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By Mark Savage

Music correspondent, BBC News

Model Pattie Boyd is selling letters that lift the lid on her notorious love triangle with guitarist Eric Clapton and Beatles star George Harrison.

Boyd was a muse to both men in the 1960s and 70s, inspiring Harrison’s classic song Something and Clapton’s hits Wonderful Tonight and Layla.

Initially married to the Beatle, she was pursued by his close friend Clapton in a series of passionate love letters.

Now she is auctioning notes from both men, along with other possessions.

Boyd met the Beatles when she was cast in their 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night and instantly felt a connection with Harrison, their famously “quiet” guitarist.

“He was quite shy, like me. I think that’s why we got on,” she said in an interview published on the website of auction house Christie’s.

They dated for two years before marrying in January 1966, during which time the Beatles were often away on tour,

“George was so adorable when he was away,” she said. “He missed me, and I missed him terribly, and he would write amazing letters and wonderful postcards.”

One note in the auction sees Harrison write: “Hope you’re OK. I miss you. I’m starving – many grilled cheese sandwiches. Love you.”

Clapton was a frequent guest at the couple’s house in Surrey but, unbeknown to Harrison, harboured feelings for Boyd.

‘Is there is still a feeling in your heart for me?’

In 1970, he sent her a letter in impeccably neat, angular longhand. “I am writing this letter to you, with the main purpose of ascertaining your feelings towards a subject well known to both of us,” it began.

“What I wish to ask you is if you still love your husband?” he continued. “All these questions are very impertinent, I know, but if there is still a feeling in your heart for me… you must let me know!”

“Don’t telephone! Send a letter… That is much safer.”

Boyd initially thought the letter was from a fan, only realising the truth when Clapton phoned her later that day.

A second letter was written several months later, on a page Clapton had torn from a copy of John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men.

‘Take me, I am yours’

“Dear Layla,” Clapton began, using his nickname for Boyd. “Why do you hesitate, am I a poor lover, am I ugly, am I too weak, too strong, do you know why?

“If you want me, take me, I am yours… if you don’t want me, please break the spell that binds me. To cage a wild animal is a sin, to tame him is divine. My love is yours.”

He later wrote the rock standard Layla for Boyd.

“It was so beautiful and so magical,” Boyd recalled. “I was so flattered, but I was also so worried that George would work out why Eric had written this song.”

Boyd originally rebuffed Clapton’s advances but, after her marriage faltered in the early 1970s, the musician invited Boyd to join him on tour.

Their romance flourished and they married in 1979 – with the blessing of Harrison, who took to calling Clapton his “husband-in-law”.

Ultimately, however, Clapton’s alcoholism and infidelity undermined the marriage, and they divorced in 1989.

Boyd, the daughter of a retired RAF bomber pilot, was a famous fashion model in the 1960s before turning her attention to photography.

She will sell her memorabilia including letters, paintings, photographs, jewellery and fashion next month.

Among the lots is a doodle by Harrison, in which he drew himself sitting beneath an apple tree, and a Christmas card he made for her in 1968.

“I’ve had them all for so many years – far too long,” Boyd, who turns 80 this year, told The Telegraph. “I thought, why don’t I just sell everything and let everybody else enjoy it?”

The sale will be led by the the painting La jeune fille au bouquet by Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg – which served as the cover for the 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Clapton’s band Derek and the Dominoes.

Clapton had originally bought the painting from the artist’s son because the model’s blonde hair and alluring almond eyes reminded him of Boyd. It is expected to sell for between £40,000 and £60,000.

Boyd told the Telegraph she sought Clapton’s permission before selling the possessions.

“He asked if I was selling the Layla painting, and I said yes,” she said. “He said, ‘Maybe there are other things you could sell as well.’ So he’s absolutely fine with me auctioning everything.”https://tehopeng.com/

England’s hopes of forcing a series decider faded dramatically in the face of a stirring India fightback on day three of the fourth Test in Ranchi.

With dogged lower-order resistance and spin bowling of the highest quality, India turned the match on its head. From beginning Sunday 134 behind with only three first-innings wickets in hand, the hosts ended 40-0 in pursuit of 192 to take an unassailable 3-1 lead.

