic – joined other dignitaries and thousands of worshipers at the Pope’s inaugural mass on Sunday.

After Pope Leo became the first American to lead the Roman Catholic Church earlier this month, it emerged he had previously appeared to make veiled criticisms of Vance and the wider Trump administration’s migration stance.

In a statement, the Holy See said both sides had expressed satisfaction with relations between the US and Vatican during face-to-face talks on Monday.

Religious freedom and cooperation between church and state were also discussed at the meeting, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also taking part.

A statement continued: “Finally, there was an exchange of views on current international issues with a shared call for respect for humanitarian and international law in conflict zones, and support for negotiated solutions among the parties involved.”

The papal audience lasted 45 minutes, Vance’s spokesperson said. It took place behind closed doors without reporters present.

The Vatican said Vance also held positive talks with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, who is responsible for the Holy See’s diplomatic relations.

In February, an X account under Leo’s name shared criticism of the White House’s plans for mass deportations of migrants.

That same month, the account also shared a link to an opinion piece titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

The Vatican has not responded to previous requests from BBC News to confirm whether the account belonged to Pope Leo.

On Sunday, Vance said the United States was “very proud” of the Chicago-born pontiff.

“Certainly our prayers go with him as he starts this very important work,” the vice-president said.

France will build a new high-security prison in its overseas department of French Guiana to house drug traffickers and radical Islamists, the country’s justice minister announced during a visit to the territory.

Gérald Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) newspaper that the prison would target organised crime “at all levels” of the drug supply chain.

The €400m (£337m) facility, which could open as early as 2028, will be built in an isolated location deep in the Amazon jungle in the northwestern region of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni.

The plan was announced after a series of violent incidents linked to criminal gangs which saw prisons and staff targeted across France in recent months.

The prison will hold up to 500 people, with a separate wing designed to house the most dangerous criminals.

In an interview with JDD, the minister said the new prison would be governed by an “extremely strict carceral regime” designed to “incapacitate the most dangerous drug traffickers”.

Darmanin said the facility would be used to detain people “at the beginning of the drug trail”, as well as serving as a “lasting means of removing the heads of the drug trafficking networks” in mainland France.

French Guiana is a region of France on the north-east coast of South America. Its residents are eligible to vote in French elections and have access to the French social security system, as well as other subsidies.

Its distance from the French mainland means drug lords “will no longer be able to have any contact with their criminal networks”, Darmanin told JDD.

French authorities have long struggled to control the infiltration of mobile phones into the prison network. Tens of thousands are known to circulate through French jails.

Earlier this year, the French government announced new legislation designed to crack down on the activity of criminal gangs.

The measures will create a dedicated branch of the prosecutors’ office to deal with organised crime. It will also introduce extra powers for investigators, and a special protected status for informers.

It will also see the creation of new high-security prisons – including the facility in French Guiana – to hold the most powerful drugs barons, with stricter rules governing visits and communication with the outside world.

France has seen a series of attacks on prisons in recent months, which Darmanin has described as “terrorist” incidents that come in response to the government’s new legislation.

The perpetrators of these attacks have set vehicles outside prisons alight, while Toulon’s La Farlede prison was hit by gunfire.

In some incidents the perpetrators of these attacks have styled themselves as defenders of prisoners’ rights.

The proposed new facility in French Guiana is to be built at a “strategic crossroads” for drugs mules, particularly from Brazil and Suriname, according to AFP news agency.

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is the former port of entry to the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony, where 70,000 convicts from mainland France were sent between 1852 and 1954.

The penal colony was the setting of French writer Henri Charrière’s book Papillon, which was later made into a Hollywood film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.

The BBC has contacted the French justice ministry for comment.

The liberal, pro-EU mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, has fought off a strong challenge from a Romanian right-wing nationalist to win the presidency after months of political turbulence.

George Simion, the leader of the far-right AUR party, won a dramatic first-round victory earlier this month, riding a wave of anger from Romanians who had seen the presidential race annulled late last year because of claims of Russian interference.

But it was the softly spoken Nicusor Dan who swept to victory with 53.6% of the vote, even though Simion was more successful in the diaspora.

“We need to build Romania together irrespective of who you voted for,” said Dan, once his victory was secure.

About 11.5 million Romanians voted in Sunday’s run-off, and Dan attracted the support of more than six million of them.

The mathematician waited until after midnight on Sunday before he could be absolutely sure that the numbers were on his side and he could join his supporters in a park opposite City Hall in Bucharest.

They went wild, chanting his name and cheering. At one point he was almost mobbed but this was a huge moment for the president-elect and for his supporters after months of political tension.

“A community of Romanians who want a profound change in Romania won,” Dan said.

Mihai, one of many Dan supporters who gathered outside his electoral headquarters in the capital, told the BBC he was “really worried about Simion”.

“I want to choose the pro-European way. It’s the only way. It’s really important,” he added.

Andrea, who came with her young daughter, told the BBC: “We are so happy, we wanted to be here with other supporters of Nicosur.

“This means a better future for our children, for us. A good life for all of us, and an honest Romania.”

Romanians are broadly unhappy with the dominance of mainstream parties and the turbulence in this European Union and Nato member state intensified earlier this month when the government collapsed because its candidate had failed to make the second round.

While Nicusor Dan campaigned on fighting corruption and maintaining support for north-eastern neighbour Ukraine, Simion attacked the EU and called for cutting aid to Kyiv.

“Russia, don’t forget, Romania isn’t yours,” Dan’s supporters chanted.

Even though exit polls had given him victory, they did not include the all-important diaspora vote and Simion clung to the belief that he could still win.

“I won, I am the new president of Romania and I am giving back power to the Romanians,” he insisted initially.

It was not until the early hours of Monday that he conceded victory on Facebook. A protest planned by his supporters was then apparently called off.

During the election campaign Simion had stood side by side with Calin Georgescu, the far-right fringe figure who had stunned Romania with a first-round presidential victory at the end of last year, buoyed by an enormous TikTok campaign.

The vote was annulled over allegations of campaign fraud and Russian interference and Georgescu was barred from running again. Russia denied any involvement.

Asked by the BBC on Sunday whether he was acting as Georgescu’s puppet, George Simion said: “The puppets are those who annulled the elections… I am a man of my people and my people voted for Calin Georgescu.

“Do we like democracy only when the good guy has won? I don’t think this is an option.”

He said he was a patriot and accused what he called the mainstream media of smearing him as a pro-Russian or fascist.

The key to Simion’s success in the first round was his extraordinary win among diaspora voters in Western Europe, including in the UK.

His supporters turned out in force again on Sunday, with partial results giving him 68.5% support in Spain, 66.8% in Italy and 67% in Germany. He also had the edge in the UK, where voters said they would have picked Calin Georgescu if authorities had not barred him from running.

“We didn’t know anything about [Georgescu] but then I listened to what he was saying, and you can tell he’s a good Christian,” said 37-year-old Catalina Grancea.

She had vowed to go back to Romania if Simion had won and her mother Maria said she too had voted for change: “Our children were forced to leave Romania because they couldn’t find any jobs there.”

However, Nicusor Dan’s voters came out in even bigger numbers both in Romania and abroad. In neighbouring Moldova 87% of Romanians backed the mayor of Bucharest.

The presidents of both Moldova and Ukraine congratulated him on his victory.

“Moldova and Romania stand together, supporting one another and working side by side for a peaceful, democratic, and European future for all our citizens,” said Maia Sandu.

“For Ukraine, as a neighbour and friend, it is important to have Romania as a reliable partner,” said Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media that Romanians had turned out in massive numbers and had “chosen the promise of an open, prosperous Romania in a strong Europe”.

In the end this was an emphatic “No” vote to a staunch nationalist with an isolationist vision for Romania, a known provocateur and a man whose commitment to EU membership and to the bloc’s core values was not clear.

Despite his strong showing in round one, those Romanians who worried about what he stood for appear to have rallied to block him from power.

But Simion did win a significant chunk of the vote, and his message will still resonate with many.

Among the cactuses in the desert of Arizona, just outside Phoenix, an extraordinary collection of buildings is emerging that will shape the future of the global economy and the world.

The hum of further construction is creating not just a factory for the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Eventually, it will mass produce the most advanced chips in the world. This work is being done in the US for the first time, with the Taiwanese company behind it pledging to spend billions more here in a move aimed at heading off the threat of tariffs on imported chips.

It is, in my view, the most important factory in the world, and it’s being built by a company you may not have heard of: TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It makes 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors. Until now they were all made on the island of Taiwan, which is 100 miles east of the Chinese mainland. The Apple chip in your iPhone, the Nvidia chips powering your ChatGPT queries, the chips in your laptop or computer network, all are made by TSMC.

Its Arizona facility “Fab 21” is closely guarded. Blank paper or personal devices are not allowed in case designs are leaked. It houses some of the most important intellectual property in the world, and the process to make these chips is one of the most complicated and intensive in global manufacturing.

They’re hugely protective of the secrets that lie within. Important customers, such as Apple and Nvidia, trust this company to safeguard their designs for future products.

But after months of asking, TSMC let the BBC in to look at the partial transfer of what some argue is the most critical, expensive, complex and important manufacturing in the world.

President Trump certainly seems to think so. He often mentions the factory in passing. “TSMC is the biggest there is,” he has said. “We gradually lost the chip business, and now it’s almost exclusively in Taiwan. They stole it from us.” This is one of the US president’s regular refrains.

TSMC’s recent decision to expand its investments in the US by a further $100bn (£75bn) is something Trump attributes to his threats of tariffs on Taiwan and on the global semiconductor business.

The expansion of the Arizona facility, which was announced in March is, he believes, the poster child for his economic policies – in particular the encouragement of foreign companies to relocate factories to the US to avoid hefty tariffs.

China is also watching developments carefully. Taiwan’s chip-making prowess has been part of what its government has called its “Silicon Shield”, against a much-feared invasion. While the original strategy was to make Taiwan indispensable in this area of critical technology, the pandemic supply chain difficulties changed the calculus because relying on a single country seemed like a greater risk.

China claims the self-ruled Taiwan as its territory but Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland.

So, many currents of the world economy, frontier technology and geopolitics flow through this one site and within it lies the essential contradiction of Trump’s economic and diplomatic policy.

He sees this plant as the exemplar of America First, and the preservation of economic and military superiority over China. Yet the manufacture of these modern miniaturised miracles at the frontier of physics and chemistry inherently relies on a combination of the very best technologies from around the world.

Greg Jackson, one of the facilities managers, takes me around in a golf buggy. The factories are almost a carbon copy of the TSMC spaces in Taiwan, where he trained. “I would say these facilities are probably some of the most advanced and complicated in the world,” he says.

“It’s quite the dichotomy. You’ve got really, really small chips with really small structures, and it takes this massive facility with all the infrastructure to be able to make them… Just the sheer complexity, the amount of systems that it takes, is staggering.”

Inside the “Gowning Building”, workers dress in protective clothing before crossing a bridge that is supposed to create the cleanest environment on Earth, in order to protect the production of these extraordinary microscopic transistors that create the microchips underpinning everything.

Konstantinos Ninios, an engineer, shows me some of the very first productions from TSMC Arizona: a silicon wafer with what is known as “4 nanometre chips”.

“This is the most advanced wafer in the US right now,” he explains. “[It] contains about 10 to 14 trillion transistors… The whole process is 3,000 to 4,000 steps.”

If you could somehow shrink your body to the same scale and get inside the wafer, he says that the many different layers would look like very tall streets and skyscrapers.

TSMC was founded at the behest of the Taiwanese government in 1987, when chip executive Morris Chang was directed to start the business. The model was to become a dedicated foundry for microchips, manufacturing other companies’ designs. It became wildly successful.

Driving the advancement of the technology is the miniaturisation of the smallest feature on chips. Their size is measured these days in billionths of a metre or nanometres. This progress has enabled mobile phones to become smartphones, and is now setting the pace for the mass deployment of artificial intelligence.

It requires incredible complexity and expense through the use of “extreme ultraviolet (UV) light”. This is used to etch the intricate building blocks of our modern existence in a process called “lithography”.

The world’s dependence on TSMC is built on highly specialised bus-sized machines, which are in turn sourced almost entirely from a Dutch company called ASML, including in Arizona.

These machines shoot UV light tens of thousands of times through drops of molten tin, which creates a plasma, and is then refracted through a series of specialised mirrors.

The almost entirely automated process for each wafer of silicon is repeated thousands of times in layers over months, before the $1m LP-sized wafer of 4nm silicon chips is formed.

“Just imagine a particle or a dust particle falling into this,” Mr Ninios says to me incredulously. “The transistors are not going to work. So all of this is cleaner than hospital operating rooms.”

Taiwan does not have special access to the raw materials – but it has the know-how to stay years ahead of other companies in the intricate process of producing these atomic building blocks of modern life.

Some in the Taiwanese government are cautious about spreading the frontier of this technology off the island. Trump wasted little time in claiming the firm’s decision to bring its highest level of technology to the US was due to his economic policies.

He said this would not have happened without the stick of his planned tariffs on Taiwan and semiconductors. Those I speak to at TSMC are diplomatic about that claim.

Much of this was already planned and subsidised under former US President Biden’s Chips Act.

