The striking feature of this election has been the leading opposition candidate, Lee Jae-myung, campaigning in a bullet-proof vest.

At a recent rally, he was escorted to the podium by close protection officers, ready to shield him with their ballistic briefcases. He then addressed the crowd from behind bullet-proof glass, under the gaze of rooftop watchers.

This is not South Korean politics as usual. But South Korea has not been itself lately.

It is still recovering from the martial law crisis last December, when the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, tried to orchestrate a military takeover.

He failed, because of resistance from the public and politicians, and was impeached, triggering this snap election to choose his successor.

But the chaos Yoon unleashed that night has festered.

While stuck in limbo, without a president, the country has become more polarised and its politics more violent.

At street protests earlier this year it became commonplace to chant for various political leaders to be executed. And since launching his presidential bid, Lee has been receiving death threats, and his team say they have even uncovered a credible plot to assassinate him.

This election is an opportunity to steer South Korea back onto safer, more stable ground, and heal these fractures.

Given this, the ruling party was always going to struggle, marred by President Yoon’s self-defeating coup. But rather than break away from the disgraced former president, the conservative People Power Party (PPP) has chosen a candidate who repeatedly defended Yoon and his actions.

Kim Moon-soo, Yoon’s former labour minister, was the only cabinet member who refused to stand and apologise during a parliamentary hearing into martial law. He said sorry only well into his campaign, after he had won Yoon’s public endorsement.

This has turned the election into more of a referendum on martial law than anything else. Given most of the public overwhelmingly rejected the move, it has also virtually gilded the path for the opposition leader Lee, who famously livestreamed himself scaling the walls of the parliament complex, to get inside and vote down the president’s order.

Now the Democratic Party politician portrays himself as the only candidate who can ensure this never happens again. He has said he will change the constitution to make it more difficult for future presidents to declare martial law.

“We must prevent the return of the rebellion forces,” Lee urged voters at his recent rally from behind fortified glass.

Such promises have pulled in people from across the political spectrum. “I didn’t like Lee before, but since martial law I now trust and depend on him,” said 59-year-old Park Suh-jung, who admitted this was the first time she had attended a political event.

One man in his 50s said he was a member of another smaller political party, but had decided to back Lee this time: “He is the only person who can end Yoon’s martial law insurrection. We need to stop those who destroyed our democracy.”

Most recent polls put Lee about 10 points ahead of his rival Kim, but he was not always so popular. This is his second time running for president, having lost out to Yoon three years ago. He is a divisive character, who has been embroiled in a series of court cases and political scandals. There are many who do not trust him, who loathe him even.

Kim, hoping to capitalise on this, has branded himself “the fair and just candidate”. It is a slogan his supporters have adopted, many seemingly backing him not for his policies, but because he is not Lee.

“I don’t like Kim but at this point there’s no real choice. The other candidate has too many issues,” said one elderly woman who is planning to vote for him.

Kim has charted an unusual political path. As a student who campaigned for workers’ rights, he was tortured and imprisoned under South Korea’s right-wing dictatorship in the 1980s but then moved sharply to the right himself.

He was picked by the party base, many of whom are still loyal to Yoon. The party leadership, realising he was not the best choice, tried to replace him at the last minute with a more moderate, experienced politician, only to be blocked by furious members.

This has left the party weak and divided, with many suspecting it will splinter into rival factions after voting day. “Haven’t we already imploded?” one party insider said to me recently, their face crumpled in their hands. “This is a miserable campaign.”

“Choosing Kim is the biggest mistake the conservative party have made in this election, and they do know that. They will have to be held accountable for this decision,” said Jeongmin Kim, the executive director of Korea Pro, a Seoul-based news and analysis service.

Lee has seized this opportunity to hoover up centrist votes. He has shifted his policies to the right, and even claimed his left-leaning party is, in fact, conservative.

This, despite his reputation as a staunch leftist. He grew up in a slum outside Seoul, working in factories rather than attending school, and is someone who has previously quoted US senator Bernie Sanders.

But gone are his previous pledges to introduce a universal basic income. This time, he is courting South Korea’s powerful conglomerate businesses, the chaebols. He has even incorporated the conservative colour red into his own blue logo, and hits the campaign trail wearing red and blue trainers.

He has rebranded his foreign policy too. Typically, his Democratic Party is cautious about Korea’s security alliance with the US, preferring to prioritise relations with China and North Korea.

But Lee is casting himself as a “pragmatist” who can adapt to a changing security environment. “The US-Korea alliance is the backbone of our national security. It should be strengthened and deepened,” he said in a recent televised debate.

All this has left voters and diplomats here unsure of what he really stands for, and what he will do if elected – though this seems to be the point.

Ms Kim, Korea Pro’s analyst, believes his makeover is more genuine than might appear. “He was already high up in the polls, so he didn’t need to work hard to win votes,” she said. “I think he is playing a longer game. He wants to be a popular leader, someone who can be trusted by more than half of the country.”

Bringing the country together will be the biggest challenge for whoever wins.

When people vote on Tuesday, it will be six months to the day since they came out onto the streets to resist a military takeover.

After months of chaos, they are desperate to move forward, so the country can start addressing pressing issues that have been on hold, including tariff negotiations with US President Donald Trump.

But more than anything they hope this election can restore their own confidence in their democracy, which has been badly shaken.

At a baseball game in the capital Seoul last week – arguably the only place where Koreans are as tribal as they are about politics – both sides were united, acutely aware of this election’s importance.

“I’m really concerned about our democracy,” said Dylan, a data engineer. “I hope we have the power to save it and make it greater than before. My vote is a piece of power.”

“The next president needs to show people clearly and transparently what he is doing,” said one man in his mid-20s. “We need to watch him carefully.”

If Lee is to win, and by the margin the polls suggest, he would have a solid mandate, as well as control of parliament, giving him three years to implement major political reforms.

That could be good for rebuilding South Korea’s stability but would come with its own challenges, said the political analyst Ms Kim.

“If Lee wins, he will have a lot of power. {Given how Yoon behaved} he will need to be very responsible when using it.”

Members of the Western alliance Nato need to prepare for a possible attack from Russia within the next four years, according to Germany’s chief of defence.

General Carsten Breuer told the BBC that Russia was producing hundreds of tanks a year, many of which could be used for an attack on Nato Baltic state members by 2029 or even earlier.

He also insisted that Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remains unified over the war in Ukraine, despite differences of opinion expressed recently by both Hungary and Slovakia.

Gen Breuer was speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue, a defence summit in Singapore organised by the think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies.

His comments come weeks ahead of a summit of Nato nations at The Hague where they are expected to discuss defence budgets, among other topics.

Gen Breuer said that Nato was facing “a very serious threat” from Russia, one that he has never seen before in his 40 years in service.

At the moment, he said, Russia was building up its forces to an “enormous extent”, producing approximately 1,500 main battle tanks every year.

“Not every single tank is going to [the war in] Ukraine, but it’s also going in stocks and into new military structures always facing the West,” he said.

Russia also produced four million rounds of 152mm artillery munition in 2024, and not all of it was going to Ukraine either, added Gen Breuer.

The figures come from German and allied nations’ analysts.

“There’s an intent and there’s a build up of the stocks” for a possible future attack on Nato’s Baltic state members, he said.

“This is what the analysts are assessing – in 2029. So we have to be ready by 2029… If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029? I would say no, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight,” he said.

Many have long feared an attack on a Nato state as it could trigger a larger war between Russia and the US, which is a key member of Nato. Under Article 5 of the Nato agreement, any attack on a member state would mean other members must come to its defence.

Gen Breuer singled out the so-called Suwalki Gap, an area that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, as one of the most vulnerable.

“The Baltic States are really exposed to the Russians, right? And once you are there, you really feel this… in the talks we are having over there,” he said.

The Estonians, he said, had given the analogy of being close to a wildfire where they “feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke”, while in Germany “you probably see a little bit of smoke over the horizon and not more”.

Gen Breuer said this showed the differing perspectives among European states of the threat of a possible Russian attack.

Russia’s view of the Ukraine war was different from the West’s, he said, where Moscow sees the war as more of a “continuum” in a larger conflict with Nato and is therefore “trying to find ways into our defence lines and it’s testing it”.

He cited recent attacks on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, cyber attacks on European public transport, and unidentified drones spotted over German power stations and other infrastructure.

Nato members should therefore build up their militaries again, Gen Breuer argued. “What we have to do now is really to lean in and to tell everybody, hey, ramp up… get more into it because we need it. We need it to be able to defend ourselves and therefore also to build up deterrence.”

Asked by the BBC about Nato cohesion, given Hungary and Slovakia’s closer relations with Moscow, Gen Breuer insisted the alliance was still healthy.

He pointed to Finland and Sweden’s decisions to join Nato shortly after the Ukraine war began. “I’ve never seen such a unity like it is now” among nations and military leaders, he said.

“All of them understand the threat that is at the moment approaching Nato, all understand that we have to develop a direction of deterrence, into the direction of collective defence. This is clear to everyone. The urgency is seen.”

Gen Breuer’s remarks are yet another sign of a significant change in attitudes in Germany towards defence and Russia.

Like many Western nations, including the UK, it has scaled down its investments in its military over many years.

But there has been a growing recognition of the need to reverse this, with even the Green Party coming onboard a recent vote to lift restrictions on Germany’s defence spending.

But as Western military and political leaders say they are ready for the fight, questions remain on whether this is a case of ambition outpacing reality.

It will take years for Europe’s military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

The US has also been drawing down, not building up, its defence commitments to Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

He said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance as it is the “fundamental issue” for the region.

Meanwhile, the Philippines defence minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr has called China “absolutely irresponsible and reckless” in its actions in the South China Sea.

The ministers had separately addressed reporters on the sidelines of an Asian defence summit held in Singapore.

China has yet to respond to either Marles or Teodoro.

Organised by the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Shangri-la Dialogue has traditionally been anchored by the US and China, which have been jostling for power in the region.

This year China has sent a lower-level delegation and scrapped its speech. In the absence of a strong Chinese presence, the dialogue has been dominated by criticism and questions of Beijing posed by the US and its allies.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

He cited Australia as an example of such transparency, noting that Canberra makes public its national defence strategy and defence reviews, and makes it “utterly clear” that when they build up their defences it is for Australia and Asia’s security.

“So there is total strategic clarity and assurance that is being provided by Australia to our neighbours, to the region, to the world. That’s what we would like to see,” he said.

Answering a question on a highly-scrutinised Chinese military exercise conducted near Australia and New Zealand’s waters in February, Marles said that while it was “disruptive, and we believe that it could have been done in a better way”, ultimately “China was acting in accordance with international law”.

“The guiding light, the bedrock here, needs to be compliance with international law. That’s what we keep talking about, is the rules-based order.”

Marles was also asked about Hegseth’s call for Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence spending as a bulwark against the threat of China.

Marles said “we actually are taking steps down this path… we understand it, we’re up for it.” US President Donald Trump has called on Australia to increase its spending to 3%, but Canberra has yet to publicly commit to that number.

Marles added that part of that spending would come under Aukus, a pact among Australia, the UK and the US to build up a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

He said projects under the pact were “on track” and he was “very optimistic” about the progress, including more visits of American submarines to Australia and rotations through a Perth-based navy base.

In a separate interview with the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner, the Philippines defence minister Teodoro said China has been “absolutely irresponsible and reckless in appropriating most, if not all, of the South China Sea and the world cannot tolerate this.”

The two countries have repeatedly clashed over competing claims in the South China Sea, and the Philippines has complained of aggressive and violent tactics by the Chinese coast guard.

He echoed the call for a preservation of the international order, saying that “the takeaway of a lot of defence ministers is that Europe and the US must continue to lead” on this.

“That was the call of the Philippines. That is the call of Lithuania, Latvia, the smaller countries who have a way of life that values freedom and dignity of the human being.”

“And with a way of life that we don’t want the deep state looking over our shoulders or being scared of what we say,” he said, referring to China.

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned of China’s “imminent” threat towards Taiwan and accused Beijing of becoming a “hegemonic power” in the region.

China has vigorously attacked Hegseth in two separate statements, with the latest posted on its Foreign Ministry website early on Sunday.

It said that Hegseth had “vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat’.

“No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”

Earlier in the defence summit, French President Emmanuel Macron had made a pitch for Europe to be a new ally to Asia.

China also responded to Macron, who had compared the defence of Taiwan to the defence of Ukraine, and said the comparison was “unacceptable” as the “Taiwan question is entirely China’s affair”.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to eventually “reunify” with it.

Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia on Sunday, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called “Spider’s Web” operation by the SBU security service, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.

SBU sources earlier told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes, which involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

Russia confirmed Ukrainian attacks in five regions calling them a “terrorist act”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported a massive overnight drone and missile attack on its territory.

All this comes as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are heading to Istanbul, Turkey, for a second round of peace talks on Monday.

Expectations are low, as the two warring sides remain far apart on how to end the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

• Ukraine’s audacious drone attack sends critical message to Russia – and the West

In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the “absolutely brilliant result” of the operation.

He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot.

“The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions,” the Ukrainian president said.

The FSB is Russia’s powerful state security service.

Zelensky also said that all the people involved in the operation had been safely “led away” from Russia before the strikes.

The SBU estimated the damage to Russia’s strategic aviation was worth about $7bn (£5bn), promising to unveil more details soon.

The Ukrainian claims have not been independently verified.

Sources in the SBU earlier on Sunday told the BBC in a statement that four Russian airbases – two of which are thousands of miles from Ukraine – were hit:

• Belaya in Irkutsk oblast (region), Siberia
• Olenya in Murmansk oblast, Russia’s extreme north-west
• Dyagilevo in central Ryazan oblast
• Ivanovo in central Ivanovo oblast

The SBU sources said that among the hit Russian aircraft were strategic nuclear capable bombers called Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 early warning warplanes.

They described the whole operation as “extremely complex logistically”.

“The SBU first smuggled FPV drones into Russia, followed later by mobile wooden cabins. Once on Russian territory, the drones were hidden under the roofs of these cabins, which had been placed on cargo vehicles,” the sources said.

“At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones took off to strike the Russian bombers.”

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev confirmed drones that attacked the Belaya military base in Sredniy, Siberia, were launched from a truck.

Kobzev posted on Telegram to say that the launch site had been secured and there was no threat to life.

Russian media outlets have also reported that other attacks were similarly started with drones emerging from the lorries.

One user is heard saying that the drones were flying out of a Kamaz truck near a petrol station.

Russian media were reporting the attack in Murmansk but said air defences were working. The attack in Irkutsk was also being reported.

In a post on social media later on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry confirmed that airbases in the country’s five regions were attack.

It claimed that “all attacks were repelled” on military airbases in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The latter base was not mentioned by the SBU sources.

In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, “several aircraft caught fire” after drones were launched from nearby areas, the ministry said.

It said all the blazes were extinguished and there were no casualties. “Some of the participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities say 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles were involved in a wave of attacks on Ukraine last night.

This would appear to be one of the largest single Russian drone attacks so far. Ukraine says it “neutralised” 385 aerial targets.

In a separate development, Ukraine’s land forces said 12 of its military personnel were killed and more than 60 injured in a Russian missile strike on a training centre.

Ukraine’s head of land forces, Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, tendered his resignation shortly afterwards.

He said his decision was “dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy”.

It’s hard to exaggerate the sheer audacity – or ingenuity – that went into Ukraine’s countrywide assault on Russia’s air force.

We cannot possibly verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage, but it’s clear that “Operation Spider’s Web” was, at the very least, a spectacular propaganda coup.

Ukrainians are already comparing it with other notable military successes since Russia’s full-scale invasion, including the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, both in 2022, as well as a missile attack on Sevastopol harbour the following year.

Judging by details leaked to the media by Ukraine’s military intelligence, the SBU, the latest operation is the most elaborate achievement so far.

In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.

“No intelligence operation in the world has done anything like this before,” defence analyst Serhii Kuzan told Ukrainian TV.

“These strategic bombers are capable of launching long-range strikes against us,” he said. “There are only 120 of them and we struck 40. That’s an incredible figure.”

It is hard to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says that even if the bombers, and command and control aircraft were not destroyed, the impact is enormous.

“The extent of the damage is such that the Russian military-industrial complex, in its current state, is unlikely to be able to restore them in the near future,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The strategic missile-carrying bombers in question, the Tu-95, Tu-22, and Tu-160 are, he said, no longer in production. Repairing them will be difficult, replacing them impossible.

The loss of the supersonic Tu-160, he said, would be especially keenly felt.

“Today, the Russian Aerospace Forces lost not just two of their rarest aircraft, but truly two unicorns in the herd,” he wrote.

Beyond the physical damage, which may or may not be as great as analysts here are assessing, Operation Spider’s Web sends another critical message, not just to Russia but also to Ukraine’s western allies.

My colleague Svyatoslav Khomenko, writing for the BBC Ukrainian Service website, recalls a recent encounter with a government official in Kyiv.

The official was frustrated.