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They were dragged to 307 by Dhruv Jurel’s 90. The wicketkeeper, crucially dropped on 59 by Ollie Robinson, added 76 with Kuldeep Yadav and another 40 with number 10 Akash Deep.

Off-spinner Shoaib Bashir ended with 5-119, at 20 years and 135 days the second-youngest England bowler to claim a five-wicket haul in Test cricket.

England’s lead was a precious 46, every run of which seemed vital as India’s spinners conjured tricks from the surface on a riveting, tension-filled afternoon.

Zak Crawley’s attractive 60 and Jonny Bairstow’s counter-punching 30 were invaluable. No-one else passed 17 in England’s 145, Ravichandran Ashwin magnificent for 5-51 and Kuldeep unerring in his 4-22.

India were given 25 minutes to bat before the close and used them to great effect, scoring at five an over. Captain Rohit Sharma has 24 and Yashasvi Jaiswal 16.

Somehow, England need an instant rally on the fourth morning to keep the series alive.

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Series on the line after super Sunday

This was a compelling day of Test cricket, in keeping with what would be most expected of the game in this country: an attritional first innings followed by a rush to the conclusion as the spinners wreak havoc in the second.

For as well as England’s Bashir and Tom Hartley have bowled, India’s slow trio were able to extract so much from the surface.

To the delight of the biggest and noisiest crowd of the Test so far, every ball was an event.

For once, there is an argument to make that England were not aggressive enough. Ben Duckett, Ben Stokes and Bairstow were all victims of tame dismissals. In mitigation, these were the most difficult batting conditions of the tour.

England’s run-rate of 2.69 was comfortably their slowest since Stokes became captain. All except three of the 53.5 overs in their second innings were bowled by India’s spinners, who revelled in the sharp turn and untrustworthy bounce.

England opened with the spin of Joe Root and Hartley, the latter struggling with his line and four times clipped to the boundary by Rohit.

India will start Monday as favourites to wrap up the series, but England will hope they can use the pitch to turn the fifth Test in Dharamsala into a decider.

England spun out

Any sort of flying start from England could have been enough to seal the match. Instead Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja shared the new ball to indicate the ordeal that lay ahead.

Duckett prodded Ashwin to short leg and Ollie Pope was completely befuddled by a carrom ball to be leg before for a golden duck. Pope has bagged a pair in this match, facing only three deliveries in the process.

Crawley fought back with style, peppering the extra-cover boundary. He added 46 with Root, who was aggrieved to be lbw playing across Ashwin, and another 45 with Bairstow.

But Crawley was bowled trying to force Kuldeep against the spin, sparking a collapse of five wickets for 23 runs. Stokes played on via his pad, Hartley swiped to mid-on and Robinson’s poor day continued when he was leg-before for a duck, all to Kuldeep.

In between, Bairstow softly patted Jadeja to short cover from the first ball after tea, meaning England lost their last proper weapon capable of pressurising the relentless India bowling.

Ben Foakes and Bashir resisted for more than 12 overs, adding only 12 runs in the process. Foakes survived 75 balls for his 17, then chipped his 76th delivery back to Ashwin, whose first five-wicket haul of the series was sealed by Jurel’s reaction catch from a James Anderson reverse-sweep.

Jurel digs in

If India do complete the turnaround they owe so much to Jurel, the 23-year-old playing only his second Test and possibly only holding a place behind the stumps until Rishabh Pant returns to fitness.

At 177-7 on Saturday, India could have conceded a huge lead. Jurel and Kuldeep battled to 219-7 overnight, with Jurel resuming on 30 on Sunday.

The early conditions were benign, Robinson again struggled for bite and the eighth-wicket pair added 34 runs before Anderson got Kuldeep to chop on for 28.

England did well to contain the scoring, conceding only two boundaries in the first hour, but the life given to Jurel could prove to be match-defining. A clip off the toes at Bashir should have been held at head-height by Robinson at mid-wicket – India were still 87 behind at the time.

With Deep for company, Jurel farmed the strike and played big shots when given the chance – twice Bashir was hit for six. Deep also swung a six of his own, before Bashir skipped one into the pads to complete his first five-wicket haul in professional cricket.

Jurel continued towards a century, heaving Hartley over the leg-side rope, only to play all around the same man and be bowled 10 runs short of three figures.