On the walkway into the building are photographs showing Biden’s visit in 2022, with the building site draped in the Stars and Stripes and a banner saying “a future Made in America”.

“The semiconductor supply chain is global,” says TSMC Arizona President Rose Castanares. “There’s really no single country at this moment that can do everything from chemicals to wafer manufacturing to packaging, and so it’s very difficult to unwind that whole thing very quickly.”

As for the semiconductor supply chain, tariffs will not help. The supply chain stretches all over the world. Whether it’s the silicon wafers from Japan, the machines required from the Netherlands, or mirrors from Germany, all sorts of materials from all around the world are required. Now, they could face import charges.

That said, TSMC’s boss was quick off the mark in confirming the expansion of the US site at an event with Trump at the White House. In recent weeks, America’s tech elite – from Apple’s Tim Cook, to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang – have been queueing up to tell the world that TSMC Arizona will now produce many of the chips in their US products.

The global chip industry is very sensitive to the economic cycle, but its cutting-edge technology enjoys very healthy margins, that could cushion some of these planned tariffs.

There are many geopolitical subtexts here. The factory sits at the heart of US strategy to gain technological, AI and economic supremacy over China.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have developed policies to try and limit Chinese access to the frontier semiconductor technology – from a ban on exports to China of ASML’s machines, to new legislation to ban the use of Huawei AI chips in US software or technology anywhere in the world.

Taiwan’s President Lai this week urged democracies such as Japan and the US to develop “non-Red” supply chains to counter China.

Not everyone is convinced that this strategy is working, however. Chinese technologists have been effective at working around the bans to develop competitive indigenous technology. And Bill Gates this week said that these policies “have forced the Chinese in terms of chip manufacturing and everything to go full speed ahead”.

Trump wants TSMC Arizona to become a foundation stone for his American golden age. But the company’s story to date is perhaps the ultimate expression of the success of modern globalisation.

So for now, it’s a battle for global tech and economic supremacy, in which Taiwan’s factory technology, some of which is now being moved to the Arizona desert, is the critical asset.

This is undeniably a significant deal. In a funny way, though, for Sir Keir Starmer to succeed he needs it to seem as insignificant and uncontroversial as possible.

For many in politics, wading through the details of this agreement will be an act of nostalgia – or perhaps deeply triggering.

Dynamic alignment. Sanitary and phytosanitary checks. Fishing quotas. Jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

These are concepts, institutions and trade-offs which came to dominate British politics for much of the past decade. And with good reason: as the UK navigated its divorce with the EU, these technical questions became deeply political as they shaped the post-Brexit relationship.

Sir Keir’s big bet is that nobody really cares any more. The view at the top of government is that there is no public clamour to reopen the biggest questions of Brexit – membership of the single market and customs union – but that making the relationship smoother within those parameters is mere pragmatic common sense.

Of course pragmatism lies in the eyes of the beholder. The Conservatives have lambasted the deal as “surrender”, attacking both the 12-year extension to existing fishing quotas and the commitment for the UK to follow EU rules on agriculture.

Reform UK, in many ways the successor to the Brexit Party and UKIP, are unsurprisingly making a similar argument.

On the other side of the equation, the Liberal Democrats welcomed “some positive first steps” but urged the prime minister to “be more ambitious”.

Their position is that the UK should rejoin the EU’s customs union – an agreement between member states not to charge tariffs on each other’s goods.

What will prove revealing over the coming days, weeks, and months is not just those opposition parties’ positions but how much they campaign on them.

If opposition to today’s deal becomes a significant part of these parties’ platforms, it will tell us that they believe there is in fact plenty of controversy yet in the decades-long debate over the UK’s relationship with the EU.

If that’s right, then today’s main significance may prove to have been thrusting questions about Brexit right back to the centre of political life.

But if Sir Keir is right that the bulk of the public simply wants as little friction with the EU as possible, then he could prove to be our first truly post-Brexit prime minister.

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Uber has said it is “ready to go” now with driverless taxis in the UK – but the government has put back the date it expects to approve fully self-driving vehicles.

The previous administration said fully autonomous cars were “set to be on roads by 2026”, but the new government says it is now more likely to happen in the second half of 2027.

While limited self-driving technology is already permitted on UK roads, a human driver must be at the wheel and responsible for the vehicle, even if automated technology is being used.

With some companies trialling more advanced tech on British streets, I took an automated car ride across central London in a car using a system developed by UK AI firm Wayve.

“We’re ready to launch robotaxis in the UK as soon as the regulatory environment is ready for us,” said Andrew Macdonald, senior vice president of mobility at Uber, who joined me for the ride.

The ride-hailing firm is working with 18 automated car tech companies including Wayve.

It is one of several companies which already offers robotaxis in the US.

They are also on the roads in China, the UAE and Singapore.

But Mr Macdonald disagreed that the UK was behind the rest of the world, arguing that the US and China were ahead largely because that is where the majority of the tech had been developed.

“We are working quickly and will implement self-driving vehicle legislation in the second half of 2027”, the Department for Transport said in a statement.

“We are also exploring options for short-term trials and pilots to create the right conditions for a thriving self-driving sector,” it added.

In the US, Mr Macdonald said robotaxis typically operate for 20 hours per day, seven days per week.

Even though there is no driver to pay, Uber says the fare is currently the same as a ride with a human behind the wheel.

The option to take one appears on the app if one is available, and customers can opt in or out.

That’s partly because, aside from the regulatory environment, another potential barrier to their uptake is the public’s reticence about travelling in a self-driving vehicle.

A poll by YouGov in 2024 suggested that 37% of Brits would feel “very unsafe” travelling in a car without a driver.

But Mr Macdonald insisted new customers’ initial nervousness was short-lived and the experience soon “becomes the new normal”.

That was certainly my experience during our ride.

I was in a Ford Mach-e, fitted with Wayve’s autonomous driving sensors and software.

It uses a radar and seven cameras. In the boot there’s is a computer which is running the AI-driven software that processes all that sensor data in real time and controls the car’s responses.

The automated tech handled every scenario without a hitch, including pedestrians in the road, parked cars, heavy traffic, temporary traffic lights and delivery bikes.

George, our safety driver, did not touch the controls once and a big red button, which shuts off the automated system immediately, was not deployed.

If anything the robo-ride was a far more patient city driver than I am – and has no voice, making it a lot less chatty.

Whether autonomous vehicles are more or less safe than human-driven ones is still being investigated.

But numerous studies suggest that automated vehicles are less accident-prone than human drivers, based on US data.

But there have been a number of incidents involving robotaxis in the countries where they operate, ranging from road accidents to passengers being locked in.

In January, a man in Arizona, in the US, documented how his robotaxi drove round in circles in an airport carpark, with him trapped in the vehicle, unable to stop the car or get help.

General Motors paused its driverless taxi service Cruise in San Francisco in 2023 because of safety concerns.

“The reality is that one accident is too many,” said Uber’s Mr Macdonald.

“That said, with EV (electric vehicles), human drivers… we operate in the real world and stuff happens.”

In the UK there are also practical questions around insurance, ownership and liability when a self-driving vehicle is involved in an accident. Mr Macdonald said they were all still being worked out.

Tom Leggett, vehicle technology manager at Thatcham Research – an independent car safety centre – said robotaxis would have to be “safety-led” in the UK.

“Secondly, they will have to make sure the data is available to those who need it – insurers and those investigating incidents when they occur.”

The government says self-driving vehicles have the potential “to build an industry worth £42bn and provide 38,000 jobs by 2035.”

But of course they are source of concern for people who earn a living driving.

Andy Prendergast, GMB national secretary, said the “significant social implications” driverless cars and taxis could have – such as potential less work or unemployment – for workers and the public must be fully considered.

Uber’s Mr Macdonald meanwhile believes automated vehicles will transform the way many people travel in the near future.

“I’ve got young kids,” he said.

“Do I think my daughters will necessarily get their drivers licences when they turn 16?” [the legal age in his home country, Canada].

“No – I think the world is changing a lot.”

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The most shocking thing for Jonathan, who had endured six gruelling months living and working underground in an abandoned South African gold mine, was the abuse he witnessed being meted out to children.

Some are recruited for cheap labour, but others are brought in specifically for sex, campaigners say.

Jonathan, now in his late 20s, had migrated to South Africa from a nearby country on the promise of making easy money working in one of its dozens of disused mines, closed by multinationals because they were no longer commercially viable.

We are protecting his full identity as he fears reprisals from the vicious criminal gangs that run the illegal mining industry for speaking to the media.

Details of what the young people were going though emerged after the death of dozens of illegal miners near the town of Stilfontein late last year when the mine was blockaded by police.

In a calm and steady voice, Jonathan describes the heat, long hours and limited food and sleeping options which took a toll on his body.

But an enduring memory is what happened to the underage miners in the shaft where he worked.

“I used to see these kids in the mine – teenagers actually, 15, 17-year-olds.

“Others used to take advantage of them sometimes. It was a little bit scary, and I wasn’t comfortable with it.”

He said they were raped by adult miners who promised to give them some of the gold they found in exchange for sex.

“If that kid is desperate for money, he will take the risk.”

Jonathan describes how the children would approach teams of miners for protection but “that team would have conditions”.

Sex was also used as punishment if the teenagers failed to complete a task for their team.

Jonathan says the children in the mine where he worked were all foreign and did not realise what they were getting themselves into.

Mining researcher and activist Makhotla Sefuli backs this up.

He says criminal gangs specifically target children to work in illegal mines across South Africa.

Many of them are abducted from neighbouring countries and trafficked. They are enticed by baseless promises of finding them employment in the formal mining industry.

“Their passports are confiscated when they get to South Africa… It is common knowledge that these young boys are being abused,” Mr Sefuli says.

The BBC has spoken to miners who worked in at least two other illegal mines who told us they saw children being abused in the shafts where they were working.

Tshepo, not his real name, says he saw older men forcing young boys to have sex with them underground.

“In some instances, they did it for the money. Some are recruited solely for that purpose, because of the financial incentives that will come with the practice of maybe trading sex underground.”

He adds that the abuse deeply affected the children.

“They change their behaviour patterns and have trust issues. They don’t want you to get close to them, because they feel that they can no longer trust anyone.”

South Africa’s illegal mining industry made global headlines last year following a standoff between police and miners at the Buffelsfontein gold mine, near the town of Stilfontein in the North West Province.

• Trapped underground with decaying bodies, miners faced a dark reality
• Inside South Africa’s ‘ruthless’ gang-controlled gold mines

The authorities had been trying to curb illegal mining, which the government said cost South Africa’s economy $3.2bn (£2.6bn) in lost revenue last year.

They launched an operation called Vala Umgodi, or seal the hole, in December 2023, promising to take a tough stance on the gangs.

As part of the operation, the police limited the amount of food and water that went down the Stilfontein mine to, as one minister put it, “smoke out” the illegal miners. Officials said the men were refusing to come out for fear of being arrested.

Soon footage began to emerge from within the mine showing dozens of emaciated men begging to be rescued, as well as rows of body bags. Eventually a court ordered the authorities to save the men.

Among those brought up were many who said they were underage, but as a number of them were migrants without documents confirming how old they were, the authorities carried out medical tests to get an estimate.

Through this, the Department of Social Development (DSD) confirmed that 31 of the rescued Stilfontein miners were found to be children. They were all Mozambicans nationals and in November, 27 of them were repatriated.

Save the Children South Africa helped translate some of the interviews between the underage miners and the rescue workers.

“They went through trauma, because some of them also saw others being sexually exploited,” the charity’s CEO Gugu Xaba tells the BBC.

“Just the feeling that they may not come out of there destroyed those children mentally.

“The adult miners would start by grooming them, by acting like they like them.”

She says the children were then made to perform sexual acts on the adults and they were then raped, days after day.

“You find that the adult will have three or four of them that they are doing the same thing to.”

Ms Xaba says mining gangs recruit children because they are easier to manipulate and cheaper.

“Children don’t understand when you say: ‘I’ll pay you 20 rands ($1; £0.80) per day.’ The adults sometimes refuse to work, but children find themselves with no choice. So it’s easier to use a child to do the work. It’s easier to take a child who’s kind of voiceless and to bring them down there.”

Beyond being exploited financially, she says there are gangs that recruit children specifically for sex.

Many illegal miners spend months underground, rarely going up to the surface. Markets spring up underground to provide them with anything they need.

“Most children are trafficked in order to be used as sex slaves. And you’ve got a pimp who is taking the money, and it means every day this child is used as a commercial sex worker.”

The BBC asked the police and the DSD whether anyone would be charged over the sexual abuse allegations. They did not respond to our requests.

A source working on the Stilfontein miners’ cases said many of the children did not want to testify.

Meanwhile, the illegal mining industry continues to thrive.

And with an estimated 6,000 vacant mines potentially available to explore, it is a business that is unlikely to end anytime soon, leaving thousands of vulnerable children at risk.

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Sharing a dirty cell with a dozen others, constant sleep deprivation, cells with lights on 24-hours a day; poor hygiene and forced labour. These are some of what prisoners in Chinese jails are subjected to, according to Australian citizen Matthew Radalj, who spent five years at the Beijing No 2 prison – a facility used for international inmates.

Radalj, who is now living outside China, has decided to go public about his experience, and described undergoing and witnessing severe physical punishment, forced labour, food deprivation and psychological torture.

