Sir Keir Starmer has said he will quit as Labour Party leader, paving the way for a contest to decide a new prime minister.
Speaking in Downing Street, Sir Keir said he accepted he was not best placed to lead Labour into the next general election and he had informed the King of his decision to step down.
Sir Keir added he has asked Labour’s governing body to set out a timetable to replace him, with nominations opening on 9 July and ending by the summer recess on 16 July.
He said if there was a contest then a new leader would be in place before Parliament returns in September, and he will “do everything” he can to ensure an “orderly” transition of power.
Sir Keir said he would remain as prime minister until the leadership contest is complete.
He added he would also give his successor “my full and unequivocal support, knowing that they will inherit a Britain that is far stronger and fairer than the one I inherited two years ago”.
Andy Burnham is regarded by many as the frontrunner to replace Sir Keir after he secured an emphatic win over his Reform UK rival in last week’s Makerfield by-election.
Burnham announced on Monday that he would put himself forward as a candidate in the leadership contest, hours before he is expected to formally take up his seat as an MP.
His chances were given an immediate boost by former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who had been viewed as his main rival, offering his backing to the former Greater Manchester mayor.
Sir Keir was elected leader of the Labour Party in April 2020 and became prime minister on 5 July 2024 following Labour’s landslide general election victory.
He will leave Downing Street as the shortest-serving Labour prime minister in history.
His period in office will last longer than his Conservative predecessors Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss but behind all six previous Labour prime ministers.
Sir Keir’s decision to step down also means the UK will soon have its seventh prime minister since 2016. (BBC)
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has returned Poland’s highest honour after his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki said he was stripping him of the award.
The Polish Order of the White Eagle was bestowed on Zelensky in 2023 by then-President Andrzej Duda.
But Kyiv caused outrage last month after renaming a Ukrainian army unit after a group of controversial World War Two fighters called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Three senior Ukrainian officials have also said they are returning awards bestowed by Poland, to show solidarity with their president.
Many in Ukraine regard the UPA, which existed in the 1940s and 1950s, as heroes who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Soviet Red Army, Nazi Germany and Polish authorities. The group’s red and black flag is often used by Ukrainian troops on the front line today.
Poland, however, accuses the UPA of carrying out a genocide of about 100,000 ethnic Poles in Volhynia (now Volyn in Ukraine) in 1943-45.
In a statement on social media, Zelensky said Ukraine would “remain open to all meaningful formats of engagement with Poland in order to try to avoid conflicting interpretations of the difficult and painful chapters of our shared past”.
He added Ukraine was “grateful to the Polish People for their support and co-operation”.
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s main allies during the war against Russia, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistics hub for aid to Ukraine.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki branded Ukraine’s decision late last month to name the unit after the UPA “outrageous”, “incomprehensible” and “deeply disappointing”.
“For the overwhelming majority of Polish society, the UPA remains, above all, a formation responsible for the brutal crimes committed against citizens of the Republic of Poland during World War Two,” Nawrocki said in a video released on the president’s official website.
“It hurts not only our historical memory. It also undermines the trust built up over the years and in recent months,” he added.
However, Nawrocki stressed the diplomatic row would not impact Poland’s support for Ukraine against Russia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on social media that any feud between the two “delights” Russia’s Vladimir Putin and called on Zelensky and Nawrocki to “calm emotions, not to stoke tensions”.
Ukraine has ambitions to become an EU member state and attended the first phase of membership negotiations this week in Luxembourg. (BBC)
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused her one-time close ally Donald Trump of fabricating a story about her on Friday, after the U.S. President told an Italian TV channel that she had “begged” him to take a photo with her at a G7 summit.
Meloni said she was “astonished” by his comments, which were “completely made up”. She also chided him for acting with far greater deference to the enemies of the West than he does towards old, established allies.
Underscoring how much Trump’s comments have angered Meloni’s government, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced he was cancelling a planned visit to the U.S. next week.
The latest exchange marks a sharp deterioration in ties, coming just days after signs emerged at the G7 summit that the two right-wing leaders had steadied a previously strained relationship following tensions this year over the war on Iran.
Video from the event in France showed Meloni and Trump deep in conversation, sitting side-by-side on a small sofa, but the U.S. leader suggested he had merely indulged her by chatting with her.”
She’s probably happy I talked to her. I didn’t have to talk to her,” Trump was quoted as saying by La7 TV channel in a brief interview, after he himself asked the journalist about Italy’s prime minister.”
She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said, according to La7’s translation.
The channel did not release the original audio, just a dubbed version.