‘On that pitch, anything is possible’ – reaction

England bowler Shoaib Bashir on TNT Sports: “I want to dedicate this [five-wicket haul] to my two late grandads who passed away around a year and a half ago, they loved Test cricket and their wish was for me to play. I’m so grateful.

“We’d have liked one or two wickets in that period at the end but we’ve got a big job to do tomorrow. On that pitch, anything is possible.”

India bowler Ravichandran Ashwin on TNT Sports: “I enjoy bowling with the new ball and today was another of those days.

“We showed phenomenal character. Kuldeep was brilliant today. Jurel’s defence was gun and he showed great composure, we were very calm in the dressing room. For just his second Test, he had a great game plan and it gave us a huge lift.”

Former England captain Michael Vaughan: “India have once again found a way of having a dominant day that looks likely to win them this Test and the series.

“England’s bad days are really, really bad – and that looks likely to cost them.”https://tehopeng.com/

By James Waterhouse

Ukraine correspondent in Kyiv

“In order to preserve life and encirclement, I have withdrawn our units from Avdiivka.”

When he was appointed this month, Ukraine’s new head of the armed forces, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he would “rather retreat than sacrifice lives”, and that is what he has finally done with this eastern city.

Despite Russians suffering enormous losses, four months of relentless attacks have left Ukrainian troops there outnumbered, outgunned, and with dwindling ammunition.

It is Moscow’s biggest victory since Ukraine’s failed counter-offensive last year.

Avdiivka was briefly occupied by Russia in 2014 before being retaken by Ukraine.

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So, what does Avdiivka’s fall mean for the wider conflict?

Size matters more than ever

With this now being a war of attrition, the difference in Ukraine and Russia’s size is becoming more apparent. Russia’s population of 144 million is more than three times larger than Ukraine’s.

Despite losing thousands of soldiers in the process, Moscow has made its size count by replenishing them almost immediately.

Ukrainian forces have suffered losses too, though not to the same extent.

As with other Ukrainian settlements on the front line, Russia has seized an almost totally destroyed city.

Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, which deployed there, said they were being attacked by infantry in all directions.

Russia has concentrated its best-trained fighters in the area and was believed to be dropping up to 60 bombs a day on Ukrainian positions.

The last time a Ukrainian city – Bakhmut – was taken by the Russians, Gen Syrskyi was criticised for holding on to it for too long. He was accused of pursuing a symbolic victory at the expense of needless casualties.

Experience seems to have changed that.

The medium term

This Russian advance has not happened overnight. Since last October, Moscow has launched wave after wave of attacks towards Avdiivka.

From their raised positions and reinforced defences in the industrial city, Ukrainians were able to hold them off with targeted strikes, leaving the scarred Donbas landscape littered with Russian bodies and destroyed armoured vehicles.

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Now it seems Russian troops have penetrated defences which have been reinforced over the 10 years since Moscow’s campaign of aggression first started.

To Kyiv’s frustration, Ukraine has been unable to break Russian fortifications elsewhere, which were built in a matter of months.

“Russia can’t achieve strategical goals, only tactical ones,” says Maj Rodion Kudryashov, a Ukrainian deputy commander of the 3rd Assault Brigade.

He says his troops are outnumbered by as many as seven to one. Over the phone he told me, “It’s like fighting two armies.”

He is confident the Russians will not push further to cities like Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, but that is far from guaranteed.

What it will do for them is relieve pressure on the city of Donetsk,15km (9 miles) further east, which Russia has occupied since 2014.

The long term

Ukraine has been forced backwards like this before, notably in the summer of 2022.

Large, well-equipped Russian units encircled cities like Lysychansk and Severodonetsk. The Ukrainians could do little to stop them.

However, a subsequent influx of Western weapons and inspired military thinking led to a changing of the tide later that year, with Ukrainian troops liberating areas in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions.

But this is a different war now.

Global politics are having a more significant impact on the battlefield.

Stuttering Western help has directly contributed to this likely Ukrainian retreat in Avdiivka.

The US leads the way in providing weapons to Ukraine, because of the scale and speed it can provide them. With a $95bn package including aid for Ukraine still not approved in Washington, other allies are struggling to fill the gap.

It means the Ukrainians are having to ration ammunition and manage low morale. And Avdiivka may not be the only withdrawal Kyiv is considering.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also still wants the whole of Ukraine, and it is still possible that he could take it.