The BBC has been able to corroborate Radalj’s testimony with several former prisoners who were behind bars at the same time he was.

Many requested anonymity, because they feared retribution on loved ones still living inside the country. Others said they just wanted to try to forget the experience and move on.

The Chinese government has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

“I was in really bad shape when I arrived. They beat me for two days straight in the first police station that I was in. I hadn’t slept or eaten or had water for 48 hours and then I was forced to sign a big stack of documents,” said Radalj of his introduction to imprisonment in China, which began with his arrest on 2 January, 2020.

The former Beijing resident claims he was wrongfully convicted after a fight with shopkeepers at an electronics market, following a dispute over the agreed price to fix a mobile phone screen.

He claims he ended up signing a false confession to robbery, after being told it would be pointless to try to defend his innocence in a system with an almost 100% criminal conviction rate and in the hope that this would reduce the time of his incarceration.

Court documents indicate that this worked at least to some extent, earning him a four-year sentence.

Once in prison, he said he first had to spend many months in a separate detention centre where he was subjected to a more brutal “transition phase”.

During this time prisoners must follow extremely harsh rules in what he described as horrific conditions.

“We were banned from showering or cleaning ourselves, sometimes for months at a time. Even the toilet could be used only at specific allotted times, and they were filthy – waste from the toilets above would constantly drip down on to us.”

Eventually he was admitted to the “normal” prison where inmates had to bunk together in crowded cells and where the lights were never turned off.

You also ate in the same room, he said.

According to Radalj, African and Pakistani prisoners made up the largest groups in the facility, but there were also men being held from Afghanistan, Britain, the US, Latin America, North Korea and Taiwan. Most of them had been convicted for acting as drug mules.

Radalj said that prisoners were regularly subjected to forms of what he described as psychological torture.

One of these was the “good behaviour points system” which was a way – at least in theory – to reduce your sentence.

Prisoners could obtain a maximum of 100 good behaviour points per month for doing things like studying Communist Party literature, working in the prison factory or snitching on other prisoners. Once 4,200 points were accumulated, they could in theory be used to reduce prison time.

If you do the maths, that would mean a prisoner would have to get maximum points every single month for three-and-half years before this could start to work.

Radalj said that in reality it was used as a means of psychological torture and manipulation.

He claims the guards would deliberately wait till an inmate had almost reached this goal and then penalise them on any one of a huge list of possible infractions which would cancel out points at the crucial time.

These infractions included – but were not limited to – hoarding or sharing food with other prisoners, walking “incorrectly” in the hallway by straying from a line painted on the ground, hanging socks on a bed incorrectly, or even standing too close to the window.

Other prisoners who spoke about the points system to the BBC described it as a mind game designed to crush spirits.

Former British prisoner Peter Humphrey, who spent two years in detention in Shanghai, said his facility had a similar points calculation and reduction system which was manipulated to control prisoners and block sentence reductions.

“There were cameras everywhere, even three to a cell,” he said. “If you crossed a line marked on the ground and were caught by a guard or on camera, you would be punished. The same if you didn’t make your bed properly to military standard or didn’t place your toothbrush in the right place in the cell.

“There was also group pressure on prisoners with entire cell groups punished if one prisoner did any of these things.”

One ex-inmate told the BBC that in his five years in prison, he never once saw the points actually used to mitigate a sentence.

Radalj said that there were a number of prisoners – including himself – who didn’t bother with the points system.

So authorities resorted to other means of applying psychological pressure.

These included cutting time off monthly family phone calls or the reduction of other perceived benefits.

But the most common daily punishment involved the reduction of food.

The BBC has been told by numerous former inmates that the meals at Beijing’s No 2 prison were mostly made up of cabbage in dirty water which sometimes also had bits of carrot and, if they were lucky, small slivers of meat.

They were also given mantou – a plain northern Chinese bread. Most of the prisoners were malnourished, Radalj added.

Another prisoner described how inmates ate a lot of mantou, as they were always hungry. He said that their diets were so low in nutrition – and they could only exercise outside for half an hour each week – that they developed flimsy upper bodies but retained bloated looking stomachs from consuming so much of the mantou.

Prisoners were given the opportunity to supplement their diet by buying meagre extra rations, if money from relatives had been put into what were called their “accounts”: essentially a prison record of funds delivered to purchase provisions like soap or toothpaste.

They could also use this to purchase items like instant noodles or soy milk powder. But even this “privilege” could be taken away.

Radalj said he was blocked from making any extra purchases for 14 months because he refused to work in the prison factory, where inmates were expected to assemble basic goods for companies or compile propaganda leaflets for the ruling Communist Party.

To make things worse, they were made to work on a “farm”, where they did manage to grow a lot of vegetables, but were never allowed to eat them.

Radalj said the farm was displayed to a visiting justice minister as an example of how impressive prison life was.

But, he said, it was all for show.

“We would be growing tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages and okra and then – at the end of the season – they would push it all into a big hole and bury it,” he added.

“And if you were caught with a chilli or a cucumber in general population you would go straight to solitary confinement for eight months.”

Another prisoner said they would occasionally suddenly receive protein, like a chicken leg, to make their diet look better when officials visited the prison.

Humphrey said there were similar food restrictions in his Shanghai prison, adding that this led to power struggles among the inmates: “The kitchen was run by prison labour. Those who worked there stole the best stuff and it could then be distributed.”

Radalj described a battle between African and Taiwanese groups in Beijing’s Prison No 2 over this issue.

The Nigerian inmates were working in the kitchen and “were getting small benefits, like a bag of apples once a month or some yogurt or a couple of bananas”, he said.

Then the Mandarin-speaking Taiwanese inmates were able to convince the guards to let them take over, giving them control of precious extra food items.

This led to a large brawl, and Radalj said he was caught in the middle of it. He was sent to solitary confinement for 194 days after hitting another prisoner.

Inside solitary, he finally had the lights turned off only to realise he’d be with very little light nearly all of the time, giving him the opposite sensory problem.

His small food ration was also cut in half. There were no reading materials and there was nobody to talk to while he was held in a bare room of 1.2 by 1.8 metres (4ft by 6ft) for half a year.

“You start to go crazy, whether you like it or not, and that’s what solitary is designed to do… So you’ve got to decide very quickly whether your room is really, really small, or really, really big.

“After four months, you just start talking to yourself all the time. The guards would come by and ask ‘Hey, are you okay?’. And you’re like, ‘why?’. They replied, ‘because you’re laughing’.”

Then, Radalj said, he would respond, in his own mind: “It’s none of your business.”

Another feature of Chinese prison life, according to Radalji, was the fake “propaganda” moments officials would stage for Chinese media or visiting officials to paint a rosy picture of conditions there.

He said, at one point, a “computer suite” was set up. “They got everyone together and told us that we’d get our own email address and that we would be able to send emails. They then filmed three Nigerian guys using these computers.”

The three prisoners apparently looked confused because the computers were not actually connected to the internet – but the guards had told them to just “pretend”.

“Everything was filmed to present a fake image of prisoners with access to computers,” Radalj said.

But, he claims, soon after the photo opportunity, the computers were wrapped up in plastic and never touched again.

Throughout much of the ordeal, Radalj had been secretly keeping a journal by peeling open Covid masks and writing tiny sentences inside, with the help of some North Korean prisoners, who have also since been released.

“I would be writing, and the Koreans would say: ‘No smaller… smaller!’.”

Radalj said many of the prisoners had no way of letting their families know they were in jail.

Some had not made phone calls to their relatives because no money had been placed in their accounts for phone calls. For others, their embassies had not registered family telephone numbers for the prison phone system. Only calls to officially approved numbers worked.

So, after word got round that the Australian was planning to try to smuggle his notes out, they passed on details to connect with their families.

“I had 60 or 70 people hoping I could contact their loved ones after I got out to tell them what was happening.”

He wrapped the pieces of Covid mask as tight as he could with sticky tape hoarded from the factory and tried to swallow the egg-sized bundle without the guards seeing.

But he couldn’t keep it down.

The guards saw what was happening on camera and started asking, “Why are you vomiting? Why do you keep gagging? What’s wrong?”

So, he gave up and hid the bundle instead.

When he was about to leave on 5 October 2024, he was given his old clothes which had been ripped five years earlier in the struggle over his initial arrest.

There was a tear in the lining of his jacket and he quickly dropped the notes inside before a guard could see him.

Radalj said he thinks someone told the prison officers of his plan because they searched his room and questioned him before he left.

“Did you forget something?” the guards asked.

“They trashed all my belongings. I was thinking they’re gonna take me back to solitary confinement. There will be new charges.”

But the guard holding his clothes never knew the secret journal had been slipped inside.

“They were like, ‘Get out of here!’. And it wasn’t until I was on the plane, and we had already left, and the seat belt sign was switched off, that I reached into my jacket to check.”

The notes were still there.

Just before he had boarded the plane in Beijing a policeman who had escorted him to the gate had used Radalj’s boarding pass to buy duty free cigarettes for his mates.

“He said don’t come back to China. You’re banned for 10 years. And I said ‘yeah cool. Don’t smoke. It’s bad for your health'”.

The officer laughed.

He arrived back in Australia and hugged his father at Perth airport. The tears were flowing.

Then he got married to his long-time girlfriend and now they spend their days making candles and other products.

Radalj says he is still angry about his experience and has a long way to go to recover properly.

But he is making his way through the contact list of his former inmate friends – “I have spent the best part of six months contacting their families, lobbying their embassies so they might try to do a better job of helping them during their incarceration.”

Some of them, he said, haven’t spoken to people back home for nearly a decade. And helping them has also helped with the transition back to his old life.

“With freedom comes a great sense of gratitude,” Radalj says. “You have a deeper appreciation for the very simplest things in life. But I also have a great sense of responsibility to the people I left behind in prison.”

Joe Biden’s half-century in politics has been an exercise in overcoming adversity.

From the death of his wife and young daughter in a car accident in 1972, to two early and unsuccessful presidential bids, to the death of his eldest son at just 46, his decades in Washington have been defined by tragedy but often followed by triumph.

Now, just four months after leaving office as a one-term president, and as intense scrutiny is placed on his mental and physical decline during those four years, the 82-year-old has been diagnosed with aggressive and advanced prostate cancer.

It is a disease that has never been far from his mind in the 10 years since his oldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer – leaving a deep emotional scar on the father that lingers to this day.

After that tragedy, finding a cure for cancer became a cause for the elder Biden.

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama tasked him with leading a “moonshot” government-wide research effort to that end – an effort that Biden continued during his own presidency.

Now it is cancer that presents possibly the greatest threat to Biden’s health since he nearly died of a brain aneurism shortly after he abandoned his first presidential bid in 1988.

The news of the diagnosis lands as Democrats continue to grapple with the consequences of Biden’s fateful decision to seek a second presidential term in the 2024 election – an attempt to extend the record he had already set for the oldest occupant of the Oval Office.

Biden ultimately dropped out of the race after intense pressure from Democrats following his halting, at times incomprehensible, performance in a general election debate with Donald Trump last June. But until that point, he had insisted that he was fit to continue in the White House for another four years.

This cancer diagnosis will underscore that the concerns about his age and the potential for health issues expressed by a majority of American voters in national polling were valid.

It coincides with the publication of several books detailing the efforts by those close to the president in the White House to accommodate, and conceal from the public, the toll the years were taking on his body and mind while he continued to serve as commander-in-chief.

While there is no reason to believe that Biden’s prostate issues were at all apparent while he was in the White House, the fact that such an aggressive form of cancer could avoid detection until it had already spread, despite the wealth of medical support and evaluation available to Biden, will raise new questions and concerns.

It sets up a troubling hypothetical of how Biden’s cancer might have been treated if he had successfully won a second term.

Hypotheticals notwithstanding, Biden’s diagnosis may temper some of the sharper criticisms the book revelations would have otherwise prompted.

President Donald Trump, who had spent much of his recent trip to the Middle East disparaging his predecessor, released a statement extending his “warmest and best wishes” to the Biden family. That may be representative of the tenor of the public dialogue around Biden in the coming days.

Until several recent media interviews, including one with the BBC in which he defended his decision to stay in the 2024 race until a late stage, Biden had largely receded from public view since leaving power in January.

If the former president has the energy and endurance to do so, this latest medical revelation might give him a new platform, and a newly sympathetic public, to attempt to defend and burnish his presidential legacy.

Over the course of his public life, Joe Biden has defined himself by his persistence and endurance, only reaching the pinnacle of American power late in life.

His illness is another formidable challenge. But it presents one more opportunity for Biden to define himself – as a politician and as a man – by how he handles it.

In July last year, Jesús Cometa was shot at as he was driving through the Cauca Valley in southwest Colombia.

Gunmen on motorbikes pulled up alongside his car and sprayed it with bullets. Mr Cometa escaped uninjured but his bodyguard was hit.

“He still has a bullet lodged in his chest,” he says.

Mr Cometa is one of thousands of trade unionists who have been attacked in recent years in Colombia which, by some measurements, is the most dangerous place in the world for organised labour.

The Cauca Valley is home to the country’s sugar industry, and he is a local representative of Sintrainagro, Colombia’s largest agricultural trade union.