Meloni responded: “Donald Trump’s statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies: it is not the first time, moreover.”
“I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence,” she said, adding: “There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg.”
Announcing the cancellation of his planned U.S. trip, Foreign Minister Tajani said on X: “The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend the whole of Italy.” (JapanToday)
Israel’s prime minister has ordered attacks on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, as its conflict with the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah escalates.
Benjamin Netanyahu said “terror targets” in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh would be struck in response to its rocket and drone attacks on Israeli civilians and other violations of a ceasefire announced in April that has failed to end the fighting.
Soon afterwards, there were traffic jams on roads out of the suburbs as thousands tried to flee to safety.
The conflict also poses a major obstacle to US efforts to forge a deal to end its war with Iran, with Tehran insisting that any ceasefire must include Lebanon.
The US has tried to separate events in Lebanon from the negotiations, but a US official said on Sunday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had proposed a plan for “gradual de-escalation” there to Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.
A senior Lebanese government official said it was relying on US mediation efforts to pressure Israel to end its own violations and prevent further civilian casualties.
In a joint statement released on Monday morning, the Israeli prime minister and Defence Minister Israel Katz said they had ordered strikes on Dahieh “following the Hezbollah terrorist organisation’s repeated and ongoing violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon and its attacks against our civilians and cities”.
“The Dahieh in Beirut is no different from the communities in northern Israel – if there is no calm in the north, there will be no calm in Beirut,” Katz warned.
Later, the Israeli military ordered Dahieh residents to evacuate for their own safety, without giving further details.
Families, crammed into cars stuffed with suitcases, blankets and whatever belongings they could carry, streamed out of the suburbs in response to Netanyahu and Katz’s statement, joining thousands fleeing towards the mountains as fears of further violence mounted.
Two parents and their two children were squeezed on to a single scooter. Other vehicles carried several generations packed together, with babies sitting on their parents’ laps, clutching small toys as they crawled through the gridlock.
Few drivers wanted to stop and talk, anxious not to hold up the traffic and focused on reaching safety.
But almost everyone who slowed down enough to speak said they were prepared to stand by Hezbollah, while also doing whatever they could to protect their loved ones from the threat of further Israeli attacks.
The Israeli military has struck Beirut twice since the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into force on 16 April, most recently on Thursday. (BBC)
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday ordered his military to prepare options to retaliate against Ukraine for what he described as a drone attack on a student dorm that killed six people and wounded dozens, with 15 still unaccounted for.
Putin said the attack had struck the dorm in Starobilsk in Luhansk, a Russian-controlled region in eastern Ukraine. He said Kyiv’s military must have known what it was targeting.
Ukraine’s military denied the Russian accusations and said it had struck an elite drone command unit in the area. It said that Kyiv complied with international humanitarian law.
Putin said in his own statement, which was carried by state TV, that there were no military targets near the dorm.
“There are no military facilities, intelligence service facilities, or related services in the vicinity. Therefore, there is absolutely no basis for claiming that the munitions struck the building as a result of our air defence or electronic warfare systems. The strike was not accidental; it came in three waves, with 16 drones targeting the same location,” Putin told officials.
The Russian military had been ordered to draw up options for Moscow to retaliate, he added.
Reuters was not able to independently verify what happened. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war. Ukraine wants to recapture Luhansk, one of four eastern regions that Moscow unilaterally claimed as its own in 2022 in what Kyiv denounced as an illegal land grab.
Yana Lantratova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, said that 86 teenagers aged 14 to 18 had been asleep inside the hostel belonging to Luhansk Pedagogical University’s Starobilsk college when Ukrainian drones had attacked it during the night.
Leonid Pasechnik, the top Russian-installed official in Luhansk, said two people had been pulled from the rubble. Maria Lvova-Belova, presidential commissioner for children’s rights, said up to 18 children could still be trapped.
Some children being treated in hospital were reported to be in a serious condition, Lvova-Belova said.
Lyubov Yakovlevna, a local resident, told Reuters she had heard loud explosions from the attack, which she said had been carried out first by rockets and had targeted what she described as a former base. She said she had then heard drones which had targeted the student dorm causing fires to break out and people to seek shelter in her apartment block.
“A shock wave went through our apartment. Nobody could sleep all night. We were watching the fires. I was afraid, I was shaking, it was really terrifying,” she said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called for those responsible to be punished.
“This is a monstrous crime. An attack on an educational institution where children and young people are present,” he told reporters.
Moscow said the U.N. Security Council would hold an emergency session in New York later on Friday to discuss the incident.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the Ukrainian strike had pulverised the top three of the hostel’s five floors.