That prospect could either restore Western unity in trying to prevent it, or fuel the scepticism that Ukraine was never able to win this war, despite the extraordinary defence it has displayed in Avdiivka and elsewhere.https://cekikikan.com/

By Sean Coughlan

Royal correspondent

King Charles has been cheered up by some of the 7,000 cards of support sent to him during his cancer treatment, including those taking a humorous view.

They included a card with a picture of a dog wearing a protective cone saying: “At least you don’t have to wear a cone!”

Other messages shared people’s own experiences of cancer and wished the King a “speedy recovery”.

The King has described being “reduced to tears” by the cards sent to him.

But the latest photos and video on social media show him smiling at cards that were determined to look on the bright side.

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According to palace aides, despite the health concerns there has been “frequent laughter”, with the dog particularly amusing the King.

The senders are not being named, but the firm that made the card, Pigment, told the BBC it was one of their best-sellers which had been customised with the King’s name – and they had “hoped it made the King smile”.

A selection of the messages of support are being put into the red boxes which hold the King’s daily paperwork.

“I wanted to tell you I am thinking of you as you face your own diagnosis and treatment and send prayers and every good wish for a speedy recovery,” wrote one well-wisher.

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“Chin up, chest out, remain positive and don’t let it get you down. Trust me, it works, but the main thing is family,” said another.

A number of the messages are from people who are facing up to their own worries about cancer.

Rebecca Stead from Macmillan Cancer Support told BBC News: “Hearing the news that you have cancer is a huge moment in anyone’s life and there is no right or wrong way to respond.

“Going through waves of different emotions is completely normal. We do know, however, that many people will experience uncertainty or worry.”

This could be about practical matters such as paying the mortgage or being confused by the treatment being given, she says, urging people to get advice.

The King’s openness about having cancer has also been praised as helping remove taboos around the disease.

According to Macmillan’s, the King’s public acknowledgement of his cancer prompted a surge in people seeking information.

Macmillan’s online information pages had 50,000 hits on the day of the King’s diagnosis being announced, up 40% on usual.

But figures from the BBC have shown that for NHS patients in England in 2023 cancer waiting times were the worst on record.

The King has stepped back from public events but has continued with the work of head of state, including the regular meetings with the prime minister.

The latest pictures released by Buckingham Palace were taken on Wednesday ahead of meeting Rishi Sunak.

When the prime minister said how well the King looked, he deflected it with a joke, saying: “It’s all done by mirrors.”

Humour has often been deployed by the King, who was a longstanding fan of The Goons and and took part in comedy shows at university. A student contemporary had said: “I think actually he’s very shy and it’s a lot easier when you get people laughing.”

But in his current circumstances, the King was said to have been moved by handmade cards from children, including the message: “Never give up. Be brave. Don’t push your limits. Get well soon.”https://tehopeng.com/

By Mayeni Jones

BBC West Africa correspondent

Senegal’s President Macky Sall has said he will leave office when his term comes to an end on 2 April, but tensions remain over an election date.

His recent decision to delay the vote, originally scheduled for Sunday, to mid-December sparked deadly protests.

In a televised interview, Mr Sall said an election date would now be decided in political talks to start on Monday.

But the opposition has refused to take part in the proposed dialogue dashing hopes of resolving the turmoil.

Sixteen of the 19 presidential hopefuls have said they will not be turning up for what the president has termed a “national dialogue”. A number of civil society organisations have also declined to take part in the exercise.

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Mr Sall, who is on his way to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for an extraordinary summit of the regional bloc Ecowas, has been under pressure to announce a new date since Senegal’s highest court declared last week that the postponement of the poll was illegal.

His original decree to delay the vote received strong condemnation from the international community.

Many feared the postponement would lead to President Sall’s remaining leader of the country indefinitely in a region plagued by coups and military governments.

Speaking on national television on Thursday evening, Mr Sall said he felt there was not enough time to vote in a new president by the time he steps down on 2 April. He said that the dialogue forum would decide what should happen if this was the case.

In a show of good faith, the president said he was prepared to release the popular opposition politician, Ousmane Sonko, from prison. His arrest sparked nationwide protests last year.

Dozens of the president’s opponents have already been set free since Senegal’s Constitutional Council ruled that his decision to postpone the election was illegal.

