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Three passengers dead after suspected hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus infection on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean killed three people – including an elderly married couple – and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and South Africa’s health department said on Sunday. The WHO said an investigation was under way but that at least one case of hantavirus had been confirmed. One of the patients was in intensive care in a South African hospital, the UN’s health agency said in a statement to the Associated Press, and the WHO was working with authorities to evacuate two others with symptoms from the ship. The outbreak was reported on the MV Hondius, which was travelling between Argentina and Cape Verde. According to several online ship-tracking sites, the MV Hondius was just off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Sunday night. Two of those who died were a husband and wife aged 70 and 69 from the Netherlands. The South African health ministry said the man fell ill onboard the ship and died on the island of Saint Helena, while his wife died at a hospital in Kempton Park, a city in South Africa. A British man, 69, who became ill on the ship was taken to a private health facility in Johannesburg, according to the South African health ministry, which said he tested positive for hantavirus. Hantavirus is usually caught through contact with urine or faeces from infected rodents. Hantaviruses cause two serious syndromes, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention: hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a severe disease that effects the lungs, and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, a severe disease that affects the kidneys. While rare, hantavirus infections could be spread between people, the WHO said. There was no specific treatment or cure, but early medical attention could increase the chance of survival. “WHO is aware of and supporting a public health event involving a cruise vessel sailing in the Atlantic Ocean,” the organisation said. “Detailed investigations are ongoing, including further laboratory testing, and epidemiological investigations. Medical care and support are being provided to passengers and crew. Sequencing of the virus is also ongoing.” The ship is operated by the Dutch tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, which said on Sunday evening that two crew members onboard require urgent medical care and the third fatality was still onboard the ship. The company said local health authorities had assessed the two symptomatic individuals, but the ship did not have authorisation from Cape Verdean authorities to disembark people requiring medical care. “The priority of Oceanwide Expeditions is to ensure that the two symptomatic individuals onboard receive adequate and expedited medical care,” a spokesperson said. “We are in close contact with those directly affected and their families and are providing support where possible. “Disembarkation and medical screening of all guests require coordination with local health authorities, and we are in close consultation with them.” Dutch authorities have agreed to lead a joint effort in organising the repatriation of the two symptomatic individuals to the Netherlands, the cruise operator said, along with the body of the deceased individual. The WHO said it was “facilitating coordination” between national authorities and the ship’s operators to organise the medical evacuation of two passengers with symptoms. The MV Hondius, which can accommodate about 170 passengers and has 70 crew members, is listed as a polar cruise ship on the websites of several travel agencies. One of the cruises offers an itinerary departing from Ushuaia in Argentina and sailing to Cape Verde, with stops in the islands of South Georgia and Saint Helena. The UK’s foreign office said: “We are closely monitoring reports of a potential hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Hondius and stand ready to support British nationals if needed. We are in touch with the cruise company and local authorities.”

