the german chancellor, olaf scholz — on a visit to israel — says his country can't stand by and watch palestinians risk starvation in gaza. mr scholz emphasised the high costs of the war against hamas on civilian lives. ukraine says it hit an oil refinery in southern russia overnight, as part of a campaign to undermine russia's economy. the kremlin says the attacks were timed to disrupt the russian election. and a state of emergency in iceland, after a fourth volcanic eruption in as many months. the village of grindavik is evacuated, only weeks after residents were allowed to return. now on bbc news, it's the royal photo re—touch, and a warning this programme contains flashing images. let's turn to some major news out of great britain. this photo of the princess of wales and her children has now been pulled from circulation. at the moment, those picture agencies are unable to say, "hand on heart, we think this image is totally genuine."

0k, well... holly hunter, there... ..it's a disaster! there's a lot to unpack there. there is. how did a social media post celebrating mother's day cause a royal public relations crisis... great picture. three lovely children smiling at the camera and kate looking really well. and then suddenly it all went pear—shaped. there are various clues that indicate it's been edited or changed in some way. ..and fuel allegations of fake news and conspiracy theories... the more outlandish, the wilder the conspiracy theory, the more traction it's going to get. ..and send social media meme accounts into overdrive? the traditional press has been quite respectful, quite restrained. out there in the wilds of social media, the opposite is true. this is the story of how the princess of wales broke the internet, sparking big questions of trust and transparency in an age of disinformation. this story spiralled rapidly, so let's start at the beginning. what i reckon will be the headlines everywhere in the next few hours is this picture we can show you. it's just been released by the royal family showing the princess of wales and her children for mother's day, after weeks of frenzied speculation about her health

and her whereabouts. this story spiralled rapidly, so let's start at the beginning. what i reckon will be the headlines everywhere in the next few hours is this picture we can show you. it's just been released by the royal family showing the princess of wales and her children for mother's day, after weeks of frenzied speculation about her health and her whereabouts. on the morning of sunday 10th march 2024, the prince and princess of wales — william and kate — posted a photo to their social media accounts, including instagram and x, saying the words, "thank you for your kind wishes and continued support "over the last two months. "wishing everyone a happy mother's day." the message was signed "c" for catherine, and the picture was credited to william, the prince of wales. the idea, i think, was to allay the concerns that people have had on social media and so on about kate's health. and she's not been seen in public since christmas, apart from a paparazzi shot that didn't appear in this country. and so there was great expectation that, you know, the photograph would help the situation, that we would see kate's return to health and that

everything's fine in the world of the royal family and the prince and princess of wales. this was the first official photo of the princess of wales since the palace announced she'd undergone abdominal surgery almost two months earlier. i just want to bring you some breaking news from kensington palace. this has been issued just in the last minute. her royal highness, the princess of wales — that's catherine, the princess of wales — was admitted to the london clinic yesterday for planned abdominal surgery. it was supposed to reassure the public about the wellbeing of the princess. people just love a conspiracy theory, and so they start to speculate if somebody's been out of the limelight for quite a while. i'd just like to have an answer to all the questions that most people are wondering, "what's going on?" . i think it's all been massively blown out of proportion.

i don't think it's a big deal, and i think it shouldn't take up nearly as much media time as it does when there's much more important things happening. i think this photograph put out on mother's day was an attempt to quell the rumours about the whereabouts and the wellbeing of catherine, princess of wales. as we know, injanuary she had a serious operation. we don't know exactly what for, but it was such that she had to spend two weeks in hospital, and then we were told that she would spend several months in recuperation. initially, it had the desired effect — dominating the next day's front pages, most of which had gone to print the night before. i think it was a very simple pr move to say that "william took it. "look, everything's happy in every part of life. "we're all doing well." it was a post intended to mark mother's day against a background in which it would inevitably be seen as an attempt to stop conspiracy theories and speculation about catherine, but it had the opposite effect. rumours, speculation and conspiracy theories went into overdrive. on the evening that the picture was posted, the associated press, one of the international news media