But the fact that the president did not set a new election date has further fuelled suspicions by his critics that this is just another stalling tactic.

President Sall has served two terms as Senegal’s leader and when he was first elected in 2012 he promised he would not overstay.

His televised interview has not yet restored his country’s reputation as a bastion of democracy in an increasingly totalitarian region.https://tehopeng.com/

By David Gritten

BBC News

An Israeli man has been killed and 13 other people have been wounded in an attack by three Palestinian gunmen near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, police and medics say.

The attackers fired automatic weapons at vehicles waiting at a checkpoint on a highway outside Maale Adumim.

Security forces and armed civilians killed two of the attackers while the third was detained, police said.

Palestinian armed group Hamas praised the attack but did not claim it.

There has been a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel on 7 October.

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At least 394 Palestinians – members of armed groups, attackers and civilians – had been killed in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, or in Israel as of Tuesday, according to the UN. During the same period, 12 Israelis, including four security forces personnel, had been killed.

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Israel’s police force said Thursday’s attack took place near the al-Zaim checkpoint on Highway 1, which connects Maale Adumim with Jerusalem.

The three Palestinian gunmen arrived at the scene in two separate vehicles, armed with weapons including an M-16 rifle and a Carlo sub-machine gun. After getting out, they opened fire towards vehicles stuck in a traffic jam.

Two of the attackers were shot dead by security forces and armed civilians at the scene. The third gunmen tried to escape but was “neutralised” and taken into custody.

Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said paramedics found casualties in five vehicles along a 500m-long (1,640ft) stretch of the highway.

A man who was later identified as Matan Elmaliach, a 26-year-old man from Maale Adumim, died of his wounds at the scene, it said.

Thirteen other people were wounded, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman who was shot in the upper body and is in a serious condition.

Eight people were taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, and five to Shaare Zedek Hospital.

The attackers were identified as three Palestinian men, including two brothers, from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 10km (6 miles) to the south-west.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told journalists at the scene: “The enemies… want to hurt us. They hate us.”

He said authorities needed to “distribute more weapons” to Israeli civilians for protection and install more roadblocks around Palestinian communities in the West Bank, arguing that “our right to life is superior to the freedom of movement” of Palestinians.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, another far-right politician, meanwhile called for the immediate approval of plans for thousands more homes in settlements like Maale Adumim.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. The vast majority of the international community considers the settlements illegal under international law, though Israel and the US dispute this.

Hamas called Thursday’s attack a “natural response” to Israeli “massacres and crimes” in Gaza and the West Bank, and called on Palestinians to take up arms.

The shooting comes six days after a Palestinian man shot and killed two people at a bus stop near the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malakhi.https://tehopeng.com/

By Bernd Debusmann Jr

BBC News, Washington

US prosecutors have charged an alleged member of the Japanese mafia with conspiring to traffic nuclear materials.

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, tried to sell uranium and plutonium that he believed would be transferred to Iran to build a nuclear bomb, it is alleged.

Mr Ebisawa and a Thai co-defendant were previously hit with weapons and drug charges in April 2022.

He faces life imprisonment if convicted of the latest charges.

US authorities say Mr Ebisawa – who is being held in a Brooklyn jail – is a senior figure in the Japanese organised crime syndicate, known as the Yakuza, with operations in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and the US.

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The US Department of Justice said Mr Ebisawa and his “confederates showed samples of nuclear materials in Thailand” to an undercover agent from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The agent was posing as a drugs and weapons trafficker with links to an Iranian general.

The nuclear samples – which came from Myanmar – were seized by Thai authorities and transferred to US investigators. A US laboratory confirmed the material contained uranium and weapons-grade plutonium.

Prosecutors also allege that Mr Ebisawa sought to acquire large quantities of military-grade weapons on behalf of an unspecified rebel group in Myanmar.

The weapons included surface-to-air missiles, assault and sniper rifles, machine guns, rockets of various calibres and a variety of tactical gear.

“It is chilling to imagine the consequences had these efforts succeeded, and the justice department will hold accountable those who traffic in these materials and threaten US national security and international stability,” assistant attorney general Matthew G Olden said in a statement on Wednesday.