Trump says US will ‘guide’ trapped ships from Gulf amid ‘very positive’ talks with Iran

Donald Trump has announced that the US will “guide” ships trapped by the Iran war out of the Gulf through the strait of Hormuz on Monday morning, and claimed his representatives were having “very positive” discussions with Iran. Trump wrote on his social media site that the operation, called “Project Freedom”, would be a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran”. “I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait. In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else.” The president gave no details of how the more than 850 vessels trapped in the Gulf would be freed, and US media cited a US official as saying the plan doesn’t currently involve US Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait. Instead it would reportedly be a process through which shipping stakeholders can coordinate traffic through the strait. After Trump’s announcement a senior Iranian official warned any US attempt to interfere in the strait of Hormuz would be seen as a breach of the ceasefire by Tehran. Iran imposed a blockade on foreign shipping using the Hormuz strait soon after the war began with a US-Israeli attack on 28 February. Trump imposed a counter-blockade of ships using Iranian ports on 13 April. Trump’s announcement on Sunday came nearly three days after the presentation of a 14-point peace plan by Iran, which reportedly focused on an initial agreement to open the strait of Hormuz. Iran’s foreign ministry announced on Sunday it had received a response from Washington and would study it. It was unclear on Sunday night how the Iranian proposal and Trump’s announcement were directly linked, but the president said in his social media post: “I am fully aware that my Representatives are having very positive discussions with the Country of Iran, and that these discussions could lead to something very positive for all.” However, Trump added: “If, in any way, this humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.” Until Sunday night, messages between the US and Iran had been conveyed by Pakistan, with no reported direct contacts between the warring parties. The US president’s upbeat post about freeing Gulf shipping represented a characteristically dramatic change of course and tone. On Saturday, he told reporters he had received the Iranian plan but had not read it in full, then later posted sceptical remarks casting doubt on a diplomatic breakthrough and musing whether the Tehran regime had “paid a big enough price” for its past wrongs, triggering speculation about a new wave of US strikes. It is more than three weeks since a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire stopped hostilities in the Gulf but failed to open the strait, a critical gateway for oil, gas and petro-chemicals. Oil prices rose to more than $120 (£89) a barrel last week, with dire implications for the global economy. The continued impasse has cast a shadow over Trump’s delayed trip to China, planned for 14 May. China is Iran’s biggest customer, buying 80% of its oil before the war, accounting for 13% of Chinese oil imports. An estimated 20,000 sailors are stuck on the tankers, bulk carriers, container ships and other vessels trapped in the Gulf by the closing of the strait, and there are growing concerns for their welfare. Trump said the US had been approached by countries around the world for help. “For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” Trump said on his Truth Social site. “I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait.” There was no immediate Iranian response to Trump’s maritime rescue proposal. Earlier on Sunday night, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, said that a US response to Iran’s peace proposals had been delivered through Pakistani mediators and was under review. Baghaei said that the Iranian plan was focused on ending hostilities, and included a 30-day period under which it would be implemented. He denied reports that it involved Iran’s nuclear programme. “At this stage, we do not have nuclear negotiations,” he said. The US has so far insisted that any agreement must include nuclear limits on Iran. It was not clear on Sunday night whether Washington’s response to Iran’s latest proposal also included this demand. On Saturday, Trump posted a comment on social media saying he “can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years”. Asked about the possibility of renewed hostilities, Trump said it was possible, adding: “If they misbehave, if they do something bad, but right now, we’ll see.” There has been growing speculation over the possibility of another round of US strikes against Iran aimed at forcing concessions, including a halt to the country’s nuclear programme. Israeli press reports quoted senior military officials as saying they were preparing for possible US strikes on Iran, and the likelihood that Tehran would hit back at Israel. A senior Israeli officer who briefed reporters on Friday said any peace agreement without a cessation of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme and the surrender of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be considered a failure. Before Tehran announced it had heard back from Washington, Iran’s military-backed Fars news agency had quoted a senior official as saying a return to all-out conflict was “likely”, four weeks after a ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan. Pakistani efforts to rekindle peace talks in Islamabad, after a first round ended without agreement, have so far failed as each side set preconditions that the other refused to fulfil. On Saturday the head of US Central Command, Adm Brad