Lawmakers in France have overwhelmingly backed a bill making it easier to open bars in villages - a move aimed at reviving social life in small rural communities.

In a 156-2 vote on Monday, MPs decided to loosen strict restrictions on new bar permits to sell alcohol. The bill still needs a Senate approval to become law.

Supporters say the change is needed to better cement social ties and reduce isolation - but critics warn of health risks through alcoholism.

France has seen a sharp fall from about 200,000 bars and cafés serving alcohol in the 1960 to some 36,000 by 2015. Most of the closures were in rural areas.

In France, a type-4 alcohol licence is required by law to open a bar selling alcoholic drinks, including hard spirits with more than 18% alcohol.

Currently, no new such permits can be granted, and those planning to open a bar must wait until an existing drinking spot closes to acquire its licence.

The new legislation would allow prospective bar managers in communities with fewer than 3,500 people and without a bar to request a brand-new permit without such a wait.

Local mayors would have the final say on whether to approve or deny such requests.

Lawmaker Guillaume Kasbarian said "an old and obsolete legal framework" should be replaced, the AFP news agency reported.

It also quoted Fabien Di Filippo, another French MP, who described bars as "above all, places for people to come together in very rural areas and in a society where people have a tendency to close in on themselves".

The French health ministry says that each year about 49,000 deaths in the country are caused by alcohol consumption, describing this as a "major public health issue".

"She's a phony, but I guess the public likes that…" This is the line that actress Joan Crawford is said to have declared about film star Bette Davis.

The back-and-forth sniping between the pair played out in the tabloids of the 1930s and 40s. "Bette is a survivor... She survived herself," Crawford is also said to have remarked.

Their tempestuous relationship was so notorious that in 2017 it was made into an Emmy award-winning TV series, Feud.

Hollywood rivalries are of course nothing new - yet conflicts today rarely play out so publicly. That might be why the dispute between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, which spilled out into the open in December 2024, is still in the headlines three months on.

The subsequent legal battle brought to light a fallout during production of the film, It Ends With Us. After the promotional and cinematic run had ended, the pair - who didn't appear on the red carpet together at the premiere in New York - filed lawsuits against each other.

Lively has accused Baldoni and others of carrying out a smear campaign against her after she complained about alleged sexual harassment on set. Baldoni, meanwhile, has accused Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist of carrying out a smear campaign against him, and claim that she tried to take over control of the film. Both sides deny all allegations.

What emerged as this all played out is that crisis PR managers had been employed. Legal representatives for Lively obtained numerous text messages between Baldoni's publicist Jennifer Abel and the crisis team he retained, led by Melissa Nathan, whose previous clients include Johnny Depp and Drake. Ms Nathan was alleged to have texted Ms Abel, "You know we can bury anyone."

Lively has now reportedly taken on the CIA's former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro to advise on her legal communications strategy.

While the outcomes of the lawsuits remain to be seen but the feud has cast the spotlight on an industry that would ordinarily remain largely invisible: that is, the publicity machine at work behind the scenes in Hollywood.

"On every set, there are fights, liaisons… there are all sorts of things that go on," explains Richard Rushfield, founder and columnist at Hollywood newsletter The Ankler. "Hollywood is a world full of very messy people coming together for these giant projects, where they put together teams quickly to make these things and disband immediately after.

"Between all that a lot of stuff goes on, and they deal with it quietly – they're very obsessive about controlling the narrative. When this stuff explodes into the public, beyond control, it makes everyone very nervous."

But the world of the Hollywood PR has shifted in recent years, partly because of the growth of social media, which has changed the relationship between celebrities and fans, bringing them into direct contact and removing some of the mystique.

So, what does that mean for the people whose job it is to keep a lid on the industry's messy reality?

From Tom Hardy to Sarah Jessica Parker

Few fallouts have spilled out into the open in recent years – and those that did were picked over simply because they're so rare. Actor Dwayne Johnson revealed "a fundamental difference in philosophies on how we approach moviemaking and collaborating" with his Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel, in a 2018 interview.

The stars of another action film, Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, are reported to have filmed many of their scenes separately.

And then there were the alleged tensions between Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker, who were co-stars of Sex and the City, which ran for six years. In 2018, after Parker offered condolences for Cattrall's brother's death, Cattrall responded on social media, calling Parker a "hypocrite" and stating, "You are not my family. You are not my friend."

But behind the scenes, hundreds of other spats will never see the light of day. "Some of a publicist's best work may never be seen," says Daniel Bee, a publicist and brand consultant based in Los Angeles, "because it stopped something that was wrong, or re-crafted something to a different narrative, or pointed the light in a different direction.

"The most interesting stuff I've ever done as a publicist is the stuff nobody will ever know about."

'Powerful forces at play'

Since Daniel Bee started out as an entertainment publicist in 1997, he has observed a shift in the wider industry. "I started my career in the British media, there were 11 national newspapers competing with each other. It was a bear pit, hard work, and it was getting to know individuals via relationships.

"Now, you're up against an anonymous algorithm and accounts where you don't know who you're up against. It's harder to control than ever before."

Certainly, social media has posed challenges for those attempting to control narratives around major films and their stars – while also heralding new forms of "dark arts" through which publicists can attempt to shape opinion.

"There has always been an army of advisors and consultants doing PR voodoo," says Eriq Gardner, entertainment law expert and founding partner of Puck News. "While I'd love to say the public is media-literate and savvy enough to read between the lines to see the spin, the truth is there are a lot of powerful forces at play and sometimes a large amount of misinformation."

So-called PR voodoo is different now that a celebrity – or their fans – can access an audience of millions with a click.

While the publicists of previous eras might only have had to worry about print and broadcast platforms, smartphones and social media mean today's digital landscape is a wild west where anyone can shape their own narrative. A badly judged post or comment can damage an actor's career.

But the flipside is a whole new medium in which PRs can practise their "voodoo".

Astroturfing and ways to 'cause mischief'

One of the tactics is "astroturfing" – or disguising an orchestrated campaign as a spontaneous up-swelling of public opinion.

This works by manipulating public opinion and creating a false impression of grassroots support (hence the name) or opposition, often coordinated through social media accounts in a way that seems organic.

The practice isn't new, but has been given new life with the advent of social media algorithms.

"It's deliberately planting disinformation, or twisted versions of the truth, in certain sections of social media," says Carla Speight, founder of the PR Mastery app. "The aim is the halfway point of influential where they will get a bit of traction, but so that it's not too obvious – you wouldn't hire a Kardashian to do it.

"It's built up in layers," she continues. "It's like playing a very sinister game of chess. You're putting all the pieces in the right places, just the right amount of mixed-up information, and then you just watch it explode."

Although the posts might appear to be genuine public opinion, in fact it's a faked crowd – whether that's made up of bots or real people, who can be paid to coordinate their posts.

"All it takes is one or two people to create a meme and put it with the right people," says Ms Speight. "It needs to appear as a trend, and then it's gone. Something is dripped here, something else over there, and when it's done well… it causes a bit of mischief."

Reinventing an age-old tactic?

But all of this is simply a new platform for an age-old trend that has been going on long before the advent of social media, according to Mr Bee. "Undetected smear campaigns have always been a thing," he points out.

"Previously it would have been a publicist whispering to a diarist of a national newspaper. The issue with digital media is it's anonymous and untraceable."

What has changed, he continues, is that audiences have become savvier. "Whereas before, a quite subservient audience would just take what was given to them in the media, with natural scepticism, curiosity, and a greater level of information, I think people use more critical thinking."

Eriq Gardner is less convinced: "I'm not sure the public approaches what they read with enough scepticism."

And yet those in the industry are often alert to it. According to Ms Speight, "Usually, there's a distinct sort of tell, and it may be the PR thing where we have 'spidey senses' and we can sort of see it, but you're asking, 'Where has that come from? Who started that?' And when there's never a specific place to point it to, that's usually a tell-tale sign."

The Hollywood ecosystem

What's clear, though, is that, with studios providing some publications with significant advertising revenue, as well as supplying talent for special events and front covers, revelations often emerge elsewhere in the media.

"When [scandals] come out, it's usually from places outside of Hollywood," argues Mr Rushfield. "The Harvey Weinstein story was broken by The New York Times and the New Yorker."

It was The New York Times that first reported Lively's legal complaint in December. "It's one of the few places that can afford to do that, and then everyone else jumped in so nobody was sticking their neck out." Baldoni filed a $250 million lawsuit against the New York Times in December, although a federal judge indicated this week that it might be dismissed.

Even when bigger outlets break news about Hollywood disputes, the growing dominance of social media means that stories might not have the same cut-through they had previously.

Doreen St Felix, a writer who was previously an editor on Lena Dunham's newsletter, recently wrote in The New Yorker that stories of harassment and abuse, for example, now receive a "curdled, cynical, and exhausted reception" - this, less than a decade after the emergence of the MeToo movement.

She went on to claim that: "The late 2010s genre of #MeToo reportage cannot thrive on today's volatile internet. Information is misinformation and vice versa. Victims are offenders and offenders are victims."

Sometimes, however, the best way for publicists to prevent stories being amplified is by bypassing social media entirely when reacting to a scandal.

"If you give it to the press first, they don't quote as many of the comments on social media," says Ms Speight. "You control the narrative completely, because the comments come afterwards."

Mr Rushfield points out that very little of the revelations in the entertainment press comes out because someone "uncovered" something. "Almost everything you read is there because somebody placed it there - somebody is dictating a story."

What viewers want

None of this industry would exist if the appetite weren't there and if the viewing public didn't want to unpick details about their lives – and rifts. And yet attitudes towards celebrity have undoubtedly changed since the advent of social media.

"It's now a two-way communication, which it never was before," points out Mr Bee. "It was generally celebrities, or lawyer or government or whatever, just saying something that gets reported, and that message is conveyed. Now, you have to be prepared for a two-way conversation."

But he thinks there are different attitudes to the media today than in the era of celebrity gossip magazines. Nodding to the UK, he continues: "We had the Leveson Inquiry, we're about to get an ITV drama about phone hacking, it's as if the curtain has been lifted."

As for the Lively and Baldoni lawsuits, it's not clear how these will play out - but the very fact that it has so unusually spilled into the public domain is a reminder of how well-oiled the Hollywood publicity machine is the rest of the time. And that is unlikely to change soon.