In February 2020, Mr Ebisawa allegedly contacted the DEA agent about selling nuclear materials. According to US prosecutors, he explained via encrypted communications that uranium is “not good for your health”.

In September that year, Mr Ebisawa allegedly emailed the undercover DEA agent a letter bearing the name of a mining company. He offered to sell 50 tonnes of uranium and thorium for $6.85m (£5.4m).

Prosecutors also say he sent photographs showing “a dark rocky material” with a Geiger counter, which is used to measure levels of radiation.

Mr Ebisawa faces charges including conspiracy to commit international trafficking of nuclear materials, narcotics importation conspiracy, conspiracy to acquire, transfer and possess anti-aircraft missiles and money laundering.

His co-conspirator in the case – 61-year-old Thai national Somphop Singhasiri – is facing drugs and weapons charges.

Both are facing life in prison if convicted.https://tehopeng.com/

The pair will be arraigned in a New York federal courtroom on Thursday.

By Ross McCrea

BBC News NI

A Belfast woman who lives with a condition affecting about one in 2,000 girls has urged others to “let yourself be joyful”.

Lauren Campbell was diagnosed with Turner Syndrome (TS) aged two.

The genetic condition, which can affect height and ovaries, is caused by having one normal X sex chromosome, rather than two.

Lauren said one of her biggest challenges was becoming a teenager.

“You start taking hormone therapy then, to start going through puberty,” she told BBC News NI.

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“This was a really hard time in my life.

“All I knew was I had TS, I knew what that meant, but I didn’t quite experience that until I was a teenager, until I actually felt different from my peers,” she added.

The Queen’s University graduate said she has been on a journey with TS as a child, a teenager, and now as a young adult.

Lauren, now 22, explained how doctors initially misdiagnosed her condition as cerebral palsy.

She explained she was “really floppy, but that was actually just because I had a heart condition”.

“Because of that diagnosis, they did lots of blood tests, and it came back that I had Turner Syndrome.”

According to the most recent census data, 183 people had TS in Northern Ireland in 2021, a rise from 88 in 2011.

There are a number of potential symptoms, including being short and having fertility problems.

Data provided by the charity Turner Syndrome Support Society found an average of 75% of cases are undiagnosed.

‘Improving diagnosis’

Its executive officer, Arlene Smyth, said many cases of TS get missed “mainly because most girls living with Turners look completely normal”.

“My message to any doctor is if a mum comes to you with a short girl, especially with recurrent ear infections, you should absolutely be thinking about Turner Syndrome, rather than wait for years and years.

Ms Smyth said many people with TS “have missed out on a lot of treatment” through delays.

“So raising awareness and improving diagnosis is a vital, vital part of the society’s work,” she added.

Looking back, Lauren praised the love and care from relatives: “My family have been a massive support; they educated themselves in how to get me through school, to get me through university. They’re my number one champions.”

Following her diagnosis, she also received support from Ms Smyth’s charity, which she started after her daughter was diagnosed with TS.

“We support anybody with Turner Syndrome, or their parents, or family members,” she explained.

Ms Smyth added she believed information she was given at the time about the condition was “really poor and not accurate”.

‘Be your own advocate’

Lauren noted how the work of the society gave her the opportunity to make friends with other girls, and described it as “a great source of help and support for anyone who has received a diagnosis”.

Following her teenage years, Lauren spoke about how sixth form allowed her to be more open about her condition: “Anything from my heart condition to infertility, that was when the openness really began”.

“As well as through university, where I met my now partner, and having that experience of having to be very open and honest with him about having Turners,” she added.

Lauren currently works at a special needs school in Leeds, and explained how her experience gave her “that empathy and extra understanding of what these students are going through, and how to be a person that is supportive of them and understands them”.

In a final word, Lauren offered advice to other girls who might be struggling with Turner Syndrome: “Get to know and understand yourself, and love yourself, because you are always going to have to be your own advocate”.https://tehopeng.com/

“Let yourself have that Turner Syndrome joy. Know yourself, ask for help, let yourself be joyful”.

By Lyse Doucet

Chief international correspondent in Munich

It’s called the Munich Rule: engage and interact; don’t lecture or ignore one another.

But this year, at the 60th Munich Security Conference (MSC), two of the most talked-about people weren’t even here.