“When you take on these roles in the union, you lose your social life,” Mr Cometa says. “You can’t just go and hang out in a crowded bar, or on a street corner, because you never know when you might be targeted.

“Your family suffers too because they know that they’re also targets.”

This is a problem with a long history.

In his ground-breaking novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombia’s Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel García Márquez famously highlighted the massacre of workers on banana plantations in the country in the 1920s.

The Labour Ministry says that since the early 1970s, well over 3,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia.

And even though the nation is more peaceful than it once was, the attacks continue.

“For many years now already, unfortunately, Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists and for trade union work,” says Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a global umbrella organization based in Brussels.

Every year the ITUC publishes a survey of the atrocities carried out against trade unionists around the world. Its most recent edition covers the year to the end of March 2024.

It found that in those 12 months, 22 trade unionists were killed for their activism around the world. Eleven of them were murdered in Colombia.

“Generally, these are targeted murders,” Mr Triangle says. “They know what they are doing. They know who they want to murder.

“It’s not targeting the big bosses of the trade unions or the leaders. They are targeting in small villages people that are doing active trade union work.

“Between 2020 and 2023, we recorded 45 murders in Colombia. In 2022, 29 murders. It’s less violent than it once was, but it’s still very violent, certainly if you compare it with other countries.”

Why is this happening?

Fabio Arias, the head of Colombia’s largest trade union federation, the CUT, says it is all part of Colombia’s long and complex civil conflict, which pitted left-wing rebel groups against right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and the Colombian state, and which still rumbles on in some parts of the country.

“The trade union movement has always been linked to the parties of the left and unfortunately the many right-wing governments we’ve had in Colombia have always claimed that anyone who is a leftist is a guerrilla, a terrorist,” Mr Arias says.

“And once you’ve established that, then people feel justified in attacking them.”

He says the attacks on workers are also linked to Colombia’s illegal economies, notably the cocaine trade and illegal mining.

“If you look at where these attacks are happening, it’s in the departments of Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Arauca, Norte de Santander and Caquetá, because that’s where the biggest coca plantations are, and where the illegal mining is.”

It is not clear who is carrying out these killings and who is ordering them. Some trade unionists blame the private sector, saying businesses, desperate to stifle any attempt by workers to organize, are paying armed groups to carry out these atrocities.

They point to the fact that threats and attacks tend to spike at times when businesses and unions are in wage negotiations.

But as many of the attacks go unpunished, it is difficult to know who exactly is to blame.

“In the Cauca Valley there are so many different armed groups you never really know who’s behind the attacks, who’s carrying them out, who’s ordering them,” says Zenón Escobar, another sugar cane worker and local representative of Sintrainagro.

The threats in the Cauca Valley are not limited to the sugar industry.

“In 2007, I was in a van, and guys drew up next to us on a motorbike and asked for me, and then opened fire,” recalls Jimmy Núñez, the leader of a union that represents street traders in the regional capital Cali.

“My colleague who was sitting next to me was killed, and my wife was injured. In 2010 they attacked me again, on the road between Cauca and Cali.

“They opened fire on my car. In 2012 we were attacked in a shopping centre in Cali and one of us was killed. And in 2013 my family had to leave Cauca due to threats.

“In this country social leaders and trade union leaders are killed every day.”

The government says it is doing what it can to protect trade unionists. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, heads a left-wing administration that is broadly sympathetic to the country’s workers.

In 2023, it took a step towards redressing the past by formally recognizing the trade union movement – collectively, and for the first time – as a victim of Colombia’s conflict. That gives victims a greater chance of having their cases investigated.

“We consider this as an important step to recognize the violence against trade unionists in Colombia, which was not the case before,” says Luc Triangle of the ITUC.

He also says foreign companies with operations in Colombia must do more.

“If I were the CEO of a multinational, I would question my activities in Colombia,” he says.

“There is a huge responsibility for multinational companies. They cannot have a nice code of conduct, and at the same time remain silent when trade unionists are killed.

“That’s not acceptable. Global companies and foreign investors in Colombia must step up.”

South African authorities say they will continue with legal proceedings against Nigerian televangelist Timothy Omotoso who was acquitted of rape last month, even though he has left the country.

Mr Omotoso, who denied the 32 charges against him, was accused of sexually assaulting young women from his church in Port Elizabeth.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) says it will still appeal against the judgement which found Mr Omotoso not guilty, saying his presence is not required.

Local reports stated that Mr Omotoso was en route to Nigeria, departing from OR Tambo International Airport, where he was filmed by public broadcaster SABC wearing a hoodie and dark sunglasses.

Mr Omotoso was first arrested in 2017 as he attempted to leave South Africa.

Among his accusers was a woman who said she was raped by the pastor when she was aged 14.

In a statement, South African prosecutors accepted “there are no legal grounds to prevent” Mr Omotoso from leaving the country following his acquittal.

However, if the appeal were allowed, the authorities would apply for Mr Omotoso to be extradited back to South Africa, the statement added, highlighting South Africa’s “bilateral extradition treaty with Nigeria”.

After his acquittal in April, Mr Omotoso also faced immigration issues, with the Department of Home Affairs alleging earlier this month that he was in South Africa illegally.

The department has said that Mr Omotoso faces a five-year ban from the country.

South Africa’s public broadcaster reports that the pastor was not deported, but left the country voluntarily.

Mr Omotoso leads the Jesus Dominion International church which has branches in the UK, Nigeria, France and Israel as well as in many parts of South Africa, according to its website.

Mr Omotoso’s trial made South African history as the first high-profile rape case to be broadcast live.

• South Africa shocked by live rape trial of Timothy Omotoso
• Nigerian pastor acquitted of rape after eight years
• Fake pastors and false prophets rock South African faith

Warsaw’s liberal mayor Rafal Trzaskowski won a narrow victory in Poland’s presidential election, but a second-round run-off with conservative historian Karol Nawrocki will be required to decide the country’s next president.

The state electoral commission (PKW) said Trzaskowski, a deputy leader of prime minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, won 31.3% of the vote.

Nawrocki came second with 29.5% of the vote.

Final official results are not expected until later on Monday. Turnout was over 67%.

Trzaskowski and Nawrocki are now set to compete in a second-round on 1 June as none of the 13 candidates won more than 50% of the vote.

• LIVE: Follow the latest from elections in Romania, Portugal and Poland

Trzaskowski told his supporters at a rally in Sandomierz, southern Poland: “We’re going to win.” But he said a lot of work and “great determination” would be needed.

“I’m convinced that all Poland will win,” he said.

He pledged to cooperate with prime minister Tusk’s coalition to liberalise the country’s strict abortion law and accelerate reform of the Polish judiciary, which was widely seen to have been politicised by the previous PiS-led government.

Trzaskowski performed worse than opinion polls predicted before the vote, which had him between 4%-6% ahead of Nawrocki.

Poland’s president has largely ceremonial powers but he or she is able to veto government legislation. Tusk’s coalition does not have a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn a presidential veto.

Tusk has failed to deliver many of his campaign promises, partly because the incumbent conservative president Andrzej Duda has vetoed his government’s legislation, but also due to divisions within the coalition over issues like abortion and civil partnerships.

A victory for Trzaskowski would remove the president’s veto, but Nawrocki would likely be an even tougher obstacle than Duda.

Nawrocki told his supporters in Gdansk that Tusk must be stopped from winning total power in Poland.

He called on supporters of two far-right candidates, Slawomir Mentzen, who came third and won 14.8%, and of Grzegorz Braun, who came fourth and won 6.3%, to “save Poland” from Tusk.

A lot will depend on which candidate can mobilise their electorate in the second round.

Nawrocki was unknown on a national scale before Law and Justice (PiS) chose him as its candidate. But he has improved on the job, and PiS is traditionally good at getting their vote out.

Trzaskowski will need to win the votes of supporters of his centrist party, but also those supporting the candidates of the junior coalition partners, the Left (Magdalena Biejat) and conservative Third Way (Szymon Holownia).

Another worry for Trzaskowski is the better than expected result of far-right candidates because many of their supporters will not vote for him.

Mentzen’s result was a strong showing and continued the improvement of his far-right Confederation party since it entered parliament in 2019.

Who will his, mainly young voters, back in the run-off?

Many would support Nawrocki for his Catholic, family-oriented views, but they dislike PiS’s left-wing economic policy of generous state benefits.

Mentzen is an anti-establishment candidate, and some of his supporters may not want to vote for either Nawrocki or Trzaskowski, who represent the two parties that have dominated Polish politics for two decades.

Far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun’s result was a nasty surprise for Poland’s liberal voters.

Braun made headlines in 2023 when he put out the candles on a Jewish menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher following a ceremony for the festival of Hanukkah.

Braun called the festival “satanic”. During a presidential debate last month he said: “Jews have far too much say in Polish affairs.”

At a time when women’s participation in the film industry was frowned upon, a young woman dared to dream differently.

In 1920s pre-independence India, PK Rosy became the first female lead in Malayalam-language cinema, in what is now the southern state of Kerala.

She starred in a movie called Vigathakumaran, or The Lost Child, in the 1920s. But instead of being remembered as a pioneer, her story was buried – erased by caste discrimination and social backlash.

Rosy belonged to a lower-caste community and faced intense criticism for portraying an upper-caste woman in Vigathakumaran.

Almost a hundred years later, there is no surviving evidence of Rosy’s role. The film’s reel was destroyed and the cast and crew have all died.

Only a few pictures of the film from a contested press release dated October 1930 survive, along with an unverified black-and-white photo popularised by local newspapers as Rosy’s only portrait.

Even a Google Doodle celebrating her 120th birthday used an illustration similar to the woman in the photograph. But Rosy’s nephew and others who have researched her life told the BBC that they could not conclusively say that it is her in the picture.

PK Rosy was born as Rajamma in the early 1900s in the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore, now Kerala.

She belonged to a family of grass cutters from the Pulaya community, part of the Dalits, who are at the bottom of India’s harsh caste hierarchy and have been historically oppressed.

“People from the Pulaya community were considered slave labour and auctioned off with land,” says Malavika Binny, a professor of history at Kannur University.

“They were considered the ‘lowliest’. They were flogged, raped, tied to trees and set on fire for any so-called transgressions,” she adds.

Despite the dire social challenges, Rosy chose to dream differently.

She was supported by her uncle, who was a theatre artist himself, and with his help Rosy entered the field of entertainment.

“There are few available facts about Rosy’s life, but it is known that she was popular for her performances in local plays,” says Vinu Abraham, the author of The Lost Heroine, a novel based on Rosy’s life.

While her acting skills earned admiration, it was rare for a Dalit woman to take up acting at the time.

“She was likely aware of the fact that this was a new arena and making herself visible was important,” says Prof Binny.

She soon became a well-known figure in local theatre circles and her talent caught the eye of director JC Daniel, who was then searching for a lead actor for his film – a character named Sarojini.

Daniel was aware of Rosy’s caste identity and chose to cast her in the role.

“She was paid five rupees a day for 10 days of filming,” said Mr Abraham. “This was a substantial amount of money in the 1920s.”

On the day of the film’s premiere, Rosy and her family were barred from attending the screening.

They were stopped because they were Dalits, Rosy’s nephew Biju Govindan says.

And so began a chain of events that pushed Rosy out of the public eye and her home.

“The crowd that came to watch the movie were provoked by two things: Rosy playing an upper-caste woman and the hero picking a flower from her hair and kissing it in one scene,” said Mr Abraham.

“They started throwing rocks at the screen and chased Daniel away,” he added.

There are differing accounts of the extent of the damage to the theatre but what is clear is the toll the incident took on both Rosy and Daniel.

Daniel had spent a lot of money to establish a studio and gather resources to produce the film, and was heavily debt-ridden. Facing immense social and financial pressure, the director, who is now widely regarded as the father of Malayalam cinema, never made another film.

Rosy fled her hometown after an angry mob set her house on fire.

She cut all ties with her family to avoid being recognised and never spoke publicly about her past. She rebuilt her life by marrying an upper-caste man and took the name Rajammal.

She lived the rest of her life in obscurity in the town of Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Mr Abraham says.

Her children refused to accept that PK Rosy, the Dalit actor, was their mother, Rosy’s nephew Mr Govindan says.

“Her children were born with an upper-caste Kesavan Pillai’s identity. They chose their father’s seed over their mother’s womb,” he says.

“We, her family, are part of PK Rosy’s Dalit identity before the film’s release,” he said.

“In the space they inhabit, caste restricts them from accepting their Dalit heritage. That is their reality and our family has no place in it.”

In 2013, a Malayalam TV channel tracked down Rosy’s daughter Padma, who was living in financial strain somewhere in Tamil Nadu. She told them that she did not know much about her mother’s life before her marriage but that she did not act after that.

The BBC made attempts to contact Rosy’s children, but their relatives said they were not comfortable with the attention.

Prof Binny says that the erasure of Rosy’s legacy shows how deeply caste-based trauma can run.

“It can be so intense that it shapes or defines the rest of one’s life,” she says, adding that she is glad Rosy eventually found a safe space.

In recent years, Dalit filmmakers and activists have sought to reclaim Rosy’s legacy. Influential Tamil director Pa Ranjith has launched a yearly film festival in her name which celebrates Dalit cinema. A film society and foundation have also been established.

But there is still a haunting sense that while Rosy was ultimately saved, it was at the cost of her passion and identity.