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A Kurdish-led militia alliance which controls north-eastern Syria has agreed a deal to integrate all military and civilian institutions into the Syrian state, the country's presidency says.

The agreement says the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will cease hostilities and hand over control of the region's border posts, airport, and vital oil and gas fields.

It also recognises the Kurdish minority as "an integral part of the Syrian state" and guarantees "the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process".

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi called the deal, which he signed alongside interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a "real opportunity to build a new Syria".

"We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfils their aspirations for peace and dignity," he wrote on X on Monday night.

The deal represents a major step towards Sharaa's goal to unite the fractured country after his Sunni Islamist group led the rebel offensive that overthrew president Bashar al-Assad in December.

The size of that challenge has been made clear by the recent violence in western Syria, where attacks on security forces by Assad loyalists triggered reprisals in which more than 1,000 civilians were reportedly killed, most of them members of Assad's minority Alawite sect.

The deal could also de-escalate the SDF's conflict with neighbouring Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian former rebel factions allied to the government, which are trying to push the alliance out of areas near the border.

The SDF, which has tens of thousands of well-armed and well-trained fighters, was not aligned with either Assad's regime or the opposition during the country's 13-year civil war.

It currently controls more than 46,000 sq km (18,000 sq miles) of territory in the north-east, where it defeated the Islamic State (IS) group in 2019 with the help of a US-led coalition.

The SDF plays a major role in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governs the region also known to Kurds as Rojava.

About 10,000 IS fighters are being detained in SDF-run prisons spread across the region and about 46,000 other people linked to IS, mostly women and children, are held in several camps.

Since the fall of Assad, the SDF has warned that attacks from Turkish-backed factions are forcing it to divert fighters away from guarding the prisons and paving the way for an IS resurgence.

The Turkish government views the biggest militia in the SDF, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), as a terrorist organisation. It says it the YPG is an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) group that waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades but whose imprisoned leader recently declared a ceasefire.

There was no immediate comment from Turkey in response to Monday's agreement.

Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.

Syria's Kurds, which make up about make up about 10% of the population, were suppressed and denied basic rights during the Assad family's rule.

A former senior Facebook executive has told the BBC how the social media giant worked "hand in glove" with the Chinese government on potential ways of allowing Beijing to censor and control content in China.

Sarah Wynn-Williams - a former global public policy director - says in return for gaining access to the Chinese market of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, considered agreeing to hiding posts that were going viral, until they could be checked by the Chinese authorities.

Ms Williams - who makes the claims in a new book - has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors. The BBC has reviewed the complaint.

Facebook's parent company Meta, says Ms Wynn-Williams had her employment terminated in 2017 "for poor performance".

It is "no secret we were once interested" in operating services in China, it adds. "We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored."

Meta referred us to Mark Zuckerberg's comments from 2019, when he said: "We could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they [China] never let us in."

Facebook also used algorithms to spot when young teenagers were feeling vulnerable as part of research aimed at advertisers, Ms Wynn-Williams alleges.

A former New Zealand diplomat, she joined Facebook in 2011, and says she watched the company grow from "a front row seat".

Now she wants to show some of the "decision-making and moral compromises" that she says went on when she was there. It is a critical moment, she adds, as "many of the people I worked with… are going to be central" to the introduction of AI.

In her memoir, Careless People, Ms Wynn-Williams paints a picture of what she alleges working on Facebook's senior team was like.

Mr Zuckerberg, she says, did not get up before midday, loved karaoke and did not like to be beaten at board games, such as Risk. "I didn't realise that you were supposed to let him win. I was a little naive," she told us.

However, Ms Wynn-Williams says her allegations about the company's close relationship with China provide an insight into Facebook's decision-making at the time.

"China is Mark Zuckerberg's white whale," meaning a goal that he obsessively pursued, says Ms Wynn-Williams.

The country is the world's biggest social media market, but access to Facebook remains blocked there, alongside the likes of X and YouTube.

"It's the one piece on the board game that he hasn't conquered," she says.

Ms Wynn-Williams claims that in the mid-2010s, as part of its negotiations with the Chinese government, Facebook considered allowing it future access to Chinese citizens' user data.

"He was working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, building a censorship tool… basically working to develop sort of the antithesis of many of the principles that underpin Facebook," she told the BBC.

Ms Wynn-Williams says governments frequently asked for explanations of how aspects of Facebook's software worked, but were told it was proprietary information.

"But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back," she says.

"Engineers were brought out. They were walked through every aspect, and Facebook was making sure these Chinese officials were upskilled enough that they could not only learn about these products, but then test Facebook on the censorship version of these products that they were building."

Meta told the BBC that such claims about China had been "widely reported" at the time.

In her SEC complaint, Ms Wynn-Williams also alleges Mr Zuckerberg and other Meta executives had made "misleading statements… in response to Congressional inquiries" about China.

One answer given by Mr Zuckerberg to Congress in 2018 said Facebook was "not in a position to know exactly how the [Chinese] government would seek to apply its laws and regulations on content"

Meta told the BBC that Mr Zuckerberg gave accurate testimony, adding it did not operate services in China.

Most Facebook executives didn't allow their own children on Facebook - according to Ms Wynn-Williams. "They had screen bans. They certainly wouldn't allow them to use the product."

And yet she says reports from 2017 - that the company had been using algorithms to target and categorise vulnerable teens - were true.

"The algorithm could infer that they were feeling worthless or unhappy," she alleges.

The company - which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp - could, she claims, identify when a teenage girl had deleted a selfie on its platforms, and then notify a beauty company that it would be a good moment to target the child with an advert.

Ms Wynn-Williams says she "felt sick" at the thought and tried to push back, "although I knew it was futile".

"They said: 'The business side thinks this is exactly what we should be doing. We've got this amazing product, we can get young people, which is a really important advertising segment.'"

Meta told the BBC this was false - it has never offered tools to target people based on their emotional state - and that the research it previously did was to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook, not to target ads.

Overall, Ms Wynn-Williams says the company has not done enough to address the issue of young people's safety on social media.

"This is one of the most valuable companies in the world. They could invest in this and make it a real priority and do more to fix it."

Facebook said it was transparent about advert-targeting and had shared updates regarding its approach to creating age-appropriate advert experiences for teens.

It also said it had introduced "Teen Accounts" for tens of millions of young people with built-in protections. It also said it was giving parents more oversight over their teens' use of the app.

As well as poor performance, Meta says the 45-year-old was also fired for "toxic behaviour" after she had made "misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment".

But Ms Wynn-Williams told the BBC she was let go after she had complained about inappropriate comments by one of her bosses - Joel Kaplan, who is now Meta's chief global affairs officer.

Meta told us she had been paid by "anti-Facebook activists" and she was not a whistleblower.

"Whistleblower status protects communications to the government, not disgruntled activists trying to sell books," it said.

In regard to Ms Wynn-Williams' book, Meta has confirmed to the BBC that it has launched legal action in the US to "halt the further distribution of defamatory and untrue information".

To counter this, a legal representative for Ms Wynn-Williams said: "Meta has made a number of false and inconsistent statements about Sarah since the news of her memoir broke... while Meta's statements are trying to mislead the public, the book speaks for itself"

We asked her why she was speaking out now. She said she wanted Meta to change as it "influences so much of our day-to-day life" and we need to ensure "we get the future we deserve".

"We're in this moment where tech and political leaders are coming together and as they combine forces, that has a lot of consequences for all of us.

"I think it's really important to understand that and to understand you look at all these engineers who are influencing the highest level of government."

America's top diplomat has said that he sees promise in Ukraine's proposal for a partial ceasefire to end the three-year war with Russia, ahead of talks in Saudi Arabia between US and Ukrainian officials.

"I'm not saying that alone is enough but it's the kind of concession you would need to see in order to end the conflict," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday.

Kyiv is expected to propose an aerial and naval truce with Russia during the negotiations on Tuesday, a Ukrainian official told AFP.

Russia has previously rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, saying it was an attempt to buy time and prevent Ukraine's military collapse.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, although he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks between his country and the US.

The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky's head of office Andriy Yermak, the country's national security adviser and several foreign and defence ministers.

Rubio will represent the US delegation alongside National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Before arriving in Jeddah on Monday, Rubio said that it was important to "establish clearly Ukraine's intentions" for a peace deal and that the country would "have to be prepared to do difficult things like the Russians are going to have to do difficult things to end this".

"I'm not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do," he added. "We want to listen to see how far they're willing to go, and compare that to what the Russians want, and then see how far apart we truly are."

He said that both sides needed to realise that "there's no military solution" to the conflict and it can only be resolved through "diplomatic means".

It comes as Donald Trump steps up pressure on Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow, without any promises of US security guarantees.

The talks mark the first official meeting since Zelensky's visit to the White House descended into acrimony last month.

Following the meeting, the US paused military aid and intelligence sharing for Kyiv in an apparent bid to get Zelensky to the negotiating table.

Rubio said that he hoped the pause in aid could be "resolved" but that the negotiations on Tuesday "would be key to that".

The suspension "came about because we felt that they [Ukraine] were not committed to any sort of peace process", he said, and "if that changes, obviously our posture can change".

"The President is going to use whatever tools he has at his disposal to try to get both sides to that table so this war will end," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said he expected "substantial progress" during the negotiations.

Asked whether he thought Zelensky would return to the US to sign a minerals deal later in the week, he told Fox News: "I am really hopeful. All the signs are very, very positive."

Zelensky has previously said he is willing to sign a minerals deal with the US, which would establish a joint fund from the sale of Ukrainian minerals.

Witkoff said that among the issues to be discussed in Saudi Arabia were security protocols for the Ukrainians and territorial issues.

He said the US administration had never shut off intelligence sharing for anything defensive that Ukraine needed, while on Sunday Trump told Fox News that he had "just about" lifted the intelligence sharing pause on Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also spoke to Trump ahead of the talks, Downing Street said.

"The Prime Minister said he hoped there would be a positive outcome to the talks that would enable US aid and intelligence-sharing to be restarted," the spokeswoman said.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently holds around a fifth of Ukraine's territory, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014.

US Vice-President JD Vance's cousin has criticised him and President Donald Trump for "belittling" Volodymyr Zelensky during the three men's Oval Office showdown in February.

"There's a certain level of decorum that I expect from political leaders, especially in front of cameras," Nate Vance told BBC's PM programme on Monday.