“The biggest problem,” the official told Svyatoslav, “is that the Americans have convinced themselves we’ve already lost the war. And from that assumption everything else follows.”

Ukrainian defence journalist Illia Ponomarenko, posting on X, puts it another way, with a pointed reference to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s infamous Oval office encounter with Donald Trump.

“This is what happens when a proud nation under attack doesn’t listen to all those: ‘Ukraine has only six months left’. ‘You have no cards’. ‘Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose’.”

• Ukraine drones strike bombers during major attack in Russia

Even more pithy was a tweet from the quarterly Business Ukraine journal, which proudly proclaimed “It turns out Ukraine does have some cards after all. Today Zelensky played the King of Drones.”

This, then, is the message Ukrainian delegates carry as they arrive in Istanbul for a fresh round of ceasefire negotiations with representatives from the Kremlin: Ukraine is still in the fight.

The Americans “begin acting as if their role is to negotiate for us the softest possible terms of surrender,” the government official told Svyatoslav Khomenko.

“And then they’re offended when we don’t thank them. But of course we don’t – because we don’t believe we’ve been defeated.”

Despite Russia’s slow, inexorable advance through the battlefields of the Donbas, Ukraine is telling Russia, and the Trump administration, not to dismiss Kyiv’s prospects so easily.

It’s a grim paradox, doctors say.

On the one hand, antibiotics are being overused until they no longer work, driving resistance and fuelling the rise of deadly superbugs. On the other hand, people are dying because they can’t access these life-saving drugs.

A new study by the non-profit Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) looked at access to antibiotics for nearly 1.5 million cases of carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative (CRGN) infections across eight major low- and middle-income countries, including India, Brazil and South Africa. CRGN bacteria are superbugs resistant to last-line antibiotics – yet only 6.9% of patients received appropriate treatment in the countries studied.

India bore the lion’s share of CRGN infections and treatment efforts, procuring 80% of the full courses of studied antibiotics but managing to treat only 7.8% of its estimated cases, the study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal reports. (A full drug course of antibiotics refers to the complete set of doses that a patient needs to take over a specific period to fully treat an infection.)

Common in water, food, the environment and the human gut, Gram-negative bacteria cause infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia and food poisoning.

They can pose a serious threat to newborns and the elderly alike. Especially vulnerable are hospital patients with weakened immunity, often spreading rapidly in ICUs and proving difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat. Treating carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections is doubly difficult because those bacteria are resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics.

“These infections are a daily reality across all age groups,” says Dr Abdul Gaffar, infectious disease consultant at Apollo Hospital in India’s Chennai city. “We often see patients for whom no antibiotic works – and they die.”

The irony is cruel. While the world tries to curb antibiotic overuse, a parallel tragedy plays out quietly in poorer nations: people dying from treatable infections because the right drugs are out of reach.

“For years, the dominant narrative has been that antibiotics are being overused, but the stark reality is that many people with highly drug-resistant infections in low- and middle-income countries are not getting access to the antibiotics they need,” says Dr Jennifer Cohn, GARDP’s Global Access Director and senior author of the study.

• India’s ‘blockbuster’ drugs to take on deadly superbugs
• India facing a pandemic of antibiotics-resistant superbugs

The study examined eight intravenous drugs active against carbapenem-resistant bacteria – ranging from older antibiotics including Colistin to newer ones such as Ceftazidime-avibactam. Of the few available drugs, Tigecycline was the most widely used.

Researchers blame the treatment gap on weak health systems and limited access to effective antibiotics.

For example, only 103,647 full treatment courses were procured of Tigecycline across eight countries – far short of the 1.5 million patients who needed them, the study found. This highlighted a major shortfall in the global response to drug-resistant infections.

What prevents patients with drug-resistant infections in India from getting the right antibiotics?

Physicians point to multiple barriers – reaching the right health facility, getting accurate diagnostic tests, and accessing effective drugs. Cost remains a major hurdle, with many of these antibiotics priced far beyond the reach of poorer patients.

“Those who can afford these antibiotics often overuse them; those who can’t, don’t get them at all,” says Dr Gaffar. “We need a system that ensures access for the poor and prevents misuse by the well-to-do.”

To improve access, these drugs must be made more affordable. To prevent misuse, stronger regulation is key.

“Ideally, every antibiotic prescription in hospitals should require a second sign-off – by an infection specialist or microbiologist,” says Dr Gaffar. “Some hospitals do this, but most don’t. With the right oversight, regulators can ensure this becomes standard practice.”

To fix the access problem and curb misuse, both smarter policies and stronger safeguards are essential, say researchers. But access alone won’t solve the crisis – the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. The decline in antibiotic R&D – and the limited availability of existing drugs – is a global issue.

India bears one of the world’s heaviest burdens of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but it may also hold the key to combating it – both at home and globally, researchers say.

“India is also one of the largest markets for new antibiotics and can successfully advocate for the development and access of new antibiotics,” says Dr Cohn. With a strong pharmaceutical base, the country is emerging as a hub for AMR innovation, from promising new antibiotics to advanced diagnostics.

Dr Cohn says India can strengthen its antibiotic response by generating local data to better estimate needs and pinpoint gaps in the care pathway.

This would allow for more targeted interventions to improve access to the right drugs.

Innovative models are already emerging – Kerala state, for instance, is using a “hub-and-spoke approach” to support lower-level facilities in managing serious infections. Coordinated or pooled procurement across hospitals or states could also reduce the cost of newer antibiotics, as seen with cancer drug programs, researchers say.

Without access to the right antibiotics, modern medicine begins to unravel – doctors risk losing the ability to safely perform surgery, treat complications in cancer patients, or manage everyday infections.

“As an infectious disease doctor, I see appropriate use as one part – but only one part – of access,” says Dr Gaffar. “When we get new antibiotics, it’s important to save them on one hand – and save them for right patients.”

Clearly, the challenge is not just to use antibiotics wisely, but to ensure they reach those who need them most.

A “mass casualty influx” of people, many with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, was received at a Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza, the organisation said, following disputed reports about an incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 21 people were “declared dead upon arrival” while women and children were among 179 cases.

The organisation’s statement came after the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded in the incident, which it blamed on “Israeli gunfire” targeting civilians.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre.

The IDF also released drone footage it said showed armed and masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians while they were collecting aid in the nearby city of Khan Younis. The BBC could not immediately verify the footage.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

The group that runs the aid distribution centre, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

As of Sunday evening, the situation on the ground remained unclear.

In its statement, the ICRC said the “Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 179 cases, including women and children” early in the morning on Sunday.

It said “the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds”, and “twenty-one patients were declared dead upon arrival”. It is unclear if the number of people killed reported by the ICRC is separate to the Hamas health ministry’s reports.

“All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the ICRC said.

The ICRC said it was the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago”, and that it “far surpassed” the capacity of the 60-bed facility.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement that it had also responded to the “mass casualty” incident, and that the blood bank at Nasser hospital, where the injured were treated, was almost empty, with medical staff donating blood themselves to help the injured.

Claire Manera, the organisation’s emergency co-ordinator, said that the incident had “shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanising, dangerous and severely ineffective”.

The IDF said in a statement: “In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip.

“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.

MSF said at least two patients told them they and others had been shot while trying to get aid. MSF communications officer Nour Alsaqa said in a statement that as MSF staff were treating patients, they also “received confirmation that a colleague’s brother had been killed while attempting to collect aid from the centre”.

Another incident was said to have happened near a separate aid centre in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, with the Palestinian Red Crescent reporting 14 injured.

The BBC was contacted by doctors at the Nasser hospital who said they had received about 200 people with injuries caused by bullets or shrapnel.

Local journalists and activists shared footage of bodies and wounded people being transported on donkey carts to the Red Cross field hospital in the al-Mawasi area.

The BBC has examined footage of bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Nasser Hospital.

Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.

Seventy-nine of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the emergency department, medical staff from British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians reported.

⁠Those killed and injured “were primarily struck by live gunfire, with many victims sustaining direct shots to the head or chest”, the charity’s staff said.

Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.

The GHF, which distributes aid at these sites, denied any incident occurred near its distribution centres.

An IDF soldier in Rafah contacted the BBC to say that Israeli soldiers did fire near the crowd, but not at them, and that no-one was hit.

• BBC Verify: How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos

Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that Palestinians had gathered near the aid centre run by the GHF when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.

Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians were near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by GHF, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.

“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” he said.

“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.”

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s main emergency service the Civil Defence, told AFP news agency that more than 100 people were wounded “due to gunfire from Israeli vehicles towards thousands of citizens”.

The incidents underscore the dire humanitarian conditions in Rafah, where recent Israeli military operations have severely limited access to aid and emergency services.

On Saturday, crowds of civilians rushed aid trucks into Gaza, the World Food Programme said, as hunger and desperation created chaotic scenes.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new US and Israeli-backed organisation that has been distributing food at designated sites across Gaza. Israel set up the plan after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The GHF said it had distributed 4.7 million meals this week, which the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

A military campaign was launched by Israel in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.

A second exit poll in Poland’s presidential election has indicated that conservative historian Karol Nawrocki is ahead with 50.7% of the vote over Warsaw’s liberal mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski with 49.3%.

The second exit poll sensationally overturned the result of an exit poll published immediately after voting ended that put Trzaskowski ahead with a narrow lead of 50.3% to Nawrocki’s 49.7%.

The official result is due to be published on Monday morning, the head of the state electoral commission said.

Trzaskowski had already claimed victory after the first exit poll indicated he was the winner.

“We won,” he said. “We won, although the phrase ‘razor’s edge’ will forever enter the Polish language and politics,” he added.

His wife, Malgorzata, jokingly told the crowd, “I’m close to having a heart attack”.

Trzaskowski promised to reach out to voters who supported his opponent. I will be a president for all Polish women and men,” he said.

Nawrocki, meanwhile, told his supporters after the result of the first exit poll that it was too close to call.

“Let’s not lose hope for this night. We will win during the night, the difference is minimal. I believe that we will wake up tomorrow with President Karol Nawrocki,” he said.

Poland’s president is a largely ceremonial role with limited influence on foreign policy and defence, but they can veto legislation and Donald Tusk’s pro-EU coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it.

The current conservative incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, has used his powers to prevent Prime Minister Tusk delivering key campaign promises including removing political influence from the judiciary and liberalising the country’s strict abortion law.

If Trzaskowski’s victory is confirmed that obstacle would be removed and would allow Tusk to cement Poland’s place in the European mainstream.

However, Tusk also faces opposition from within his own coalition from the conservative Peoples’ Party on issues including abortion and legalising civil partnerships.

A victory for national conservative Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, would mean continued conflict between the government and president.

It would also re-energise PiS, which lost power 18 months ago, giving the party the belief that it can go on to win parliamentary elections in 2027.

Both candidates support continued assistance for neighbouring Ukraine, although Nawrocki has said he opposes its entry into Nato and the EU for now while Russia continues its war of aggression.

Both men differ over their approach to the EU. Trzaskowski, a former Europe minister, supports Tusk’s vision of a Poland at the heart of the European mainstream, influencing decisions through strong relations with Germany and France.

A deputy leader of Tusk’s Civic Platform, he has served as Warsaw mayor since 2018.

He’s the son of a famous Polish jazz pianist, speaks several languages and is viewed by some voters as a member of the country’s liberal elite who is out of touch with ordinary Poles.

According to the CBOS polling company, Trzaskowski’s typical voter is aged 30-40 years old, is relatively well off with left-liberal views and is open to LGBTQ+ and migrants’ rights. They tend to live in large cities and have positive views of the EU.

Some voters said he tried to “artificially” present himself as a candidate who values patriotism. During the campaign, he has taken a much tougher line against illegal migration, something Tusk started to do before winning power in 2023 and he has volunteered to do basic military training.

Nawrocki, 42, supports a strong sovereign Poland and does not want the country to cede any more powers to Brussels. He opposes the EU’s climate and migration policies. He’s a conservative Catholic that prioritises traditional family values.

He was relatively unknown nationally before he was selected by opposition party PiS to be their “unofficial” candidate.

A keen amateur boxer and footballer, he often posted images of himself working out, allowing PiS to present him as a strong candidate who would stand up for ordinary Poles and the country’s national interests.

A fan of President Donald Trump, he flew to Washington during the campaign for an extremely brief meeting to get a thumbs-up photo of himself with the American president in the Oval Office.

During the campaign he was attacked by the government and media for being morally unfit to be the country’s president, but the allegations did not diminish his support during the last week of campaigning.

During a presidential debate, Nawrocki said that he, like most Poles, owned one apartment. That turned out to be a lie.

Nawrocki was accused of taking advantage of a vulnerable senior citizen to acquire his council flat at a huge discount in exchange for promises of care that were unfulfilled. Following the scandal, Nawrocki said he would donate the flat to charity but always denied the accusation.

Polish news website Onet.pl accused Nawrocki of helping to arrange sex workers for guests at the luxury Grand Hotel in the Baltic seaside resort of Sopot when he worked there as a security guard.

The story was based on anonymous sources, but Onet.pl said the witnesses had sworn they would repeat the allegations under oath in court. Nawrocki called the story a pack of lies and said he would sue the website.

His opponents portrayed him as a football hooligan who admired gangsters and neo-Nazi ultras. Nawrocki did not deny taking part in hooligan brawls as a younger man, calling them “noble fights”. He has also said these allegations were an attempt to smear his reputation.

Some Nawrocki voters told me they did not believe certain stories about him, saying they were inventions of the mainstream Trzaskowski-supporting media.

The UK will build up to 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister will announce as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday.

The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to “warfighting readiness” to deter growing threats faced by the UK.

Sir Keir Starmer will say up to 12 conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines will replace the UK’s current fleet from the late 2030s onwards.

The prime minister is also expected to confirm the UK will spend £15bn on its nuclear warhead programme.

Sir Keir will say that, alongside the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines, the new vessels would keep “Britain and Nato safe for decades”.

The Strategic Defence Review, commissioned by Labour, will shape the UK’s armed forces for years to come.

Led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson it will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full.

Other announcements in the review will include:

• Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an “always on” munitions production capacity
• Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces
• Pledge to set up a “cyber and electromagnetic command” to boost the military’s defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace
• Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing
• £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers

Defence Secretary John Healey has signalled he is not aiming to increase the overall size of the Army before the next general election.

On Sunday, he said his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers with a target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers “in the next Parliament”.

Building the new submarines will support 30,000 jobs into the 2030s as well as 30,000 apprenticeships and 14,000 graduate roles across the next 10 years, the Ministry of Defence said.

Healey said: “Our outstanding submariners patrol 24/7 to keep us and our allies safe, but we know that threats are increasing and we must act decisively to face down Russian aggression.”

The Astute class is the Royal Navy’s current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles.

As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK’s trident nuclear missiles.

In the Astute series, HMS Agamemnon, was launched last October and another is under construction which will take the number of submarines in this class to seven.

The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal agreed in 2023 by the Conservative government.

Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident Missiles is already under way.

The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government’s commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.

In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards.

The MoD’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines.

Commitments on military spending come against the background of the government’s wider review of departmental spending due later this month and have also taken on renewed importance given the Ukraine war, and pressure from Nato and US President Donald Trump for European countries to step up defence spending.

Sir Keir has committed the government to spending 2.5% of the UK’s national income on defence by 2027, up from 2.3%, but has faced pressure to commit to 3%.

Healey said the target will be hit by 2034 but the Conservatives say the threshold should be hit earlier. The Liberal Democrats have also argued for a 3% spending target.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said Labour’s review should be “taken with a pinch of salt” unless the government showed there would be enough money to pay for it.

Head of NATO, Mark Rutte has called on allies to spend 3.5% of its GDP on defence, with a further 1.5% on defence related expenditure.

The government has said it wants Britain to be the leading European nation within the NATO alliance but that might prove difficult when a significant number of allies exceed the UK’s military spending.

It says its review will reverse decades of underinvestment in Britain’s armed forces. But it remains to be seen if the investment will be enough.

The ambitions of past defence reviews have rarely been matched by resources.

Sir Salman Rushdie says he has moved on from the knife attack which has seen his attacker jailed for attempted murder.

Hadi Matar, 27, was sentenced to 25 years last month after repeatedly stabbing Sir Salman on a New York lecture stage in 2022.

Sir Salman, who has a new book out later this year, told the Hay Festival that an “important moment” came for him when he and his wife Eliza “went back to the scene of the crime to show myself I could stand up where I fell down”.

“It will be nice to talk about fiction again because ever since the attack, really the only thing anybody’s wanted to talk about is the attack, but I’m over it.”

Sir Salman recently told Radio 4’s Today programme that he was “pleased” the man who tried to kill him had received the maximum possible prison sentence.

The Midnight’s Children and Satanic Verses writer was left with life-changing injuries after the incident – he is now blind in one eye, has damage to his liver and a paralysed hand caused by nerve damage to his arm.

Last year, Sir Salman published a book titled Knife reflecting on the event, which he has described as “my way of fighting back”.