“We call on international organisations, national governments and the global community to give an honest assessment … and to strongly condemn the bloody terrorist attack,” it said in a statement. (JapanToday)
U.S. Senate Republicans abandoned plans to vote on an ICE funding bill on Thursday in an act of revolt over one of President Donald Trump’s priorities: a $1.8 billion fund for victims of government “weaponization,” including those convicted of crimes during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
The Senate walked away from a planned vote on a $72 billion bill funding Trump’s massive migrant deportation program, delaying the vote at least until June, when lawmakers return from a Memorial Day holiday recess.
From the beginning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the legislation should be narrowly targeted to secure the $72 billion. But at Trump’s behest, the $1.8 billion “weaponization” fund and another $1 billion for building a White House ballroom became major sticking points.
“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward, and it got a little bit more complicated this week,” Thune said, expressing his frustration. “It makes everything way harder than it should be.”
The battle over the partisan Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding bill came on the heels of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana losing his primary election to a Trump-backed challenger and the president endorsing the primary challenger to veteran Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas.
Presidents usually back the incumbent lawmakers of their party in reelection bids.
Against that backdrop, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was summoned to Capitol Hill to face questions from angry senators when he made his case for the $1.8 billion fund designed to compensate Trump allies and other victims of government “weaponization.”
During Blanche’s meeting, several senators insisted the money not be used to compensate people convicted of assaulting law enforcement during the Capitol riot, the person said.
Trump had already pardoned many of those convicted for crimes they committed during that deadly assault.
“I think there are people who are concerned about public relations,” Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, told reporters about the meeting.
Emotions were so raw that a planned White House meeting between Trump, Senate Republicans and House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson was canceled, according to a source familiar with the arrangement.
The resistance against Trump became evident late on Wednesday when Senate Republicans said “no” to $1 billion in new security funding for the 90,000-square-foot (8,360-square-meter) ballroom Trump wants to build on the site of the White House East Wing that he had razed last October.
For months, Trump has said no taxpayer dollars would be needed for the project. Nonetheless, a $1 billion tab to be picked up by taxpayers stared senators in the face as an add-in to a $72 billion bill for Trump’s migrant deportation program.
Democrats hammered away about a “glitzy,” “gauzy” “vanity project,” a preview of their midterm election pitch addressing voters’ worries about the high prices of food, housing, healthcare and particularly gasoline, which skyrocketed after the February 28 U.S. attack on Iran.
Thune, who started the week with a tense phone call with the president over his endorsement against Cornyn, told reporters after Thursday’s meeting that his party “will pick up where we left off” after the holiday recess.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running for reelection, did not hold back in criticizing Trump.
“I think it’s stupid on stilts,” Tillis said of the “weaponization” fund in an interview with Spectrum News. “The American people are going to reject this out of hand. (JapanToday)
The British police investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor will be long and complex, senior officers said on Friday, after his arrest earlier this year on suspicion of misconduct in public office, an offense that can include sexual impropriety.
King Charles’ younger brother was interviewed under caution for hours by detectives after he was arrested at his home in Norfolk in February following the release of millions of documents by the U.S. Department of Justice relating to the late U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The arrest of the senior royal, eighth in line to the throne, was unprecedented in modern times. A Reuters photo of the ashen-faced former prince leaving the police station made front pages around the world.
Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth, has always denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein, and said he regrets their friendship. He has made no public statement since his arrest.
“The investigation is by necessity hugely thorough and will take time,” Oliver Wright, Assistant Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, who are carrying out the inquiry, told reporters. “It’s not going to be a quick investigation by any means.”
The focus of the inquiry is the former prince’s role as special representative for trade and investment between 2001 and 2011, with emails released by the DOJ suggesting he had shared sensitive information with Epstein.
However, misconduct in public office, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, can relate to any serious wrongdoing – from sharing confidential information to corruption and sexual misconduct.
“There’s a number of aspects of alleged misconduct that the investigation is examining. So we’re speaking with a range of witnesses,” said Wright, who did not refer to Mountbatten-Windsor by name, as is customary in Britain before someone is charged.
Wright said police had received “a significant amount of information” from the public and other sources and that the investigation would be incredibly complex.
He said the force was also assessing reports that a woman was taken to an address in Windsor in 2010 for sexual purposes after a lawyer for the alleged victim told the BBC she had been sent to Britain by Epstein for a sexual encounter with the former prince.
Detectives have spoken to the lawyer but the woman involved has not yet reported the offense. The British police said some victims might be put off because of the pressure of national and international attention.