It follows comments he made in an interview in which he said Trump and Vance were acting like "useful idiots" for President Vladimir Putin in their handling of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Last month, US officials held direct talks with Moscow on ending the three-year war. US and Ukrainian officials are currently in Saudi Arabia to discuss a peace deal.

Nate Vance, who spent three years volunteering with the Ukrainian military following Russia's invasion in 2022, said he was "not happy" with the way in which the White House meeting had been handled by his cousin and Trump.

"I'm kind of attached to the Ukrainian issue but, looking at that, if it were some other completely neutral issue and I saw White House officials and hack journalists that are political belittling a foreign leader, I'd be like 'what the hell is going on?'" he told the BBC.

The televised Oval Office meeting between the leaders quickly turned heated, with Trump threatening to withdraw support from Ukraine if a deal was not made and accusing the Ukrainian President of "gambling with World War Three".

Vance called Zelensky "disrespectful" for "litigating" the dispute in front of the media and accused him of not expressing gratitude for America's support during the war.

Nate Vance said that he did not agree that Zelensky had failed to show appreciation. "Zelensky does a daily or nightly address and thanks everyone who supports Ukraine on a daily basis," he said.

He said that perhaps the Ukrainian leader had not shown "enough deference to Donald Trump" but that it would be "odd for my cousin and Donald Trump to ask for deference because they've been actively working against his initiatives for the past three years".

Zelensky was eventually asked to leave the White House and a planned news conference was cancelled.

Following the meeting, the Trump administration halted military aid, satellite imagery and intelligence sharing to Kyiv.

One American reporter during the meeting in the White House accused Zelensky of disrespecting the occasion by not wearing a suit. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has eschewed suits for military-style dress in what he says is solidarity with soldiers.

"Everyone knows that's why he does that and it's kind of a symbolic thing," Nate Vance said. "Who cares? It's a silly hill to die on. And speaking of which, why is Elon Musk in the Oval Office wearing a baseball hat and a T-shirt all the time?"

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro earlier on Monday, Nate Vance said his cousin was a "good guy, intelligent" but that the meeting with Zelensky was "an ambush of absolute bad faith".

He later told the PM programme that he had been a "Republican my whole life so this is an odd stance for me to be taking but I'm pretty passionate about it and it's one issue where I think we're doing wrong".

He said it was unlikely his cousin would want to speak to him following his comments.

Asked about other Americans' view of the encounter, he said 20% would be "disheartened" and that "all of this alienation is isolating us and the last time we decided to take an isolationist path we ended up with World War One and World War Two".

Zelensky subsequently said the angry exchange had been "regrettable" and it was "time to make things right".

The US is attempting to mediate with both Russia and Ukraine in hopes of ending the war.

Last week, Trump said that he was "doing very well with Russia" and that it was "more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine".

Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has appealed against the country's Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) decision to bar him from participating in May's presidential election.

Constitutional court judges will meet on Tuesday afternoon to discuss Georgescu's appeal, and a final ruling should be issued by Wednesday evening.

The BEC rejected his candidacy on Sunday after a 10-4 vote, saying it did not "meet the conditions of legality", as Georgescu "violated the very obligation to defend democracy".

Last year, the court annulled November's first round of the vote - in which Georgescu came first - after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in 800 TikTok accounts backing him.

In his appeal, Georgescu said that the "BEC exceeded its legal powers". He also argued that the constitutional court's decision on the November election should have no bearing on his candidacy for the upcoming vote in May.

In a social media post, Georgescu also called the ban a "direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide".

The electoral bureau's decision sparked unrest in Bucharest on Sunday evening. Clashes broke out between police and Georgescu supporters who had gathered in their thousands outside the offices of the BEC.

The BBC saw at least one car turned over, and the windows of neighbouring bars smashed. At least four people were detained. More protests are expected on Monday and beyond.

Georgescu put out a video on social media thanking the Romanian people but adding that "we should not give birth to violence or other forms of this kind compared to how it was last night. We are moving forward with great confidence for the future of this country".

George Simion, an ally of Georgescu and the leader of the far-right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), parliament's second-largest party, said on Monday that Romania was "the midst of a coup d'état".

In a video on Sunday night, George Simion called for "those who committed the coup to be skinned in public for what they did... Whether you like Calin Georgescu or not, he is the man Romanians voted for".

The Romanian prosecutor general has opened a case against Simion for instigation of violence, and on Monday he rowed back on the comments, saying he was using a "metaphor".

On 26 February, Georgescu was detained for questioning on his way to register as a candidate in the May election, prompting tens of thousands of Romanians to march on Bucharest's streets in protest.

Georgescu - a fierce EU and Nato critic - came out of almost nowhere last year to lead the first round two weeks ago amid allegations of Russian interference. He has since seen some support from the Trump administration.

Last month, US Vice-President JD Vance accused Romania of annulling the elections based on the "flimsy suspicions" of Romanian intelligence and pressure from its neighbours.

And Trump adviser Elon Musk posted on X, saying: "How can a judge end democracy in Romania?"

The Trump administration believes Ukraine's leadership is "ready to move forward" on the US demand for a ceasefire process with Russia, according to a senior US state department official.

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz are due to arrive in Saudi Arabia for Tuesday's talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.

President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to accept his demands for a quick ceasefire with Moscow - but without any immediate pledge of a US security guarantee.

Ten days ago the two publicly clashed at the White House, with Trump claiming Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes
• Zelensky's conciliatory letter to Trump suggests he's out of options

"The fact that they're coming here at senior levels is a good indication to us that they want to sit down and they're ready to move forward," said the state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the talks with Ukraine in Jeddah.

While Zelensky is also due in the Gulf kingdom to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks with the Americans.

The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky's head of office Andriy Yermak, the country's national security adviser as well as foreign and defence ministers.

In his video address late on Sunday, Zelensky said: "We hope for results - both in bringing peace closer and in continuing support".

Zelensky has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while he has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv, stressing that Putin violated previous ceasefire deals.

Any corresponding pressure the US has been putting on Moscow to make concessions has not been made public.

Soon after the White House row, Zelensky expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US - the country's biggest military supplier.

Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, later said that Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an "apology" and "sense of gratitude".

Witkoff said that in Saudi Arabia the US team wanted to discuss a "framework" for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

A major minerals deal - derailed because of the row - is also reported to be back on the agenda in Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine has offered to grant the US access to its rare earth mineral reserves in exchange for US security guarantees.

The clash at the White House also resulted in the US pausing all military aid to Ukraine and stopping sharing intelligence.

But when asked on Sunday whether he would consider lifting the intelligence pause, Trump answered: "Well, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have and we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done." He provided no further details.

On 18 February - before the US-Ukraine row in Washington - Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. It was a follow-up to Trump's controversial phone conversation with Putin.

Syria's defence ministry says it has completed a military operation in the country's western coastal region, after days of violence in which hundreds of people have been killed.

Security forces had "neutralized" loyalists of former president Bashar al-Assad in several towns in Latakia and Tartous provinces and were "paving the way for life to return to normal", a ministry spokesman said.

A monitoring group says more than 1,400 people have been killed since Thursday, including 973 civilians.

Gunmen loyal to the Sunni Islamist-led government have been accused of carrying out revenge killings against members of Assad's minority Alawite sect following a deadly ambush on a security patrol.

The interim President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said he will set up an independent committee to investigate the killings and insisted the perpetrators would be held accountable.

The violence is the worst in Syria since Sharaa led the lightning rebel offensive that overthrew Assad in December, ending 13 years of devastating civil war in which more than 600,000 people were killed and 12 million others were forced to flee their homes.

• Syrians describe terror as Alawite families killed in their homes
• Syria leader vows to hunt down those responsible for bloodshed
• 'We are still at war': Syria's Kurds battle Turkey months after Assad's fall

Defence ministry spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani announced on X that the security operation in Latakia and Tartous had ended after "achieving all the specified objectives".

"Our forces have neutralised the security cells and remnants of the former regime from the town of al-Mukhtareyah, the town of al-Mazairaa, the area of al-Zobar, and other locations in Latakia province, as well as Dalia town, Tanita town, and Qadmous in Tartous province, resulting in the thwarting of threats and securing the area," he said.

He also said that public institutions in the region were now able to resume their work, adding: "We are preparing for the return of normal life and working to reinforce security and stability."

Abdul Ghani promised that security forces would also "give the investigating committee the full opportunity to uncover the circumstances of these incidents, verify the facts and deliver justice to the oppressed".

The government launched the operation in Latakia province in response to a growing insurgency by Assad loyalists in recent weeks. The region is the heartland of the Alawite sect, to which many of the former regime's political and military elite belonged.

On Thursday, security personnel were ambushed by gunmen in the town of Jableh as they tried to arrest a wanted Assad regime official. At least 13 officers were reportedly killed.

Security forces responded by sending reinforcements to the region, who were joined by armed supporters of the government. Over the next four days, they stormed many Alawite towns and villages, where residents said they carried out revenge killings and lootings.

A widely shared video showed the bodies of at least two dozen men in civilian clothing, piled in the yard of a house, in al-Mukhtareyah. Elsewhere, accounts emerged of fighters searching for Alawite members and killing entire families on the spot.

Hiba, an Alawite woman in Baniyas, told the BBC that Chechen fighters loyal to the government had attacked her neighbourhood.

"Our neighbours were killed including children. They came and took everything, gold, everything… They stole all of the cars in the neighbourhood. They even went to the supermarket and they took everything from the shelves."

"We were waiting for our turn. We didn't know when it would come. We saw death, we saw people dying in front of us and now all of our friends, our neighbours, are gone," she added. "They killed innocent people in cold blood who had nothing to do with any of this."

An Alawite man whose family lives in Baniyas said in a voice message that a relative was kidnapped from his home by gunmen from Sharaa's Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who went door to door searching for Alawites.

"His mother made a mistake opening the door when she did. An HTS member fired between her legs... so she screamed," he said. "Her son... ran to see what happened with her. When they [saw] him, they took him with them and disappeared. And they didn't return."

He also said residents of Alawite neighbourhoods of Baniyas were still hiding in their houses on Monday morning because they were too afraid to venture outside to see if it was safe.

The bodies of those killed had been buried in a mass grave near a shrine on the outskirts of the town, while those who were kidnapped had not yet returned, he added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported that more than 1,450 people have been killed in Latakia, Tartous, Hama and Homs provinces.