The attack came 35 years after Sir Salman’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses, which had long made him the target of death threats for its portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

In November, the author will publish a short story collection, The Eleventh Hour, his first work of fiction to be written since the stabbing.

Security was tight for Sir Salman’s event, with sniffer dogs present and bag checks leading to a 15-minute delay.

He waved at the audience as he entered the stage and humbly gestured to them to stop applauding before joking that: “I can’t see everyone – but I can hear them.”

He said he was feeling “excellent” although there “were bits of me that I’m annoyed about, like not having a right eye. But on the whole, I’ve been very fortunate and I’m in better shape than maybe I would have expected.”

In a wide-ranging discussion, Sir Salman also touched on US politics, declaring that “America was not in great shape”.

In an apparent reference to President Donald Trump, Sir Salman spoke about “the moment of hope, that image of Barack and Michelle Obama walking down the mall in DC with the crowds around them… people dancing in the streets in New York. And to go from that to the orange moment that we live in, it’s, let’s just say, disappointing.”

But he said he was still positive about the future.

“I think I suffer from the optimism disease… I can’t help thinking somehow it will be alright.”

Speaking about free speech, he said “it means tolerating people who say things you don’t like”.

He recalled a time when a film “in which I was the villain”, made around the time of the uproar over Satanic Verses, was not classified by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) “because it was in a hundred ways defamatory” but he asked them to allow its release.

“So they gave it a certificate… and nobody went. You know why? Lousy movie. And it taught me a lesson. Let it out and trust the audience. And that’s still my view.

“I think we do live in a moment when people are too eager to prohibit speech they disapprove of. That’s a very slippery slope”. He warned young people “to think about it.”

When asked about the effect of AI on authors, Sir Salman said: “I don’t have Chat GPT… I try very hard to pretend it doesn’t exist. Someone asked it to write a couple of hundred words like me… it was terrible. And it has no sense of humour.”

Despite being considered one of the greatest living writers, Sir Salman joked that authors “don’t even have that much money… except the two of us (him and host Erica Wagner) and those who write about child wizards… the Taylor Swift of literature,” referring to JK Rowling.

“Good on her.”

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Two people have died and hundreds have been arrested across France after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fans celebrated the club’s victory in the Champions League final, according to the French interior ministry.

In the south-west town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest late on Saturday evening, local media reported.

A 23-year-old man who was riding a scooter in central Paris was also killed after being hit by a vehicle, the prosecutor’s office said.

Flares and fireworks were set off, bus shelters smashed and cars torched amid wild celebrations as PSG won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.

PSG condemned the violence in a statement, adding that these “isolated acts are contrary to the club’s values and in no way represent the vast majority of our supporters”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the clashes were “unacceptable” and unjustifiable, and that those involved will be found and punished.

The club’s victory parade in central Paris went ahead on Sunday afternoon despite the clashes, but with an increased police and military presence on the ground.

Police set a cap of 100,000 fans for the event, which saw PSG make their way down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe on an open-top bus.

A second commemoration is currently taking place at the club’s home stadium, Parc des Princes, with thousands of fans invited to celebrate their win.

France’s interior ministry said 192 people were injured in the clashes in the early hours of Sunday and 559 people arrested, including 491 in Paris.

Twenty-two police officers and seven firefighters were injured, the ministry said, adding that 264 vehicles were set on fire.

One of the officers was injured by a firework amidst the chaos and had to be put in an induced coma – with Macron later saying the officer had travelled to a different city to help with policing efforts.

Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez said: “The toll is lower than what we have seen in the past, but we will never get used to this kind of abuse, with people who only came to commit acts of vandalism and who did not even watch the match, and we will always have a very firm response.”

Nuñez said police expect there to be further clashes on Sunday, but added that supporters “shouldn’t be mixed up with gangs of looters and vandals”.

Separately, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office told the BBC “several shops were looted” in the Place des Ternes area. About 30 people were arrested and taken into custody near a Foot Locker on the Champs-Élysées that was robbed, the office said.

Elsewhere across France, Dax mayor Julien Dubois, reacting to the fatal stabbing, said his “thoughts are with the young victim, his family and friends”.

“We are floored by all the drama tonight,” he wrote on social media. “It is advisable to quickly shed light on these facts in order to severely punish the perpetrator.”

While clashes broke out near the city’s Champs-Élysées avenue and PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, the majority of fans celebrated PSG’s 5-0 win over Inter Milan peacefully, with many singing and dancing in the streets or blaring their car horns.

The Eiffel Tower was illuminated with PSG’s blue and red colours.

Macron, a keen supporter of rivals Olympique de Marseille, posted on X: “A glorious day for PSG! Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”

The president hosted a ceremony for PSG at the Élysée Palace after Sunday’s parade and congratulated coach Luis Enrique and his team on their victory.

Approximately 5,400 police were deployed across Paris in anticipation of the raucous celebrations.

At least 300 people detained were suspected of possessing fireworks and causing disorder, Paris police said.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.

Riot police reportedly used a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe, and fired tear gas into the crowds.

Other clashes between police and crowds occurred on the Paris ring road. At least two cars were torched near the Parc des Princes.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau took a hard line against the disorder, writing on social media: “True PSG supporters are enjoying their team’s magnificent match.

“Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the police.

“It’s unbearable that it’s unthinkable to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.”

Meanwhile, outside Paris, police said a car ploughed into PSG fans in Grenoble in south-east France, leaving four people injured.

All those hurt were from the same family, police said. Two were seriously injured.

The driver handed himself into the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation told the AFP news agency it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally.

Adamu Yusuf’s life has been upended since he lost nine of his family members in Tiffin Maza, one of two communities in his town worst-hit by floods in north-central Nigeria.

The father-of-one, 36, said his wife and newborn baby were among those washed away in floods early on Thursday morning in Niger state.

“She was the one that woke me up when the flood hit, and I quickly gathered the family and told everyone to hold one another. As we stepped outside, we saw water everywhere in our living room and the compound. They panicked and we got disconnected.”

His wife and baby had only just returned to the town of Mokwa a day prior, after having stayed at his in-laws house for a few weeks after having given birth.

“I watched helplessly as water washed away my family. I survived because I could swim. It was God that saved me,” Mr Adamu said.

Local officials say the death toll has risen to more than 200 on Sunday, a sharp increase from 110 on Friday. There are fears the number could still rise further.

The mood in the Tiffin Maza community on Saturday was one of grief, despair and loss.

Scattered clothes, soaked mattresses and crushed metal roofing sheets were some of the last remains of what are now hundreds of destroyed houses.

The structures still standing bear the harsh impact of the floods, with roofs washed off or some parts of the buildings destroyed.

Standing on a blue tiled floor, the only thing that points to where his bedroom once was, Mr Adamu looked around the vast empty space that has replaced his community.

“I lost everything to this flood. But the most painful is that of my family. The only valuable I have now is this cloth I am wearing which was even given to me by my friend.”

He said one relative has been found dead and he has “resigned to fate that others won’t return” to him alive.

Nineteen-year-old high school graduate, Isa Muhammed, has been inconsolable since he heard that his beloved teacher’s house was washed away while the teacher and eight members of his family were inside.

“Two have been found dead; one of them was his baby. My teacher, his second child, his sister and four other relatives are still missing. A building fell on his wife who wasn’t inside the house with them, and she died instantly.”

Mr Muhammed also lost family, remembering his uncle who died in the disaster.

“Uncle Musa was a very good friend to my late father. He took care of me since my dad died in 2023. He taught me to value education and always told me to do the right thing.

“Anytime I am alone and think about him, tears always roll down my cheeks. I haven’t been able to sleep since the incident happened,” Mr Muhammed said.

The water has now receded, and residents gathered on Saturday to offer condolences to the victims and also lend a hand in the search efforts.

Some residents told BBC News that the deluge was at least 7ft (2.1m) high in some parts of the community.

There was a strong foul smell around Tiffin Maza, and residents believe it is proof that there were dead bodies under the thick mud the floods washed up.

They are working to find them and give the dead a decent burial like they have done for others since Thursday.

“I have never seen that kind of floods before in my life, but I am grateful that my family survived it,” 65-year-old Ramat Sulaiman said.

Ms Sulaiman’s house was completely destroyed, rendering her family homeless.

She said 100 children who used to sleep in a Quranic school two blocks from her house “all got washed away”.

“It was a painful sight for me. The children cried for help, but no one could do anything. As their cries got louder, their building sunk and flowed away.”

Her son, Saliu, has been left homeless and broke.

“I lost at least $1,500 to the floods. It was the proceeds from the sale of my farm produce the previous day. I contemplated going back into the room to get it, but the pressure of the water scared me,” he said.

“I also lost eleven bags of groundnuts and seven bags of beans. My wife and I couldn’t pick anything from our room. But I am grateful we made it out on time. There were so many dead bodies in the water.”

He has been having nightmares since, he said.

“I am traumatised.”

Authorities are yet to confirm if a dam broke, exacerbating the impact of the recent floods as widely reported.

Mokwa District Head, Alhaji Muhammadu Shaba Aliyu, indicated to the BBC that there is a “reservoir” in the area that can spill out water “anytime there’s rain”, however he added that the magnitude of the flood is excessive.

Residents told BBC News they believed the floodwater was not caused by the heavy rainfall they had experienced.

“The rain couldn’t have caused the floods because it had subsided and there was no water anywhere. I was outside and suddenly I saw water gushing down in high speed and scattering everything on its path,” Mr Muhammed said.

Ms Sulaiman said: “When I woke up for prayers, I opened the door and looked outside and didn’t see any water. Moments later, I started hearing people screaming. We don’t know where it came from. Its source is a mystery.”

“For people that said the flood was as a result of the rain, they are lying. The rain had stopped before the flood started. Nobody knows the cause of this flood, it’s just from God,” Mr Adamu said.

Mokwa Deputy Local Chairman, Musa Alhaji Aliyu Kimboku, also dismissed that rain caused the flood.

The National Emergency Management Agency said those injured are receiving treatment, while displaced victims have been taken to resettlement camps and relief materials distributed.

The country’s Meteorological Agency has projected that the rainy season will last up to 200 days in central Nigeria this year, while it could linger for a longer period in mostly southern states.

At the beginning of May, the federal government launched a flood awareness campaign, to educate citizens on flood risks.

Thirty of the West African nation’s 36 states are at risk of flooding, and Niger state is one of them.

As victims salvage what they can from the ruins of their homes to start a new life, those that lost their loved ones like Mr Adamu said that they will never be able to heal, although they have accepted their fate.

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An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial law.

She couldn’t quite believe it – until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion down.

Within hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital Seoul.

They turned up not just because Yoon’s decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism – despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said otherwise.

They returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon’s abuse of power went on – and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic months.

And yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible again.

The two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making headlines.

For many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight.

“So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies,” the 24-year-old college student says.

“But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to erase women’s voices.”

When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the atmosphere.

The bitter December cold didn’t stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon’s ouster.

“Most of those around me were young women, we were singing ‘Into the World’ by Girls’ Generation,” Byunghui says.

Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop’s biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president’s career.

“The lyrics – about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world,” Byunghui says, “just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone”.

There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily.

An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them – almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that rally.

The protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap – at 31% – is the widest among rich nations.

Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society.

“I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth,” says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . “I believe that’s why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction.”

For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: “I tried to go every week. It wasn’t easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility.”

That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women’s University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being “anti-feminist” and had “made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women”.

There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in 2022.

These men consider themselves victims of “reverse discrimination”, saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to women.

They label as “man haters” those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality.

These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under Yoon.

It was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women’s rights.

And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed countries.

But his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

“In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon’s party,” says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. “They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s.”

During Yoon’s term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word “women” in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference altogether.

The impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against feminism.

Byunghui saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually older.

Young men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd.

“I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?”

With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his fall.

And this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the seven candidates runnning for president. “It’s shocking,” Jinha says, “that there’s no-one”. In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential candidates.

The PPP’s Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee.

“It’s only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few,” Saeyeon says. “I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination.”

When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”

After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still “faced structural discrimination in many areas”. And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every level.

During his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party.

He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP’s emergency committee.

“It’s evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election,” Ms Kim says.

Prof Go believes it’s because Lee “lost by a very narrow margin” back then. So this time, he is “casting the widest net possible” for votes. “And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that.”

That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment: “Our voices don’t seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned.”

The ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon’s cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents.

But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don’t address the deeper inequalities – which make it hard to balance a career and family – that are making so many women reconsider the usual choices.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking point.

Lee has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and Family.

The ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government’s annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was “politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised”.

“The ministry itself is not huge but it’s symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant.”

It’s also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon’s party, who has since launched his own Reform Party.

Although trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views.

Earlier this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?”

He said the “someone” was frontunner Lee Jae-myung’s son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial posts.

But watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV “was genuinely terrifying,” Byunghui says. “I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities.”

Saeyeon describes “anger and even despair” sinking the “hopes I had for politics, which weren’t that great to begin with”.

She believes his popularity “among certain sections of young men is one of the “significant repercussions” of South Korea “long neglecting structural discrimination” against women.

The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn’t fare well in early polling.

“I’m still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook,” Saeyeon says.

While Kwon represents her concerns, she says it’s smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is “much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that”.

She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon’s base: “He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead.”

That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. “It’s like there is dust on the wall. If you don’t know it’s there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you.”

It’s the same for Jinha who says things can “never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law”.

That was a time when politics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it “feels like something that affects me and is important to my life”.

She says she won’t give up because she wants to be free of “things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace”.

“People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up – and then the world will change again.”

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala debut last month left a lasting impression on global fashion.

The 41-year-old singer, who is the only Punjabi musician to perform at Coachella, walked the red carpet dressed like an early 20th Century maharajah.

His opulent ivory and gold ensemble – created by designer Prabal Gurung – complete with a feathered bejewelled turban, trended in India for weeks.

He also wore a gorgeous diamond necklace, its design inspired by a Cartier piece worn by an erstwhile king of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

A Panthère de Cartier watch, a lion-headed and a jewel-studded sword completed the ensemble, which had a map of Dosanjh’s home state embroidered on the back of the cape along with letters from Gurmukhi, the script for Punjabi language.

Of course, Dosanjh is no stranger to such style.

Just like his music, he’s carved out a niche in fashion too – a hip hop singer who is known for melding traditional Punjabi styles with Western influences.

Often seen in anti-fit trousers, chunky sneakers, and stacks of necklaces that he matches with his colourful turbans, his unique form of self-expression has captured the imagination of millions, leading to interesting reinventions in the traditional Punjabi attire.

The changes can be felt everywhere. A 16-minute high-intensity bhangra competition in California would be impossible without high performance sneakers. And basement bhangra nights in Berlin are enjoyed in crop tops and deconstructed pants.

Punjabi music itself, high on volume and energy – with lyrics packed with the names of cities and global luxury brands – has become a subculture.

It’s not just Dosanjh – several other Punjabi musicians have also influenced the region’s style game.

Not long ago, Punjabi-Canadian singer Jazzy B’s rings, often the size of a cookie, along with his plus-sized Kanda pendant and silver blonde hair tints, were trending.

More recently, the yellow tinted glasses worn by singer Badshah; the baggy hoodies sported by Yo Yo Honey Singh; and AP Dhillon’s Louis Vuitton bombers and Chanel watches have been hugely popular with Punjabi youth.

But even though their influence was significant, it was restricted to a region. Dosanjh and a few others like him, however, have managed to mount it to a global level, their style speaking to both the Sikh diaspora as well as a broader audience. For instance, the t-shirts, pearls and sneakers Dosanjh wore to his world tour last year were sold out in a matter of hours. Dhillon’s style statements at Paris Couture Week have created aspiration among Punjabi youth.

Cultural experts say that this reinvention, both in music and fashion, has its roots in Western pop-culture as most of the artistes live and perform in the West.

“Punjabi men are inventive. The region has been at the forefront of fusion, it believes in hybridity. This is especially the case with the Punjabi diaspora – even when they live in ghettos, they are the showmen [of their lives],” says art historian, author and museum curator Alka Pande.

Over the years, as the Punjabi diaspora community grew, a new generation of musicians began mixing modern hip-hop sounds with elements of traditional Punjabi aesthetics.

Their distinct style lexicon – of gold chains, faux fur jackets, plus-sized accessories, braids and beards – went on to spawn media articles, books and doctoral theses on South Asian culture.

The coin dropped instantly back home in Punjab, which absorbed logo fashion like a sponge when luxury brands arrived in the 2000s. For Punjabis – who are largely a farming community – it was an aspirational uprising, symbolic of how success and prosperity should look.

“It symbolised the movement of the Punjabi identity from a farmer to a global consumer,” says acclaimed singer Rabbi Shergill.

Arguing that performers, like everyone else, are a product of their times, Shergill says these impulses are “a response to the hyper capitalist world”.

Curiously, the style game of Punjabi musicians – from hip-hop, R&B, bhangra pop, fusion, Punjabi rap, reggae or filmy music – has also remained rooted and androgynous, instead of being hyper masculine.