Cooper, visited sailors and marines onboard an amphibious landing ship, the USS Tripoli, and a guided missile destroyer, the USS Milius, operating in the Arabian Sea, two days after taking part in a top-level White House briefing on Trump’s military options. Since the arrival of the USS George HW Bush on 24 April, the US has three aircraft carriers in the Middle East for the first time since the Iraq war in 2003. While issuing threats of a return to bombing, Trump has also argued to Congress in a letter on Friday that the ceasefire meant hostilities had “terminated”, in an effort to claim the administration is not obliged to seek congressional approval for military operation by a legal deadline of 60 days from the start of the war. A few hours later, Trump contradicted himself, telling a meeting of supporters at a retirement community in Florida: “You know we’re in a war, because I think you would agree we cannot let lunatics have a nuclear weapon.” The suspension of enrichment for a number of years, and the dilution or export of the stockpile, had been on the table in US-Iranian negotiations that had been under way when Trump launched an attack on Iran on 28 February alongside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The war has led to an additional crisis as both sides have imposed parallel blockades of the strait of Hormuz, the gateway for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies, as a means of exerting economic pressure to gain concessions, with dire implications for energy prices and the global economy. On Sunday the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) centre reported that a bulk carrier ship had come under attack by “multiple small craft” off the Iranian coast near Bandar Sirik at the eastern entrance to the strait of Hormuz. The UKMTO did not name the ship but said all of the crew were safe and advised other shipping to proceed with caution. Iran had presented a 14-point proposal to the US via Pakistan on Friday, with a reported focus on the lifting of the blockades and a new mechanism for managing the strait. Iranian press reports portrayed this as a comprehensive peace plan to be implemented within 30 days, rather than just a ceasefire. It also included the payment of compensation to Tehran for war damage, the lifting of sanctions and cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including in Lebanon, where Israel continues to exchange fire with Hezbollah despite a ceasefire having been declared by Trump. On Sunday, Israel ordered thousands of people to leave villages in southern Lebanon, and the Lebanese health ministry reported that 20 people had been killed and 46 injured by Israeli strikes over 24 hours from Saturday to Sunday. The intelligence wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement via state television on Sunday which said: “Trump must choose between an impossible operation or a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It also cited a “shift in tone” from China, Russia and Europe towards Washington and what it called Iran’s own “deadline” on the blockade. It was unclear what deadline was being referred to. At the end of last week, the US threatened to tighten its blockade by imposing sanctions against shipping companies found to have made payments to Tehran to move their cargoes through the strait. Rising petrol prices and a slowing global economy also pose a political threat to Trump as the US approaches congressional elections in November. A Democratic win in one or both chambers would weaken his presidency. Trump has so far shrugged off domestic concerns as he has become increasingly aggressive on the world stage – towards traditional adversaries and allies alike. Trump has signalled he is prepared to escalate a showdown with Germany over critical remarks about the Iran war made by the country’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz. The Pentagon was reportedly taken by surprise by Trump’s announcement on social media that troops would be redeployed, but on Friday announced 5,000 of its roughly 40,000 troops in Germany would be withdrawn. The next day, Trump told reporters: “We’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” He did not provide a reason for the redeployment, which would trigger resistance from Congress if it took troop levels in Europe below a minimum level stipulated by the legislature late last year. The congressional lower limit of 76,000 permanently stationed and temporarily deployed troops was imposed after the administration withdrew a brigade from Romania, and earlier threats from Trump to pull troops out of Germany and other European countries. The Republican chairs of the Senate and House armed services committees criticised the proposed withdrawal from Germany, issuing a statement saying it risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin”. Rather than being withdrawn from Europe, the troops should be moved further east towards Russia, they said. The US troops at European bases are part of the US commitment to European defence, but they also provide support for US operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Teens storm Scientology church in New York in latest ‘speed running’ incident