They included 973 civilians, who it said had died as a result of "killings, field executions and ethnic cleansing operations" by security personnel or pro-government fighters, as well as 231 security personnel and 250 pro-Assad fighters.

Security sources also told Reuters news agency that 300 security personnel had been killed.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the death tolls.

State news agency Sana said a mass grave containing the bodies of security personnel had been found in the former president's hometown of Qardaha on Sunday. Turkey-based Syria TV cited residents as saying Assad loyalists had buried police killed in the recent fighting there.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said his office had received "extremely disturbing reports of entire families, including women, children and hors de combat fighters, being killed".

"There are reports of summary executions on a sectarian basis by unidentified perpetrators, by members of the caretaker authorities' security forces, as well as by elements associated with the former government," he added.

He demanded swift action by Syria's interim authorities to protect civilians and hold those responsible for the killings and other violations to be held to account.

US President Donald Trump has refused to say whether the US economy is facing a recession or price rises in the wake of his administration's flip-flopping on tariff threats against some of its closest trading partners.

Asked if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said there was a "period of transition" taking place.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, insisted there would be no contraction in the world's largest economy, while acknowledging that the price of some goods may rise.

It comes after a volatile week for US financial markets as investors grappled with uncertainty from his administration's U-turn on some key parts of its aggressive trade policies.

New tit-for-tat tariffs from China, which target some US farm products, come into effect on Monday.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump responded to a question about a recession: "I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing."

"It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us," Trump added.

Last week, the US imposed steep tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada but then exempted many of those goods just two days later.

Stocks markets have been falling in the US since the Trump administration sparked a trade war with the US's top trading partners.

Investors fear tariffs will lead to higher prices and ultimately dent growth in the world's largest economy.

Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Lutnick said: "Foreign goods may get a little more expensive. But American goods are going to get cheaper".

But when asked whether the US economy could face a recession Lutnick added: "Absolutely not… There's going to be no recession in America."

Residents of Greenland head to the polls on Tuesday in a vote that in previous years has drawn little outside attention - but which may prove pivotal for the Arctic territory's future.

US President Donald Trump's repeated interest in acquiring Greenland has put it firmly in the spotlight and fuelled the longstanding debate on the island's future ties with Copenhagen.

"There's never been a spotlight like this on Greenland before," says Nauja Bianco, a Danish-Greenlandic policy expert on the Arctic.

Greenland has been controlled by Denmark – nearly 3,000km (1,860 miles) away – for about 300 years. It governs its own domestic affairs, but decisions on foreign and defence policy are made in Copenhagen.

Now, five out of six parties on the ballot favour Greenland's independence from Denmark, differing only on how quickly that should come about.

The debate over independence has been "put on steroids by Trump", says Masaana Egede, editor of Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq.

The island's strategic location and untapped mineral resources have caught the US president's eye. He first floated the idea of buying Greenland back during his first term in 2019.

Since taking office again in January, he has reiterated his intention to acquire the territory. Greenland and Denmark's leaders have repeatedly rebuffed his demands.

Addressing the US Congress last week, however, Trump again doubled down. "We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we're gonna get it," he said, prompting applause and laughter from a number of politicians, including Vice-President JD Vance.

In Nuuk, his words struck a nerve with politicians who were quick to condemn them. "We deserve to be treated with respect and I don't think the American president has done that lately since he took office," Prime Minister Mute Egede said.

Still, the US interest has stoked calls for Greenland to break away from Denmark, with much of the debate focused on when – not if – the process of independence should begin.

Greenland's independence goal is not new, Nauja Bianco points out, and has been decades in the making.

A string of revelations about past mistreatment of Inuit people by the Danes have hurt Greenlandic public opinion about Denmark. Earlier this year, PM Egede said the territory should free itself from "the shackles of colonialism".

But it is the first time the subject has taken centre stage in an election.

Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), the party of Prime Minister Mute Egede, favours gradual steps towards autonomy. "Citizens must feel secure," he told local media.

Arctic expert Martin Breum says Egede's handling of the challenge from Trump and strong words against Denmark over past colonial wrongdoings "will give him a lot of votes".

Smaller rivals could also gain ground and potentially shake up alliances.

Opposition party Naleraq wants to immediately kick-off divorce proceedings from Copenhagen and have closer defence dealings with Washington.

Pointing to Greenland's EU departure and Brexit, party leader Pele Broberg has said that Greenland could be "out of the Danish kingdom in three years".

Naleraq is fielding the largest number of candidates and has gained momentum by riding the wave of discontent with Denmark.

"Naleraq will also be a larger factor too in parliament," predicts Mr Breum, who says party candidates have performed well on TV and on social media.

However, the centre-right Demokraatit party believes it is too soon to push for independence.

"The economy will have to be much stronger than it is today," party candidate Justus Hansen told Reuters.

Greenland's economy is driven by fishing, and government spending relies on annual subsidies from Denmark.

Talk of Trump and independence has overshadowed other key issues for voters, says newspaper editor Masaana Egede.

"It's an election where we should be talking about healthcare, care of the elderly and social problems. Almost everything is about independence."

According to recent polls, almost 80% of Greenlanders back moves towards future statehood.

About 44,000 people are eligible to vote, and given the low numbers and few polls, results are difficult to forecast.

Even though a majority of Greenlanders favour independence, a survey has shown that half would be less enthusiastic about independence if that meant lower living standards.

One poll found that 85% of Greenlanders do not wish to become a part of the United States, and nearly half see Trump's interest as a threat.

One fear among some Greenlanders, says Masaana Egede, is how long the Arctic island could remain independent and whether it would break off from Denmark only to have another country "standing on our coasts and start taking over".

Experts say it is this worry that could steer votes towards keeping the status quo.

Although Greenland's right to self-determination is enshrined into law by the 2009 Self-Rule Act, there are several steps to take before the territory could break away from Denmark, including holding a referendum.

This means getting full independence could take "about 10 to 15 years," says Kaj Kleist, a veteran Greenlandic politician and civil servant who prepared the Self-Rule Act.

"There is lot of preparation and negotiations with the Danish government before you can make that a reality," he adds.

Whatever the election's outcome, experts do not believe Greenland could become independent before Trump's second term is over in 2028.

The results are expected in the early hours of Wednesday.

Athol Fugard, who has died aged 92, was widely acclaimed as one of South Africa's greatest playwrights.

The son of an Afrikaner mother, he was best known for his politically charged plays challenging the racist system of apartheid.

Paying tribute to Fugard, South Africa's Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie hailed him as "a fearless storyteller who laid bare the harsh realities of apartheid through his plays".

"We were cursed with apartheid, but blessed with great artists who shone a light on its impact and helped to guide us out of it. We owe a huge debt to this late, wonderful man," McKenzie added.

Fugard wrote more than 30 plays in a career that spanned 70 years, making his mark with The Blood Knot in 1961.

It was the first play in South Africa with a black and white actor - Fugard himself - performing in a front of a multiracial audience, before the apartheid regime introduced laws prohibiting mixed casts and audiences.

The Blood Knot catapulted Fugard onto the international stage - with the play shown in the US, and adapted for British television.

It led to the apartheid regime confiscating his passport, but it strengthened Fugard's resolve to keep breaking racial barriers and exposing the injustices of apartheid.

He went on to work with the Serpent Players, a group of black actors, and performed in black townships, despite harassment from the apartheid regime's security forces.

Fugard's celebrated plays included Boesman and Lena, which looked at the difficult circumstances of a mixed-race couple. Having premiered in 1969, it was made into a film in 2000 starring Danny Glover and Angela Bassett.

His novel, Tsotsi, was made into a film, winning the 2006 Oscar for best foreign language movie.

Other well-known plays by him include Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island, which he co-wrote with the actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona.

In a simple tribute on X, Kani posted: "I am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend Athol Fugard. May his soul rest in eternal peace. Elder 🌹"

Fugard won several awards for his work, and received a lifetime achievement honour at the prestigious Tony awards in 2011, while Time magazine described him in the 1980s as the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world.

"Apartheid defined me, that is true... But I am proud of the work that came out of it, that carries my name," Fugard told the AFP news agency in 1995.

Fugard feared that the end of apartheid in 1994 could leave him with little to do, but he still found enough material to write.

In a BBC interview in 2010, he said that he shared the view of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu that "we have lost our way" as a nation.

"I think the present society in South Africa needs the vigilance of writers, every bit as much as the old one did.

"It is a responsibility that young writers, playwrights, must really wake up to and understand that responsibility is theirs, just as it was mine and a host of other writers in the earlier years."

Additional reporting by the BBC's Elettra Neysmith.

More BBC stories on South Africa:

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Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

Mark Carney's elevation to the top job in Canada is of particular significance at this moment when his country is at the frontline of a North American trade war. He becomes the "anti-Trump" on the US president's doorstep.

The former Bank of England governor chose to lean strongly into resisting Donald Trump's policies at his acceptance speech. He said the US president had brought "dark days" from "a country we can no longer trust" and that he was "proud" of Canadians resisting the US "with their wallets".

While on trade specifically Mr Carney vowed to keep the retaliatory tariffs "until Americans show us respect", it was clear that the general threats against Canadian sovereignty are equally as important in his thinking.

Trump has repeatedly said he will use economic power to encourage Canada to become the 51st state of the US, but Carney hit back. "The Americans want our resources, our land, our water, our country… Canada will never be part of America in any way, shape or form," he said.

Behind the scenes, Carney has been encouraging a very robust response to Mr Trump. As he told me last month in his only UK interview during his campaign to succeed current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it was necessary to "stand up to a bully".

He ridiculed Trump's allegations of Canada's involvement in fentanyl trade, and the US president's suggestion that Canada has ripped off the US. Canada's trade deficit is caused "entirely" by its exports of subsidised oil, Carney told me, and "perhaps we should ask for that subsidy back".

• Canada's next PM Mark Carney vows to win trade war with Trump - LIVE UPDATES
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He follows in the footsteps of former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi as a former top central banker who became a G7 leader. It is an otherwise rare path, but it may be good timing when Canada's nearest neighbour has suggested using economic power to take over.

Carney has experience in this area having dealt with a number of acute political-economic crises, such as the banking crash, the eurozone crisis, sterling's sharp slide after Brexit, and the start of the pandemic.