“Rosy prioritised survival over art and, as a result, never tried to speak publicly or reclaim her lost identity. That’s not her failure – it’s society’s,” says Mr Govindan.

Just as India showed flickers of progress toward its long-held dream of becoming the world’s factory, Washington and Beijing announced a trade “reset” that could derail Delhi’s ambitions to replace China as the global manufacturing hub.

Last week, Trump’s tariffs on China dropped overnight – from 145% to 30%, vs 27% for India – as the two sides thrashed out an agreement in Switzerland.

As a result, there’s a chance manufacturing investment that was moving from China to India could either “stall” or “head back”, feels Ajay Srivastava of the Delhi-based think tank, Global Trade Research Institute (GTRI).

“India’s low-cost assembly lines may survive, but value-added growth is in danger.”

The change in sentiment stands in sharp relief to the exuberance in Delhi last month when Apple indicated that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India.

That may well still happen, even though US President Donald Trump revealed that he had told Apple CEO Tim Cook not to build in India because it was “one of the highest tariff nations in the world”.

“India is well positioned to be an alternative to China as a supplier of goods to the US in the immediate term,” Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investor note before the deal was announced. He pointed out that 40% of India’s exports to the US were “similar to those exported by China”.

There were early signs that Indian exporters were already stepping in to fill the gap left by Chinese producers. New export orders surged to a 14-year high, according to a recent survey of Indian manufacturers.

Nomura, a Japanese broking house, also pointed to growing “anecdotal evidence” of India emerging as a winner from “trade diversion and supply-chain shift in low and mid-tech manufacturing” particularly in sectors like electronics, textiles and toys.

Some analysts do believe that despite the so-called trade “reset” between Beijing and Washington, a larger strategic decoupling between China and the US will continue to benefit India in the long run.

For one, there’s greater willingness by Narendra Modi’s government to open its doors to foreign companies after years of protectionist policies, which could provide tailwind.

India and the US are also negotiating a trade deal that could put Asia’s third-largest economy in a sweet spot to benefit from the so-called “China exodus” – as global firms shift operations to diversify supply chains.

India has just signed a trade pact with the UK, sharply cutting duties in protected sectors like whiskey and automobiles. It offers a glimpse of the concessions Delhi might offer Trump in the ongoing India-US trade talks.

But all of this optimism needs to be tempered for more reasons than one.

Apart from the fact that China is now back in the running, companies are also “not entirely writing off other Asian competitors, with countries like Vietnam still on their radars”, economists Sonal Verma and Aurodeep Nandi from Nomura said in a note earlier this month.

“Hence, for India to capitalise on this opportunity, it needs to complement any tariff arbitrage with serious ease-of-doing-business reforms.”

A tough business climate has long frustrated foreign investors and stalled India’s manufacturing growth, with its share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stuck at around 15% for two decades.

The Modi government’s efforts, such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, have delivered only limited success in boosting this figure.

The government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, has acknowledged India’s “limited success” in attracting investment shifting from China. It noted that factors like cheaper labour, simpler tax laws, lower tariffs, and proactive Free Trade Agreements helped countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia expand exports – while India lagged behind.

Another major concern, says Nomura, is India’s ongoing reliance on China for raw materials and components used in electronics like iPhones, limiting Delhi’s ability to fully capitalise on supply chain shifts.

“India’s earnings from making iPhones will only rise if more of the phone is made locally,” Mr Srivastava told the BBC.

According to him, right now Apple earns over $450 per iPhone sold in the US while India keeps less than $25 – even though the full $1,000 is counted as an Indian export.

“Just assembling more iPhones in India won’t help much unless Apple and its suppliers also start making components and doing high-value work here. Without that, India’s share stays small, and the export numbers go up only on paper -possibly triggering more scrutiny from the US without real economic gain for India,” Mr Srivastava said.

The jobs created by such assembly lines aren’t very high quality either, says GTRI.

Quite unlike companies like Nokia which set up a factory in the southern city of Chennai in 2007 where suppliers moved in together, “today’s smartphone makers mostly import parts and push for lower tariffs instead of building supply chains in India”, explained Mr Srivastava. He noted that, in certain instances, the investment made could be lower than the subsidies received under India’s PLI scheme.

Finally there are concerns that Chinese exporters could try to use India to reroute products to the US.

India doesn’t seem averse to this idea despite the pitfalls. The country’s top economic adviser said last year that the country should attract more Chinese businesses to set-up export oriented factories and boost its manufacturing industry – a tacit admission that its own industrial policy hadn’t delivered.

But experts caution, this could further curtail India’s ability to build local know-how and grow its own industrial base.

All of this shows that beyond the headline-grabbing announcements by the likes of Apple, India is still a long way from realising its factory ambitions.

“Slash production costs, fix logistics, and build regulatory certainty,” Mr Srivastava urged policymakers in a social media post.

“Let’s be clear. This US-China reset is damage control, not a long-term solution. India must play the long game, or risk getting side-lined.”

Endangered water voles in Wales are being fed edible glitter in a bid to save them from extinction.

Once commonly found across south Wales, water voles are now effectively extinct in all but a few locations, according to the Wildlife Trust.

With their future hanging in the balance, conservationists have been looking for new ways to track the naturally shy individuals in the wild – which is where the glitter comes in.

The Initiative for Nature Conservation Cymru (INCC) hopes that by offering the animals something sparkly to eat, the sparkle should come out the other end – providing some much-needed answers.

Rob Parry, chief executive of INCC, said his team had consulted with vets to ensure the edible and biodegradable glitter – the type used to decorate cakes – would not be harmful to the semi-aquatic creatures.

“It’s something that we’ve done in nature conservation before for other species, for badgers in particular where we use pellets to put in with peanuts, which badgers love,” said Mr Parry.

“So we’ve taken that idea and scaled it down to water vole size, which means using glitter.”

The hope is that if the water voles are willing to consume the glitter then it will come out in their poo, allowing the small mammals – which are often mistaken for brown rats – to be tracked by conservationists.

Different colours of glitter could be used to allow conservationists to track different families of water voles and how far they range.

It might sound like a fun idea, but Mr Parry and his team could not be more serious.

If they can track where water voles are located in the wild, they can make adjustments to the environment – like removing invasive conifers from wetland habitats or fencing off certain riverbanks to stop sheep grazing.

Measures like this could help the species to disperse through the landscape undisturbed and potentially be a life-saving intervention.

“We’ll be able to see the types of territory, the size and where they go in,” said Mr Parry.

“Are they just using the linear features, the ditches, or are they spreading out into the bog and the molinia grassland habitat?

“That will be really crucial for when it comes to planning for our upland habitats.”

The team is first testing out their theory on some captive-bred water voles which are part of a wider Natural Resources Wales (NRW) project to reintroduce colonies into the wild.

The glitter is spread onto chunks of apple, not part of their normal diet in the wild, but a food the animals love and do well on in captivity, according to Richard Davies from NRW.

“They get everything they need from apples, carrots, and some dried rabbit food as well,” he said.

He has successfully bred hundreds of water voles which have been reintroduced into the wild, though he said their release was no guarantee of survival.

“Most predators in the UK would quite happily take a water vole. They need to be able to cope with this heavy predation and replace themselves a lot,” he said.

With a BBC News camera present, the glittery purple apple was placed on top of the straw bedding which covered the water voles’ pen.

After 20 minutes, the food remained untouched, but an hour later most of it had disappeared.

The success of the project, however, does not just depend on the appetite of the water voles, but how well the glitter can retain its shine from end to end.

Mr Parry said without interventions like this, the future for water voles was uncertain.

“It’s been a perfect storm of bad things that’s happened to water voles in the last few decades,” he said.

“We have drained an awful lot of their wetland habitat, forced them into linear ditches where we find them now, and then the biggest problem is the American mink, an invasive species that was let out and released from pens and they just turned out to be the perfect water vole predators. The water voles don’t stand a chance, really.”

But now, at least, he is more hopeful.

The water voles, known for being nervous about any changes to to their environment, had not rejected the glitter.

So, did the experiment work?

Just 24 hours later, a tiny glittery poo was spotted.

The conservation team was elated.

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The man accused of setting off a car blast outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, is said to be a 25-year-old with “nihilistic ideations”.

Guy Edward Bartkus, who is thought to have died in the blast, left behind writings which suggest he disapproved of people being brought into the world against their will, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

He detonated explosives outside the clinic on Saturday morning and tried to livestream the attack, said investigators.

Four other people were injured in the explosion and have been released from hospital. None of the wounded are staff or patients at the clinic.

“The subject had nihilistic ideations and this was a targeted attack,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.

The FBI is reviewing a manifesto they believe is linked to Bartkus, who lived at Twentynine Palms, home to a large marine base.

He loaded his 2010 silver Ford Fusion sedan with explosives before driving an hour from Twentynine Palms to Palm Springs, investigators said.

His father told CBS News Los Angeles that he had not spoken to his son in more than 10 years and that he had “just changed” after moving to Twentynine Palms.

Mr Davis said the FBI is still looking for the public’s help to piece together the suspect’s whereabouts before the blast, and will remain on scene for the next day or two to continue their investigation.

The blast was felt more than a mile away. Mr Davis referred to it as “the largest bombing scene” the FBI had seen in southern California in recent memory, and said police are working to survey evidence that is scattered 100 feet away from the explosion “in every direction”.

Several buildings were damaged in the blast, including the ACR fertility clinic with images showing a portion of its wall destroyed.

The fertility clinic said their lab, including all eggs and embryos, remained “fully secure and undamaged”.

But Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the clinic, told the Associated Press that the clinic’s office was damaged.

“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”

According to its website, the ARC clinic is the first full-service fertility centre and IVF lab in the Coachella Valley.

It offers services including fertility evaluations, IVF, egg donation and freezing, reproductive support for same-sex couples and surrogacy.

Among the cactuses in the desert of Arizona, just outside Phoenix, an extraordinary collection of buildings is emerging that will shape the future of the global economy and the world.

The hum of further construction is creating not just a factory for the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Eventually, it will mass produce the most advanced chips in the world. This work is being done in the US for the first time, with the Taiwanese company behind it pledging to spend billions more here in a move aimed at heading off the threat of tariffs on imported chips.

It is, in my view, the most important factory in the world, and it’s being built by a company you may not have heard of: TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It makes 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors. Until now they were all made on the island of Taiwan, which is 100 miles east of the Chinese mainland. The Apple chip in your iPhone, the Nvidia chips powering your ChatGPT queries, the chips in your laptop or computer network, all are made by TSMC.

Its Arizona facility “Fab 21” is closely guarded. Blank paper or personal devices are not allowed in case designs are leaked. It houses some of the most important intellectual property in the world, and the process to make these chips is one of the most complicated and intensive in global manufacturing.

They’re hugely protective of the secrets that lie within. Important customers, such as Apple and Nvidia, trust this company to safeguard their designs for future products.

But after months of asking, TSMC let the BBC in to look at the partial transfer of what some argue is the most critical, expensive, complex and important manufacturing in the world.

President Trump certainly seems to think so. He often mentions the factory in passing. “TSMC is the biggest there is,” he has said. “We gradually lost the chip business, and now it’s almost exclusively in Taiwan. They stole it from us.” This is one of the US president’s regular refrains.

TSMC’s recent decision to expand its investments in the US by a further $100bn (£75bn) is something Trump attributes to his threats of tariffs on Taiwan and on the global semiconductor business.

The expansion of the Arizona facility, which was announced in March is, he believes, the poster child for his economic policies – in particular the encouragement of foreign companies to relocate factories to the US to avoid hefty tariffs.

China is also watching developments carefully. Taiwan’s chip-making prowess has been part of what its government has called its “Silicon Shield”, against a much-feared invasion. While the original strategy was to make Taiwan indispensable in this area of critical technology, the pandemic supply chain difficulties changed the calculus because relying on a single country seemed like a greater risk.

China claims the self-ruled Taiwan as its territory but Taiwan sees itself as distinct from the Chinese mainland.

So, many currents of the world economy, frontier technology and geopolitics flow through this one site and within it lies the essential contradiction of Trump’s economic and diplomatic policy.

He sees this plant as the exemplar of America First, and the preservation of economic and military superiority over China. Yet the manufacture of these modern miniaturised miracles at the frontier of physics and chemistry inherently relies on a combination of the very best technologies from around the world.

Greg Jackson, one of the facilities managers, takes me around in a golf buggy. The factories are almost a carbon copy of the TSMC spaces in Taiwan, where he trained. “I would say these facilities are probably some of the most advanced and complicated in the world,” he says.

“It’s quite the dichotomy. You’ve got really, really small chips with really small structures, and it takes this massive facility with all the infrastructure to be able to make them… Just the sheer complexity, the amount of systems that it takes, is staggering.”

Inside the “Gowning Building”, workers dress in protective clothing before crossing a bridge that is supposed to create the cleanest environment on Earth, in order to protect the production of these extraordinary microscopic transistors that create the microchips underpinning everything.

Konstantinos Ninios, an engineer, shows me some of the very first productions from TSMC Arizona: a silicon wafer with what is known as “4 nanometre chips”.

“This is the most advanced wafer in the US right now,” he explains. “[It] contains about 10 to 14 trillion transistors… The whole process is 3,000 to 4,000 steps.”