A group of youths forced their way into a Scientology church in New York on Saturday in the latest in a string of nationwide “speed running” incidents that have gone viral on social media in recent weeks. The group broke through a locked door to gain entry to the Church of Scientology on West 36th Street in Manhattan, throwing objects, damaging the property and injuring a staff member as worshippers and visitors attended a seminar, the church said in a statement to the Guardian. The injured member of staff required medical attention, the church said, and another was subjected to a racial slur. “This was not a peaceful visit or lawful protest. It was a coordinated act involving forced entry, property damage, and physical aggression inside a house of worship,” the statement added. It comes as throngs of mostly adolescent boys and young men have been rushing the Church of Scientology’s international headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard in recent weeks, with clips of the so-called “speed runs” amassing millions of views on TikTok. “Some online have referred to these incidents as ‘speed running.’ In reality, they involve organized trespasses into religious and public information facilities for social media attention,” the church said in its statement. “Church facilities are peaceful spaces designed to welcome parishioners, visitors and members of the public. Turning them into targets for viral stunts is not journalism, protest or civic activity. It is trespass, harassment, and disruption of religious spaces. “The Church welcomes lawful visitors. It does not welcome individuals forcing entry, damaging property, threatening or injuring people, or targeting religious facilities for online attention,” it added. No arrests have been made in connection to Saturday’s incident and the church said it was cooperating with the New York police department as its investigation continues. Following a similar “large-scale incident” in Los Angeles on 25 April, in which “dozens of individuals” forced their way into the church’s facilities, knocking down staff members in the process, church officials said they were “reviewing all available remedies” and had made reports to law enforcement. At least one staff member sustained injuries in that incident that required medical attention from the incidents, the church said. Los Angeles police have received five reports of trespassing incidents – two of which appeared correlated to speed-running attempts, the Los Angeles Times reported in April. The trend appears to have been started by an 18-year-old content creator with the handle Swhileyy. In March he posted a video on Instagram, which has since been removed, showing himself breaching the property. Swhileyy, who has not been publicly identified, has since distanced himself from the trend. “I do not condone what I did, even though I didn’t break any laws,” he told the Hollywood Reporter last week. “I never once in any video or any comment section or anywhere promoted the idea of running through there or beating my record.” Founded by the sci-fi writer L Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, Scientology has long been the subject of fierce public scrutiny, controversy and speculation. Many celebrities, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta, belong to the church, which has an outsize presence in Los Angeles. Defectors, including the actor Leah Remini, have accused the church of fostering a culture of abuse. In 2023, Remini sued the church and its leader, David Miscavige, for harassment, defamation, surveillance and other unlawful behavior resulting in “psychological torture”. She recently weighed in on the “speed running” trend, calling it “unhelpful”. “If someone is brainwashed for years into believing the outside world is filled with dangerous lunatics who wish to impede Scientology, a group of people running through a Scientology building is only going to confirm that belief and lead them to dedicate themselves even more to the cause they believe in,” she wrote on X. “Please focus on exposing the dangers of Scientology, not making a spectacle out of it.”

‘Live and let live’: Northern Ireland historian uncovers surprising era of tolerance of gay men

Northern Ireland carved a grim reputation for homophobia for over half a century, a record of intolerance and bigotry so baroque it was turned into an opera. In the 1970s, Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and Free Presbyterian church, led a “save Ulster from sodomy” crusade to resist the decriminalisation of homosexuality. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Royal Ulster Constabulary used plainclothes officers to bait and catch gay men in parks and public toilets. In 2008, Iris Robinson, an MP and wife of the then DUP leader, Peter Robinson, told an interviewer that homosexuality was an “abomination”, which later became the title of a satirical opera. In 2011, more than a quarter of gay people complained about homophobia in the workplace. Northern Ireland held out against marriage equality until 2019. However, it may not always have been like this. Research suggests that in the Victorian era and early 20th century, Northern Ireland was much more tolerant and accepting of gay men. “I was expecting to find repression but there was a sort of benevolent toleration,” said Tom Hulme, a historian at Queen’s University Belfast and author of Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life Before Gay Liberation, which is published this week. “Among friends and families and employers it was sort of known and understood that a man may have desires for another man and that might be why they remain unmarried or live alone or have many close male friends. “To reveal the open secret would have been problematic. While these things remained unsaid they could essentially kind of exist. We’re not talking about people walking down the streets, holding hands. It’s a much more closed, secret kind of culture.” Hulme said tacit ignorance and public silence enabled male queerness to flourish with only rare exposure, condemnation or regulation, with a “live and let live” ethos especially prevalent in the working class. The academic drew on public