He has also regularly attended G20 meetings at leader level, including in the presence of Trump, as chair of the Financial Stability Board, an international economic body. At one such meeting, the Trump team threatened to leave the International Monetary Fund.

Carney believes that Trump only respects power. Of any attempt to mollify Trump, he said "good luck with that". He will focus further tariff retaliation on bringing inflation and interest rate rises to Canada's "southern neighbour".

The Canadian election is due by October, but Carney might call an earlier one. Depending on that, he is on course to host Trump in Canada at the G7 Summit in July.

His rise to the top job raises the stakes for the UK. On the one hand, a more robust approach from an allied G7 leader stands in contrast to the UK's attempt to hug the White House closely.

On the other hand, Carney also hinted at wanting to diversify trade towards "more reliable" partners, which would include the UK and EU. Canada might send its subsidised energy to Europe, rather than the US.

The bigger strategic point is that Carney's background means a focus on international solidarity, and defence of the existing multilateral system. He says Canada can "stand on its own feet" but sees merit in creating a more coherent international alliance to focus the minds of Congress and tariff-sceptics in the Trump administration.

Canada's new leadership expects support from its Commonwealth ally, the UK. After my recent interview with him, Carney turned the camera to the portrait on the wall of the office from which he was talking to me: King Charles. The message was clear. Canada and the UK should be on the same side in this new world era.

In January, days after the first-month anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime in a lightning Islamist-led rebel offensive in Syria, a group of young men - some of them armed - were gathered, checking their phones in the nearly empty interior ministry headquarters in Damascus.

With Bashar al-Assad gone, they had arrived from Idlib, a region in the country's north-west that for years was the only opposition-controlled province in the country.

Virtually overnight, they had been catapulted to positions once controlled by hand-picked Assad supporters and, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, were in charge of a fractured country devastated by 13 years of civil war.

One of them, around 30 years old, had recently been appointed as a high-profile security official, and welcomed me to a room where any sign of the old regime had been removed. Tall and shy, the official made notes on his iPad while acknowledging that the new rulers faced enormous security challenges, including the threat coming from Assad loyalists.

• From jihadist leader to politician: How Syria's president reinvented himself
• 'We are still at war': Syria's Kurds battle Turkey months after Assad's fall

The dismantling of the decades-old apparatus behind the oppressive machine of the Assads, such as the country's army and the ruling Baath party, meant the sacking of hundreds of thousands of people.

"There are Assad-affiliated people who haven't engaged with the reconciliation process," said the official, who requested anonymity to be able to discuss sensitive issues, citing the new authorities' call for former members of the security forces to surrender their weapons and ties to the old government.

"Our eyes are on everyone, but we don't want to give the impression that we're after them. That's why there haven't been massive raids."

Since then the violence has escalated, particularly in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartous, a stronghold of the Assad family, but clashes were relatively contained. Until Thursday.

As forces linked to the government carried out an operation in the countryside of Latakia province, targeting a former Assad official, they were ambushed by gunmen.

At least 13 members of the security forces were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, in what a regional official described as a well-planned attack carried out by "remnants of the Assad militias".

Initially limited to the Jableh area, the unrest spread more widely. Videos posted online showed heavy gunfire in different areas. The authorities sent reinforcements and, on Friday, further clashes killed more than 120 people, the Syrian Observatory said.

It marked the most violent day since Assad's fall and the biggest challenge yet to interim President Sharaa's transitional government and his efforts to consolidate authority.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, a research group, former Assad regime members are likely to form the most effective insurgent cells against Syria's new rulers with the ability to coordinate attacks.

"[They] already have pre-existing networks that they can leverage to rapidly organize insurgent cells. These networks are military, intelligence, and political networks and criminal syndicates who were regime supporters and lost significant economic and political influence in the aftermath of Assad's fall," they said in a report.

Syria's coastal areas are also the heartland of Assad's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam. Its members held prominent roles in the Assad government but, with the arrival of Sunni Muslim-led rebels, lost the power and privilege they once had. They now say they are under attack and discrimination, despite Sharaa's pledges to respect different religious sects.

On Friday, activists said gunmen had killed dozens of male residents in Alawite areas, which will further exacerbate tensions – and possibly drive support for insurgents in their anti-government push. The Syrian Observatory said the gunmen were from the government's security forces, although this has not been verified.

The authorities also faced resistance from the Druze forces in the south, although a deal was reached earlier this week

The government in Damascus does not control the whole of Syria, where different factions - supported by different countries - exercise power over different regions.

But for Sharaa, the challenge goes beyond the task of trying to keep the country safe.

As Western suspicions over his intentions continue, his authorities are also struggling to get crippling sanctions imposed on Syria under the former regime lifted, a vital move to revive the economy of a country where nine in every 10 people are in poverty.

Mark Carney's thumping victory in the race to succeed Justin Trudeau makes him not only leader of the Liberal Party but, by default, the next Canadian prime minister.

It's an extraordinary result for a man with very little political experience. He has never been elected as an MP, let alone served in a cabinet post.

What Carney does have though - as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and Governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit negotiations - is a long track record in global finance during times of economic turbulence.

And at a moment like this, Carney has been arguing, that could prove invaluable.

Politics in this country has been turned on its head as a result of what's happening south of the border, with US President Donald Trump launching a trade war and threatening to make Canada the 51st state of America.

Addressing a crowd of Liberal supporters after the result of the leadership contest was announced on Sunday evening, Carney promised to face down the threats from Trump, over the tariffs and the claims on Canada's sovereignty.

"Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form. We didn't ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves," he said.

"Americans should make no mistake", he warned, "In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win."

He repeatedly referred to the US president by name and said his government would keep retaliatory tariffs in place until "America shows us respect".

How he will translate his strong language on the stage in Ottawa into practical solutions to those twin challenges was, however, far less clear.

Liberals might hope that Trudeau's exit from the stage will, in itself, help clear the air.

Instead of the frequent mocking by Trump for being a "weak" leader, they might dare to believe that Carney will be able to reset the personal chemistry at least.

On the other hand, if he has to push hard in an attempt to win concessions, will he too risk incurring the wrath of a man who uses unpredictability as a political art form?

Much of that will depend on how serious the US president is in his insistence that he wants to impose real economic pain on Canada and annexe its territory.

And that's a hard question to answer.

• Carney wins race to succeed Trudeau as Canada's PM
• How Britain's former top banker came to lead Canada

After Carney had accepted the party's nomination, I caught up with former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, who served for a decade from 1993 and who'd taken to the stage earlier in the evening.

Did he think Mr Trump was being serious?

"You know, I don't know," he told me. "Do you know? Does anyone know? I'm not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. He changes his mind every two or three hours. So [for him] to be leader of the free world, it is preoccupying for everybody."

While the US threat dominates Canadian politics - Carney described the current situation as "dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust" - there are still domestic political matters to focus on too, not least the prospect of a general election.

Once sworn in as prime minister in the coming days, Carney will have to decide whether to call a snap election. If he doesn't, the opposition parties in Parliament could force one later this month through a no-confidence vote.

Before Trudeau said he was stepping down, the Liberal Party was facing electoral oblivion.

After nine years in power, he'd become a liability and a lightning rod for the public anger over inflation and the rising cost of living despite record levels of government spending and a ballooning national debt.

The stage appeared to be set for the Liberals to be swept from power by a Conservative Party under the stewardship of the young, populist leader Pierre Poilievre who had turned lambasting Trudeau into something of a sport.

Now, not only has he lost the advantage of a deeply unpopular opponent, his political style is at risk of appearing out of step, with even a loose alignment with the politics of Trump a potential liability. The Republican president, for his part, recently said Canada's Conservative leader was not MAGA enough.

The Liberal Party is suddenly feeling a sense of rejuvenation with the gap in the opinion polls with the Conservatives, once a gulf, narrowing dramatically. You could feel that palpable sense of optimism in the room on Sunday evening.

Aware of the danger, Poilievre accused Liberals of "trying to trick Canadians" to elect them to a fourth term. But his statement also highlighted how Trump is changing the political messaging on this side of the border.

"It is the same Liberal team that drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, while Carney personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States," Poilievre wrote.

"We need a new Conservative government that will put Canada First - for a change."

Donald Trump's election has led Canada to rally to round its flag and has propelled a former central bank governor – an archetypal member of the country's political elite – to the highest office in the land.

The Conservatives may still lead in the polls, but for the first time in a long time, the Liberals believe that, under Carney, they have a fighting chance again.

The prime minister of Vanuatu has ordered the cancellation of a passport issued by the island nation to fugitive Indian businessman Lalit Modi, who is wanted by Delhi in a corruption case.

The order came three days after India confirmed that Mr Modi had got citizenship of Vanuatu, a string of more than 80 islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Mr Modi, the former chief of the Indian Premier League (IPL), is wanted for allegedly rigging bids during his tenure as the head of the world's richest cricket tournament.

Mr Modi, who has been living in the UK since 2010, has always denied the allegations.

India has made several unsuccessful attempts to extradite him.

On Friday, India's foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters that Mr Modi had applied to surrender his Indian passport in London.

"We are also given to understand that he has acquired citizenship of Vanuatu. We continue to pursue the case against him as required under law," Jaiswal had said.

The news of Mr Modi becoming a Vanuatu citizen had made headlines in India, where he was once the face of the glamorous, cash-rich IPL tournament. He was a regular presence on the social scene, rubbing shoulders with Bollywood stars and India's elite.

But on Monday, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Jotham Napat announced that his country had decided to cancel Mr Modi's citizenship.

Napat said a Vanuatu passport was a "privilege" and that "applicants must seek citizenship for legitimate reasons".

"None of those legitimate reasons include attempting to avoid extradition, which the recent facts brought to light clearly indicate was Mr Modi's intention," a media release quoted Napat as saying.

He said that background checks and Interpol screenings conducted during Mr Modi's application for a passport had shown no criminal convictions.

But, he added, that in the past 24 hours, he had been made aware that Interpol had twice rejected India's requests to issue an alert notice on Mr Modi, citing a lack of "substantive judicial evidence".

"Any such alert would've triggered an automatic rejection of Mr Modi's citizenship application," the release added.

The move is likely to bring relief to Indian authorities. Unlike the UK, Vanuatu - an island nation in the Pacific Ocean - does not have an extradition treaty with India.

Extradition treaties allow repatriation of people accused of crimes between countries.

A day earlier, Mr Modi wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that there were no cases pending against him in any court in India and accused the media of peddling "fake news" about him.