That included former US President Donald Trump, whose possible return to the White House could throw a spanner in the work of the transatlantic relationship, which lies at the heart of this premier international forum.

And Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who was vehemently blamed by one world leader after another for the death of his most prominent critic Alexei Navalny, not to mention his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which continues to cast a long dark shadow across Europe and far beyond.

The staggering news of Navalny’s death, which broke just hours before the conference kicked off on Friday, underlined again the perilous unpredictability of a world carved up by multiple fault lines and entrenched interests.

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“We live in a world where there is more and more confrontation and less co-operation,” regretted the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. “The world has become a much more dangerous place,” he told me as the conference drew to a close on Sunday.

“Lose-Lose?” was the maxim of this year’s gathering, at a time of deepening geopolitical tensions and jarring economic uncertainties.

The MSC’s annual report warned that it could give rise to “lose-lose” dynamics among governments, “a downwards spiral that jeopardises co-operation and undermines the existing international order”.

“I think this has been the conference of a disordered world,” reflected David Miliband, the CEO and president of the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

“It’s a world dominated by impunity, where the guardrail stabilisers are not working and that’s why there’s so much disorder, not just in Ukraine and in Gaza and Israel, but more widely in places like Sudan, whose humanitarian crisis isn’t even getting on the agenda,” he said.

https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.51.0/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

Watch Yulia Navalnaya speak following report of husband’s death

This issue of impunity, one of the toughest of political challenges, was suddenly transformed into a poignant personal story when Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, unexpectedly appeared on the conference’s main stage in the grand Bayerischer Hof hotel to condemn Russia’s president and urge the assembled presidents, prime ministers, defence chiefs and top diplomats to bring him to justice.

Her remarkable composure and clarity stunned the packed hall, which gave her a sustained standing ovation before and after she spoke with palpable pain.

This year Russia, as well as Iran, weren’t invited to Munich because the organisers assessed they weren’t “interested in meaningful dialogue”.

In MSC forums gone by, vitriolic speeches by Russia’s veteran Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov angered and electrified the main hall, and Iran’s visible presence highlighted the rivalries and risks in urgent need of resolution.

The imperative of continuing hefty Western military and financial assistance to Ukraine was underscored repeatedly by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who exhorted participants to act, as he rushed from one high-level meeting to the next.

“The year of 2024 demands your response – from everyone in the world,” he beseeched delegates when he spoke from the top podium.

• Zelensky warns of ‘artificial deficit’ of weapons

The US’s pivotal support was uppermost in his mind as a vital security package, amounting to $60bn (£48bn), is being held up by a US Congress where Republican lawmakers are increasingly divided over whether to keep backing Kyiv in its fight.

Back home in Ukraine, soldiers are even running out of bullets on front lines.

US delegates in Munich, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, were at pains to insist that she and President Joe Biden would not abandon Ukraine, nor America’s leadership in global affairs.

But with US elections just nine months away, Mr Trump is already shaping the polarised political debate in Washington and reviving anxiety that he could pull the US out of the Nato military alliance and other international commitments.

“They know what they need to do but they can’t get it done, and that’s the gap that has to be filled,” was how Mr Miliband assessed pledges voiced by the US and European allies in Munich.

Others were even more stinging in their criticism.

“Lots of words. No concrete commitments,” posted Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Institute of International Affairs, on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s a sad MSC2024.”

The gaps were even more glaring when it came to the devastating Israel-Gaza war, which erupted after Hamas’s murderous assault on southern Israel on 7 October.

Israel’s military operations are causing a staggering number of civilian casualties and have ravaged much of this coastal strip.

“We have seen a really great interest from the international community and the world leaders who have gathered here in Munich that they would like to see a serious ceasefire and a substantial amount of international aid into Gaza,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh remarked in an interview.

But Israeli delegates, including former peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, doubled down on the need to keep pressing forward.

“I’m a political opponent of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, but I support the war in Gaza,” she emphasised in a session, which also included Mr Shtayyeh and the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

“I support the strategic need to eliminate Hamas as a terrorist organisation and as a regime,” Ms Livni said.

This year’s MSC marked a record attendance: more than 900 participants including some 50 heads of state and government from around the world, more than 100 ministers, as well as representatives of think-tanks, non-governmental organisations and leading businesses.