A pop star may wear Balenciaga or Indian designer Manish Malhotra’s opulent creations; perform anywhere from Ludhiana city to London; dance with Beyonce around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, atop a luxury car, or in a British mansion – but they always wear their Punjabi identity on their sleeves.

Dosanjh underlined this clearly with his maharajah look at the Met Gala. “It’s like the popularity of his androgynous style was waiting to happen,” Pande says.

The composite impact of this trend on emerging artists is unmissable today in Punjab.

Local Bhangra performances, for instance, are no longer limited to traditional “dhoti-kurta-koti” costume sets paired with juttis (ethnic footwear). Performance attire now includes sneakers, typographic T-shirts, deconstructed bottoms and even denims.

“Such items are highly sought after by customers,” says Harinder Singh, owner of the brand 1469.

The merchandise in Singh’s stores, includes accessories popularised by Punjab’s music stars, such as versions of Phulkari turbans worn by Dosanjh, Kanda pendants that were first popularised by veteran Bhangra artist Pammi Bai. Singh himself owns turbans in more than a 100 shades.

Even overall men’s style in Punjab bears some of this cosmopolitan twang.

Young poet Gurpreet Saini, who performs at cultural festivals across India, says he sources his shawls – printed with ombre Gurmukhi letters – from Hariana, his hometown in Punjab, for a distinctive look. He admits to the influence of music icons, including those like folk singer Gurdas Mann, who he grew up watching.

What began as personal flair in some cases, went on to become fashion statements. Now these choices are cultural signatures. They have recast the Punjabi identity through rhythm, hybridity as well as a rooted sense of self.

It was love at first sight for Adarsh Ramchurn. “I couldn’t control it,” he says of his flourishing affection for Nav Sangha.

But their relationship is “frowned upon” by some in their communities, they say, as Adarsh is Hindu and Nav is Sikh.

They’ve been an item for three years and say they receive hateful comments on social media when posting about their life together.

They are also abused because Adarsh, 24, has a darker skin tone than Nav, a form of prejudice known as colourism.

“We push through it,” says Nav, 22. “There are also people who are very supportive and that are in similar situations.”

Data compiled by YouGov in January suggests 45% of 18 to 24-year-olds in the UK believe there is a God, or believe there are Gods. The next highest figure, 36%, is for the over-65s.

BBC News spoke to Nav and Adarsh as well as a Christian from Married At First Sight (MAFS), a Muslim from The Only Way is Essex (Towie), and a former Jehovah’s Witness for the Sex After documentary series.

During a discussion between the participants, Nav was asked what the hardest bit about being a Sikh was. “Probably getting the backlash of being with a Hindu,” she said.

She and Ardash knew their interfaith relationship could be an issue for their parents, so spoke to them early.

“I know it’s different for every family, there can be difficult dynamics,” says Adarsh.

“But if you can have the open discussion [about] dating outside of your religion… I’d always say [you should].”

Something Adarsh’s parents were quick to ask him about was marriage.

The couple say, if they were to wed, they would probably do a Sikh and a Hindu ceremony.

“If we have kids, I feel like it’s important that they learn about both religions and faiths,” Nav adds.

Adarsh agrees and says he’s “looking forward to it”.

Junaid Ahmed’s parents were not as accommodating. His fear of being rejected by them took hold at a young age. Junaid knew being gay contravened the Islamic beliefs he and his family shared.

“When I did finally come out [aged 18], I did expect the worst and… [it] did happen,” he tells us. “They threw me out; they disowned me.”

He says he doesn’t blame his parents for ostracising him.

“I genuinely don’t – it’s made me the person I am today.”

Junaid, now aged 26 and a star of Towie, says he often gets abuse online from other Muslims because he is open about his sexual orientation, but “that [has] never changed my relationship with God”.

He says he is grateful for his religious upbringing and still prays every day.

Like Junaid, Martin Riley – who was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness – was also ostracised by his family.

However, in his case, it was because a few years ago he was expelled from his religion completely, in a process called disfellowshipping.

For Riley, as he is known to his friends, this meant being shunned by other members of his congregation – including close friends and family.

His first marriage, which lasted 20 years, had broken down a few months before he was expelled.

He was a particularly strong believer and, while dating after he was expelled, he abided by the rule of not having sex before marriage.

It was only when Riley began dating the woman who is now his wife, that he began seriously considering whether he wanted to continue adhering to the religion that he’d been part of for 40 years. His wife is not a Jehovah’s Witness.

“I realised that I did not want to have a future that didn’t include her, whether that meant returning to the religion or not.”

After having sex with her for the first time, which he describes as being, “like in the movies”, he recalls: “I was actually surprised by how guiltless I felt about the whole thing.”

Riley, 48, now considers himself an atheist.

Looking back at his expulsion from the religion aged 42, he says: “It was devastating for me, at the time. Now I think it is probably one of the best things to ever happen to me.”

Unlike Riley, Sacha Jones did not grow up devoutly religious, but was baptised as a Christian last year after finding her faith. She has vowed to remain abstinent until she marries.

“I haven’t slept with anyone since my baptism,” she says. “So I’m fresh in the eyes of the Lord!”

Sacha, 30, also says the culture around dating today makes it difficult to form a long-term relationship.

Last year she participated in MAFS, but split up with her partner following the show.

“It’s the absolute trenches out here in the dating world… it’s difficult to trust a man anyway, but then to trust someone that doesn’t fear God as well?”

She says she doesn’t miss sex as much as she might do because she isn’t dating anyone at the moment. She believes the wait will be worth it – once she’s married.

“I no longer lack purpose or peace,” says Sacha, who isn’t the “party animal” she once was. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

It’s a condition that affects more than 10 million people in the UK. It can change futures, end careers, and shrink worlds. So when a hack comes along that says it can “cure”, or at the very least fend off a migraine, people will try it.

While there are medical treatments, there is no cure. Prescription medication can be very effective – but it doesn’t always work. For many people there is no simple solution.

Some discover their own ways of managing the debilitating pain: blasting the side of their face with a hairdryer, or sitting in a hot bath while wearing an ice pack and drinking a smoothie.

But now a new hack has suddenly gone viral – the McMigraine Meal. A simple offering of a full-fat cola and a portion of salty fries seems to be doing the trick for hundreds who’ve been extolling its virtues on TikTok.

If there is any science behind these hacks – what do they do to the body?

Nick Cook, from Oxfordshire, carries “a wallet full of drugs” around in case of a migraine attack. He will “try anything” to make the pain go away, he says.

“When you live with the condition, and you’re working a five-day week and you need to carry on, you’ll give anything a go.”

At its worst the pain around Nick’s eye socket can feel like his eyeball is getting crushed. He says it’s the caffeine and sugar in cola that helps him.

“If I catch it soon enough it can sometimes work, when my vision goes fuzzy and I can feel one coming on.”

He stresses that drinking cola doesn’t replace his amitriptyline tablets – the daily pain medication he takes to try to prevent migraines – but it does sometimes help him “last until the end of the day”.

For Kayleigh Webster, a 27-year-old who has had chronic migraines all her life, it’s the salt on the chips that might slow down a migraine attack.

“It can help,” she says cautiously, “but it’s certainly not a cure.

“Migraine is a complex neurological condition – and it can’t be cured by a bit of caffeine, salt and sugar in a fast food meal.”

Kayleigh’s tried cocktails of different medications, putting her feet in hot water, a flannel at the back of the head, acupuncture, cupping – but they’ve had little effect.

One of the few treatments that has given her relief is medical Botox – having dozens of injections in her head, face and neck. It’s still not clear how Botox works for migraine, but it’s believed to block powerful pain signals being released from the nerves.

A migraine – which can last days – is very different to a headache, which tend to be short-lived and can be treated more easily with painkillers like paracetamol. Migraines can cause head pain, neck pain, numbness, blurred vision, and even affect speech and movement.

Skulls dating back to 3,000 BC show ancient Egyptians even had trouble with migraines – but despite that long history, their exact cause is still unknown.

It’s thought pain receptors in the blood vessels and nerve tissue around the brain misfire – sending incorrect signals that something is wrong. But we don’t know why some people have an oversensitive nervous system – and why it reacts to some things and not others.

Experts say there’s not enough research into why only some people – around one in seven – are affected, or what can actually help.

Dr Kay Kennis, a trustee for the Migraine Trust and a GP who specialises in migraines, says while there are elements of the McMigraine meal that can help stave off an attack, these aren’t innate to “a McDonald’s”.

“The caffeine in the coke can act as a nerve disruptor, it is a substance that affects nerve activity. For some, that disturbance works in a positive way,” Dr Kennis says.

“There are some painkillers that people take for migraines that have caffeine – and some do respond well to that – but we don’t fully know why.”

But she warns against using caffeinated fizzy drinks like cola as a way of regularly managing migraines.

“Too much caffeine can be a trigger too – and you can end up in a worse situation in the long run,” Dr Kennis says.

Other ingredients in a fast food meal, like the salt on the chips, can affect nerve activity, she explains, but adds the effects of sodium on migraines have not been tested.

She also warns that not only is fast food often ultra-processed and not conducive to a healthy diet, it can contain high levels of Tyramine, a natural compound commonly found in many foods, which can actually cause severe migraines.

For Eloise Underwood none of the quick fixes on social media work.

The chronic migraine sufferer has been looking for a “magic cocktail” for seven years – she’s seen people recommend putting feet in scorching water (not recommended by experts and potentially dangerous); drinking hot coffee (caffeine can be a trigger); or various vibrating devices which have had little effect.

“There are so many videos online that take advantage of the desperation we all feel,” Eloise explains.

She’s left several jobs – often due to lighting and noise in an office environment triggering migraines. She recently stopped working as an interior designer and has now launched a business pressing and framing wedding flowers from her home.

She wears loop ear buds to reduce the sharpness of the sounds around her, and limits her social life.

“People think a migraine is just a headache – that’s just one symptom of it,” Eloise says. “For me, a migraine is a whole body experience…

“Migraines have completely made my life smaller.”

Prof Peter Goadsby, a neurologist at the NIHR-King’s Clinical Research Facility, says research is beginning to produce positive results after years of underfunding.

His latest study shows medications known as gepants could block a group of pain receptors in the lead-up to a migraine attack, cutting off the pain before it starts.

“Any new treatment is a glimmer of hope,” Eloise says. “They do say that nothing will work for everyone – but something will work for someone.”

Lifestyle changes can also make a difference, Prof Goadsby explains. It might be boring, he says, but basically – “be careful of your brain”.

“You want to have regularity, avoid the highs and lows. If you can feel the warning signs – yawning, sleepiness, mood change, passing more urine and even craving salt and sugar – listen to your body.

“Listen to your body – don’t listen to TikTok, that’s my advice.”

Nick has been doing exactly that. He might reach for the odd cola and salty fries, but he’s moulded his whole life in order to manage his migraines.

“I don’t drink, I wear sunglasses even if it’s cloudy,” he says. “I don’t go wild. When me and my partner go away, half the stuff we take is to help us manage our migraines.”

On a recent stag-do weekend, Nick noticed the difference between his and his friends’ lives.

“They were up all night drinking to the early hours,” Nick says. “I turned up with my own pillow, apples, bananas, Weetabix, and any snacks I would need to keep me going, because hunger can be a major trigger.

“I’m in bed by midnight – but my mates know me, and that’s OK, because this is how I have to live my life.”

It’s a grim paradox, doctors say.

On the one hand, antibiotics are being overused until they no longer work, driving resistance and fuelling the rise of deadly superbugs. On the other hand, people are dying because they can’t access these life-saving drugs.

A new study by the non-profit Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) looked at access to antibiotics for nearly 1.5 million cases of carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative (CRGN) infections across eight major low- and middle-income countries, including India, Brazil and South Africa. CRGN bacteria are superbugs resistant to last-line antibiotics – yet only 6.9% of patients received appropriate treatment in the countries studied.

India bore the lion’s share of CRGN infections and treatment efforts, procuring 80% of the full courses of studied antibiotics but managing to treat only 7.8% of its estimated cases, the study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal reports. (A full drug course of antibiotics refers to the complete set of doses that a patient needs to take over a specific period to fully treat an infection.)

Common in water, food, the environment and the human gut, Gram-negative bacteria cause infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia and food poisoning.

They can pose a serious threat to newborns and the elderly alike. Especially vulnerable are hospital patients with weakened immunity, often spreading rapidly in ICUs and proving difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat. Treating carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections is doubly difficult because those bacteria are resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics.

“These infections are a daily reality across all age groups,” says Dr Abdul Gaffar, infectious disease consultant at Apollo Hospital in India’s Chennai city. “We often see patients for whom no antibiotic works – and they die.”

The irony is cruel. While the world tries to curb antibiotic overuse, a parallel tragedy plays out quietly in poorer nations: people dying from treatable infections because the right drugs are out of reach.

“For years, the dominant narrative has been that antibiotics are being overused, but the stark reality is that many people with highly drug-resistant infections in low- and middle-income countries are not getting access to the antibiotics they need,” says Dr Jennifer Cohn, GARDP’s Global Access Director and senior author of the study.

• India’s ‘blockbuster’ drugs to take on deadly superbugs
• India facing a pandemic of antibiotics-resistant superbugs

The study examined eight intravenous drugs active against carbapenem-resistant bacteria – ranging from older antibiotics including Colistin to newer ones such as Ceftazidime-avibactam. Of the few available drugs, Tigecycline was the most widely used.

Researchers blame the treatment gap on weak health systems and limited access to effective antibiotics.

For example, only 103,647 full treatment courses were procured of Tigecycline across eight countries – far short of the 1.5 million patients who needed them, the study found. This highlighted a major shortfall in the global response to drug-resistant infections.

What prevents patients with drug-resistant infections in India from getting the right antibiotics?

Physicians point to multiple barriers – reaching the right health facility, getting accurate diagnostic tests, and accessing effective drugs. Cost remains a major hurdle, with many of these antibiotics priced far beyond the reach of poorer patients.

“Those who can afford these antibiotics often overuse them; those who can’t, don’t get them at all,” says Dr Gaffar. “We need a system that ensures access for the poor and prevents misuse by the well-to-do.”

To improve access, these drugs must be made more affordable. To prevent misuse, stronger regulation is key.

“Ideally, every antibiotic prescription in hospitals should require a second sign-off – by an infection specialist or microbiologist,” says Dr Gaffar. “Some hospitals do this, but most don’t. With the right oversight, regulators can ensure this becomes standard practice.”

To fix the access problem and curb misuse, both smarter policies and stronger safeguards are essential, say researchers. But access alone won’t solve the crisis – the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. The decline in antibiotic R&D – and the limited availability of existing drugs – is a global issue.

India bears one of the world’s heaviest burdens of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but it may also hold the key to combating it – both at home and globally, researchers say.

“India is also one of the largest markets for new antibiotics and can successfully advocate for the development and access of new antibiotics,” says Dr Cohn. With a strong pharmaceutical base, the country is emerging as a hub for AMR innovation, from promising new antibiotics to advanced diagnostics.

Dr Cohn says India can strengthen its antibiotic response by generating local data to better estimate needs and pinpoint gaps in the care pathway.

This would allow for more targeted interventions to improve access to the right drugs.

Innovative models are already emerging – Kerala state, for instance, is using a “hub-and-spoke approach” to support lower-level facilities in managing serious infections. Coordinated or pooled procurement across hospitals or states could also reduce the cost of newer antibiotics, as seen with cancer drug programs, researchers say.

Without access to the right antibiotics, modern medicine begins to unravel – doctors risk losing the ability to safely perform surgery, treat complications in cancer patients, or manage everyday infections.

“As an infectious disease doctor, I see appropriate use as one part – but only one part – of access,” says Dr Gaffar. “When we get new antibiotics, it’s important to save them on one hand – and save them for right patients.”

Clearly, the challenge is not just to use antibiotics wisely, but to ensure they reach those who need them most.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is at the centre of a political firestorm after he approved a law that gives the state the power to expropriate some privately owned land without compensation for owners.

The law, which is yet to be implemented, has drawn the ire of US President Donald Trump, who sees it as discriminating against white farmers.

Centre-right political parties and lobby groups in South Africa have also opposed it, saying they will challenge the Expropriation Act – as the law is named – in court on the grounds that it threatens property rights.

Ramaphosa’s government says the law provides for compensation to be paid in the vast majority of cases – and the changes are needed to increase black ownership of land.

Most private farmland is still owned by white people.

When Nelson Mandela came to power more than 30 years ago, ending the racist system of apartheid, it was promised that this would be rectified through a willing-buyer, willing-seller land reform programme – but critics say this has proved too slow and too costly.

In rare circumstances it would be land that was needed for the “public interest”, legal experts told the BBC.

According to South African law firm Werksmans Attorneys, this suggested it would mainly, or perhaps only, happen in relation to the land reform programme.

Although it could also be used to access natural resources such as minerals and water, the firm added, in an opinion written by its experts in the field, Bulelwa Mabasa and Thomas Karberg.

Mabasa and Karberg told the BBC that in their view, productive agricultural land could not be expropriated without compensation.