agencies that distributed the photo, issued a kill notification — a media industry term used to describe retraction of an image from circulation and use by media outlets. ap said that "the source has manipulated the image", the source being the prince and princess of wales. so when a photograph is submittedj to all these various press agencies, they get passed around very, very quickly to be distributed j to all the magazines, . tv news programmes — all the different media teams. and so, if something - is found to be manipulated, what they have to do is to give this — it sounds very severe — _ a kill notice. that instantly tells everybody - that this must absolutely be stopped being distributed because something is wrong with it _ and that could be . the caption is wrong. it could be wrongly dated in terms of the date, - the place, the location. it could be misinformation. but manipulation is something which cannot go through - the press agencies. so, marianna, you look at images

all the time and analyse them in a lot of detail. talk us through what's actually problematic about this picture. ok, so here we have a very large version of the image that sparked a lot of controversy. and there's no suggestion or evidence that it was generated using ai, that it's totally false. but instead, there are various clues that indicate it's been edited or changed in some way. so the first really obvious one that a lot of people spotted was princess charlotte's sleeve that's here. there's a kind of chunk missing on her left cardigan sleeve, which is really consistent with a photo having been edited. the second one is here, on the princess of wales' zip. you can see that the zip doesn't really fully align with the bit below, and that again is consistent with it having been edited in some way. and then another kind of quite obvious one is how blurry this hand is on prince louis' side. so if you spend a fair bit of time, there are a few other clues as well. you can quite easily see that this was edited. we analysed the data attached to the image that was shared with the different press agencies, and what that tells us is that,

actually, the image was edited twice using software on a computer. so, again, it kind of all matches up. but we haven't been able to analyse the original image because kensington palace haven't shared that. the kill notifications didn't stop with ap. reuters said it also had withdrawn the image following a post—publication review. french media agency afp then issued a mandatory kill notice. they were followed by getty images and then the press association. it is really unusual. there have been claims of some examples in the past, but this is really, really unusual. and also, i think it's the sudden fall from grace, from a picture that was meant to be a nice, friendly family picture. suddenly, it's sort of attacked by these very aggressive—looking kill notices. major news agencies, specifically the associated press and reuters, pulled a photo released today by kensington palace over concerns that it may have been manipulated. it's very rare, but they have put in new rules very late... - ..like recently, with everything going on, with wars and so on. j so they're being a lot hotter- on what can and can't get through. i mean, it's such a severe thing to get a kill notice, _

and i think it's unfortunate - the royal family were the first big names to get struck by it, with everything else - going on with them. i think it's unprecedented to do it this way round. i mean, ithink the royal family have, in the past, stopped photographs that have been taken by the paparazzi or illegally. so it's usually the palace that's put the block on the agencies releasing certain photographs, but this is the other way round. the palace have supplied a photograph and the agencies have said no — presumably because of that, because they're alarmed at the number of inconsistencies on the photograph and editing. in a way, this was intended to be a picture to kill off the rumours. but instead, what's happened is that the media has actually killed off this picture. meanwhile, on instagram and other social media platforms, users commented on what they thought were efforts to edit the photograph, with some sharing conspiracy theories. the world of social media is a hungry beast, and news doesn't like a vacuum,

and it was filled with all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories about where she was and how she was, and was she really ill, what was happening? i don't think anybody could avoid, if you use social media, coming across this in some way, and that's why it's been quite important to explain now that the reason it's really taken off is because of these kinds of conspiracy theories. and it's notjust conspiracy theories. like, some of it is very speculative, but i think a lot of people want to know the details. they want to understand more. they don't understand what's going on. there are various things that made them concerned or worried orjust a bit nosy. people online also made light of what news agencies took very seriously, turning the incident into an unending stream of memes. just in — the princess of wales is apologising over the royalfamily photo that several news agencies pulled because it appeared to have been manipulated. little more than 2a hours after the original photo had been posted, the princess of wales posted an apology on social media. i was quite pleased that they dealt with it straight away, that a statement was issued