Top spooks, feminist foreign ministers, climate warriors, Iranian activists, weapons experts, technology wizards and more – all gathered for their own get-togethers on public stages and in private rendezvous and hushed huddles.

It all underlined how the world’s understanding of “global security” keeps shifting shape.

Over the decades, this forum – born in 1963 in a Cold War quest for peace and prosperity – has often been a venue for real-time diplomacy, too.

But in a year marked by worry over “lose-lose dynamics” Munich was a place for a lot of talking and taking stock as the world nervously wonders where the next blows will fall.https://tehopeng.com/

By Matt Precey

BBC News, Suffolk

Nuclear weapons could be making a return to a United States Air Force base in Suffolk 15 years after it reportedly removed its last ones.

Documents indicate RAF Lakenheath is preparing facilities to house and guard bombs with an explosive power many times greater than the one dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.

What do we know about the plans?

RAF Lakenheath is currently home to the 48th Fighter Wing, also known as the Liberty Wing, with the latest generation F-35A Lightning II aircraft stationed there.

According to the USAF these fighter jets have successfully been flight tested to carry the short-range B61-12 thermonuclear bomb, a tactical weapon designed for the battlefield.

Documents detailing a contract awarded to build defensive shelters for RAF Lakenheath’s “upcoming nuclear mission” were published, and then withdrawn, by the US Department of Defense.

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These mobile units would protect the troops assigned to defend the base, the 48th Security Forces Squadron.

In addition, millions of dollars have been earmarked to build a facility known as a “surety dormitory” at the base, which is understood to be storage facilities for nuclear weapons, according to a US Department of Defense .

The RAF base opened in Lakenheath in 1941 and was operational during World War Two.

As the Cold War between Nato and the Soviet bloc intensified, the USAF assumed administrative control of the base in 1951.

There are 4,000 US military personnel and a further 1,500 British and US civilian staff at the site.

Will the weapons arrive in Suffolk?

Sir Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, said there were “some suggestions” the plans were precautionary.

The shelters could just be extra capacity in the event other weapons had to be removed from storage sites in Europe, he added.

“It is one thing to build storage facility, it’s another thing to hide the fact that American weapons are going to be based in Britain, so it may have quite a relatively mundane explanation rather than be some sort of dramatic escalation in the arms race,” he said.

The UK and Nato have a long-standing policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.

Why is this happening now?

Sir Lawrence said he did not think the plans were specifically related to the situation in Ukraine.

“It is part of, I think, a general increasing of tension with Russia,” he said.

“It also reflects the high priority given to short-range systems in Russian doctrine.”

But William Alberque, a former senior NATO official now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said it was a “response to an increasingly dangerous threat environment across Europe because of Russia’s actions”.

He cited the stationing of Russian nuclear forces in Belarus, the invasion of Ukraine and “wildly increased threats of nuclear weapons use by Vladimir Putin”.

What does this mean for the base?

Hans Kristensen, from the Federation of American Scientists, was among the first people to raise the possibility nuclear weapons could be returning to RAF Lakenheath.

“There is no doubt that if you have nuclear weapons on a base, that base is more likely to be targeted in a nuclear conflict with Russia,” he said.

“There’s no doubt that once you have nuclear weapons in, it’s a different ball game.”

• Plans progress to bring US nuclear weapons to UK
• Anger over claims UK could host US nuclear weapons
• Protesters oppose possible nuclear arms return

Mr Alberque said it was “highly likely” the base was already a Russian target.

“If I’m a Russian military planner, I’m already going to hit it. If you watch Russian television, they talk about the UK a lot; they talk about nuking the UK a lot.”

Mr Alberque believes Russian President Vladimir Putin would authorise the use of these weapons.

“To say he is capable of it would be an understatement. If he sees a lack of resolve and a lack of consequences I think he would,” he said.

What happens next?

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has already protested outside the base.

CND general secretary Kate Hudson said: “If they’re here, we’re going to get rid of them.”

The group has instructed law firm Leigh Day to look into whether building of the surety dormitory is lawful.

Lawyer Ricardo Gama said: “The [UK] Ministry of Defence says that the Lakenheath development won’t lead to significant environmental effects, but in coming to that conclusion our client argues they have ignored the potential environmental effects of stationing nuclear weapons at the airbase, including the potential for nuclear accidents”.https://tehopeng.com/