“In terms of Epstein victims and survivors, we hope that anyone with relevant information will come forward and I really want to stress that our door is open whenever a victim survivor is ready to engage with us. We’re ready for you at whatever point that may be,” Wright said.
A specialist team of experienced officers is carrying out the investigation, which is being treated as a major crime, on a par with a murder inquiry. They have also been liaising with the U.S. Department of Justice but as yet have not received any of the Epstein documents.
“That is ongoing, and it’s a fairly complex thing to do, but we’re working very hard on that,” Wright said.
On Thursday, the British government released confidential documents relating to Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as trade envoy that showed the late queen had pressed for him to get the role.
However, King Charles, who stripped his sibling of his titles and honors last October, said he was deeply concerned about the news when Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested and that authorities had the family’s “full and wholehearted support and cooperation”.
Thames Valley is not the only British police force looking into possible offences relating to information in the Epstein files.
On Tuesday, Surrey police said it was investigating two allegations of child sex abuse, one reported to have been committed in the 1980s and the other in the mid-1990s to 2000. It gave no further details about who was involved. (JapanToday)
A case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province, hundreds of kilometers from the outbreak’s epicenter, the rebel alliance that controls the area said on Thursday.
The case, in a rural area near the provincial capital Bukavu, signals the spread of an outbreak that experts believe circulated undetected for around two months in Ituri province, several hundred kilometers to the north, before being identified last week.
The outbreak has resulted in 160 suspected deaths out of 670 suspected cases, and 61 of the cases have been confirmed, according to DRC health ministry data published on Thursday.
Two cases have also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda, which said on Thursday it would suspend flights to the DRC, effective within the next 48 hours, as a precautionary measure.
The WHO declared the outbreak of the virus’s Bundibugyo strain – for which there is no vaccine – a public health emergency of international concern over the weekend.
The Alliance Fleuve Congo, which includes the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who seized swathes of eastern DRC last year, said the 28-year-old patient in South Kivu had died and been buried safely.
It said the individual had travelled from the northern city of Kisangani, but gave no details of recent movements.
South Kivu health spokesperson Claude Bahizire told Reuters earlier on Thursday that two suspected cases had been detected in the province, including the fatal case. The other patient was in isolation awaiting test results, he said.
An Ebola case was also confirmed last week in Goma, capital of neighboring North Kivu province, which is under M23 control.
In the town of Rwampara, one of the outbreak’s hotspots in Ituri, clashes broke out on Thursday after the family of a suspected Ebola victim disputed that the disease had killed him and demanded his body, Reuters witnesses said.
Protesters gathered outside the hospital and set fire to tents run by the medical charity ALIMA, prompting police to fire warning shots and tear gas, the witnesses said.
Hundreds of health centres were attacked by armed groups and angry civilians during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC, which was the second-deadliest on record with nearly 2,300 fatalities.
First responders expect widespread armed violence across eastern DRC, where dozens of militias operate, and for community mistrust of medical workers to complicate once again efforts to contain the outbreak.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Jane Halton, chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), said the confirmed cases announced to date likely represent only “the top of the iceberg”.
CEPI, which funds vaccine development, is assessing potential candidates for Ebola. Halton said it might be possible to meet CEPI’s target of having a safe, effective vaccine for major outbreaks within 100 days, though this would be “a big lift”.
In a sign of further restrictions aimed at preventing Ebola entering the U.S., the State Department said Americans who have been in Congo, Uganda, or South Sudan within the last three weeks must only return to the United States through Washington Dulles for enhanced screening.
Aid workers responding to the outbreak have said they lack basic supplies which some have attributed to foreign aid cuts by major donors that have weakened local health services and disease surveillance.
Britain said on Thursday it was allocating up to 20 million pounds ($27 million) to the response. The United States, which gave around $600 million to the 2018-2020 response, has so far committed $23 million and said on Tuesday it would help open up to 50 clinics in DRC and Uganda.
Uganda’s health ministry said late on Wednesday it had not been consulted by the U.S. on plans to establish clinics, and stressed there was no known local transmission.
Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi told Reuters the U.S. was “overreacting” this week by banning most travellers from Uganda, along with DRC and South Sudan.
“We’ve handled cases of Ebola at other epidemics for a number of years,” he said. “There is capacity within the country to contain these epidemics.”
The African Union said the India-Africa Forum Summit scheduled to take place in New Delhi from May 28 to 31 would be rescheduled due to “the emerging public health situation on the continent”. (JapanToday)
The UK’s economy saw surprise growth in March, despite the month seeing the first impact of the Iran war.