Mr Modi was instrumental in founding the IPL in 2008, which has now become a multi-billion-dollar industry.

The main accusations against Mr Modi relate to rigging bids during the auction of two team franchises in 2010. He was also accused of selling broadcasting and internet rights without authorisation.

In 2013, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) banned Mr Modi from any involvement in cricket activities for life.

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Hundreds of flights have been cancelled across Germany as airport workers stage a nationwide strike over pay, posing a major disruption for air travellers.

The industrial action, led by the trade union Verdi, began unexpectedly on Sunday at Hamburg Airport, before expanding to a nationwide strike.

Passengers at Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and other major hubs have been urged not to travel to airports, with operations severely disrupted. Frankfurt, Germany's busiest airport, said passengers would be unable to board flights and transfer would "almost certainly" be affected.

Verdi, which represents public sector and transport workers, is in an ongoing dispute over wages and working conditions.

German media reports thousands of flights could be cancelled across the day, disrupting travel for more than 500,000 passengers.

Lufthansa, whose main hub is in Frankfurt, confirmed "delays and extensive cancellations" across all its airlines, while Munich Airport warned of a "greatly reduced flight schedule."

Katja Bromm, spokeswoman for Hamburg Airport, where all 143 departures scheduled on Monday have already been cancelled, said Verdi was "dishonourable" to call a strike without notice at the start of the holiday season.

She said that Sunday's walkouts were "excessive and unfair to tens of thousands of travellers who have nothing to do with the disputes".

A spokesman for Verdi accepted that the strike would affect many, but told German media that causing disruption was necessary to extracting a better offer from employers.

Many of Frankfurt Airport's 1,770 scheduled flights have already been cancelled, while the majority of Munich's 820 flights are expected to be cancelled.

Hundreds more cancellations are anticipated across Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Berlin.

Many passengers had already checked in their luggage and were having problems getting it returned, according to public broadcaster NDR. It also reports that the strike has brought air traffic at Hanover Airport to a standstill.

Beyond airports, Verdi has also called for strikes in waste collection across several German cities, including Berlin, Essen and Kiel, where bins have gone unemptied since last week.

The union is demanding an 8% pay increase for airport workers, or at least €350 more per month, along with higher bonuses and extra time off. Employers have so far rejected these demands as unaffordable.

Further strikes were expected to go ahead this week in facilities operated by the federal government and local authorities, news agency DPA reported, citing a Verdi spokesperson.

The next round of talks is set to take place on Friday in Potsdam.

A caravan found packed with explosives in outer Sydney earlier this year was part of a "fabricated terrorism plot" concocted by criminals, Australian police have said.

The caravan, which was found in northwestern Sydney on 19 January, contained enough explosives to produce a 40m-wide blast, along with a note displaying antisemitic messages and a list of Jewish synagogues.

Its discovery, following a spate of antisemitic attacks in Australia, triggered widespread panic.

But on Monday, Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed that they knew "almost immediately" that the caravan was "essentially a criminal con job".

AFP's deputy commissioner of national security, Krissy Barrett, said investigators within the New South Wales Joint Counter Terrorism Team believed that the caravan was "part of a fabricated terrorism plot".

Authorities arrived at that belief based on information they already had, the ease with which they found the caravan and the visibility of the explosives contained inside – as well as the fact that there was no detonator.

Yet police refrained from telling the public that they believed the plot was fake "out of an abundance of caution", as they continued to receive tip-offs about other related terror plots. They are now confident that these tip-offs were also fabricated, Ms Barrett said.

The fake caravan plot involved several people with different levels of involvement, according to police. Between them, they had planned to purchase a caravan, load it with explosives and antisemitic materials and leave it in a specific location, before informing law enforcement about "an impending terror attack against Jewish Australians".

Ms Barrett described it as "an elaborate scheme contrived by organised criminals, domestically and from offshore", adding that the leader of the plot maintained a distance and hired alleged local criminals to carry out parts of the operation.

Police confirmed that individual has not been arrested.

"Too many criminals are accused of paying others to carry out antisemitic or terrorism incidents to get our attention or divert our resources," Ms Barrett said. She also noted that police believe "the person pulling the strings wanted changes to their criminal status".

Ms Barrett cited the case of another individual who allegedly tried to procure high-powered weapons for a fake terror plot so he could provide information to authorities in exchange for a reduction to his sentence.

BBC News has contacted AFP for more details on the suspected agenda of those behind the caravan hoax, but received no further comment.

"Regardless of the motivation of those responsible for this fake plot, this has had a chilling effect on the Jewish community," Ms Barrett said in her statement.

"What organised crime has done to the Jewish community is reprehensible, and it won't go without consequence. There was also unwarranted suspicion directed at other communities – and that is also reprehensible."

Separately, New South Wales police arrested 14 people on Monday morning as part of Strike Force Pearl: a police operation established in December 2024 to investigate antisemitic hate crimes across Sydney.

The establishment of the Strike Force followed a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia in late-2024, including the vandalism of a Jewish school in Sydney's eastern suburbs and the arson of a childcare centre, which was set alight and sprayed with antisemitic messages.

Mark Carney's thumping victory in the race to succeed Justin Trudeau makes him not only leader of the Liberal Party but, by default, the next Canadian prime minister.

It's an extraordinary result for a man with very little political experience. He has never been elected as an MP, let alone served in a cabinet post.

What Carney does have though - as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the global financial crisis and Governor of the Bank of England during the Brexit negotiations - is a long track record in global finance during times of economic turbulence.

And at a moment like this, Carney has been arguing, that could prove invaluable.

Politics in this country has been turned on its head as a result of what's happening south of the border, with US President Donald Trump launching a trade war and threatening to make Canada the 51st state of America.

Addressing a crowd of Liberal supporters after the result of the leadership contest was announced on Sunday evening, Carney promised to face down the threats from Trump, over the tariffs and the claims on Canada's sovereignty.

"Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form. We didn't ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves," he said.

"Americans should make no mistake", he warned, "In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win."

He repeatedly referred to the US president by name and said his government would keep retaliatory tariffs in place until "America shows us respect".

How he will translate his strong language on the stage in Ottawa into practical solutions to those twin challenges was, however, far less clear.

Liberals might hope that Trudeau's exit from the stage will, in itself, help clear the air.

Instead of the frequent mocking by Trump for being a "weak" leader, they might dare to believe that Carney will be able to reset the personal chemistry at least.

On the other hand, if he has to push hard in an attempt to win concessions, will he too risk incurring the wrath of a man who uses unpredictability as a political art form?

Much of that will depend on how serious the US president is in his insistence that he wants to impose real economic pain on Canada and annexe its territory.

And that's a hard question to answer.

• Carney wins race to succeed Trudeau as Canada's PM
• How Britain's former top banker came to lead Canada

After Carney had accepted the party's nomination, I caught up with former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, who served for a decade from 1993 and who'd taken to the stage earlier in the evening.

Did he think Mr Trump was being serious?

"You know, I don't know," he told me. "Do you know? Does anyone know? I'm not a medical doctor or a psychiatrist. He changes his mind every two or three hours. So [for him] to be leader of the free world, it is preoccupying for everybody."

While the US threat dominates Canadian politics - Carney described the current situation as "dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust" - there are still domestic political matters to focus on too, not least the prospect of a general election.

Once sworn in as prime minister in the coming days, Carney will have to decide whether to call a snap election. If he doesn't, the opposition parties in Parliament could force one later this month through a no-confidence vote.

Before Trudeau said he was stepping down, the Liberal Party was facing electoral oblivion.

After nine years in power, he'd become a liability and a lightning rod for the public anger over inflation and the rising cost of living despite record levels of government spending and a ballooning national debt.

The stage appeared to be set for the Liberals to be swept from power by a Conservative Party under the stewardship of the young, populist leader Pierre Poilievre who had turned lambasting Trudeau into something of a sport.

Now, not only has he lost the advantage of a deeply unpopular opponent, his political style is at risk of appearing out of step, with even a loose alignment with the politics of Trump a potential liability. The Republican president, for his part, recently said Canada's Conservative leader was not MAGA enough.

The Liberal Party is suddenly feeling a sense of rejuvenation with the gap in the opinion polls with the Conservatives, once a gulf, narrowing dramatically. You could feel that palpable sense of optimism in the room on Sunday evening.

Aware of the danger, Poilievre accused Liberals of "trying to trick Canadians" to elect them to a fourth term. But his statement also highlighted how Trump is changing the political messaging on this side of the border.

"It is the same Liberal team that drove up taxes, housing costs, and food prices, while Carney personally profited from moving billions of dollars and thousands of jobs out of Canada to the United States," Poilievre wrote.

"We need a new Conservative government that will put Canada First - for a change."

Donald Trump's election has led Canada to rally to round its flag and has propelled a former central bank governor – an archetypal member of the country's political elite – to the highest office in the land.

The Conservatives may still lead in the polls, but for the first time in a long time, the Liberals believe that, under Carney, they have a fighting chance again.

A former Thai police chief who was jailed for life three years ago for torturing a drug suspect to death has been found dead in his Bangkok jail cell, authorities said.

Thitisan Utthanaphon, who was nicknamed Joe Ferrari for his many luxury cars, died by suicide, according to a preliminary autopsy.

In 2021, a leaked video showed Thitisan and his colleagues wrapping plastic bags around the head of a 24-year-old drug suspect during an interrogation, leading to the suspect's death.

The video sparked national outrage at that time over police brutality in Thailand. It has made fresh rounds on social media in the wake of Thitisant's death.

Thailand's justice ministry has launched an investigation into his death after his family expressed doubts that he killed himself. Further tests were needed to confirm that he had indeed died in a suicide, authorities said.

Justice minister Tawee Sodsong said on Monday that all evidence related to Thitisant's death should be disclosed, and urged prison authorities to cooperate with investigators.

The family said Thitisant was previously assaulted by a prison staffer. They said officials did not allow them to see his body, which was found in his cell on Friday.

But on Sunday authorities said "no prison officer or inmate has harmed or caused [his] death".

A previous raid on Thitisant's house revealed that he owned a dozen luxury sportscars. Authorities believe he owned at least 42, one of them a rare Lamborghini Aventador Anniversario, of which only 100 were made, priced in Thailand at 47 million baht ($1.45m; £1.05m).

