World leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, have been gathering in Munich for Europe's biggest security and defence conference. The burning question on everyone's minds: is America still an ally of Europe? The keynote speech that everyone was waiting for was from Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State. Would he repeat the attacks made on Europe last year by the US Vice President JD Vance? Or would he be conciliatory?

Wild fluctuations in the price of gold continued on Wednesday as geopolitical tensions reignited after the US downed an Iranian drone . The precious metal, which is seen as a so-called safe haven for investors in times of uncertainty, shot back above $5,000 (£3,650) an ounce following days of sharp falls. Gold prices had been propelled to record highs by rapid changes in US trade policy, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and conflict and central banks increasing their purchases of bullion. Wednesday's jump, to $5,061 per ounce, left the price of gold around 80% higher than the same time a year ago. A US military spokesman confirmed the Iranian drone had been shot down after it aggressively approached an American aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. Tehran has not commented on Tuesday's incident.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his secret hideout these days, knows he is now a marked man. He will not be sitting on his veranda anytime soon. When discussing what the United States might do next to help the protesters in Iran, US President Trump has mentioned Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The former, Iran's all-important military strategist in the Middle East, was killed on 3 January 2020 in a drone strike just outside Baghdad's international airport on the president's order. The latter, who was the leader of IS, killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest on 27 October 2019 when US forces raided his hideout in northern Syria after the approval of the president.

--As the Middle East emerges as a strategic hub for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the feasibility of deploying sustainable datacenters in desert environments has become a topic of growing relevance. This paper presents an empirical study analyzing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of large language model (LLM) inference across four countries: the United Arab Emirates, Iceland, Germany, and the United States of America using DeepSeek Coder 1.3B and the HumanEval dataset on the task of code generation. We use the CodeCarbon library to track energy and carbon emissions and compare geographical trade-offs for climate-aware AI deployment. Our findings highlight both the challenges and potential of datacenters in desert regions and provide a balanced outlook on their role in global AI expansion. With the explosion of large-scale artificial intelligence workloads, the environmental footprint of datacenters has come under scrutiny. The AI compute coming online appears to be increasing by a factor of 10 every six months.

Measuring global AI diffusion remains challenging due to a lack of population-normalized, cross-country usage data. We introduce AI User Share, a novel indicator that estimates the share of each country's working-age population actively using AI tools. Built from anonymized Microsoft telemetry and adjusted for device access and mobile scaling, this metric spans 147 economies and provides consistent, real-time insight into global AI diffusion. We find wide variation in adoption, with a strong correlation between AI User Share and GDP. High uptake is concentrated in developed economies, though usage among internet-connected populations in lower-income countries reveals substantial latent demand. We also detect sharp increases in usage following major product launches, such as DeepSeek in early 2025. While the metric's reliance solely on Microsoft telemetry introduces potential biases related to this user base, it offers an important new lens into how AI is spreading globally. AI User Share enables timely benchmarking that can inform data-driven AI policy.

Major win for Trump on Gaza, but will it stand test of time? A billboard showing an image of U.S. President Donald Trump to thank him for his role in reaching a ceasefire deal with Hamas, and another one bearing Israel's national flag, are installed on a main highway in Tel Aviv on Thursday. Washington - U.S. President Donald Trump has undeniably scored a diplomatic victory by helping to broker a truce for Gaza, but the path to the lasting peace he says he wants for the Middle East is littered with obstacles. And it remains to be seen whether the 79-year-old Trump -- who is not exactly known for his attention to the fine print -- will devote the same level of energy to the conflict over the long term, once his victory lap in the region is over next week. Any agreement between Israelis and Palestinians, but especially one indirectly brokered between Israel and Hamas is an extraordinary achievement, said Aaron David Miller, who worked for multiple U.S. administrations of both parties.

More holidaymakers are turning to AI when planning or booking their trips, according to travel association ABTA. The body found that 8% of travellers were using AI - up from 4% last year - with younger holidaymakers more likely to use the technology when planning their trips. However, AI still lagged a long way behind more established methods - such as general internet searches and asking family and friends. Overall, the number of people taking a holiday continued a recent trend of climbing back towards pre-pandemic levels, ABTA said. The travel body described the increase in customers using AI as both a challenge and an opportunity.

Fans have reacted angrily after Microsoft announced price increases to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system - available to PC and Xbox players - would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month. Reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service's cancellation page had crashed due to demand. BBC Newsbeat has asked Microsoft if the outage was linked to a surge in visits. In a blog post detailing the changes to Game Pass, Microsoft said it would offer three tiers - Essential (£10 per month), Premium (£14.99) and Ultimate (£22.99).

President Trump has announced a 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza, showing various lines of Israeli troop withdrawal should President Trump's plan go ahead. BBC Verify has analysed this map alongside the latest satellite imagery and the Israeli military's control of Gaza. Prime Minister Starmer says the move will revive the hope of peace but Israel says it is nothing but a reward for jihadist Hamas. BBC Verify's Merlyn Thomas looks at the latest Israeli strikes on buildings in Gaza City city over the weekend. BBC Verify analyses footage of the suspected drone attacks and images of a device found after the incident.

Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says his country has no intention of attacking EU or Nato member states but warned of a decisive response to any aggression directed towards Moscow. In a wide-ranging speech delivered at the UN General Assembly on Saturday, Lavrov said threats against Russia by Western countries were becoming increasingly common. He also took aim at Israel, saying that while Russia condemned the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas, there was no justification for the brutal killings of Palestinians in Gaza, or for plans to annex the West Bank. Israel has previously said its Gaza operation is necessary to defeat Hamas. At least 65,926 people have been killed by Israeli strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, while about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage in the 7 October attacks.