records as well as private letters and diaries, including those of David Strain, a middle-class Protestant who chronicled his sexual identity in dozens of journals, comprising about 2m words, that were deposited at the Northern Ireland’s public records office before his death in 1969. Hulme traced the lives of men who were prosecuted for sexual indecency and discovered that in many cases relatives or employers testified on their behalf, paid bail money and welcomed them home or back to work. This compassion was denied to Oscar Wilde in England after a London court convicted him in 1895 of gross indecency. To be arrested, charged and jailed was an “awful” ordeal for gay men, but on release many returned to their former lives, with communities turning a blind eye to sexual orientation as long as there was discretion, said Hulme. “A careful game goes on between gay men and their friends and families. Knowing nods and winks, ‘oh, he’s not the marrying type’.” Metropolises like London afforded anonymity and a degree of protection to men who cruised public spaces for sex, but the intimacy of Belfast, a provincial capital, also offered shelter by letting men establish relationships, said Hulme. “A glance on the way to work, next week, a conversation.” While London had openly gay bars, and men who used cosmetics, the gay community in Belfast had to be more circumspect and socialise in venues with heterosexual norms. With homosexuality hiding in plain sight, conservative political and religious leaders largely ignored the issue until the global gay rights movements began campaigning for open acceptance and equality, said Hulme. “A major moral panic really didn’t happen until the 1950s and 1960s. All of a sudden the churches and the politicians in Northern Ireland had to take a stance. The idea of being morally pure was an important part of Northern Ireland’s self-conception.” Unionist politicians intervened to hush up court cases involving peers, said Hulme. “It’s a public relations disaster if you have a high-profile unionist member of society caught up in this sort of scandal.” Jeff Dudgeon, a leading Northern Ireland gay rights activist, said gay men were able to lead a full life despite the threat of arrest: “Life was enjoyable for those who made it out into a gay sexual life, despite court catastrophes. It wasn’t unmitigated oppression.” Most, however, were not so audacious. Dudgeon said: “Self-knowledge was sparse, as was information about meeting others, so most didn’t pursue a romantic or sexual life, becoming traditional bachelors or spinsters.” Clerics and politicians ramped up denunciations of homosexuality during the Troubles but LGBTQ campaigners prevailed, said Dudgeon, who won a landmark 1981 European court of human rights case that decriminalised homosexual sex in Northern Ireland. “It was a story of the defeat of newly-vocal antagonists like Paisley and Peter Robinson.” The DUP blocked same-sex marriage until 2019, when Westminster voted to align the region with the rest of the UK, prompting celebrations by gay couples. In 2021, DUP leaders apologised for the hurt inflicted by predecessors.

Spirit pilot gets ‘overwhelming’ send-off from Southwest after his final flight is cancelled

A Spirit Airlines pilot was given an emotional send-off into retirement by another airline after what was supposed to be his final flight was canceled amid Spirit’s sudden collapse on Saturday. Jon Jackson had been scheduled to fly his final flight into Baltimore-Washington international airport on Saturday when the low-cost airline ceased operations after running out of cash and rescue talks with the Trump administration failed. So instead, Jackson boarded a Southwest flight to get back to Baltimore from Fort Lauderdale. During the flight, his son Chris, a Southwest pilot, “casually mentioned” to the crew that this would have been his dad’s retirement flight, according to a Facebook post shared by Southwest, “setting into motion a plan that resulted in a proper retirement party when the flight landed in Baltimore”. Southwest staff organized a water cannon salute over the aircraft when it arrived and Jackson was met with cheers, applause and a bottle of bubbly when he walked off the jet bridge. A delighted Jackson gave a brief speech in the terminal, telling staff: “Very overwhelming, I can’t thank you all enough. As Spirit goes down this is a sad day, and you guys made it incredible, so thank you so much.” Southwest’s post reads: “It was a powerful reminder of the aviation community’s ability to show respect, compassion, and solidarity when it matters most. Above all, this moment was about honoring a fellow aviator. Congratulations, and thank you for your service in the skies, Capt Jackson.” Before its collapse, Spirit operated hundreds of daily flights on its bright yellow planes and employed some 17,000 people. But early on Saturday it announced that after 34 years in business it had “with great disappointment … started an orderly wind-down of our operations, effective immediately”. “To our guests: all flights have been canceled, and customer service is no longer available,” the airline said. “We are proud of the impact of our ultra-low-cost model on the industry over the last 34 years and had hoped to serve our guests for many years to come.” The company had struggled to make a deal with its creditors and secure funding to maintain operations after shuttling in and out of bankruptcy twice in recent years. But the sharp rise in jet fuel prices since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran effectively sealed its fate. The Trump administration floated taking a 90% stake to prevent Spirit’s collapse but the company’s bondholders rebelled.