The economy grew by 0.3%, confounding analysts’ forecasts of a small contraction, although the effects of the conflict are expected to hit growth later this year.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said there were signs that consumers and businesses brought forward spending in March due to fears over future price rises brought about by the war.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the growth figures showed the government had “the right economic plan”, but warned a Labour leadership contest risked “plunging the country into chaos”.
Economic growth in the first three months of the year was 0.6%, the ONS said, led by a rebound in areas such as retailing and construction.
The quarterly growth is the fastest for a year, and is also the highest of all the G7 countries to have reported data so far. Last month, the IMF warned that the UK would be the hardest hit from the war of the world’s advanced economies.
The ONS said there had been signs of so-called front-loading in March, with some businesses it surveyed “cited activity being bought forward in anticipation of increases in costs because of conflict in Iran”.
One such area was car sales and leasing. The ONS said retailers had reported that motorists were stocking up on fuel as prices rose sharply.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said some drivers may have been given a “nudge” to buy an electric vehicle (EV) in March because of rising fuel prices.
Yael Selfin, KPMG’s chief economist, said the impact of the Iran war was likely to be more pronounced in the second quarter of the year.
“Households are under renewed pressure as energy and petrol prices climb. Food costs are also expected to rise, with disruptions to fertilisers and other essential inputs,” she said.
“These increases are likely to weigh on disposable incomes, dampening demand and posing a significant challenge to economic activity over the coming months.”
Siblings Kennady and Boston Mace run a play centre in Chelmsford, Essex. They have noticed how families are having to cut down on spending.
“We’ve got our own children so we appreciate how expensive a day out can be,” Boston said.
“Everything’s going up… we’ve got a limit on what we can charge so the profit margin is getting smaller and smaller.”
Kennady added that where families used to use the centre as an all-inclusive venue, there are more visitors paying for activities but not food – “which is understandable … money’s a lot tighter”.
Boston said the centre has endured the Covid pandemic, a fire, a flood and a theft, but “this seems [to be] the most difficult period we’ve had” in their 13 years in business.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC the economy “is growing strongly” and that she would set out more support for families and businesses affected by the war next week.
But in a reference to the current speculation about the prime minister’s position, Reeves said: “We shouldn’t put [economic stability] at risk by plunging the country into chaos at a time when there is conflict in the world but also at a time when our plan to grow the economy is starting to bear fruit.”
Shadow chancellor Mel Stride said the “chaos surrounding the Labour leadership is destabilising Britain’s economy”.
“This week, borrowing costs hit their highest level in 30 years as Labour leadership contenders competed to promise even more spending, borrowing and fantasy economics.”
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said the latest growth figure was “already in the rear-view mirror” because of the war.
“Instead of tackling the cost of living, the government is consumed by infighting.” (BBC)
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have been holding talks in the Chinese capital, Beijing, with a raft of meetings and events taking place on Thursday and Friday.
The US leader was greeted with a gun salute, cheering children and a tour of the stunning 15th Century Temple of Heaven.
Trump is also joined in Beijing by tech bosses, including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Trump’s son Eric.
On Thursday evening, a lavish banuquet at the Great Hall of the People was held in honour of the occasion.
BBC reporters were able to see the banquet menu, with the main course including lobster in tomato soup, Beijing roast duck and pan-fried pork bun.
Dessert options included trumpet shell-shaped pastry and tiramisu.
In a banquet speech, President Xi called it a “historic visit”, adding “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and “Make America great again” can go hand in hand.
China-US relations are the most important bilateral relations in the world, Xi says.
Their relations concern the well-being of the two countries of 1.7 billion population, and the interests of over 8 billion people in the world, he added.
Trump spoke, saying he received a “magnificent welcome like no other”.
He then invited Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to visit the White House on 24 September.
Among those spotted at Thurday’s banquet were Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Eric and Lara Trump.
Musk was accompanied by his son X Æ A-12.
Trump landed in Beijing on Wednesday evening, where he was greeted by youths waving American and Chinese flags as he walked the red carpet with Vice President of China Han Zheng.
On Thursday, Trump was welcomed at an arrival ceremony with Xi at China’s Great Hall of the People.
After shaking hands, Trump and Xi walked the red carpet and inspected Chinese troops who lined up in impeccably neat rows.
Dozens of children also lined up along the red carpet and waved mini flags and bouquets.
Joining Trump on his trip to China are some of the US’s top business leaders, including Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, and Larry Fink of BlackRock.
Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, a company which has been central to the US-China technology rivalry, was reportedly a last-minute addition. (BBC)
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