They said any expropriation without compensation – known as EWC – could take place only in a few circumstances:

• For example, when an owner was not using the land and was holding it for “speculative purposes”
• Or when an owner “abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so”.

Owners would probably still get compensation for the buildings on the land and for the natural resources, the lawyers said.

Mabasa and Karberg added that EWC was “not aimed at rural land or farmland specifically, and could include land in urban areas”.

However, in cases where compensation is paid, the rules are set to change, with owners likely to get less money.

The plan is for owners to receive “just-and-equitable” compensation – a departure from the higher “market value” they have been getting up to now, Mabasa and Karberg said.

The government had been paying market-value compensation despite the fact that this was “at odds” with the constitution, adopted after white-minority rule ended in 1994, they added.

The lawyers said that all expropriations had “extensive procedural fairness requirements”, including the owner’s right to go to court if they were not happy.

The move away from market-value compensation will also apply to land expropriated for a “public purpose” – like building state schools or railways.

This has not been a major point of controversy, possibly because it is “hardly a novel concept” – a point made by JURISTnews, a legal website run by law students from around the world.

“The US Constitution, for instance, provides that the government can seize private property for public use so long as ‘just compensation’ is provided,” it added.

The government hopes so.

University of Western Cape land expert Prof Ruth Hall told the BBC that more than 80,000 land claims remain unsettled.

In the eastern regions of South Africa, many black people work on farms for free – in exchange they are allowed to live there and keep their livestock on a portion of the owners’ land, she said.

The government wants to transfer ownership of this land to the workers, and it was “unfair” to expect it to pay the market value, Prof Hall added.

Over the last three decades, the government has used existing powers to expropriate property–- with less than market-value compensation – in fewer than 20 cases, she said.

The new law was aimed at making it easier and cheaper to restore land to black people who were “dispossessed” of it during white-minority rule or were forced to be “long-term tenants” as they could not own land, Prof Hall added.

“It’s a bargaining chip,” she said.

But she doubts that the government will press ahead with implementing the law in the foreseeable future as the “political cost” has become too high.

The academic was referring to the fact that Trump has opposed the law, saying it discriminates against white farmers and their land was being “seized” – a charge the government denies.

In February, Trump cut aid to South Africa, and in April he announced a 30% tariff on South African goods and agricultural products, although this was later paused for 90 days.

This was followed by last month’s infamous Oval Office showdown when Trump ambushed Ramaphosa with a video and printouts of stories alleging white people were being persecuted – much of his dossier has been discredited.

• Fact-checking Trump’s Oval Office confrontation with Ramaphosa

Like Trump, the second-biggest party in Ramaphosa’s coalition government, the Democratic Alliance (DA), is opposed to the legislation.

In a statement on 26 May, the party said that its top leadership body had rejected the notion of “nil compensation”.

However, it has agreed with the concept of just-and-equitable compensation rather than market-value compensation, adding it should be “adjudicated by a court of law”.

Surprisingly, Jaco Kleynhans of the Solidarity Movement, an influential Afrikaner lobby group, said that while the new law could “destroy” some businesses and he was opposed to it, he did not believe it would lead to the “large-scale expropriation of farmland”.

“I don’t see within the wording of this text that that will happen,” he said in a recent panel discussion at an agricultural exhibition held in South Africa’s Free State province – where a large number of conservative Afrikaner farmers live.

The South African Property Owners Association said it was “irrational” to give “nil compensation” to an owner who held land for speculative purposes.

“There are many landowners whose sole purpose of business is to speculate in land. They do not get the land for free and they have significant holding costs,” the association said, adding it had no doubt the law would be “abundantly tested” in the courts.

Mabasa and Karberg said one view was that the concept of EWC was a “legal absurdity” because “intrinsic in the legal definition of expropriation, is a requirement for compensation to be paid”.

However, the lawyers pointed out the alternative view was that South Africa’s constitution “implicitly recognises that it would in some circumstances be just and equitable for compensation to be nil”.

South Africa’s Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson has defended the legislation, breaking ranks with his party, the DA.

In fact he is in charge of the new legalisation and, on a discussion panel, he explained that while he had some concerns about the law, it was a “dramatic improvement” on the previous Expropriation Act, with greater safeguards for land-owners.

He said the law could also help end extortionist demands on the state, and in some cases “nil compensation” could be justified.

He gave as an example the problems being faced by the state-owned power utility Eskom.

It plans to roll out a transmission network over about 4,500km (28,000 miles) of land to boost electricity supplies to end the power crisis in the country.

Ahead of the roll-out, some individuals colluded with Eskom officials to buy land for 1m rand ($56,000; £41,000), and then demanded R20m for it, he said.

“Is it just and equitable to give them what they want? I don’t think that’s in the interest of the broader community or the state,” Macpherson said.

Giving another example, Macpherson said that some of South Africa’s inner cities were in a “disastrous” condition. After owners left, buildings were “over-run” and “hijacked” for illegal occupation. The cost to the state to rebuild them could exceed their value, and in such cases the courts could rule that an owner qualified for “nil compensation”, he said.

“Nil is a form of compensation,” Macpherson added, while ruling it out for farms.

Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero told South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper that he wanted to use the buildings for the “public good”, like accommodating around 300,000 people on the housing waiting list.

He added the owners of nearly 100 buildings could not be located.

“They have abandoned the buildings,” he said, adding some of the owners were from the UK and Germany.

But Mabasa and Karberg told the BBC that in such cases compensation would probably still have to be paid for the buildings, though not the land.

If the state could not locate the owners, it “must deposit the compensation with the Master of the High Court” in case they returned or could be traced later, they said.

The law is in limbo, as Ramaphosa – about four months after giving his assent to it – has still not set a date for its implementation.

Nor is he likely to do so anytime soon, as he would not want to further antagonise Trump while South Africa was trying to negotiate a trade deal with the US.

And on the domestic front, the DA is spearheading opposition to the legislation. It said it wanted a “judicial review” of it, while at the same time it was pressing ahead with court action to challenge the law’s constitutionality.

The DA’s tough line is in contrast with that of Macpherson, who, a few weeks ago, warned that if the law was struck down in its entirety: “I don’t know what’s going to come after that.

“In politics, sometimes you must be careful what you wish for because often you can get it,” he said.

His comments highlight the deep fissures in South African politics, with some parties, such as Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), believing that the legislation did not go far enough to tackle racial inequality in land ownership.

With land such an emotive issue, there is no easy solution to the dispute – and it is likely to continue to cause tensions within South Africa, as well as with the US president.

• Rebuked by Trump but praised at home: How Ramaphosa might gain from US showdown
• Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
• South Africans’ anger over land set to explode

From allegations of infidelity to swinging scandals, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers a look into a version of Mormon life far removed from traditional public perception.

Set in suburban Utah, the TV series follows a group of Mormon women – most of whom rose to fame on TikTok and became MomTok influencers – as they manage scandals, confront marital breakdowns and clash over everything from business ventures to party invitations.

But beneath the sensational plotlines is a more complex story about the evolving dynamics within a tight-knit community.

The group of Mormon mothers have been making content online for the past five years but say the concept of reality TV still feels very new to them.

“I’ve heard that eventually people learn how to play the reality TV game but that’s not us yet, we’re still trying to figure it out,” Jessi Ngatikaura tells the BBC. “So you’re getting to see the real us.”

What started off as a hobby has now become a job and the women speak openly on the show about the amount of money they make from reality TV and brand deals.

“It is totally our job now but we chose this and we could all walk away any time if we didn’t want to be part of it,” Jessi says.

Whitney Leavitt explains that “naturally dynamics will change when there’s more money and family involved and definitely some people get competitive” but reassures me the group are still friends off camera.

Across the two seasons of the show, Jessi and Whitney have had challenging storylines play out – Whitney is presented as the villain in season one and at the end of season two it is alleged Jessi has had an affair.

The pair speak candidly about the impact having your life watched and commented on by millions of people worldwide has had on them.

“It’s been hard coming to terms with the fact we have no control over the narrative and you don’t ever really get over it,” Whitney explains. “But you have to accept that and let it go.”

As the show follows the lives of nine friends, it’s easy to see how some of them may create more drama for themselves in order to guarantee some screen time but Jessi insists that’s not the case and no one “plays up but naturally emotions are heightened”.

“We’re actually recording four or five days a week so we don’t know what will make the final edit.”

Jessi says her explosive Halloween party was not manufactured by producers and there is just “naturally so much drama that we don’t need to create more just for the show”.

Given the intensity of drama and filming demands, the presence of strong aftercare is essential and both women praise the production for its duty of care standards.

“There are always therapists on hand and at first I was like why are Taylor and Jen having therapy all the time and now I’m having five or six hours of it a week,” Jessi confesses. “I’ve found it’s useful even if you’re not going through a hard time.”

Whitney also accessed some aftercare in season one after being presented as the villain of the show.

“It totally sucked being the villain and I was angry, had a lot of resentment and was really sad. There were so many overwhelming emotions for me but I was proud that instead of running away I stayed and had those hard conversations I didn’t want to have,” Whitney says.

Whitney was one of the members of the MomTok group that Taylor Frankie Paul publicly revealed was involved in “soft swinging”, something she denies and caused a rift to form in their friendship.

The open discussions around sex, marital affairs and alcohol on the show has caused some backlash from the Mormon church.

“When the first trailer came out there was some backlash from the church because they were scared but actually we’re showing you how we live the Mormon life and we all live it differently,” Whitney says.

Jessi adds the docudrama shows how “we are all normal and everyday girls, not people wearing bonnets and churning butter like you might think”.

The women say that not only has the church come to accept the show, they are also helping young women think about their faith differently.

“We’ve definitely influenced people to question their faith, dive deeper into it or be more honest about it and I’ve had messages from some people saying that they’re joining the church because of me,” Jessi says.

While their religion plays an important part of their life, they’re keen to tell me that they are not the face of Mormonism.

“There are Mormons who still get upset about it but we’re just showing our version of it and I think that’s empowering as hopefully people can relate to our stories and struggles.”

Some 17,000 people have evacuated the Canadian province of Manitoba as fast-moving wildfires move across parts of the country.

A military aircraft and helicopters have been used to evacuate some residents in remote areas as firefighters face growing flames. Hot and dry weather is expected in the coming days.

Dense smoke from the fires – of which there are more than 188 according to officials – has spread across Canada and into parts of the US.

Both Saskatchewan and Manitoba have declared states of emergency for the next month and have asked for international help in fighting the fires.

In Saskatchewan, there are 17 wildfires burning as of Saturday, with eight classified as not contained. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) classified conditions in the province as extreme.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe warned at a Saturday news conference that the current figure of 8,000 fire evacuees could climb to 10,000 as dry weather conditions persist.

“The next four to seven days are absolutely critical until we can find our way to changing weather patterns, and ultimately a soaking rain throughout the north,” Mr Moe said.

Large parts of Alberta and British Columbia have also ordered evacuations as the fires spread.

The evacuation of residents of the northern First Nations community of Pukatawagan, is a “rapidly evolving situation”, a Manitoba official told the BBC on Saturday.

Canadian Armed Forces, Manitoba Wildfire Service and Manitoba’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team have been using a military aircraft and helicopters to bring people to safety from the northern community in Manitoba.

“The scale and complexity of these air evacuations cannot be overstated — and neither can the unwavering dedication of the teams executing them,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday.

In Flin Flon, a city of 5,000 in Manitoba, only firefighters and support workers are left in the town.

In Manitoba, there are a total of 25 active fires, according to the province’s fire situation report, with 11 classified as out of control.

Danielle Desjardins, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada based in Winnipeg, told the BBC that the forecast for both provinces is not promising.

While a cold front is expected to hit some parts of Saskatchewan, it will not bring relief to the regions where fires are burning.

“The bad news about this cold front is it’s going to be windy,” said Ms Desjardins, adding that the wind, coupled with the heat and lack of rain, are prime conditions for wildfire spread.

Smoke from the fires has also left an estimated 22 million Americans under air quality alerts this weekend.

In northern Minnesota, residents have been warned smoke could reach levels “unhealthy for everyone”, while the rest of the state faces air quality warnings for sensitive groups. That alert runs through Monday evening.

Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record in 2023, when more than 42 million acres (17.3m hectares) burned.

Fires happen naturally in many parts of the world, including in Canada.

But climate change is making the weather conditions needed for wildfires to spread more likely, according to the UN’s climate body.

Extreme and long-lasting heat draws more and more moisture out of the ground and vegetation.

Two Scottish men with links to a Glasgow-based criminal gang have been shot dead at a bar in Spain.

BBC Scotland understands they are Eddie Lyons Jnr and Ross Monaghan, who was previously acquitted of a notorious gangland murder.

They both died when a masked gunman opened fire at Monaghans Bar in Fuengirola in Andalucia on Saturday evening.

Local media reported the attack took place just after 23:00 when a car pulled up outside the crowded bar. The gunman then fled in the same vehicle.

Ross Monaghan was previously linked to the high-profile killing of one of Glasgow’s most feared gangland figures – Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll.

Carroll, an enforcer for the Daniel crime family, was shot 13 times as he sat in a car outside a supermarket in Robroyston, Glasgow, in 2010.

Monaghan was accused of the murder and of disposing of evidence after the killing, but was later acquitted due to a lack of evidence.

He was himself shot in the shoulder as he dropped off his daughter at a primary school in Glasgow in 2017.

He is reported to have moved to Spain at around this time.

Eddie Lyons Jnr had also previously been shot and wounded in an attack in 2006, believed to have been carried out by Carroll.

Police Scotland said it was unable to comment on a possible link to a recent gangland feud in Scotland and has directed inquiries to the Spanish authorities.

Rivalries between the Lyons and the Daniel crime families, resulting in numerous violent attacks, have been ongoing for more than 20 years.

But BBC journalist Guy Hedgecoe, based in Madrid, said there had been a number of other shootings in the Costa del Sol area in recent weeks, several of which are believed to be connected with drug crime.

Monaghans is located on the seafront and is a popular bar with tourists and expats.

The bar had been screening the UEFA Champions League final on the evening of the attack.

The Foreign Office said it had not been approached for any consular assistance but that its staff stood ready to assist any British nationals if required.

Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Met Gala debut last month left a lasting impression on global fashion.

The 41-year-old singer, who is the only Punjabi musician to perform at Coachella, walked the red carpet dressed like an early 20th Century maharajah.

His opulent ivory and gold ensemble – created by designer Prabal Gurung – complete with a feathered bejewelled turban, trended in India for weeks.

He also wore a gorgeous diamond necklace, its design inspired by a Cartier piece worn by an erstwhile king of the northern Indian state of Punjab.

A Panthère de Cartier watch, a lion-headed and a jewel-studded sword completed the ensemble, which had a map of Dosanjh’s home state embroidered on the back of the cape along with letters from Gurmukhi, the script for Punjabi language.

Of course, Dosanjh is no stranger to such style.

Just like his music, he’s carved out a niche in fashion too – a hip hop singer who is known for melding traditional Punjabi styles with Western influences.

Often seen in anti-fit trousers, chunky sneakers, and stacks of necklaces that he matches with his colourful turbans, his unique form of self-expression has captured the imagination of millions, leading to interesting reinventions in the traditional Punjabi attire.

The changes can be felt everywhere. A 16-minute high-intensity bhangra competition in California would be impossible without high performance sneakers. And basement bhangra nights in Berlin are enjoyed in crop tops and deconstructed pants.

Punjabi music itself, high on volume and energy – with lyrics packed with the names of cities and global luxury brands – has become a subculture.

It’s not just Dosanjh – several other Punjabi musicians have also influenced the region’s style game.

Not long ago, Punjabi-Canadian singer Jazzy B’s rings, often the size of a cookie, along with his plus-sized Kanda pendant and silver blonde hair tints, were trending.

More recently, the yellow tinted glasses worn by singer Badshah; the baggy hoodies sported by Yo Yo Honey Singh; and AP Dhillon’s Louis Vuitton bombers and Chanel watches have been hugely popular with Punjabi youth.

But even though their influence was significant, it was restricted to a region. Dosanjh and a few others like him, however, have managed to mount it to a global level, their style speaking to both the Sikh diaspora as well as a broader audience. For instance, the t-shirts, pearls and sneakers Dosanjh wore to his world tour last year were sold out in a matter of hours. Dhillon’s style statements at Paris Couture Week have created aspiration among Punjabi youth.

Cultural experts say that this reinvention, both in music and fashion, has its roots in Western pop-culture as most of the artistes live and perform in the West.

“Punjabi men are inventive. The region has been at the forefront of fusion, it believes in hybridity. This is especially the case with the Punjabi diaspora – even when they live in ghettos, they are the showmen [of their lives],” says art historian, author and museum curator Alka Pande.

Over the years, as the Punjabi diaspora community grew, a new generation of musicians began mixing modern hip-hop sounds with elements of traditional Punjabi aesthetics.

Their distinct style lexicon – of gold chains, faux fur jackets, plus-sized accessories, braids and beards – went on to spawn media articles, books and doctoral theses on South Asian culture.