If you could somehow shrink your body to the same scale and get inside the wafer, he says that the many different layers would look like very tall streets and skyscrapers.

TSMC was founded at the behest of the Taiwanese government in 1987, when chip executive Morris Chang was directed to start the business. The model was to become a dedicated foundry for microchips, manufacturing other companies’ designs. It became wildly successful.

Driving the advancement of the technology is the miniaturisation of the smallest feature on chips. Their size is measured these days in billionths of a metre or nanometres. This progress has enabled mobile phones to become smartphones, and is now setting the pace for the mass deployment of artificial intelligence.

It requires incredible complexity and expense through the use of “extreme ultraviolet (UV) light”. This is used to etch the intricate building blocks of our modern existence in a process called “lithography”.

The world’s dependence on TSMC is built on highly specialised bus-sized machines, which are in turn sourced almost entirely from a Dutch company called ASML, including in Arizona.

These machines shoot UV light tens of thousands of times through drops of molten tin, which creates a plasma, and is then refracted through a series of specialised mirrors.

The almost entirely automated process for each wafer of silicon is repeated thousands of times in layers over months, before the $1m LP-sized wafer of 4nm silicon chips is formed.

“Just imagine a particle or a dust particle falling into this,” Mr Ninios says to me incredulously. “The transistors are not going to work. So all of this is cleaner than hospital operating rooms.”

Taiwan does not have special access to the raw materials – but it has the know-how to stay years ahead of other companies in the intricate process of producing these atomic building blocks of modern life.

Some in the Taiwanese government are cautious about spreading the frontier of this technology off the island. Trump wasted little time in claiming the firm’s decision to bring its highest level of technology to the US was due to his economic policies.

He said this would not have happened without the stick of his planned tariffs on Taiwan and semiconductors. Those I speak to at TSMC are diplomatic about that claim.

Much of this was already planned and subsidised under former US President Biden’s Chips Act.

On the walkway into the building are photographs showing Biden’s visit in 2022, with the building site draped in the Stars and Stripes and a banner saying “a future Made in America”.

“The semiconductor supply chain is global,” says TSMC Arizona President Rose Castanares. “There’s really no single country at this moment that can do everything from chemicals to wafer manufacturing to packaging, and so it’s very difficult to unwind that whole thing very quickly.”

As for the semiconductor supply chain, tariffs will not help. The supply chain stretches all over the world. Whether it’s the silicon wafers from Japan, the machines required from the Netherlands, or mirrors from Germany, all sorts of materials from all around the world are required. Now, they could face import charges.

That said, TSMC’s boss was quick off the mark in confirming the expansion of the US site at an event with Trump at the White House. In recent weeks, America’s tech elite – from Apple’s Tim Cook, to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang – have been queueing up to tell the world that TSMC Arizona will now produce many of the chips in their US products.

The global chip industry is very sensitive to the economic cycle, but its cutting-edge technology enjoys very healthy margins, that could cushion some of these planned tariffs.

There are many geopolitical subtexts here. The factory sits at the heart of US strategy to gain technological, AI and economic supremacy over China.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations have developed policies to try and limit Chinese access to the frontier semiconductor technology – from a ban on exports to China of ASML’s machines, to new legislation to ban the use of Huawei AI chips in US software or technology anywhere in the world.

Taiwan’s President Lai this week urged democracies such as Japan and the US to develop “non-Red” supply chains to counter China.

Not everyone is convinced that this strategy is working, however. Chinese technologists have been effective at working around the bans to develop competitive indigenous technology. And Bill Gates this week said that these policies “have forced the Chinese in terms of chip manufacturing and everything to go full speed ahead”.

Trump wants TSMC Arizona to become a foundation stone for his American golden age. But the company’s story to date is perhaps the ultimate expression of the success of modern globalisation.

So for now, it’s a battle for global tech and economic supremacy, in which Taiwan’s factory technology, some of which is now being moved to the Arizona desert, is the critical asset.

Police in India have arrested a local YouTuber on suspicions of spying for Pakistan.

Jyoti Malhotra, a travel influencer from the northern Indian state of Haryana, allegedly travelled to the neighbouring country several times – her last trip was in March 2025.

Police in Haryana allege that she was in touch with a Pakistan High Commission official, who was expelled from India earlier this month.

The YouTuber’s father has denied allegations that she was a spy, saying she went to Pakistan after acquiring necessary permissions.

Ms Malhotra describes herself on social media as a “modern girl with old ideas”, and has 377,000 subscribers on YouTube and 133,000 followers on Instagram.

But officers have questioned how she financed her travel around the globe, with her videos documenting visits to places like Bangladesh, China, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. She has also visited several Indian destinations and religious places. Police say it defies her known source of income.

Police claim Ms Malhotra was in touch with “Pakistani intelligence operatives” and had continuous contact with a Pakistani citizen.

Ms Malhotra is also being investigated for any links with the Pahalgam attack, Shashank Kumar Sawan, the superintendent of police in Haryana’s Hisar district, told ANI news agency.

They say they have leads on others who may have collaborated with the influencer, who does not have direct access to any military or defence information.

“She was in touch with other YouTube influencers… She used to go to Pakistan on sponsored trips,” Mr Sawan added.

Her arrest comes after the Indian government asked Ahsan-ur-Rahim, the Pakistan High Commission official with whom the YouTuber was alleged to have been in contact, to leave the country on 13 May, alleging he had indulged in activities “not in keeping with his official status in India”.

Pakistan also asked an Indian embassy staff member in Islamabad to leave for indulging in activities “incompatible” with his privileged status.

According to a complaint registered by the police, Ms Malhotra met Ahsan-ur-Rahim for the first time in 2023 when she had visited the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, seeking a visa to visit the neighbouring country.

Her last video on Pakistan was uploaded in March, in which she was seen in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi attending a Ramadan dinner.

In other videos from Pakistan, she is seen visiting Hindu and Sikh temples, famous local markets, and interacting with locals.

Arrests in India and Pakistan over allegations of spying are not uncommon.

Ms Malhotra’s arrest comes following days of military tensions between the neighbours earlier this month.

On 7 May, India struck what it calls “terror infrastructure” inside Pakistan, days after a deadly militant attack on tourists in Pahalgam, a picturesque valley in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the attacks.

After four tense days of deadly clashes between the nuclear-armed neighbours, both countries agreed to a ceasefire on 10 May, announced by US President Donald Trump.

Former US President Joe Biden, 82, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, a statement from his office said on Sunday.

The discovery was made on Friday after he reported urinary symptoms which led doctors to find a small nodule on his prostate.

The cancer is a more aggressive form of the disease and Biden and his family are reviewing treatment options, the statement said.

He left office in January as the oldest serving US president in history and questions about his health dogged his first term, leading him to end his run for re-election late in his campaign.

In Sunday’s statement, Biden’s office said: “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.

“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterised by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.”

A Gleason score of nine means his illness is classified as “high-grade” and the cancer cells could spread quickly, according to Cancer Research UK.

After news broke of his diagnosis, the former president received support from both sides of the aisle.

President Donald Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that he and First Lady Melania Trump were “saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis”.

“We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family,” he said, referring to former First Lady Jill Biden. “We wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

• Analysis: Cancer diagnosis is another formidable challenge
• What we know about the prostate cancer diagnosis

Former Vice-President Kamala Harris, who served under Biden, wrote on X that she and her husband Doug Emhoff are keeping the Biden family in their prayers.

“Joe is a fighter – and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership,” Harris said.

In a post on X, Barack Obama – who served as president from 2009 to 2017 with Joe Biden as his deputy – said that he and his wife Michelle were “thinking of the entire Biden family”.

“Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery,” Obama said. In 2016, Obama tasked Biden with leading a “cancer moonshot” government-wide research programme.

In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “I am very sorry to hear President Biden has prostate cancer. All the very best to Joe, his wife Jill and their family, and wishing the president swift and successful treatment.”

The news comes nearly a year after the former president was forced to drop out of the 2024 US presidential election over concerns about his health and age.

Biden, then the Democratic nominee vying for re-election, faced mounting criticism of his poor performance in a June televised debate against Republican nominee and current president Donald Trump.

He was replaced as the Democratic candidate by his vice-president, Kamala Harris.

Trump, 78, became the oldest person to take the oath when he took over from Biden.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer affecting men, behind skin cancer, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that 13 out of every 100 men will develop prostate cancer at some point in their lives.

Age is the most common risk factor, the CDC says.

Dr William Dahut, the Chief Scientific Officer at the American Cancer Society and a trained prostate cancer physician, told the BBC that the cancer is more aggressive in nature, based on the publicly-available information on Biden’s diagnosis.

“In general, if cancer has spread to the bones, we don’t think it is considered a curable cancer,” Dr Dahut said.

He noted, however, that most patients tend to respond well to initial treatment, “and people can live many years with the diagnosis”.

Dr Dahut said that someone with the former president’s diagnosis will likely be offered hormonal therapies to mitigate symptoms and to slow the growth of cancerous cells.

Biden had largely retreated from the public eye since leaving the White House and he has made few public appearances.

In May, he sat down for an interview with the BBC – his first since leaving the White House – where he admitted that the decision to step down from the 2024 race was “difficult”.

Biden has faced questions about the status of his health in recent months.

In an appearance on The View programme that also took place in May, Biden denied claims that he had been experiencing cognitive decline in his final year at the White House. “There is nothing to sustain that,” he said.

For many years, the president had advocated for cancer research.

In 2022, he and Mrs Biden relaunched the “cancer moonshot” initiative with the goal of mobilising research efforts to prevent more than four million cancer deaths by the year 2047.

Biden himself lost his eldest son, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015.

France will build a new high-security prison in its overseas department of French Guiana to house drug traffickers and radical Islamists, the country’s justice minister announced during a visit to the territory.

Gérald Darmanin told Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) newspaper that the prison would target organised crime “at all levels” of the drug supply chain.

The €400m (£337m) facility, which could open as early as 2028, will be built in an isolated location deep in the Amazon jungle in the northwestern region of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni.

The plan was announced after a series of violent incidents linked to criminal gangs which saw prisons and staff targeted across France in recent months.

The prison will hold up to 500 people, with a separate wing designed to house the most dangerous criminals.

In an interview with JDD, the minister said the new prison would be governed by an “extremely strict carceral regime” designed to “incapacitate the most dangerous drug traffickers”.

Darmanin said the facility would be used to detain people “at the beginning of the drug trail”, as well as serving as a “lasting means of removing the heads of the drug trafficking networks” in mainland France.

French Guiana is a region of France on the north-east coast of South America. Its residents are eligible to vote in French elections and have access to the French social security system, as well as other subsidies.

Its distance from the French mainland means drug lords “will no longer be able to have any contact with their criminal networks”, Darmanin told JDD.

French authorities have long struggled to control the infiltration of mobile phones into the prison network. Tens of thousands are known to circulate through French jails.

Earlier this year, the French government announced new legislation designed to crack down on the activity of criminal gangs.

The measures will create a dedicated branch of the prosecutors’ office to deal with organised crime. It will also introduce extra powers for investigators, and a special protected status for informers.

It will also see the creation of new high-security prisons – including the facility in French Guiana – to hold the most powerful drugs barons, with stricter rules governing visits and communication with the outside world.

France has seen a series of attacks on prisons in recent months, which Darmanin has described as “terrorist” incidents that come in response to the government’s new legislation.

The perpetrators of these attacks have set vehicles outside prisons alight, while Toulon’s La Farlede prison was hit by gunfire.

In some incidents the perpetrators of these attacks have styled themselves as defenders of prisoners’ rights.

The proposed new facility in French Guiana is to be built at a “strategic crossroads” for drugs mules, particularly from Brazil and Suriname, according to AFP news agency.

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni is the former port of entry to the infamous Devil’s Island penal colony, where 70,000 convicts from mainland France were sent between 1852 and 1954.

The penal colony was the setting of French writer Henri Charrière’s book Papillon, which was later made into a Hollywood film starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.

The BBC has contacted the French justice ministry for comment.

A world record-breaking swimmer has told BBC Panorama she was left “broken” by the harsh regime run by one of the UK’s most successful swimming coaches.

Rūta Meilutytė, who won gold at the London 2012 Olympics, said Jon Rudd’s focus on weighing and swimmers’ diets contributed to her struggle with an eating disorder and depression.

In total, 12 ex-swimmers have told us they experienced bullying, a toxic training environment and controlling food culture at one of the UK’s most prestigious clubs for young elite swimmers when he was head coach.

Rudd had faced allegations of bullying and verbal abuse during his 28-year tenure at Plymouth Leander swimming club, but the BBC has learned that no action was taken by the sport’s governing body.

We have found that Swim England, the governing body, did not act on a confidential 2012 investigation which ruled Rudd should be suspended after hearing evidence about his behaviour from 17 witnesses.

Swim England’s new chief executive Andy Salmon said he did not know why Rudd had not been suspended, but he was “deeply, deeply, sorry” to Plymouth’s swimmers and all of those harmed by the governing body’s failings.

Rudd, who is due to become high performance director of Saudi Arabia’s Olympic swimming team, has not responded to the BBC.

Plymouth Leander attracted aspiring swimmers from around the world after Rudd established its reputation as a club that produced Olympic athletes.