from kate admitting — and it was just the right tone, i think — she admitted, "i'm an amateur photographer "and i did what a lot of people do, a bit of photo editing." and she didn't say she made a hash of it, but she implied that she, you know, perhaps should have left it to the professionals. oh, no. and she didn't say she made a hash of it, but she implied that she, you know, perhaps should have left it to the professionals. oh, no. you're going to have to edit that... what did you think of their response to the whole thing? well, i think there was a sort of howling gale of media interest in the story that morning. there had to be a response. they couldn't not say something. and, in a way, i think we've slightly overlooked how dramatic that was, because here was a very senior royal publicly apologising for something that they'd done. that's really unusual in itself.

i think also people will have noticed that it was catherine who signed it with a "c" dot, you know, rather than it being a formal princess of wales thing, and she took responsibility. very nice to see you guys. the evening after the post, prince william spoke at a public event but made no mention of the incident that had dominated the headlines the previous 2a hours. i think where they haven't shown the original photo — _ and seem to be refusing to do so, it makes you wonder, like, - what is being hidden from it? how edited was this? the message from the palace was that we're not going to see the original photograph, and i suspect they'll stick to that, because otherwise people will be poring over it and seeing what's changed from that original picture and the one that was published. it'd be like the biggest game of spot the difference ever, wouldn't it, if we got the original and the edited? there would be pages and pages of arrows pointing at strange haircuts and missing fringes and stripes onjumpers. i think they won't go further than that unless they're forced to by other events, such as someone else possibly

leaking the picture. but why did a photograph that had potential to end the speculation about the princess's health end up fuelling it? it was an attempt to stop these sort of crazy rumours. but, in fact, because of the problems with the authenticity and questions about whether it had been manipulated, it's actually had the opposite effect. it's set a whole new world of crazy claims and conspiracy theories running across social media and across the front pages, too. and it's an extraordinary... i suppose, what had been a sensible attempt to try and show how she was has, in fact, raised a whole load of other questions which are even harder to answer now. i think a photo that wasn't edited would have been a great idea, i but this photo not so much. i think a video would have gone down very well, - just some sort of form of evidence. but, you know, she's a very popular

figure as well, i think, so she's very important to the royals in terms of their own pr and their own public face. it's her face that's on the front pages of papers. and her absence has really shown how much... ..how much she's been missed. the condition of the princess and the reason for her abdominal surgery two months earlier was not revealed by the royal household, although they said that the medical intervention was not cancer related. weeks of speculation about her wellbeing and whereabouts followed. initially, the palace said that it would only provide significant updates about the princess's condition and that she would not return to her royal duties before easter 202a. it's not just conspiracy theories. some of it is very speculative. we were made aware that the princess of wales wouldn't be appearing in public for some time after she'd had this medical procedure. you know, you can't ever stop people asking genuine questions, but when there's this vacuum of information, you have both those things and then the stuff that's untrue and actually quite harmful because, ultimately, even though they're royals, there are real people caught

up in this. amid rumours and conspiracy theories about the princess's welfare, prince william continued with his public duties. he even received flowers for his wife on a public visit on 29th february 202a. if you've had even a passing glance at social media or online searches in recent days, there's been an enormous amount of rumour and gossip about the princess of wales. it's been pretty wild in some places. now, kensington palace know this, but they have stressed that nothing has changed here. they had always said that we wouldn't see the princess of wales until after easter, and they say that her recovery is going well. there is a vacuum of information. people are genuinely looking for answers, understandably. everyone becomes an amateur sleuth. well, not quite everyone, but a lot of people. and they're looking for clues and they're picking over images and they're posting videos and they're sharing content and they're getting likes, which is kind of further validating what they're doing, and they know people will look at their content. then it kind of spirals into the more extreme stuff — disinformation, conspiracy. i found this time and time again, that the people