The coin dropped instantly back home in Punjab, which absorbed logo fashion like a sponge when luxury brands arrived in the 2000s. For Punjabis – who are largely a farming community – it was an aspirational uprising, symbolic of how success and prosperity should look.

“It symbolised the movement of the Punjabi identity from a farmer to a global consumer,” says acclaimed singer Rabbi Shergill.

Arguing that performers, like everyone else, are a product of their times, Shergill says these impulses are “a response to the hyper capitalist world”.

Curiously, the style game of Punjabi musicians – from hip-hop, R&B, bhangra pop, fusion, Punjabi rap, reggae or filmy music – has also remained rooted and androgynous, instead of being hyper masculine.

A pop star may wear Balenciaga or Indian designer Manish Malhotra’s opulent creations; perform anywhere from Ludhiana city to London; dance with Beyonce around Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, atop a luxury car, or in a British mansion – but they always wear their Punjabi identity on their sleeves.

Dosanjh underlined this clearly with his maharajah look at the Met Gala. “It’s like the popularity of his androgynous style was waiting to happen,” Pande says.

The composite impact of this trend on emerging artists is unmissable today in Punjab.

Local Bhangra performances, for instance, are no longer limited to traditional “dhoti-kurta-koti” costume sets paired with juttis (ethnic footwear). Performance attire now includes sneakers, typographic T-shirts, deconstructed bottoms and even denims.

“Such items are highly sought after by customers,” says Harinder Singh, owner of the brand 1469.

The merchandise in Singh’s stores, includes accessories popularised by Punjab’s music stars, such as versions of Phulkari turbans worn by Dosanjh, Kanda pendants that were first popularised by veteran Bhangra artist Pammi Bai. Singh himself owns turbans in more than a 100 shades.

Even overall men’s style in Punjab bears some of this cosmopolitan twang.

Young poet Gurpreet Saini, who performs at cultural festivals across India, says he sources his shawls – printed with ombre Gurmukhi letters – from Hariana, his hometown in Punjab, for a distinctive look. He admits to the influence of music icons, including those like folk singer Gurdas Mann, who he grew up watching.

What began as personal flair in some cases, went on to become fashion statements. Now these choices are cultural signatures. They have recast the Punjabi identity through rhythm, hybridity as well as a rooted sense of self.

A British man has been indicted in the US for allegedly trying to smuggle “sensitive American military technology” to China, including missiles, air defence radar and drones.

John Miller, 63, and a Chinese man, Cui Guanghai, are wanted by the FBI on charges relating to conspiracy to commit interstate stalking and conspiracy, smuggling and violations of the Arms Control Act.

Mr Miller, a permanent US resident, and Mr Cui, 43, were both arrested in Serbia. They remain there and could now face extradition to the US.

The Foreign Office has confirmed it is providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in April and it is “in touch with the local authorities and his family”.

Court documents suggest the two men discussed ways of exporting a device that could be used for encryption and decryption. They are alleged to have paid a $10,000 (£7,430) deposit for the equipment.

Mr Miller and Mr Cui are also accused of trying to “harass” an anti-Chinese government protester, which included installing a tracking device on their car and slashing their tyres.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the pair of a “blatant assault” on US national security and its democratic values.

He added: “This Justice Department will not tolerate foreign repression on US soil, nor will we allow hostile nations to infiltrate or exploit our defence systems.”

If found guilty, Mr Miller could face up to 20 years in prison for violation of the Arms Export Control Act, and 10 years for smuggling.

Court documents detail how the men allegedly solicited the procurement of US defence articles, including missiles, air defence radar, drones and cryptographic devices for unlawful export to China.

Mr Cui and Mr Miller are said to have discussed with two individuals – identified as “Individual 5” and “Individual 6” in court documents – how to export a cryptographic device from the US to China.

Items the men allegedly discussed using to smuggle the technology include small electronics, a blender and a motor starter.

The indictment also alleges the pair enlisted two individuals in the US to carry out a plot that would have prevented a victim from protesting against Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit held in Los Angeles in November 2023.

Mr Miller and Mr Cui were unaware that those two individuals – identified in court documents as “Individual 1” and “Individual 2” – were acting at the direction of the FBI.

“The indictment alleges that Chinese foreign actors targeted a victim in our nation because he criticised the Chinese government and its president,” said US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California.

“My office will continue to use all legal methods available to hold accountable foreign nationals engaging in criminal activity on our soil.”

A similar scheme allegedly played out in the spring of 2025, when the alleged victim announced in a public video feed that he planned to unveil two new artistic statues that depicted Xi and his wife.

Mr Cui and Mr Miller paid two other individuals – identified in court documents as “Individual 3” and “Individual 4” – to try and dissuade the alleged victim from sharing his online display of statues.

Those individuals were paid $36,000 (£26,745), but the indictment notes that those two people were also affiliated with and acting at the direction of the FBI.

The two men remain in Serbia and the US is co-ordinating with Serbian officials regarding their pending extraditions.

“An indictment is merely an allegation,” the US Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California said in a statement. “All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”

The US has sent Iran a proposal for a nuclear deal between Tehran and Washington, the White House confirmed on Saturday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he had been presented with “elements of a US deal” by his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi during a short visit to the Iranian capital.

It comes after a report by the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had further stepped up its production of enriched uranium, a key component in the making of nuclear weapons.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday it was in Tehran’s “best interest to accept” the deal, adding: “President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb”.

Leavitt said a “detailed and acceptable” proposal had been sent to Iran by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The US proposal “will be appropriately responded to in line with the principles, national interests and rights of the people of Iran”, Araghchi wrote on X.

The precise details of the deal are not yet clear.

The proposal follows a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – seen by the BBC – which found Iran now possesses over 400kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity – close to the 90% purity required for weapons-grade uranium.

This is well above the level of purity sufficient for civilian nuclear power and research purposes.

It is enough for about 10 nuclear weapons if further refined, making Iran the only non nuclear-armed state producing uranium at this level.

The report paves the way for the US, Britain, France and Germany to push for the IAEA’s board of governors to find Iran in violation of its non-proliferation obligations.

Iran insists its programme is peaceful. On Saturday, Iranian state media described the IAEA report as “politically motivated” containing “baseless accusations”.

Iran has said it will “implement appropriate measures” in response to any effort to take action against Tehran at the IAEA governors’ meeting.

The US has long sought to limit Iran’s nuclear capacity. Talks between the two powers mediated by Oman have been under way since April.

Both sides have expressed optimism during the course of the talks but remain divided over key issues – chief among them, whether Iran can continue enrichment under any future agreement.

Despite the ongoing negotiations between Tehran and Washington, the IAEA report offered no indication that Iran has slowed its nuclear enrichment efforts.

Iran has produced highly enriched uranium at a rate equivalent to roughly one nuclear weapon per month over the past three months, the IAEA report found.

US officials estimate that, if Iran chooses to make a weapon, it could produce weapons-grade material in less than two weeks and potentially build a bomb within months.

Iran has long denied it is attempting to develop nuclear weapons. However, the IAEA said it could not confirm whether this was still the case because Iran refuses to grant access to senior inspectors and has not answered longstanding questions about its nuclear history.

Trump is seeking a new nuclear agreement with Tehran after pulling the US out of a previous nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers in 2018.

This nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, was signed in 2015 by Iran and the US, China, France, Russia, Germany and the UK.

The JCPOA sought to limit and monitor Iran’s nuclear programme in return for lifting sanctions that had been placed on the regime in 2010 over suspicions that its nuclear programme was being used to develop a bomb.

But Donald Trump withdrew from the deal during his first term in office, claiming JCPOA was a “bad deal” because it was not permanent and did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programme, amongst other things.

Trump then re-imposed US sanctions as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to compel Iran to negotiate a new and expanded agreement.

In the intervening years, Tehran has steadily overstepped the 2015 agreement’s limits on its nuclear programme, designed to make it harder to develop an atomic bomb.

Trump has previously threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to achieve a deal.

Two bridges have collapsed overnight in separate incidents in Russian regions bordering Ukraine, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens more.

State media said the collapses were being probed as “acts of terrorism”.

A road bridge came down in Bryansk, bringing several heavy trucks onto a moving passenger train late on Saturday, the regional governor said.

At least seven people were killed and at least 71 were injured, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

Hours later another bridge collapsed in the Zheleznogorsk district of Kursk, derailing a locomotive train, acting governor Alexander Khinshtein said.

The train caught fire and a driver suffered injuries to his legs, Khinshtein said.

Khinshtein wrote on Telegram in the aftermath: “The cause of the bridge collapse will be established. All emergency services are working on the scene. I am keeping the situation under control.”

Moscow Railway alleged on Telegram that the Bryansk bridge came down as a result of “illegal interference”.

A Ukrainian national security official said the incidents were Russian “false flag” operations, designed to “manipulate international opinion” ahead of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey on Monday.

Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, accused Russia of “laying the groundwork to derail the negotiations”.

He added Ukraine had “absolutely no incentive to sabotage the Istanbul summit”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the incidents throughout the night, the Kremlin said.

Pictures online from Bryansk showed mangled carriages and passengers helping each other climb out of the wreckage in the dark.

Moscow’s interregional transport prosecutor’s office said an investigation had been launched.

Authorities said the train’s locomotive and several cars derailed when the road bridge fell on to it.

Additional emergency workers, as well as rescue equipment and light towers for carrying out work at night have been sent to the area, according to Russian news agency TASS.

The train was going from the town of Klimovo to Moscow and was in the Vygonichsky district when the collapse happened, officials said.

Passengers were evacuated and guided to a meeting point at a nearby station, Moscow Railway said, adding: “They will be able to continue their journey on a specially formed reserve train” travelling from Bryansk to Moscow.

The first incident took place about 100km (62 miles) from the Ukraine border.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force said seven regions were hit by intense Russian strikes overnight on Saturday, with a total of 472 UAV and drone attacks and seven missile strikes.

The defence review will send a “message to Moscow”, the defence secretary has said, as he warned Russia was launching cyber-attacks on UK military networks “every day”.

John Healey told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the review would set out plans to deter “growing Russian aggression” in a “world that is changing”.

The report, to be unveiled on Monday, is expected to conclude the UK faces a “new era of threat” and will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and other countries, including China.

It will also commit £1.5bn to build six new factories to make munitions, in a bid to revive Britain’s industrial base.

The new funding will see UK munitions spending hit £6bn during this parliament, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said, and create 1,800 new jobs.

As part of its defence review, the government said it would build new factories to make key munitions and explosives to have an “always on” munitions production capacity that could be scaled up quickly.

Long-range weapons including drones and missiles would be procured over several years.

Ministers said the extra investment – which came after Healey said that UK defence spending would rise to 3% of GDP by 2034 at the latest – would strengthen the armed forces and boost British jobs.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted serious deficiencies in the West’s ability to produce weapons and munitions, and senior British military officers have long warned about the UK’s depleted stockpiles.

On a visit to a factory in Stevenage on Saturday, where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons.

He added: “This is a message to Moscow as well. This is Britain standing behind making our Armed Forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight if required.”

Senior Western military chiefs have long been warning the UK would quickly run out of ammunition in the event of a war.

In 2021, the former head of the US Army in Europe, Gen Ben Hodges, told MPs in a simulated wargame most of the British army’s inventory was exhausted after just eight days.

The former head of the British army, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, has also been calling for the UK to boost weapons production.

He recently said the army’s diminished stocks of artillery rounds and missiles “would put hairs on the back of your neck”.

The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, which has assessed the capabilities and equipment that would be needed by the UK’s armed forces in the coming years.

Healey said cyber attacks from Russia were taking place “every day” as part of 90,000 attacks on the UK’s military networks from adversaries in the last two years.

In the run-up to Monday’s announcement, the government has already confirmed the review will recommend a new “cyber and electromagnetic command” to lead the UK’s defensive cyber operations.

Alongside the existing National Cyber Force, it will also play a role in offensive operations – including degrading opponents’ command systems, jamming signals sent to drones or missiles, and intercepting military communications.

However, Healey suggested the overall size of the army might not begin rising again until after the next general election, adding his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers under the previous government.

He added that he then hoped an army target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers would be met “in the next Parliament”.

Sir Keir Starmer has committed the government to spending 2.5% of the UK’s national income on defence by 2027, up from 2.3% currently.

Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said he welcomed the government’s commitment to get to 2.5% – but added that the Tories wanted to see the higher 3% target met before the election.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Labour’s target to eventually hit 3% spending by 2034 was “far too late” and showed a “complete lack of urgency”.

Healey declined to comment on reports the UK was considering buying American-made combat aircraft capable of firing “tactical” nuclear weapons, which are less powerful than conventional bombs.

According to the Sunday Times, the government is in talks with the US over the move, which would expand Britain’s nuclear capabilities after it moved to a submarine-based system after the Cold War.

Healey said he would not “get into the sort of discussions that need to remain private” – but argued that maintaining a nuclear capability provided the UK with the “ultimate guarantee of security” and was what “[Vladimir] Putin fears most”.

Sir Simon Case, the UK’s former top civil servant, said having an additional means to launch nuclear weapons would give the UK additional “resilience and flexibility”.

He added that the UK was “unusual” among nuclear powers in relying on a single launch method, adding that most had a “number of different systems”.

It’s hard to exaggerate the sheer audacity – or ingenuity – that went into Ukraine’s countrywide assault on Russia’s air force.

We cannot possibly verify Ukrainian claims that the attacks resulted in $7bn (£5.2bn) of damage, but it’s clear that “Operation Spider’s Web” was, at the very least, a spectacular propaganda coup.

Ukrainians are already comparing it with other notable military successes since Russia’s full-scale invasion, including the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Moskva, and the bombing of the Kerch Bridge, both in 2022, as well as a missile attack on Sevastopol harbour the following year.

Judging by details leaked to the media by Ukraine’s military intelligence, the SBU, the latest operation is the most elaborate achievement so far.

In an operation said to have taken 18 months to prepare, scores of small drones were smuggled into Russia, stored in special compartments aboard freight trucks, driven to at least four separate locations, thousands of miles apart, and launched remotely towards nearby airbases.

“No intelligence operation in the world has done anything like this before,” defence analyst Serhii Kuzan told Ukrainian TV.

“These strategic bombers are capable of launching long-range strikes against us,” he said. “There are only 120 of them and we struck 40. That’s an incredible figure.”

It is hard to assess the damage, but Ukrainian military blogger Oleksandr Kovalenko says that even if the bombers, and command and control aircraft were not destroyed, the impact is enormous.

“The extent of the damage is such that the Russian military-industrial complex, in its current state, is unlikely to be able to restore them in the near future,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.

The strategic missile-carrying bombers in question, the Tu-95, Tu-22, and Tu-160 are, he said, no longer in production. Repairing them will be difficult, replacing them impossible.

The loss of the supersonic Tu-160, he said, would be especially keenly felt.

“Today, the Russian Aerospace Forces lost not just two of their rarest aircraft, but truly two unicorns in the herd,” he wrote.

Beyond the physical damage, which may or may not be as great as analysts here are assessing, Operation Spider’s Web sends another critical message, not just to Russia but also to Ukraine’s western allies.

My colleague Svyatoslav Khomenko, writing for the BBC Ukrainian Service website, recalls a recent encounter with a government official in Kyiv.

The official was frustrated.

“The biggest problem,” the official told Svyatoslav, “is that the Americans have convinced themselves we’ve already lost the war. And from that assumption everything else follows.”

Ukrainian defence journalist Illia Ponomarenko, posting on X, puts it another way, with a pointed reference to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s infamous Oval office encounter with Donald Trump.

“This is what happens when a proud nation under attack doesn’t listen to all those: ‘Ukraine has only six months left’. ‘You have no cards’. ‘Just surrender for peace, Russia cannot lose’.”

• Ukraine drones strike bombers during major attack in Russia

Even more pithy was a tweet from the quarterly Business Ukraine journal, which proudly proclaimed “It turns out Ukraine does have some cards after all. Today Zelensky played the King of Drones.”

This, then, is the message Ukrainian delegates carry as they arrive in Istanbul for a fresh round of ceasefire negotiations with representatives from the Kremlin: Ukraine is still in the fight.

The Americans “begin acting as if their role is to negotiate for us the softest possible terms of surrender,” the government official told Svyatoslav Khomenko.

“And then they’re offended when we don’t thank them. But of course we don’t – because we don’t believe we’ve been defeated.”

Despite Russia’s slow, inexorable advance through the battlefields of the Donbas, Ukraine is telling Russia, and the Trump administration, not to dismiss Kyiv’s prospects so easily.

Ukraine says it completed its biggest long-range attack of the war with Russia on Sunday, after using smuggled drones to launch a series of major strikes on 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones were used in the so-called “Spider’s Web” operation by the SBU security service, striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.

SBU sources earlier told BBC News it took a year-and-a-half to organise the strikes, which involved drones hidden in wooden mobile cabins, with remotely operated roofs on trucks, brought near the airbases and then fired “at the right time”.

Russia confirmed Ukrainian attacks in five regions calling them a “terrorist act”.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported a massive overnight drone and missile attack on its territory.