Canada to be first non-European nation at EPC summit as Carney seeks allies

Canada is to become the first non-European country to attend a meeting of the European Political Community when the prime minister, Mark Carney, joins Monday’s summit of the 48-plus nation grouping in Yerevan, Armenia. Carney has said he is determined to build a new network of trade and diplomatic alliances after the loss of US markets under Donald Trump. His presence will also represent a show of western support for Armenia in its efforts to distance itself from Russia at a time when Washington’s approach to Moscow’s opponents, such as Ukraine, is at best ambiguous. Canadian diplomats have rejected suggestions Ottawa might seek EU membership. Trump’s plan to pull more than 5,000 troops out of Germany over the next year and the economic impact on western economies of a prolonged US-Iran conflict will be among the main subjects of discussion in Yerevan. Armenia shares a border with Iran, but unlike neighbouring Azerbaijan has not alleged Iranian missiles have landed in its territory. Yerevan was chosen to host the EPC – an institution championed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and which also includes the UK – to give Armenia a chance to showcase its strengthening links with Europe, and so continue its slow decoupling from Russia, its former backer. Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has pursued a policy of diversification that in practice is slowly drawing his country into the European ambit. His Civil Contract party is facing parliamentary elections in June, and is seeking a big win so he can continue efforts to make a peace with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan faces three opposition parties more sympathetic to Russia. Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe specialising in the Caucasus region, said: “European leaders will have to walk a fine line in Yerevan. As they hold what looks like a pre-election rally for Pashinyan, they must also have a bigger conversation about building a more robust and less polarised Armenia. “The country itself deserves full European attention. It is on the verge of a painful but transformative peace agreement with Baku that will lead to the reopening of its two long borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, which have been closed since the 1990s. The country also has a historic opportunity to loosen its overdependence on Moscow as the war in Ukraine continues to distract and drain Russia.” The day after hosting the EPC, Yerevan hopes the first bilateral summit between Armenia and the EU on Tuesday will result in the bloc offering extra funding to promote democracy as well as visa liberalisation. When the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, visited the country in March, she declared that “Armenia and the EU have never been closer”. The country of 3 million people signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with the EU in 2017. Last year, it adopted a law formally declaring its intention to apply for membership of the bloc, taking the country in a very different political direction to neighbouring Georgia. Armenia is a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) alliance, although it froze its membership of the latter in 2024. Vladimir Putin said in April that Armenia could not be a member of both the EU and CSTO. “It’s simply impossible by definition,” the Russian president told Pashinyan. Macron has been the premier champion of closer European-Armenian ties and his attendance at the Yerevan summit is being given a state-visit-level importance. He is also expected to attend a concert in Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city The EPC, which was set up in 2022, brings together full members of the EU and the large constellation of countries outside the Brussels bloc, including the UK, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Serbia. The group has no formal secretariat and often avoids lengthy communiques in favour of bilateral leader-to-leader discussion. The EPC was met with scepticism at its inception, with some fearing it was a sop for countries that had been waiting years for their applications for EU membership to be progressed. But the willingness of European leaders to continue to attend the summits suggests the gatherings serve a purpose. With the support of Trump, Armenia and Azerbaijan initialled a peace agreement in Washington last August. The Azerbaijani side said it would fully sign up to the peace agreement once Armenia changed its constitution, claiming that it contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan, which Armenian authorities have repeatedly denied.