While head coach between 1989 and 2017, he was responsible for swimmers’ success, but also had safeguarding responsibilities to ensure their wellbeing.

One of Plymouth Leander’s most successful swimmers was Antony James, who won silver at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and represented Team GB at the 2012 Olympics. He was jailed for 21 years in February for raping two girls he had met at the club.

Three people who trained at Plymouth Leander told Panorama that Rudd, who had coached James since he was eight years old, should have known he was interested in younger girls.

A former girlfriend of James, also an ex-swimmer, said he was well known for mixing with young teenage girls and that his status as the club’s “golden boy” meant no one questioned his behaviour.

“Everyone knew – he wasn’t trying to hide anything that he was doing, it was very out there and open,” she said.

She was 16 and he was 22 when they started a relationship and she says she believes she was a “gateway” to his grooming of younger girls.

Rudd was a coach at Plymouth Leander in 2010 when Lithuanian Rūta Meilutyte moved to the UK to be coached by him.

She made Olympic history two years later when, aged 15, she became the youngest person to win the 100m breaststroke.

Now 28, she recalls Rudd making cutting comments about her weight.

When she confided in him that she had been making herself sick after meals to lose weight, she said he laughed and replied: “Well, at least you get the calories out.”

She said that Rudd did seek help for her once he realised that she was not happy with what he had said.

She also described him saying her “ass was fat”, moments before a major competition, aged 16.

Despite being hailed as the club’s most successful swimmer, Meilutytė said Rudd’s regime “made me for a while and then it broke me”.

She left Plymouth Leander in 2017. Rudd’s career, meanwhile, went from strength to strength, with him becoming Swim Ireland’s director of performance swimming in the same year.

Rudd was employed by Plymouth College, an independent school, until 2017. It ran a partnership with Plymouth Leander between 2001-2024 and many swimmers boarded there.

Among the other 11 swimmers to make allegations to Panorama about Rudd was Olympic bronze medallist Cassie Patten. She said the coach had made her train with an injured shoulder and that it eventually ended her career in 2011.

Commonwealth Youth gold medallist Phoebe Lenderyou told Panorama Rudd’s regime aggravated her eating disorder.

Andy Salmon, who has been CEO of Swim England since February 2024, confirmed to the BBC that no action was taken against Rudd despite evidence swimmers had suffered harm and the 2012 report’s recommendation that he be suspended for four months.

The report would have remained a secret but for the BBC receiving a tip-off in 2023. It said Rudd had been subjected to a lengthy probe, but that none of the complainants had been told the outcome.

His case was reviewed after the BBC asked Swim England about it.

According to the original investigation, Rudd’s assistant coach, Lindsay Trimmings, should also have been suspended from Plymouth Leander. She was later hired by Swim England to be its head of coaching but left in 2023. When Panorama wrote to her, she said she did not want to respond.

“Clearly the organisation failed to act on the independent recommendations made at the time. And I’m really sorry, on behalf of Swim England, for any suffering that that might have led to,” Mr Salmon told us.

The failings of the 2012 investigation into Rudd have led to the governing body announcing it would review 1,500 safeguarding cases carried out across England between 2002 and 2022.

Swim England commissioned a listening report into all aquatic sports after the BBC first shared multiple swimmers’ accounts of mistreatment in 2023. Published in 2024, the governing body’s report found a culture of fear at all levels of the sport that threatened its future.

Plymouth Leander said it was “deeply concerned by the nature and severity” of Panorama’s allegations, stating that the club was “fundamentally different” from when Rudd was in charge. It also said it had conducted a “thorough review” of its safeguarding policies and procedures to provide “the safest possible environment”.

It said Rudd’s employer, Plymouth College, was responsible for his “oversight and jurisdiction”.

Plymouth College, which is now under different ownership, said the club was responsible for safeguarding and that it was “deeply concerned to hear these testimonies from swimmers who trained at Plymouth Leander”.

It said the partnership with Plymouth Leander had been terminated and it now ran its own swimming organisation, Plymouth College Aquatics (PCA).

BBC Panorama has also found evidence of a bullying culture at Royal Wolverhampton School Swimming Club, another leading institution in the sport, as recently as last year.

Complaints about the behaviour of David Painter, the club’s head coach at the time were made by the parents of 11 swimmers, during 2023 and 2024.

One of the swimmers, Abby, now 17, told the BBC she was forced to choose between her education and swimming because Painter would not let her have time off to prepare for her GCSEs.

She attended a different school several miles away but said she was told she would still have to train on the morning of exams.

“Towards the end I was literally having full blown panic attacks,” said Abby, who told Panorama she was failing at school. She eventually decided to leave the sport.

Alison Hickman, the club’s former welfare officer, told the BBC she had given the names of 11 parents who had concerns about Painter to Swim England and said none of them were contacted by the governing body.

Swim England told the BBC it had asked the school to resolve the issues.

The Royal Wolverhampton School said complaints were confidential. It said the school has “clear safeguarding procedures” and “all formal complaints are investigated swiftly and appropriately”.

Painter, who left to coach in Canada last year, said his “commitment to athlete development and wellbeing has always been at the core” of his coaching, and that he had never been subject to “any disciplinary investigations or hearings”. He added that the allegations against him were “untrue… and defamatory”.

Hidden beneath the slopes of a lush forest in Alberta, Canada, is a mass grave on a monumental scale.

Thousands of dinosaurs were buried here, killed in an instant on a day of utter devastation.

Now, a group of palaeontologists have come to Pipestone Creek – appropriately nicknamed the “River of Death” – to help solve a 72-million-year-old enigma: how did they die?

Trying to work out exactly what happened here starts with the hefty strike of a sledgehammer.

Brute force is needed to crack open the thick layer of rock that covers what Professor Emily Bamforth, who’s leading the dig, describes as “palaeo gold”.

As her team begins the more delicate job of removing the layers of dirt and dust, a jumble of fossilised bones slowly begins to emerge.

“That big blob of bone right there is, we think, part of a hip,” Prof Bamforth says, watched on by her dog Aster – whose job today is to bark if she spots any nearby bears.

“Then here, we have all of these long, skinny bones. These are all ribs. And this is a neat one – it’s part of a toe bone. This one here, we have no idea what it is – it’s a great example of a Pipestone Creek mystery.”

BBC News has come to Pipestone Creek to witness the sheer scale of this prehistoric graveyard and see how researchers are piecing together the clues.

Thousands of fossils have been collected from the site, and are constantly generating new discoveries.

The bones all belong to a dinosaur called Pachyrhinosaurus. The species, and Prof Bamforth’s excavation, feature in a new landmark BBC series – Walking With Dinosaurs – which uses visual effects and science to bring this prehistoric world to life.

These animals, which lived during the Late Cretaceous period, were a relative of the Triceratops. Measuring about five metres long and weighing two tonnes, the four-legged beasts had large heads, adorned with a distinctive bony frill and three horns. Their defining feature was a big bump on the nose called a boss.

The dig season has just started and lasts each year until autumn. The fossils in the small patch of ground that the team are working on are incredibly tightly packed; Prof Bamforth estimates there are up to 300 bones in every square metre.

So far, her team has excavated an area the size of a tennis court, but the bed of bones extends for a kilometre into the hillside.

“It’s jaw dropping in terms of its density,” she tells us.

“It is, we believe, one of the largest bone beds in North America.

“More than half of the known dinosaur species in the world are described from a single specimen. We have thousands of Pachyrhinosaurus here.”

Palaeontologists believe the dinosaurs were migrating together in a colossal herd for hundreds of miles from the south – where they had spent the winter – to the north for the summer.

The area, which had a much warmer climate than it does today, would have been covered in rich vegetation, providing abundant food for this enormous group of plant-eating animals.

“It is a single community of a single species of animal from a snapshot in time, and it’s a huge sample size. That almost never happens in the fossil record,” says Prof Bamforth.

And this patch of north-western Alberta wasn’t just home to Pachyrhinosaurus. Even bigger dinosaurs roamed this land, and studying them is essential to try and understand this ancient ecosystem.

Two hours drive away, we reach the Deadfall Hills. Getting there involves a hike through dense forest, wading – or doggy-paddling in the case of Aster – across a fast-running river, and clambering over slippery rocks.

No digging is required here; super-sized bones lie next to the shoreline, washed out from the rock and cleaned by the flowing water, just waiting to be picked up.

A huge vertebra is quickly spotted, as are bits of ribs and teeth scattered across the mud.

Palaeontologist Jackson Sweder is particularly interested in what looks like a chunk of dinosaur skull. “Most of what we find here is a duck-billed dinosaur called Edmontosaurus. If this is a skull bone, this is a dinosaur that’s large – probably 30ft (10m) long,” he says.

The Edmontosaurus, another herbivore, roamed the forests like the Pachyrhinosaurus – and is helping palaeontologists build up a picture of this ancient land.

Sweder is the collection manager at the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum in nearby Grande Prairie, where the bones from both of these giants are taken to be cleaned up and analysed. He is currently working on a huge Pachyrhinosaurus skull that’s about 1.5m long and has been nicknamed “Big Sam”.

He points to where the three horns should be at the top of the frill, but the one in the middle is missing. “All the skulls that are decently complete have a spike in that spot,” he says. “But its nice little unicorn spike doesn’t seem to be there.”

Throughout years working at the extraordinary site, the museum team has collected 8,000 dinosaur bones, and the surfaces of the lab are covered in fossils; there are bones from Pachyrhinosaurus of every size, from young to old.

Having material from so many animals allows researchers to learn about dinosaur biology, answering questions about how the species grows and the make-up of the community. They can also look at individual variations, to see how one Pachyrhinosaurus could stand out from the herd – as may be the case with Big Sam and his missing spike.

All of this detailed research, in the museum and at the two sites, is helping the team to answer the vital question: how did so many animals in Pipestone Creek die at the same time?

“We believe that this was a herd on a seasonal migration that got tangled up in some catastrophic event that effectively wiped out, if not the entire herd, then a good proportion of it,” Prof Bamforth says.

All the evidence suggests that this catastrophic event was a flash flood – perhaps a storm over the mountains that sent an unstoppable torrent of water towards the herd, ripping trees from their roots and shifting boulders.

Prof Bamforth says the Pachyrhinosaurus wouldn’t have stood a chance. “These animals are not able to move very fast because of their sheer numbers, and they’re very top heavy – and really not very good at swimming at all.”

Rocks found at the site show the swirls of sediment from the fast-flowing water churning everything up. It’s as if the destruction is frozen in time as a wave in the stone.

But this nightmare day for the dinosaurs is now a dream for palaeontologists.

“We know, every time we come here, it’s 100% guaranteed we’ll find bones. And every year we discover something new about the species,” says Prof Bamforth.

“That’s why we keep coming back, because we’re still finding new things.”

As the team packs up their tools ready to return another day, they know there’s a lot of work ahead. They’ve only just scratched the surface of what’s here – and there are many more prehistoric secrets just waiting to be revealed.

Just as India showed flickers of progress toward its long-held dream of becoming the world’s factory, Washington and Beijing announced a trade “reset” that could derail Delhi’s ambitions to replace China as the global manufacturing hub.

Last week, Trump’s tariffs on China dropped overnight – from 145% to 30%, vs 27% for India – as the two sides thrashed out an agreement in Switzerland.

As a result, there’s a chance manufacturing investment that was moving from China to India could either “stall” or “head back”, feels Ajay Srivastava of the Delhi-based think tank, Global Trade Research Institute (GTRI).

“India’s low-cost assembly lines may survive, but value-added growth is in danger.”

The change in sentiment stands in sharp relief to the exuberance in Delhi last month when Apple indicated that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India.

That may well still happen, even though US President Donald Trump revealed that he had told Apple CEO Tim Cook not to build in India because it was “one of the highest tariff nations in the world”.

“India is well positioned to be an alternative to China as a supplier of goods to the US in the immediate term,” Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investor note before the deal was announced. He pointed out that 40% of India’s exports to the US were “similar to those exported by China”.

There were early signs that Indian exporters were already stepping in to fill the gap left by Chinese producers. New export orders surged to a 14-year high, according to a recent survey of Indian manufacturers.

Nomura, a Japanese broking house, also pointed to growing “anecdotal evidence” of India emerging as a winner from “trade diversion and supply-chain shift in low and mid-tech manufacturing” particularly in sectors like electronics, textiles and toys.

Some analysts do believe that despite the so-called trade “reset” between Beijing and Washington, a larger strategic decoupling between China and the US will continue to benefit India in the long run.

For one, there’s greater willingness by Narendra Modi’s government to open its doors to foreign companies after years of protectionist policies, which could provide tailwind.

India and the US are also negotiating a trade deal that could put Asia’s third-largest economy in a sweet spot to benefit from the so-called “China exodus” – as global firms shift operations to diversify supply chains.

India has just signed a trade pact with the UK, sharply cutting duties in protected sectors like whiskey and automobiles. It offers a glimpse of the concessions Delhi might offer Trump in the ongoing India-US trade talks.

But all of this optimism needs to be tempered for more reasons than one.

Apart from the fact that China is now back in the running, companies are also “not entirely writing off other Asian competitors, with countries like Vietnam still on their radars”, economists Sonal Verma and Aurodeep Nandi from Nomura said in a note earlier this month.