As a police colonel, Thitisant was paid about $1,000 a month.

There were allegations that he demanded bribes from the suspect in the viral video, Jirapong Thanapat, while suffocating him. Thitisant denied this.

Thitisant surrendered in 2021 following a manhunt.

Besides Thitisant, five other police officers were convicted of murdering Jirapong and were also sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

"It's like he has paid off the karma he committed," Jirapong's father said in an interview on local media on Saturday.

The Department of Corrections said they had been investigating a previous complaint filed by Thitisant's family alleging that he had been bullied and assaulted by prison officers earlier this year.

Thitisant had consulted doctors over anxiety issues and trouble sleeping, the department said.

His family visited him on the day that he died and prison staff did not notice any "abnormalities", it said.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can visit BBC Action Line for help.

Israel ordered all of Gaza's electricity supply to be cut off on Sunday in an effort to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining Israeli hostages held in the territory.

Energy minister Eli Cohen's announcement came a week after Israel cut off all aid supplies to the territory, which has a population of more than two million people.

In a video statement on Sunday, Cohen said: "We will use all the tools at our disposal to bring back the hostages and ensure that Hamas is no longer in Gaza the day after [the war]."

The decision to cut electricity is expected to primarily affect the operation of desalination plants which are crucial for providing clean drinking water.

The government said it has not ruled out cutting off water supplies.

In his statement, Cohen said: "I have just signed the order to stop supplying electricity immediately to the Gaza Strip."

Israel cut off most of the mains electricity supply to Gaza earlier in the war.

Talks to prolong the fragile ceasefire, the first phase of which ended on 1 March, are expected to resume in Qatar on Monday.

Israel wants Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of their ceasefire.

But Hamas wants to start negotiations on the ceasefire's second phase, which would see the release of the remaining hostages from Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli forces and a permanent end to war.

Hamas is believed to be holding 24 living hostages as well as the bodies of 35 others.

The militant group - which has warned that cutting off supplies to Gaza would affect the hostages as well - said on Sunday that it had wrapped up the latest round of ceasefire talks with Egyptian mediators without changes to its position and called for an immediate start of the ceasefire's second phase.

Gaza's coastal territory and its infrastructure have been largely devastated by the war, and generators and solar panels are used for some of the power supply.

Israel has faced criticism over cutting off supplies to Gaza.

"Any denial of the entry of the necessities of life for civilians may amount to collective punishment," the United Nations human rights office said on Friday.

Hamas has reiterated its support for a proposal for the establishment of an independent committee of technocrats to run Gaza until Palestinians hold presidential and legislative elections.

That committee would work under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is based in the occupied West Bank.

Israel has rejected the PA having any role in Gaza but has not put forward an alternative for post-war rule.

Hamas's attack in October 2023 killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, inside Israel and saw 251 people taken hostage. Most have been released in ceasefire agreements or other arrangements.

Israel's military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants.

The Trump administration believes Ukraine's leadership is "ready to move forward" on the US demand for a ceasefire process with Russia, according to a senior US state department official.

The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz are due to arrive in Saudi Arabia for Tuesday's talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.

President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to accept his demands for a quick ceasefire with Moscow - but without any immediate pledge of a US security guarantee.

Ten days ago the two publicly clashed at the White House, with Trump claiming Zelensky was not ready to end the fighting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

• How the Trump-Zelensky talks collapsed in 10 fiery minutes
• Zelensky's conciliatory letter to Trump suggests he's out of options

"The fact that they're coming here at senior levels is a good indication to us that they want to sit down and they're ready to move forward," said the state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the talks with Ukraine in Jeddah.

While Zelensky is also due in the Gulf kingdom to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he is not expected to play any formal role in the talks with the Americans.

The Ukrainian team will be represented by Zelensky's head of office Andriy Yermak, the country's national security adviser as well as foreign and defence ministers.

In his video address late on Sunday, Zelensky said: "We hope for results - both in bringing peace closer and in continuing support".

Zelensky has been under strong US pressure to make concessions ahead of any peace talks, while he has been pushing for firm security guarantees for Kyiv, stressing that Putin violated previous ceasefire deals.

Any corresponding pressure the US has been putting on Moscow to make concessions has not been made public.

Soon after the White House row, Zelensky expressed regret about the incident and tried to repair relations with the US - the country's biggest military supplier.

Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, later said that Trump had received a letter from Zelensky that included an "apology" and "sense of gratitude".

Witkoff said that in Saudi Arabia the US team wanted to discuss a "framework" for peace to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

A major minerals deal - derailed because of the row - is also reported to be back on the agenda in Saudi Arabia.

Ukraine has offered to grant the US access to its rare earth mineral reserves in exchange for US security guarantees.

The clash at the White House also resulted in the US pausing all military aid to Ukraine and stopping sharing intelligence.

But when asked on Sunday whether he would consider lifting the intelligence pause, Trump answered: "Well, we just about have. I mean, we really just about have and we want to do anything we can to get Ukraine to be serious about getting something done." He provided no further details.

On 18 February - before the US-Ukraine row in Washington - Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia. It was a follow-up to Trump's controversial phone conversation with Putin.

Former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has won the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as Canada's prime minister and Liberal Party leader.

Carney, 59, who easily beat three rivals, will lead the Liberals into the next general election, which is expected to be called in the coming weeks.

In his victory speech, Carney lashed out at US President Donald Trump, who has ignited a trade war with Canada and made comments about making the country the 51st US state.

Carney, who has never served in elected office, takes power at a time of deep instability for Canada. The Liberals have been trailing Conservatives in opinion polls, though they have narrowed the gap since the trade war with Trump began.

The leadership race began in January after Trudeau resigned following nearly a decade in office. He had faced internal pressure to quit over deep unpopularity with voters.

Carney is expected to be sworn in as prime minister in the coming days, and will lead a minority government in Parliament.

He could either call a snap general election himself or the opposition parties could force one with a no-confidence vote later this month.

After being declared winner on Sunday night, Carney said: "Canadians know that new threats demand new ideas and a new plan.

"They know that new challenges demand new leadership. Canadians want positive leadership that will end division and help us build together."

On Trump, he said the US president had placed "unjustified tariffs" on Canada.

"He's attacking Canadian workers, families, and businesses," said Carney. "We can't let him succeed."

He said his government would keep tariffs on US imports "until the Americans show us respect".

Carney also pledged to "secure our borders", which has been a key demand of Trump in their tariff stand-off.

The former central banker has run on a broadly centrist agenda, a shift away from Trudeau, who had moved the Liberals to the left.

Among his key promises, as Canada faces a tariff war with the US, its largest trading partner, is to push forward on major energy projects like pipelines, which have faced a political roadblocks in recent years.

He has promised major investments in housing and clean energy projects, and to liberalise trade within Canada, where barriers remain between provinces, and to diversify trade away form the US.

During the leadership race, Carney promised to cap the size of the federal government, which expanded 40% under Trudeau and to undertake a programme review.

He said in late February he would run a "small" deficit for three years "that aligns with our fiscal capacity", before balancing the operational budget.

Carney has said the country needs significant investments to counter Trump's tariff threats, including in defence, energy and port and rail infrastructure.

A student who played a prominent role during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year has been detained by federal immigration officials, says his lawyer.

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead student negotiator for the encampment at the campus on the west side of Manhattan.

His attorney, Amy Greer, told the BBC that Mr Khalil was inside his university-owned home when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took him into custody on Saturday.

Columbia was the epicentre last year of pro-Palestinian student protests nationwide against the war in Gaza and US support for Israel.

The BBC contacted the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State and Columbia University on Sunday for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later posted a news story on X about the arrest of Mr Khalil, commenting: "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported".

Ms Greer said the ICE agents told Mr Khalil his student visa had been revoked, but she said her client is a legal permanent resident with a green card and married to an American citizen.

"Initially we were informed this morning that he had been transferred to an ICE facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey," Ms Greer said.

"However, when his wife – a US citizen who is eight months' pregnant and was threatened with arrest as well by the ICE agents last night – tried to visit him there today, she was told he is not detained there."

She said she is unaware of Mr Khalil's current location, although an online detainee locator search on the ICE website indicates a Syrian-born individual named Mahmoud Khalil was being held at the Elizabeth Contract Detention Facility in New Jersey.

Ms Greer said they had heard that Mr Khalil could be transferred as far away as Louisiana, without adding details.

The lawyer said what happened to her client is a "terrible and inexcusable – and calculated – wrong".

During the protests last summer, Mr Khalil said he was leading negotiations with university administrators on behalf of the student protesters.

They had set up a huge tent encampment on the university lawn in protest against the Gaza war.

Some students also seized control of an academic building for several hours before police entered the campus to arrest them. Mr Khalil was not in that group.

He later told the BBC he had been temporarily suspended by the university, where he is a graduate student at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Mr Khalil's detention follows President Donald Trump's executive order in January warning anyone involved in "pro-jihadist protests" and "all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses" would be deported.

Some Jewish students at Columbia have said that rhetoric at the demonstrations at times crossed the line into antisemitism. Other Jewish students on campus have joined the pro-Palestinian protests.

The Trump administration last week announced it was revoking $400m (£310m) in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

Columbia interim president Katrina Armstrong said in a campus-wide email on Friday that "the cancellation of these funds will immediately impact research and other critical functions of the University".

The Israeli military launched its campaign against Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack into Israel on 7 October 2023, which left about 1,200 people dead and 251 taken hostage.

More than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel's military action, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

US President Donald Trump has refused to say whether the US economy is facing a recession or price rises in the wake of his administration's flip-flopping on tariff threats against some of its closest trading partners.

Asked if he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said there was a "period of transition" taking place.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, insisted there would be no contraction in the world's largest economy, while acknowledging that the price of some goods may rise.

It comes after a volatile week for US financial markets as investors grappled with uncertainty from his administration's U-turn on some key parts of its aggressive trade policies.

New tit-for-tat tariffs from China, which target some US farm products, come into effect on Monday.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday but recorded on Thursday, Trump responded to a question about a recession: "I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing."

"It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us," Trump added.

Last week, the US imposed steep tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada but then exempted many of those goods just two days later.

Stocks markets have been falling in the US since the Trump administration sparked a trade war with the US's top trading partners.

Investors fear tariffs will lead to higher prices and ultimately dent growth in the world's largest economy.

Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Lutnick said: "Foreign goods may get a little more expensive. But American goods are going to get cheaper".