‘What dishes did they eat?’: the Beijing restaurant dining out on Starmer visit

Whatever the ins and outs of Westminster politics, Keir Starmer can take small comfort in the fact that there is one place where he is consistently popular. It just happens to be 5,000 miles away. In and Out, an upmarket restaurant in Beijing, has been fully booked since Starmer and his team dined there in January during the first visit by a British prime minister to China since 2018. His visit, pictures of which were widely shared on Chinese social media, has caused such a buzz that diners can now order from a specially printed “prime minister’s menu”, which lists the dishes that Starmer ordered. They include mint leaves wrapped in thinly sliced beef, grilled asparagus with porcini, pork ribs in plum sauce, sweet pineapple rice and deep-fried shards of goat milk cheese. Starmer did not, however, sample the dish for which In and Out (Yi Zuo Yi Wang in Chinese) is most famous: the hallucinogenic mushrooms ordered by Janet Yellen, the then US treasury secretary, on her trip to Beijing in 2023. In and Out specialises in food from Yunnan, a province in south-west China that borders Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Yunnan food is known for using a wide array of exotic fungi as well as the fragrant herbs that are indigenous to the province’s mountains. Starmer passed on the mushrooms – known as lurid bolete – ordered by Yellen, and stuck to the humble porcini. The vanilla mushroom order has not stopped his menu of choice going viral in China. The restaurant has been booked out since the visit and the specially printed menu immortalising Team Starmer’s order features a cartoon King’s Guard whose bearskin cap has been replaced by a mushroom. Su Yajun and Sun Chen dined at In and Out on a trip to Beijing from neighbouring Hebei province after reading about Starmer’s visit on social media. “We heard the British prime minister came here to eat, so thought the food must be really good for him to choose this place,” Su said, on a busy Thursday lunchtime. “We wanted to have a taste of what they had.” “We kept seeing the news on Douyin,” Sun added, referring to the Chinese sister app of TikTok. One waiter at In and Out who was working the night Starmer visited said about half of the diners visiting the restaurant since then had been influenced by the UK prime minister. “Customers would ask things like: ‘Did the British prime minister come here to dine a couple of days ago?’ and then ask: ‘What dishes did they eat? Can you introduce them to us?’ and things like that,” he said, adding that Starmer was “very friendly and approachable”. It is not just In and Out that is dining out on the PM’s visit. More than 1,500 miles away from Beijing, in Yunnan, the Guardian columnist Martin Rowson spotted more restaurants serving prime minister menus. Despite taking a battering in the post-Brexit years, Britain does retain a soft power appeal in many parts of the world, including China. It is not uncommon to meet football-mad taxi drivers who have never left China but who can tell you who has been up and who has been down in the Premier League over the past 30-plus years. The British actor Rosamund Pike has a surprisingly large fanbase in China. Starmer’s visit to the country was generally welcomed by the Chinese public, in contrast to the criticism that he faced in the UK for pursuing closer ties with Beijing. Sun said she wanted to travel to the UK to visit the University of Cambridge, to encourage her child to study there. Starmer’s visit to China was supposed to reset relations with Beijing. However, the goodwill earned on the trip may be laid to waste if he is forced out of office, or at least forced to neglect international affairs as his political fortunes at home crumble. Reality can be a bitter pill to swallow. Perhaps now he wishes he had some of those magic mushrooms. Additional research by Lillian Yang

Cuba gets trickle of intrepid tourists as Trump’s oil blockade continues