All this comes as Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are heading to Istanbul, Turkey, for a second round of peace talks on Monday.

Expectations are low, as the two warring sides remain far apart on how to end the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula annexed in 2014.

• Ukraine’s audacious drone attack sends critical message to Russia – and the West

In several posts on social media late on Sunday, Zelensky said he congratulated SBU head Vasyl Maliuk with the “absolutely brilliant result” of the operation.

He said that each of the 117 drones launched had its own pilot.

“The most interesting thing – and we can already say this publicly – is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located right next to the FSB of Russia in one of their regions,” the Ukrainian president said.

The FSB is Russia’s powerful state security service.

Zelensky also said that all the people involved in the operation had been safely “led away” from Russia before the strikes.

The SBU estimated the damage to Russia’s strategic aviation was worth about $7bn (£5bn), promising to unveil more details soon.

The Ukrainian claims have not been independently verified.

Sources in the SBU earlier on Sunday told the BBC in a statement that four Russian airbases – two of which are thousands of miles from Ukraine – were hit:

• Belaya in Irkutsk oblast (region), Siberia
• Olenya in Murmansk oblast, Russia’s extreme north-west
• Dyagilevo in central Ryazan oblast
• Ivanovo in central Ivanovo oblast

The SBU sources said that among the hit Russian aircraft were strategic nuclear capable bombers called Tu-95 and Tu-22M3, as well as A-50 early warning warplanes.

They described the whole operation as “extremely complex logistically”.

“The SBU first smuggled FPV drones into Russia, followed later by mobile wooden cabins. Once on Russian territory, the drones were hidden under the roofs of these cabins, which had been placed on cargo vehicles,” the sources said.

“At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones took off to strike the Russian bombers.”

Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev confirmed drones that attacked the Belaya military base in Sredniy, Siberia, were launched from a truck.

Kobzev posted on Telegram to say that the launch site had been secured and there was no threat to life.

Russian media outlets have also reported that other attacks were similarly started with drones emerging from the lorries.

One user is heard saying that the drones were flying out of a Kamaz truck near a petrol station.

Russian media were reporting the attack in Murmansk but said air defences were working. The attack in Irkutsk was also being reported.

In a post on social media later on Sunday, the Russian defence ministry confirmed that airbases in the country’s five regions were attack.

It claimed that “all attacks were repelled” on military airbases in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The latter base was not mentioned by the SBU sources.

In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, “several aircraft caught fire” after drones were launched from nearby areas, the ministry said.

It said all the blazes were extinguished and there were no casualties. “Some of the participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained,” it added.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities say 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles were involved in a wave of attacks on Ukraine last night.

This would appear to be one of the largest single Russian drone attacks so far. Ukraine says it “neutralised” 385 aerial targets.

In a separate development, Ukraine’s land forces said 12 of its military personnel were killed and more than 60 injured in a Russian missile strike on a training centre.

Ukraine’s head of land forces, Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi, tendered his resignation shortly afterwards.

He said his decision was “dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy”.

Australia’s defence minister Richard Marles has called on China to explain why it needs to have “such an extraordinary military build-up”.

He said Beijing needs to provide greater transparency and reassurance as it is the “fundamental issue” for the region.

Meanwhile, the Philippines defence minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr has called China “absolutely irresponsible and reckless” in its actions in the South China Sea.

The ministers had separately addressed reporters on the sidelines of an Asian defence summit held in Singapore.

China has yet to respond to either Marles or Teodoro.

Organised by the think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Shangri-la Dialogue has traditionally been anchored by the US and China, which have been jostling for power in the region.

This year China has sent a lower-level delegation and scrapped its speech. In the absence of a strong Chinese presence, the dialogue has been dominated by criticism and questions of Beijing posed by the US and its allies.

On Sunday morning, Marles asserted that “what we have seen from China is the single biggest increase in military capability and build up in conventional sense, by any country since the end of the Second World War”.

It is not just the size of the military build-up that concerns other countries, he told reporters.

“It’s the fact that it is happening without strategic reassurance. It’s happening without a clear strategic intent on the part of China… what we want to see is strategic transparency and strategic reassurance be provided by China, and an understanding of why it is needed to have such an extraordinary military build-up.”

He cited Australia as an example of such transparency, noting that Canberra makes public its national defence strategy and defence reviews, and makes it “utterly clear” that when they build up their defences it is for Australia and Asia’s security.

“So there is total strategic clarity and assurance that is being provided by Australia to our neighbours, to the region, to the world. That’s what we would like to see,” he said.

Answering a question on a highly-scrutinised Chinese military exercise conducted near Australia and New Zealand’s waters in February, Marles said that while it was “disruptive, and we believe that it could have been done in a better way”, ultimately “China was acting in accordance with international law”.

“The guiding light, the bedrock here, needs to be compliance with international law. That’s what we keep talking about, is the rules-based order.”

Marles was also asked about Hegseth’s call for Indo-Pacific partners to increase defence spending as a bulwark against the threat of China.

Marles said “we actually are taking steps down this path… we understand it, we’re up for it.” US President Donald Trump has called on Australia to increase its spending to 3%, but Canberra has yet to publicly commit to that number.

Marles added that part of that spending would come under Aukus, a pact among Australia, the UK and the US to build up a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

He said projects under the pact were “on track” and he was “very optimistic” about the progress, including more visits of American submarines to Australia and rotations through a Perth-based navy base.

In a separate interview with the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner, the Philippines defence minister Teodoro said China has been “absolutely irresponsible and reckless in appropriating most, if not all, of the South China Sea and the world cannot tolerate this.”

The two countries have repeatedly clashed over competing claims in the South China Sea, and the Philippines has complained of aggressive and violent tactics by the Chinese coast guard.

He echoed the call for a preservation of the international order, saying that “the takeaway of a lot of defence ministers is that Europe and the US must continue to lead” on this.

“That was the call of the Philippines. That is the call of Lithuania, Latvia, the smaller countries who have a way of life that values freedom and dignity of the human being.”

“And with a way of life that we don’t want the deep state looking over our shoulders or being scared of what we say,” he said, referring to China.

On Saturday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had warned of China’s “imminent” threat towards Taiwan and accused Beijing of becoming a “hegemonic power” in the region.

China has vigorously attacked Hegseth in two separate statements, with the latest posted on its Foreign Ministry website early on Sunday.

It said that Hegseth had “vilified China with defamatory allegations, and falsely called China a ‘threat’.

“No country in the world deserves to be called a hegemonic power other than the US itself, who is also the primary factor undermining the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”

Earlier in the defence summit, French President Emmanuel Macron had made a pitch for Europe to be a new ally to Asia.

China also responded to Macron, who had compared the defence of Taiwan to the defence of Ukraine, and said the comparison was “unacceptable” as the “Taiwan question is entirely China’s affair”.

China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to eventually “reunify” with it.

Members of the Western alliance Nato need to prepare for a possible attack from Russia within the next four years, according to Germany’s chief of defence.

General Carsten Breuer told the BBC that Russia was producing hundreds of tanks a year, many of which could be used for an attack on Nato Baltic state members by 2029 or even earlier.

He also insisted that Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, remains unified over the war in Ukraine, despite differences of opinion expressed recently by both Hungary and Slovakia.

Gen Breuer was speaking on the sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue, a defence summit in Singapore organised by the think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies.

His comments come weeks ahead of a summit of Nato nations at The Hague where they are expected to discuss defence budgets, among other topics.

Gen Breuer said that Nato was facing “a very serious threat” from Russia, one that he has never seen before in his 40 years in service.

At the moment, he said, Russia was building up its forces to an “enormous extent”, producing approximately 1,500 main battle tanks every year.

“Not every single tank is going to [the war in] Ukraine, but it’s also going in stocks and into new military structures always facing the West,” he said.

Russia also produced four million rounds of 152mm artillery munition in 2024, and not all of it was going to Ukraine either, added Gen Breuer.

The figures come from German and allied nations’ analysts.

“There’s an intent and there’s a build up of the stocks” for a possible future attack on Nato’s Baltic state members, he said.

“This is what the analysts are assessing – in 2029. So we have to be ready by 2029… If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029? I would say no, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight,” he said.

Many have long feared an attack on a Nato state as it could trigger a larger war between Russia and the US, which is a key member of Nato. Under Article 5 of the Nato agreement, any attack on a member state would mean other members must come to its defence.

Gen Breuer singled out the so-called Suwalki Gap, an area that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, as one of the most vulnerable.

“The Baltic States are really exposed to the Russians, right? And once you are there, you really feel this… in the talks we are having over there,” he said.

The Estonians, he said, had given the analogy of being close to a wildfire where they “feel the heat, see the flames and smell the smoke”, while in Germany “you probably see a little bit of smoke over the horizon and not more”.

Gen Breuer said this showed the differing perspectives among European states of the threat of a possible Russian attack.

Russia’s view of the Ukraine war was different from the West’s, he said, where Moscow sees the war as more of a “continuum” in a larger conflict with Nato and is therefore “trying to find ways into our defence lines and it’s testing it”.

He cited recent attacks on undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, cyber attacks on European public transport, and unidentified drones spotted over German power stations and other infrastructure.

Nato members should therefore build up their militaries again, Gen Breuer argued. “What we have to do now is really to lean in and to tell everybody, hey, ramp up… get more into it because we need it. We need it to be able to defend ourselves and therefore also to build up deterrence.”

Asked by the BBC about Nato cohesion, given Hungary and Slovakia’s closer relations with Moscow, Gen Breuer insisted the alliance was still healthy.

He pointed to Finland and Sweden’s decisions to join Nato shortly after the Ukraine war began. “I’ve never seen such a unity like it is now” among nations and military leaders, he said.

“All of them understand the threat that is at the moment approaching Nato, all understand that we have to develop a direction of deterrence, into the direction of collective defence. This is clear to everyone. The urgency is seen.”

Gen Breuer’s remarks are yet another sign of a significant change in attitudes in Germany towards defence and Russia.

Like many Western nations, including the UK, it has scaled down its investments in its military over many years.

But there has been a growing recognition of the need to reverse this, with even the Green Party coming onboard a recent vote to lift restrictions on Germany’s defence spending.

But as Western military and political leaders say they are ready for the fight, questions remain on whether this is a case of ambition outpacing reality.

It will take years for Europe’s military industrial base to crank up to speed to match anywhere near the scale of weaponry that Russia is churning out.

The US has also been drawing down, not building up, its defence commitments to Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific.

The UK will build up to 12 new attack submarines, the prime minister will announce as the government unveils its major defence review on Monday.

The review is expected to recommend the armed forces move to “warfighting readiness” to deter growing threats faced by the UK.

Sir Keir Starmer will say up to 12 conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines will replace the UK’s current fleet from the late 2030s onwards.

The prime minister is also expected to confirm the UK will spend £15bn on its nuclear warhead programme.

Sir Keir will say that, alongside the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines, the new vessels would keep “Britain and Nato safe for decades”.

The Strategic Defence Review, commissioned by Labour, will shape the UK’s armed forces for years to come.

Led by ex-Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson it will make 62 recommendations, which the government is expected to accept in full.

Other announcements in the review will include:

• Commitment to £1.5bn to build six new factories to enable an “always on” munitions production capacity
• Building up to 7,000 long-range weapons including missiles or drones in the UK, to be used by British forces
• Pledge to set up a “cyber and electromagnetic command” to boost the military’s defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace
• Extra £1.5bn to 2029 to fund repairs to military housing
• £1bn on technology to speed up delivery of targeting information to soldiers

Defence Secretary John Healey has signalled he is not aiming to increase the overall size of the Army before the next general election.

On Sunday, he said his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers with a target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers “in the next Parliament”.

Building the new submarines will support 30,000 jobs into the 2030s as well as 30,000 apprenticeships and 14,000 graduate roles across the next 10 years, the Ministry of Defence said.

Healey said: “Our outstanding submariners patrol 24/7 to keep us and our allies safe, but we know that threats are increasing and we must act decisively to face down Russian aggression.”

The Astute class is the Royal Navy’s current fleet of attack submarines, which have nuclear-powered engines and are armed with conventional torpedoes and missiles.

As well as protecting maritime task groups and gathering intelligence, they protect the Vanguard class of submarines that carry the UK’s trident nuclear missiles.

In the Astute series, HMS Agamemnon, was launched last October and another is under construction which will take the number of submarines in this class to seven.

The next generation of attack submarines that will replace them, SSN-AUKUS, have been developed with the Australian Navy under a deal agreed in 2023 by the Conservative government.

Meanwhile work on modernising the warheads carried by Trident Missiles is already under way.

The £15bn investment into the warhead programme will back the government’s commitments to maintain the continuous-at-sea nuclear deterrent.

In his announcement on Monday, Sir Keir is to repeat a Labour manifesto commitment to deliver the Dreadnought class of nuclear-armed submarines, which are due to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet from the early 2030s onwards.

The MoD’s Defence Nuclear Enterprise accounts for 20% of its budget and includes the cost of building four Dreadnought class submarines.

Commitments on military spending come against the background of the government’s wider review of departmental spending due later this month and have also taken on renewed importance given the Ukraine war, and pressure from Nato and US President Donald Trump for European countries to step up defence spending.

Sir Keir has committed the government to spending 2.5% of the UK’s national income on defence by 2027, up from 2.3%, but has faced pressure to commit to 3%.

Healey said the target will be hit by 2034 but the Conservatives say the threshold should be hit earlier. The Liberal Democrats have also argued for a 3% spending target.

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said Labour’s review should be “taken with a pinch of salt” unless the government showed there would be enough money to pay for it.

Head of NATO, Mark Rutte has called on allies to spend 3.5% of its GDP on defence, with a further 1.5% on defence related expenditure.

The government has said it wants Britain to be the leading European nation within the NATO alliance but that might prove difficult when a significant number of allies exceed the UK’s military spending.

It says its review will reverse decades of underinvestment in Britain’s armed forces. But it remains to be seen if the investment will be enough.

The ambitions of past defence reviews have rarely been matched by resources.

Two people have died and hundreds have been arrested across France after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) fans celebrated the club’s victory in the Champions League final, according to the French interior ministry.

In the south-west town of Dax, a 17-year-old boy died after being stabbed in the chest late on Saturday evening, local media reported.

A 23-year-old man who was riding a scooter in central Paris was also killed after being hit by a vehicle, the prosecutor’s office said.

Flares and fireworks were set off, bus shelters smashed and cars torched amid wild celebrations as PSG won the biggest prize in European club football for the first time in their history.

PSG condemned the violence in a statement, adding that these “isolated acts are contrary to the club’s values and in no way represent the vast majority of our supporters”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the clashes were “unacceptable” and unjustifiable, and that those involved will be found and punished.

The club’s victory parade in central Paris went ahead on Sunday afternoon despite the clashes, but with an increased police and military presence on the ground.

Police set a cap of 100,000 fans for the event, which saw PSG make their way down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe on an open-top bus.

A second commemoration is currently taking place at the club’s home stadium, Parc des Princes, with thousands of fans invited to celebrate their win.

France’s interior ministry said 192 people were injured in the clashes in the early hours of Sunday and 559 people arrested, including 491 in Paris.

Twenty-two police officers and seven firefighters were injured, the ministry said, adding that 264 vehicles were set on fire.

One of the officers was injured by a firework amidst the chaos and had to be put in an induced coma – with Macron later saying the officer had travelled to a different city to help with policing efforts.

Paris police prefect Laurent Nuñez said: “The toll is lower than what we have seen in the past, but we will never get used to this kind of abuse, with people who only came to commit acts of vandalism and who did not even watch the match, and we will always have a very firm response.”

Nuñez said police expect there to be further clashes on Sunday, but added that supporters “shouldn’t be mixed up with gangs of looters and vandals”.

Separately, the Paris Prosecutor’s Office told the BBC “several shops were looted” in the Place des Ternes area. About 30 people were arrested and taken into custody near a Foot Locker on the Champs-Élysées that was robbed, the office said.

Elsewhere across France, Dax mayor Julien Dubois, reacting to the fatal stabbing, said his “thoughts are with the young victim, his family and friends”.

“We are floored by all the drama tonight,” he wrote on social media. “It is advisable to quickly shed light on these facts in order to severely punish the perpetrator.”

While clashes broke out near the city’s Champs-Élysées avenue and PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, the majority of fans celebrated PSG’s 5-0 win over Inter Milan peacefully, with many singing and dancing in the streets or blaring their car horns.

The Eiffel Tower was illuminated with PSG’s blue and red colours.

Macron, a keen supporter of rivals Olympique de Marseille, posted on X: “A glorious day for PSG! Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”

The president hosted a ceremony for PSG at the Élysée Palace after Sunday’s parade and congratulated coach Luis Enrique and his team on their victory.

Approximately 5,400 police were deployed across Paris in anticipation of the raucous celebrations.

At least 300 people detained were suspected of possessing fireworks and causing disorder, Paris police said.

“Troublemakers on the Champs-Elysees were looking to create incidents and repeatedly came into contact with police by throwing large fireworks and other objects,” police said in a statement.