But when asked whether the US economy could face a recession Lutnick added: "Absolutely not… There's going to be no recession in America."

Hackers thought to be working for the North Korean regime have successfully cashed out at least $300m (£232m) of their record-breaking $1.5bn crypto heist.

The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, swiped the huge haul of digital tokens in a hack on crypto exchange ByBit two weeks ago.

Since then, it's been a cat-and-mouse game to track and block the hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable cash.

Experts say the infamous hacking team is working nearly 24 hours a day - potentially funnelling the money into the regime's military development.

"Every minute matters for the hackers who are trying to confuse the money trail and they are extremely sophisticated in what they're doing," says Dr Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto investigators Elliptic.

Out of all the criminal actors involved in crypto currency, North Korea is the best at laundering crypto, Dr Robinson says.

"I imagine they have an entire room of people doing this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see from their activity that they only take a few hours break each day, possibly working in shifts to get the crypto turned into cash."

Elliptic's analysis tallies with ByBit, which says that 20% of the funds have now "gone dark", meaning it is unlikely to ever be recovered.

The US and allies accuse the North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to fund the regime's military and nuclear development.

On 21 February the criminals hacked one of ByBit's suppliers to secretly alter the digital wallet address that 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were being sent to.

ByBit thought it was transferring the funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent it all to the hackers.

Ben Zhou, the CEO of ByBit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

The firm has since replenished the stolen coins with loans from investors, but is in Zhou's words "waging war on Lazarus".

ByBit's Lazarus Bounty programme is encouraging members of the public to trace the stolen funds and get them frozen where possible.

All crypto transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it's possible to track the money as it's moved around by the Lazarus Group.

If the hackers try to use a mainstream crypto service to attempt to turn the coins into normal money like dollars, the crypto coins can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.

So far 20 people have shared more than $4m in rewards for successfully identifying $40m of the stolen money and alerting crypto firms to block transfers.

But experts are downbeat about the chances of the rest of the funds being recoverable, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and laundering the money.

"North Korea is a very closed system and closed economy so they created a successful industry for hacking and laundering and they don't care about the negative impression of cyber crime," Dr Dorit Dor from cyber security company Check Point said.

Another problem is that not all crypto companies are as willing to help as others.

Crypto exchange eXch is being accused by ByBit and others of not stopping the criminals cashing out.

More than $90m has been successfully funnelled through this exchange.

But over email the elusive owner of eXch - Johann Roberts - disputed that.

He admits they didn't initially stop the funds, as his company is in a long-running dispute with ByBit, and he says his team wasn't sure the coins were definitely from the hack.

He says he is now co-operating, but argues that mainstream companies that identify crypto customers are abandoning the private and anonymous benefits of crypto currency.

North Korea has never admitted being behind the Lazarus Group, but is thought to be the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial gain.

Previously the Lazarus Group hackers targeted banks, but have in the last five years specialised in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to stop them laundering the funds.

Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:

• The 2019 hack on UpBit for $41m
• The $275m theft of crypto from exchange KuCoin (most of the funds were recovered)
• The 2022 Ronin Bridge attack which saw hackers make off with $600m in crypto
• Approximately $100m in crypto was stolen in an attack on Atomic Wallet in 2023

In 2020, the US added North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazarus Group to its Cyber Most Wanted list. But the chances of the individuals ever being arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.

A shorter winter has literally left Nitin Goel out in the cold.

For 50 years, his family's clothing business in India's northwestern textile city of Ludhiana has made jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts. But with the early onset of summer this year, the company is staring at a washout season and having to shift gears.

"We've had to start making t-shirts instead of sweaters as the winter is getting shorter with each passing year. Our sales have halved in the last five years and are down a further 10% during this season," Goel told the BBC. "The only recent exception to this was Covid, when temperatures dropped significantly."

Across India as cool weather beats a hasty retreat, anxieties are building up at farms and factories, with cropping patterns and business plans getting upended.

Data from the Indian Meteorological Department shows that last month was India's hottest February in 125 years. The weekly average minimum temperature was also above normal by 1-3C in many parts of the country.

Above-normal maximum temperatures and heatwaves are likely to persist over most parts of the country between March and May, the weather agency has warned.

For small business owners like Goel, such erratic weather has meant much more than just slowing sales. His whole business model, practised and perfected over decades, has had to change.

Goel's company supplies clothes to multi-brand outlets across India. And they are no longer paying him on delivery, he says, instead adopting a "sale or return" model where consignments not sold are returned to the company, entirely transferring the risk to the manufacturer.

He has also had to offer bigger discounts and incentives to his clients this year.

"Big retailers haven't picked up goods despite confirmed orders," says Goel, adding that some small businesses in his town have had to shut shop as a result.

Nearly 1,200 miles away in Devgad town on India's western coast, the heat has wreaked havoc on India's much-loved Alphonso mango orchards.

"Production this year would be only around 30% of the normal yield," said Vidyadhar Joshi, a farmer who owns 1,500 trees.

The sweet, fleshy and richly aromatic Alphonso is a prized export from the region, but yields across the districts of Raigad, Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri, where the variety is predominantly grown, are lower, according to Joshi.

"We might make losses this year," Joshi adds, because he has had to spend more than usual on irrigation and fertilisers in a bid to salvage the crop.

According to him, many other farmers in the area were even sending labourers, who come from Nepal to work in the orchards, back home because there wasn't enough to do.

Scorching heat is also threatening winter staples such as wheat, chickpea and rapeseed.

While the country's agriculture minister has dismissed concerns about poor yields and predicted that India will have a bumper wheat harvest this year, independent experts are less hopeful.

Heatwaves in 2022 lowered yields by 15-25% and "similar trends could follow this year", says Abhishek Jain of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (Ceew) think tank.

India - the world's second largest wheat producer - will have to rely on expensive imports in the event of such disruptions. And its protracted ban on exports, announced in 2022, may continue for even longer.

Economists are also worried about the impact of rising temperatures on availability of water for agriculture.

Reservoir levels in northern India have already dropped to 28% of capacity, down from 37% last year, according to Ceew. This could affect fruit and vegetable yields and the dairy sector, which has already experienced a decline in milk production of up to 15% in some parts of the country.

"These things have the potential to push inflation up and reverse the 4% target that the central bank has been talking about," says Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist with Bank of Baroda.

Food prices in India have recently begun to soften after remaining high for several months, leading to rate cuts after a prolonged pause.

GDP in Asia's third largest economy has also been supported by accelerating rural consumption recently after hitting a seven-quarter low last year. Any setback to this farm-led recovery could affect overall growth, at a time when urban households have been cutting back and private investment hasn't picked up.

Think tanks like Ceew say a range of urgent measures to mitigate the impact of recurrent heatwaves needs to be thought through, including better weather forecasting infrastructure, agriculture insurance and evolving cropping calendars with climate models to reduce risks and improve yields.

As a primarily agrarian country, India is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Ceew estimates three out of every four Indian districts are "extreme event hotspots" and 40% exhibit what is called "a swapping trend" - which means traditionally flood-prone areas are witnessing more frequent and intense droughts and vice-versa.

The country is expected to lose about 5.8% of daily working hours due to heat stress by 2030, according to one estimate. Climate Transparency, the advocacy group, had pegged India's potential income loss across services, manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors from labour capacity reduction due to extreme heat at $159bn in 2021- or 5.4% of its GDP.

Without urgent action, India risks a future where heatwaves threaten both lives and economic stability.

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Syrian security forces are alleged to have killed hundreds of civilians belonging to the Alawite minority group in continuing violence along the country's coast, according to a war monitoring group.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said some 745 civilians had been killed in around 30 "massacres" targeting Alawites on Friday and Saturday.

BBC News has not been able to independently verify these claims.

Hundreds of people have reportedly fled their homes in the region - a heartland of deposed president Bashar al-Assad, who also belongs to the Alawite sect.

A total of more than 1,000 people have been killed in the past two days, the SOHR said, in what is the worst violence in Syria since rebels toppled the Assad regime in December.

This figure includes dozens of government troops and gunmen loyal to Assad, who have been locked in clashes in the coastal Latakia and Tartous provinces since Thursday.

Some 125 members of the Islamist-led government security forces and 148 pro-Assad fighters have been killed in the violence, according to the SOHR's report.

A Syrian defence ministry spokesman told the country's Sana news agency that the government had re-established control after "treacherous attacks" against its security personnel.

The violence has left the Alawite community in "a state of horror", an activist in the city told the BBC on Friday, with hundreds of people reportedly fleeing affected areas.

Large crowds sought refuge at a Russian military base at Hmeimim in Latakia, according to the Reuters news agency.

Video footage shared by Reuters showed dozens of people chanting "people want Russian protection" outside the base.

Meanwhile, dozens of families have fled to neighbouring Lebanon, according to local media.

The UN's special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he was "deeply alarmed" by "very troubling reports of civilian casualties" in Syria's coastal areas.

He called on all sides to refrain from actions which could "destabilise" the country and jeopardise a "credible and inclusive political transition".

Alawites, whose sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, make up around 10% of Syria's population, which is majority Sunni Muslim.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and tech billionaire Elon Musk have had a contentious exchange with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, in a series of X posts on Sunday over the use of Musk's Starlink satellite system in Ukraine.

In a response to a post from Musk mentioning turning off the system, Sikorski implied that any threats to shut down Starlink would result in a search for other suppliers.

Rubio quickly dismissed the claims that Musk would shut down the system and urged Sikorski to be grateful.

The trio went back and forth in an exchange of posts on X that ended with Musk calling Sikorski "small man".

Starlink's system is part of SpaceX's mission to provide high-speed internet to remote and underserved areas - like war zones - around the world.

Sunday's exchange started when Musk posted that Starlink was the "backbone of the Ukrainian army".

"Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off," he wrote.

Sikorski then responded to Musk's post, saying that Poland was paying for the service.

"Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year," Sikorski wrote. "The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers."

Sikorski's post caused Rubio to chime in, writing that the Polish foreign minister was "just making things up".

"No-one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink," Rubio wrote.

"And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now," he added.

Musk later responded to Sikorski's post calling him a "small man".

"Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink," Musk wrote.

The Starlink terminals are key to Ukraine's army operations and have been used since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022.

There are tens of thousands of terminals in the country, including up to 500 purchased by the US Department of Defence in June 2023.