“Hence, for India to capitalise on this opportunity, it needs to complement any tariff arbitrage with serious ease-of-doing-business reforms.”

A tough business climate has long frustrated foreign investors and stalled India’s manufacturing growth, with its share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stuck at around 15% for two decades.

The Modi government’s efforts, such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, have delivered only limited success in boosting this figure.

The government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, has acknowledged India’s “limited success” in attracting investment shifting from China. It noted that factors like cheaper labour, simpler tax laws, lower tariffs, and proactive Free Trade Agreements helped countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia expand exports – while India lagged behind.

Another major concern, says Nomura, is India’s ongoing reliance on China for raw materials and components used in electronics like iPhones, limiting Delhi’s ability to fully capitalise on supply chain shifts.

“India’s earnings from making iPhones will only rise if more of the phone is made locally,” Mr Srivastava told the BBC.

According to him, right now Apple earns over $450 per iPhone sold in the US while India keeps less than $25 – even though the full $1,000 is counted as an Indian export.

“Just assembling more iPhones in India won’t help much unless Apple and its suppliers also start making components and doing high-value work here. Without that, India’s share stays small, and the export numbers go up only on paper -possibly triggering more scrutiny from the US without real economic gain for India,” Mr Srivastava said.

The jobs created by such assembly lines aren’t very high quality either, says GTRI.

Quite unlike companies like Nokia which set up a factory in the southern city of Chennai in 2007 where suppliers moved in together, “today’s smartphone makers mostly import parts and push for lower tariffs instead of building supply chains in India”, explained Mr Srivastava. He noted that, in certain instances, the investment made could be lower than the subsidies received under India’s PLI scheme.

Finally there are concerns that Chinese exporters could try to use India to reroute products to the US.

India doesn’t seem averse to this idea despite the pitfalls. The country’s top economic adviser said last year that the country should attract more Chinese businesses to set-up export oriented factories and boost its manufacturing industry – a tacit admission that its own industrial policy hadn’t delivered.

But experts caution, this could further curtail India’s ability to build local know-how and grow its own industrial base.

All of this shows that beyond the headline-grabbing announcements by the likes of Apple, India is still a long way from realising its factory ambitions.

“Slash production costs, fix logistics, and build regulatory certainty,” Mr Srivastava urged policymakers in a social media post.

“Let’s be clear. This US-China reset is damage control, not a long-term solution. India must play the long game, or risk getting side-lined.”

The most shocking thing for Jonathan, who had endured six gruelling months living and working underground in an abandoned South African gold mine, was the abuse he witnessed being meted out to children.

Some are recruited for cheap labour, but others are brought in specifically for sex, campaigners say.

Jonathan, now in his late 20s, had migrated to South Africa from a nearby country on the promise of making easy money working in one of its dozens of disused mines, closed by multinationals because they were no longer commercially viable.

We are protecting his full identity as he fears reprisals from the vicious criminal gangs that run the illegal mining industry for speaking to the media.

Details of what the young people were going though emerged after the death of dozens of illegal miners near the town of Stilfontein late last year when the mine was blockaded by police.

In a calm and steady voice, Jonathan describes the heat, long hours and limited food and sleeping options which took a toll on his body.

But an enduring memory is what happened to the underage miners in the shaft where he worked.

“I used to see these kids in the mine – teenagers actually, 15, 17-year-olds.

“Others used to take advantage of them sometimes. It was a little bit scary, and I wasn’t comfortable with it.”

He said they were raped by adult miners who promised to give them some of the gold they found in exchange for sex.

“If that kid is desperate for money, he will take the risk.”

Jonathan describes how the children would approach teams of miners for protection but “that team would have conditions”.

Sex was also used as punishment if the teenagers failed to complete a task for their team.

Jonathan says the children in the mine where he worked were all foreign and did not realise what they were getting themselves into.

Mining researcher and activist Makhotla Sefuli backs this up.

He says criminal gangs specifically target children to work in illegal mines across South Africa.

Many of them are abducted from neighbouring countries and trafficked. They are enticed by baseless promises of finding them employment in the formal mining industry.

“Their passports are confiscated when they get to South Africa… It is common knowledge that these young boys are being abused,” Mr Sefuli says.

The BBC has spoken to miners who worked in at least two other illegal mines who told us they saw children being abused in the shafts where they were working.

Tshepo, not his real name, says he saw older men forcing young boys to have sex with them underground.

“In some instances, they did it for the money. Some are recruited solely for that purpose, because of the financial incentives that will come with the practice of maybe trading sex underground.”

He adds that the abuse deeply affected the children.

“They change their behaviour patterns and have trust issues. They don’t want you to get close to them, because they feel that they can no longer trust anyone.”

South Africa’s illegal mining industry made global headlines last year following a standoff between police and miners at the Buffelsfontein gold mine, near the town of Stilfontein in the North West Province.

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• Inside South Africa’s ‘ruthless’ gang-controlled gold mines

The authorities had been trying to curb illegal mining, which the government said cost South Africa’s economy $3.2bn (£2.6bn) in lost revenue last year.

They launched an operation called Vala Umgodi, or seal the hole, in December 2023, promising to take a tough stance on the gangs.

As part of the operation, the police limited the amount of food and water that went down the Stilfontein mine to, as one minister put it, “smoke out” the illegal miners. Officials said the men were refusing to come out for fear of being arrested.

Soon footage began to emerge from within the mine showing dozens of emaciated men begging to be rescued, as well as rows of body bags. Eventually a court ordered the authorities to save the men.

Among those brought up were many who said they were underage, but as a number of them were migrants without documents confirming how old they were, the authorities carried out medical tests to get an estimate.

Through this, the Department of Social Development (DSD) confirmed that 31 of the rescued Stilfontein miners were found to be children. They were all Mozambicans nationals and in November, 27 of them were repatriated.

Save the Children South Africa helped translate some of the interviews between the underage miners and the rescue workers.

“They went through trauma, because some of them also saw others being sexually exploited,” the charity’s CEO Gugu Xaba tells the BBC.

“Just the feeling that they may not come out of there destroyed those children mentally.

“The adult miners would start by grooming them, by acting like they like them.”

She says the children were then made to perform sexual acts on the adults and they were then raped, days after day.

“You find that the adult will have three or four of them that they are doing the same thing to.”

Ms Xaba says mining gangs recruit children because they are easier to manipulate and cheaper.

“Children don’t understand when you say: ‘I’ll pay you 20 rands ($1; £0.80) per day.’ The adults sometimes refuse to work, but children find themselves with no choice. So it’s easier to use a child to do the work. It’s easier to take a child who’s kind of voiceless and to bring them down there.”

Beyond being exploited financially, she says there are gangs that recruit children specifically for sex.

Many illegal miners spend months underground, rarely going up to the surface. Markets spring up underground to provide them with anything they need.

“Most children are trafficked in order to be used as sex slaves. And you’ve got a pimp who is taking the money, and it means every day this child is used as a commercial sex worker.”

The BBC asked the police and the DSD whether anyone would be charged over the sexual abuse allegations. They did not respond to our requests.

A source working on the Stilfontein miners’ cases said many of the children did not want to testify.

Meanwhile, the illegal mining industry continues to thrive.

And with an estimated 6,000 vacant mines potentially available to explore, it is a business that is unlikely to end anytime soon, leaving thousands of vulnerable children at risk.

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Subjected to brutal bullying as a child, Amit Ghose says he still has to deal with constant staring, pointing and comments, and has even been refused service in a cafe because of his face.

The 35-year-old from Birmingham described how visiting an independent coffee shop in London recently “everyone was staring at me, and it was like they’d almost seen a ghost”.

“The person serving looked at me and said: ‘Oh, we’re not serving any more’.

“She turned around and walked off. But clearly, clearly they were still serving.”

Amit was born with Neurofibromatosis type 1, a condition that causes non-cancerous tumours to grow along nerves.

But after “learning acceptance” of his facial disfigurement he now shares his motivational story in schools with the aim of helping children “embrace their personalities and celebrate who they are”.

Another recent experience of abuse spurred him on to self publish a children’s book, Born Different.

“I had a couple of individuals come over to me in a park and ask me what happened to my face, and I thought they were just being curious,” he said.

“But actually they started laughing, giggling, saying: ‘Oh my God, if I had a face like you I wouldn’t even come out my house’.”

He said the encounter “really upset” him, “and I thought to myself, I need to do something about this. I need to get this book out. Now is the right time”.

“If I had this book when I was a young child, I think it would have helped me.”

Amit had his left eye surgically removed at the age of 11, leading to further facial disfigurement as well as abuse and bullying.

In the run up to Halloween one year, a child at school told him “you don’t need a Halloween mask, you’ve got one for life”, he recalled.

“That broke me to the point where I did not accept the left hand side of my face,” he said.

“For a very, very long time I hid the face, I just was not comfortable showing it to the world at all.”

Looking back, he said he had not understood the depth of depression and anxiety he experienced then.

“Other children not wanting to come and sit next to me or hiding behind their parents all had a mental effect on me,” he said.

At school, cricket was his passion and it was through playing the game that he eventually made friends.

“Cricket helped me become Amit, that boy who plays cricket, from Amit, the boy who has a funny face,” he explained.

But, he said, even as an adult he still experienced “constant staring”.

“The pointing, the tapping the friend next to them saying ‘have you seen that guy’s face’, that is also constant,” he said.

“But there is kindness out there as well, and that needs highlighting.”

It was his wife Piyali who eventually taught him the “art of acceptance,” he explained.

“Really that I’ve got to accept myself before others can accept me,” he added.

She also persuaded him to start sharing his story on social media.

“I thought TikTok was all about singing and dancing, and I thought maybe not, but she convinced me.

“I created a video and I said to the world: ‘I want to take you all on a journey to help and support and inspire you using my lived experiences.'”

He started his account in early 2023, and has since gone on to gain almost 200,000 followers and millions of likes.

“Me helping people on social media by sharing my story has helped me become more accepting of myself.

“Now I say to the world, this is me, take it or leave it.”

At about the same time, he left his job at a law firm to take up motivational speaking full time.

Helping young people felt so much more important, he said.

He is also about to launch a podcast in which he speaks to others who have had similar experiences, including Oliver Bromley who was ejected from a restaurant because staff said he was “scaring the customers”.

“We’re going to have lots of fun and inspire a lot of people,” he said.

“Disability or no disability, visible difference or no visible difference, we all have insecurities, we all have things that we’re faced with, and challenges we’re faced with.

“I just want to give this narrative to people that if we truly celebrate who we are, accept who we are, fall in love with who we are, then we can be more confident.”

Gary Lineker is set to leave the BBC, with an announcement expected on Monday.

Speculation is mounting the 64-year-old will step down after he presents his final Match of the Day next weekend.

It is understood that Lineker, listed as the highest-paid BBC presenter, will also no longer present the corporation’s coverage of the World Cup in 2026.

But last week he had to apologise after sharing a social media post about Zionism that included an illustration of a rat, historically used as an antisemitic insult.

Lineker said he very much regretted the references, adding he would never knowingly share anything antisemitic and that he had deleted the post once he had learned about the symbolism of the image.

The presenter’s imminent departure was first reported by the Sun late on Sunday.

Last week, BBC Director General Tim Davie said: “The BBC’s reputation is held by everyone, and when someone makes a mistake, it costs us.”

It is understood that BBC bosses considered Lineker’s position untenable.

The former England striker has attracted criticism before for his posts on social media in the past.

He was temporarily suspended from the BBC in March 2023 after an impartiality row over a post in which he said language used to promote a government asylum policy was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC’s social media rules were then rewritten to say presenters of flagship programmes outside news and current affairs – including Match of the Day – have “a particular responsibility to respect the BBC’s impartiality, because of their profile on the BBC”.

In November 2024, Lineker announced his departure from Match of the Day, but said he would remain with the BBC to front FA Cup and World Cup coverage.

Last month, Lineker said in an interview that he believed the BBC wanted him to leave Match of the Day as he was negotiating a new contract last year, saying: “Well, perhaps they want me to leave. There was the sense of that.”

The BBC didn’t comment on Lineker’s suggestion at the time but called him a “world-class presenter” and added that Match of the Day “continually evolves for changing viewing habits”.

Kelly Cates, Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan have been announced as new presenters of the show for the start of the 2025-26 season.

Lineker has not publicly commented on his departure from the BBC.

In his interview last month, Lineker also reflected on his 2023 tweets, saying that he did not regret the comments and adding: “Would I, in hindsight, do it again? No I wouldn’t, because of all the nonsense that came with it.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Amol Rajan, he indicated his next career move “won’t be more telly”, adding: “I think I’ll step back from that now” and “I think I’ll probably focus more on the podcast world”.

Roger Mosey, a former director of BBC Sport and BBC television news, said Lineker could not “both be the BBC’s highest-paid presenter and a social media activist”.

“In my view, if you are the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, you should not be taking the kind of political lead he has been doing,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Many people this morning may be thinking, ‘well, I agree with Gary about Palestine, or I agreed with Gary about the EU’. But imagine if he had been tweeting pro-Leave, or pro-Israel, would you still support that right to speak out?”

He added that it was no longer viable for Lineker to front the World Cup, because if he did, it would have “been through psychodrama of what does Gary think about Trump, what Gary think about the latest international developments”.