Leslie Simon and Marc Bender had arrived in Havana for a 10-day holiday, despite their president’s repeated threats of military action against Cuba. The two retired union lawyers from Los Angeles flew in via Miami sporting badges reading “ICE OUT!” and shared a somewhat negative opinion of the US’s past. “The history of America is a fucking abomination,” said Bender, ordering a Cristal, the Cuban lager. They were more positive about Cuba. “We’ve been once before and we saw some things,” said Bender. “We love Cuba.” Simon, 67, and Bender, 70, are rare tourists in a time of extreme stress. On Friday, Donald Trump extended already intense sanctions on the island, targeting foreign companies doing business with Havana. He also threatened to place the US’s huge aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, “100 yards offshore”. For the last two weeks, US surveillance aircraft have been circling the island, in an echo of what happened in Venezuela before the 3 January abduction of Nicolás Maduro. The success of that operation led Washington to impose a full oil blockade on Cuba, with the stated aim of felling the nearly seven-decade-old communist regime. Trump has repeatedly hinted the island would be his next target. Nonetheless, there is still a trickle of intrepid visitors. Ever since Fidel Castro opened up communist Cuba to tourists in the 1990s, the island has been a hugely popular destination – if not for Americans, whose government has discouraged its citizens from visiting. In 2018, nearly 5 million tourists came, and the sector was one of the Cuban government’s most important earners. But numbers have been dropping precipitously since the imposition of the oil blockade. In March there were just 35,561 visitors, according to the Cuban statistics office, of whom many would be emigrant Cubans visiting family. “You could argue the number of ‘leisure tourists’ would be between 20,000 and 25,000, when in March 2025 the number would have been about 170,000 to 180,000,” said Jim Hepple, of Aruba-based consulting company Tourism Analytics. On a recent Tuesday, a group of Germans was being shown mangos, mameys and papayas in a market in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana. “We booked long ago,” said Nicole, the CEO of a social enterprise in Trier. “And we’ve worked hard all year, and wanted our holiday. So far, everything is good. There is lots to see. We trust in God.” If God is looking down on communist Cuba, however, it doesn’t show. As Washington had hoped, its oil blockade has devastated the country’s already parlous economy. The estimated 300,000 people who work in tourism are collateral damage. The blockade deprived airlines of the ability to refuel, causing package holiday operators from Canada, Spain and Russia to pull out, along with many scheduled carriers. As the last planes flew in February, holidaymakers wrote of hotel staff crying as they were waved off. A former hotel bartender, who lost his work earlier this year, was cutting wood near the shrine to Cuba’s patron saint, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre. He shook his head at the situation. “What do I have for breakfast?” he asked. “What do I eat for lunch?” Some in the tourist industry argue that it is still a good time for foreigners to visit, despite advice from many embassies against all but essential travel. Katya Bleszynska, one of the authors of Lonely Planet’s guide to Cuba, said: “I think it’s an amazing time to come. There are really good local businesses and private hotels that really want your business. Just make sure you plan and manage your expectations.” But others were more wary. Alissa Scheer, a German influencer who offers upbeat tours of Havana’s nightlife, winced when asked if she was encouraging visitors. “When I first arrived, I loved the spontaneity,” she said. “You could meet up with a friend and it would turn into a whole night out. That’s still there, but it is far less.” Nonetheless, Simon and Bender, the retired California lawyers, were looking forward to journeying into the countryside, before returning to Havana for the May Day celebrations. The trip they are on – the “Cuba May Day Revolutionary Tour” – was organised by a tour company called Young Pioneer. Bender discovered the company online. “At first I thought it was North Korean and thought: ‘Wow, that’s cool,’ but it turns out they just run tours there,” he said. Asked if they are worried Trump would order a military assault while they were in Cuba, Bender was sanguine: “If he hits us, he hits us.” They are used to seeing their political dreams shattered on holiday – they honeymooned as observers during the Nicaraguan elections in 1990, when the leftist Sandinistas were thrown out of power.