Riot police reportedly used a water cannon to stop a crowd reaching the Arc de Triomphe, and fired tear gas into the crowds.

Other clashes between police and crowds occurred on the Paris ring road. At least two cars were torched near the Parc des Princes.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau took a hard line against the disorder, writing on social media: “True PSG supporters are enjoying their team’s magnificent match.

“Meanwhile, barbarians have taken to the streets of Paris to commit crimes and provoke the police.

“It’s unbearable that it’s unthinkable to party without fearing the savagery of a minority of thugs who respect nothing.”

Meanwhile, outside Paris, police said a car ploughed into PSG fans in Grenoble in south-east France, leaving four people injured.

All those hurt were from the same family, police said. Two were seriously injured.

The driver handed himself into the police and was placed under arrest. A source close to the investigation told the AFP news agency it was believed the driver had not acted intentionally.

It’s a grim paradox, doctors say.

On the one hand, antibiotics are being overused until they no longer work, driving resistance and fuelling the rise of deadly superbugs. On the other hand, people are dying because they can’t access these life-saving drugs.

A new study by the non-profit Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) looked at access to antibiotics for nearly 1.5 million cases of carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative (CRGN) infections across eight major low- and middle-income countries, including India, Brazil and South Africa. CRGN bacteria are superbugs resistant to last-line antibiotics – yet only 6.9% of patients received appropriate treatment in the countries studied.

India bore the lion’s share of CRGN infections and treatment efforts, procuring 80% of the full courses of studied antibiotics but managing to treat only 7.8% of its estimated cases, the study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal reports. (A full drug course of antibiotics refers to the complete set of doses that a patient needs to take over a specific period to fully treat an infection.)

Common in water, food, the environment and the human gut, Gram-negative bacteria cause infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia and food poisoning.

They can pose a serious threat to newborns and the elderly alike. Especially vulnerable are hospital patients with weakened immunity, often spreading rapidly in ICUs and proving difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat. Treating carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections is doubly difficult because those bacteria are resistant to some of the most powerful antibiotics.

“These infections are a daily reality across all age groups,” says Dr Abdul Gaffar, infectious disease consultant at Apollo Hospital in India’s Chennai city. “We often see patients for whom no antibiotic works – and they die.”

The irony is cruel. While the world tries to curb antibiotic overuse, a parallel tragedy plays out quietly in poorer nations: people dying from treatable infections because the right drugs are out of reach.

“For years, the dominant narrative has been that antibiotics are being overused, but the stark reality is that many people with highly drug-resistant infections in low- and middle-income countries are not getting access to the antibiotics they need,” says Dr Jennifer Cohn, GARDP’s Global Access Director and senior author of the study.

• India’s ‘blockbuster’ drugs to take on deadly superbugs
• India facing a pandemic of antibiotics-resistant superbugs

The study examined eight intravenous drugs active against carbapenem-resistant bacteria – ranging from older antibiotics including Colistin to newer ones such as Ceftazidime-avibactam. Of the few available drugs, Tigecycline was the most widely used.

Researchers blame the treatment gap on weak health systems and limited access to effective antibiotics.

For example, only 103,647 full treatment courses were procured of Tigecycline across eight countries – far short of the 1.5 million patients who needed them, the study found. This highlighted a major shortfall in the global response to drug-resistant infections.

What prevents patients with drug-resistant infections in India from getting the right antibiotics?

Physicians point to multiple barriers – reaching the right health facility, getting accurate diagnostic tests, and accessing effective drugs. Cost remains a major hurdle, with many of these antibiotics priced far beyond the reach of poorer patients.

“Those who can afford these antibiotics often overuse them; those who can’t, don’t get them at all,” says Dr Gaffar. “We need a system that ensures access for the poor and prevents misuse by the well-to-do.”

To improve access, these drugs must be made more affordable. To prevent misuse, stronger regulation is key.

“Ideally, every antibiotic prescription in hospitals should require a second sign-off – by an infection specialist or microbiologist,” says Dr Gaffar. “Some hospitals do this, but most don’t. With the right oversight, regulators can ensure this becomes standard practice.”

To fix the access problem and curb misuse, both smarter policies and stronger safeguards are essential, say researchers. But access alone won’t solve the crisis – the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. The decline in antibiotic R&D – and the limited availability of existing drugs – is a global issue.

India bears one of the world’s heaviest burdens of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), but it may also hold the key to combating it – both at home and globally, researchers say.

“India is also one of the largest markets for new antibiotics and can successfully advocate for the development and access of new antibiotics,” says Dr Cohn. With a strong pharmaceutical base, the country is emerging as a hub for AMR innovation, from promising new antibiotics to advanced diagnostics.

Dr Cohn says India can strengthen its antibiotic response by generating local data to better estimate needs and pinpoint gaps in the care pathway.

This would allow for more targeted interventions to improve access to the right drugs.

Innovative models are already emerging – Kerala state, for instance, is using a “hub-and-spoke approach” to support lower-level facilities in managing serious infections. Coordinated or pooled procurement across hospitals or states could also reduce the cost of newer antibiotics, as seen with cancer drug programs, researchers say.

Without access to the right antibiotics, modern medicine begins to unravel – doctors risk losing the ability to safely perform surgery, treat complications in cancer patients, or manage everyday infections.

“As an infectious disease doctor, I see appropriate use as one part – but only one part – of access,” says Dr Gaffar. “When we get new antibiotics, it’s important to save them on one hand – and save them for right patients.”

Clearly, the challenge is not just to use antibiotics wisely, but to ensure they reach those who need them most.

A second exit poll in Poland’s presidential election has indicated that conservative historian Karol Nawrocki is ahead with 50.7% of the vote over Warsaw’s liberal mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski with 49.3%.

The second exit poll sensationally overturned the result of an exit poll published immediately after voting ended that put Trzaskowski ahead with a narrow lead of 50.3% to Nawrocki’s 49.7%.

The official result is due to be published on Monday morning, the head of the state electoral commission said.

Trzaskowski had already claimed victory after the first exit poll indicated he was the winner.

“We won,” he said. “We won, although the phrase ‘razor’s edge’ will forever enter the Polish language and politics,” he added.

His wife, Malgorzata, jokingly told the crowd, “I’m close to having a heart attack”.

Trzaskowski promised to reach out to voters who supported his opponent. I will be a president for all Polish women and men,” he said.

Nawrocki, meanwhile, told his supporters after the result of the first exit poll that it was too close to call.

“Let’s not lose hope for this night. We will win during the night, the difference is minimal. I believe that we will wake up tomorrow with President Karol Nawrocki,” he said.

Poland’s president is a largely ceremonial role with limited influence on foreign policy and defence, but they can veto legislation and Donald Tusk’s pro-EU coalition government lacks a big enough parliamentary majority to overturn it.

The current conservative incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, has used his powers to prevent Prime Minister Tusk delivering key campaign promises including removing political influence from the judiciary and liberalising the country’s strict abortion law.

If Trzaskowski’s victory is confirmed that obstacle would be removed and would allow Tusk to cement Poland’s place in the European mainstream.

However, Tusk also faces opposition from within his own coalition from the conservative Peoples’ Party on issues including abortion and legalising civil partnerships.

A victory for national conservative Karol Nawrocki, who is supported by opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, would mean continued conflict between the government and president.

It would also re-energise PiS, which lost power 18 months ago, giving the party the belief that it can go on to win parliamentary elections in 2027.

Both candidates support continued assistance for neighbouring Ukraine, although Nawrocki has said he opposes its entry into Nato and the EU for now while Russia continues its war of aggression.

Both men differ over their approach to the EU. Trzaskowski, a former Europe minister, supports Tusk’s vision of a Poland at the heart of the European mainstream, influencing decisions through strong relations with Germany and France.

A deputy leader of Tusk’s Civic Platform, he has served as Warsaw mayor since 2018.

He’s the son of a famous Polish jazz pianist, speaks several languages and is viewed by some voters as a member of the country’s liberal elite who is out of touch with ordinary Poles.

According to the CBOS polling company, Trzaskowski’s typical voter is aged 30-40 years old, is relatively well off with left-liberal views and is open to LGBTQ+ and migrants’ rights. They tend to live in large cities and have positive views of the EU.

Some voters said he tried to “artificially” present himself as a candidate who values patriotism. During the campaign, he has taken a much tougher line against illegal migration, something Tusk started to do before winning power in 2023 and he has volunteered to do basic military training.

Nawrocki, 42, supports a strong sovereign Poland and does not want the country to cede any more powers to Brussels. He opposes the EU’s climate and migration policies. He’s a conservative Catholic that prioritises traditional family values.

He was relatively unknown nationally before he was selected by opposition party PiS to be their “unofficial” candidate.

A keen amateur boxer and footballer, he often posted images of himself working out, allowing PiS to present him as a strong candidate who would stand up for ordinary Poles and the country’s national interests.

A fan of President Donald Trump, he flew to Washington during the campaign for an extremely brief meeting to get a thumbs-up photo of himself with the American president in the Oval Office.

During the campaign he was attacked by the government and media for being morally unfit to be the country’s president, but the allegations did not diminish his support during the last week of campaigning.

During a presidential debate, Nawrocki said that he, like most Poles, owned one apartment. That turned out to be a lie.

Nawrocki was accused of taking advantage of a vulnerable senior citizen to acquire his council flat at a huge discount in exchange for promises of care that were unfulfilled. Following the scandal, Nawrocki said he would donate the flat to charity but always denied the accusation.

Polish news website Onet.pl accused Nawrocki of helping to arrange sex workers for guests at the luxury Grand Hotel in the Baltic seaside resort of Sopot when he worked there as a security guard.

The story was based on anonymous sources, but Onet.pl said the witnesses had sworn they would repeat the allegations under oath in court. Nawrocki called the story a pack of lies and said he would sue the website.

His opponents portrayed him as a football hooligan who admired gangsters and neo-Nazi ultras. Nawrocki did not deny taking part in hooligan brawls as a younger man, calling them “noble fights”. He has also said these allegations were an attempt to smear his reputation.

Some Nawrocki voters told me they did not believe certain stories about him, saying they were inventions of the mainstream Trzaskowski-supporting media.

A “mass casualty influx” of people, many with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, was received at a Red Cross field hospital in southern Gaza, the organisation said, following disputed reports about an incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 21 people were “declared dead upon arrival” while women and children were among 179 cases.

The organisation’s statement came after the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded in the incident, which it blamed on “Israeli gunfire” targeting civilians.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre.

The IDF also released drone footage it said showed armed and masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians while they were collecting aid in the nearby city of Khan Younis. The BBC could not immediately verify the footage.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

The group that runs the aid distribution centre, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

As of Sunday evening, the situation on the ground remained unclear.

In its statement, the ICRC said the “Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 179 cases, including women and children” early in the morning on Sunday.

It said “the majority suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds”, and “twenty-one patients were declared dead upon arrival”. It is unclear if the number of people killed reported by the ICRC is separate to the Hamas health ministry’s reports.

“All patients said they had been trying to reach an aid distribution site,” the ICRC said.

The ICRC said it was the “highest number of weapon-wounded in a single incident since the establishment of the field hospital over a year ago”, and that it “far surpassed” the capacity of the 60-bed facility.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement that it had also responded to the “mass casualty” incident, and that the blood bank at Nasser hospital, where the injured were treated, was almost empty, with medical staff donating blood themselves to help the injured.

Claire Manera, the organisation’s emergency co-ordinator, said that the incident had “shown once again that this new system of aid delivery is dehumanising, dangerous and severely ineffective”.

The IDF said in a statement: “In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip.

“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.

MSF said at least two patients told them they and others had been shot while trying to get aid. MSF communications officer Nour Alsaqa said in a statement that as MSF staff were treating patients, they also “received confirmation that a colleague’s brother had been killed while attempting to collect aid from the centre”.

Another incident was said to have happened near a separate aid centre in the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, with the Palestinian Red Crescent reporting 14 injured.

The BBC was contacted by doctors at the Nasser hospital who said they had received about 200 people with injuries caused by bullets or shrapnel.

Local journalists and activists shared footage of bodies and wounded people being transported on donkey carts to the Red Cross field hospital in the al-Mawasi area.

The BBC has examined footage of bodies being carried on carts and in the back of lorries to Nasser Hospital.

Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.

Seventy-nine of the injured were brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, according to the emergency department, medical staff from British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians reported.

⁠Those killed and injured “were primarily struck by live gunfire, with many victims sustaining direct shots to the head or chest”, the charity’s staff said.

Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.

The GHF, which distributes aid at these sites, denied any incident occurred near its distribution centres.

An IDF soldier in Rafah contacted the BBC to say that Israeli soldiers did fire near the crowd, but not at them, and that no-one was hit.

• BBC Verify: How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos

Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that Palestinians had gathered near the aid centre run by the GHF when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd.

Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians were near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by GHF, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.

“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” he said.

“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.”

Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for Gaza’s main emergency service the Civil Defence, told AFP news agency that more than 100 people were wounded “due to gunfire from Israeli vehicles towards thousands of citizens”.

The incidents underscore the dire humanitarian conditions in Rafah, where recent Israeli military operations have severely limited access to aid and emergency services.

On Saturday, crowds of civilians rushed aid trucks into Gaza, the World Food Programme said, as hunger and desperation created chaotic scenes.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new US and Israeli-backed organisation that has been distributing food at designated sites across Gaza. Israel set up the plan after accusing Hamas of stealing aid, which the group denies.

The GHF said it had distributed 4.7 million meals this week, which the BBC has not been able to independently verify.

A military campaign was launched by Israel in Gaza in response to Hamas’s cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,418 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the territory’s health ministry.

From allegations of infidelity to swinging scandals, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers a look into a version of Mormon life far removed from traditional public perception.

Set in suburban Utah, the TV series follows a group of Mormon women – most of whom rose to fame on TikTok and became MomTok influencers – as they manage scandals, confront marital breakdowns and clash over everything from business ventures to party invitations.

But beneath the sensational plotlines is a more complex story about the evolving dynamics within a tight-knit community.

The group of Mormon mothers have been making content online for the past five years but say the concept of reality TV still feels very new to them.

“I’ve heard that eventually people learn how to play the reality TV game but that’s not us yet, we’re still trying to figure it out,” Jessi Ngatikaura tells the BBC. “So you’re getting to see the real us.”

What started off as a hobby has now become a job and the women speak openly on the show about the amount of money they make from reality TV and brand deals.

“It is totally our job now but we chose this and we could all walk away any time if we didn’t want to be part of it,” Jessi says.

Whitney Leavitt explains that “naturally dynamics will change when there’s more money and family involved and definitely some people get competitive” but reassures me the group are still friends off camera.

Across the two seasons of the show, Jessi and Whitney have had challenging storylines play out – Whitney is presented as the villain in season one and at the end of season two it is alleged Jessi has had an affair.

The pair speak candidly about the impact having your life watched and commented on by millions of people worldwide has had on them.

“It’s been hard coming to terms with the fact we have no control over the narrative and you don’t ever really get over it,” Whitney explains. “But you have to accept that and let it go.”

As the show follows the lives of nine friends, it’s easy to see how some of them may create more drama for themselves in order to guarantee some screen time but Jessi insists that’s not the case and no one “plays up but naturally emotions are heightened”.

“We’re actually recording four or five days a week so we don’t know what will make the final edit.”

Jessi says her explosive Halloween party was not manufactured by producers and there is just “naturally so much drama that we don’t need to create more just for the show”.

Given the intensity of drama and filming demands, the presence of strong aftercare is essential and both women praise the production for its duty of care standards.

“There are always therapists on hand and at first I was like why are Taylor and Jen having therapy all the time and now I’m having five or six hours of it a week,” Jessi confesses. “I’ve found it’s useful even if you’re not going through a hard time.”

Whitney also accessed some aftercare in season one after being presented as the villain of the show.

“It totally sucked being the villain and I was angry, had a lot of resentment and was really sad. There were so many overwhelming emotions for me but I was proud that instead of running away I stayed and had those hard conversations I didn’t want to have,” Whitney says.

Whitney was one of the members of the MomTok group that Taylor Frankie Paul publicly revealed was involved in “soft swinging”, something she denies and caused a rift to form in their friendship.

The open discussions around sex, marital affairs and alcohol on the show has caused some backlash from the Mormon church.

“When the first trailer came out there was some backlash from the church because they were scared but actually we’re showing you how we live the Mormon life and we all live it differently,” Whitney says.

Jessi adds the docudrama shows how “we are all normal and everyday girls, not people wearing bonnets and churning butter like you might think”.

The women say that not only has the church come to accept the show, they are also helping young women think about their faith differently.

“We’ve definitely influenced people to question their faith, dive deeper into it or be more honest about it and I’ve had messages from some people saying that they’re joining the church because of me,” Jessi says.

While their religion plays an important part of their life, they’re keen to tell me that they are not the face of Mormonism.

“There are Mormons who still get upset about it but we’re just showing our version of it and I think that’s empowering as hopefully people can relate to our stories and struggles.”