who are at the centre of this, whether they're really famous, really high profile, or whether they're not famous at all, they're just the average person, they find it really hard. the princess had not been seen in public since attending a christmas day service at sandringham in norfolk. thank you so much. that's very sweet of you to come and say hello to us. yeah. well, very happy christmas. merry christmas. fanfare plays on 5th march, the army removed a claim on its website that the princess of wales would be appearing at trooping the colour injune 2024, as she had done the previous year. the claim had caused confusion after kensington palace said it had not confirmed her appearance, but the army didn't seek approval from the palace before publishing the page. this rumour mill kept turning. i think what's important to understand here is that none of this happens in isolation. so it starts with questions about, where's the princess of wales? then you've got examples of other posts that are shared online. the army, for example, on their website, shared an upcoming event where they suggested that the princess of wales would be coming, and then

that was removed and taken down. so all of these little things sort of tie together and start to further inflame this online conversation until a photo like this comes out, people spot that it's been edited — genuinely has been edited — and bam, this all totally explodes into the mainstream, and the average person is seeing it on their social media feeds. but were it not for all of those little things that happened in the build—up to that image and its editing, this wouldn't have unfolded in the same way. the now infamous picture of the princess and her three children went viral for all the wrong reasons. i cannot believe her team didn't pick up on it. - i'm shocked. i would have thought - there would have been such a stringent protocol in place - where they're checking every... more than one person checking a photo because, i mean, - they're quite obvious errors. i mean, once you see them, you can't unsee them. - so the conspiracy theories they'd hoped to die down have actually increased.

and rather than stopping a certain situation, they've actually fanned the flames and started again. a lot of photographs used by the media have been edited in some ways, but for many news agencies, this mother's day photograph crossed a line. trust is very, very important to the press industry, - and we cannot allow these manipulated images to go| into those systems, - because all of a sudden, then, we are seen as- instigators of manipulation. we have the british press. photographers association, we have the national union of journalists _ all of these organisations, - if you look at their ethical codes and codes of conduct, _ say that absolutely no manipulation can go ahead because that lessens the trust for us . in the public's eye. but is editing photographs intended for the media new and unusual? for the press industry, retouching and manipulation is not allowed. i the most basic alterations that you can do are - things like sharpening, - brightening, maybe darkening. you're not allowed to obscure things in photographs, you're not allowed i to take things away. cropping is allowed, -

staging is allowed in portraits, but not in other situations. the monarchy has always needed the media. i mean, it started with the age of queen victoria. she adored photography and then she had... she was photographed all the time. there's an early picture of queen victoria, i think it's from 1852, with the children. she took one look at this image and she hated it. she got her thumb and she scratched it out. so there — in this image, in this photograph — you've got five nice children and then this blur where queen victoria should be. with the queen mother during the war, when they used photography very much to convey the intimacy of the royal family, you'd see pictures of princess margaret playing we are following developments from moscow. a short we are following developments from moscow. a short time we are following developments from moscow. a short time ago we are following developments from moscow. a short time ago we we are following developments from moscow. a short time ago we saw

vladimir putin and it appeared that he was meeting some young russians there. that looks like it is the main hall. ok, they are clapping. so he is perhaps about to enter and walk across the stage in there he is let's listen in. translation: it let's listen in. translation: , ., ., let's listen in. translation: , ., translation: it is great to be here toniuht translation: it is great to be here toni . ht with translation: it is great to be here tonight with members _ translation: it is great to be here tonight with members of _ translation: it is great to be here tonight with members of my - translation: it is great to be here tonight with members of my team, | tonight with members of my team, with like—minded people, with colleagues. and my brothers in arms. when we use this word, brothers in arms, my comrades, we mean the people who think like, who have shared goals, who shared her feelings, like—minded people. let us think about the meaning of this word, brother in arms. what

does that mean? this is a warrior. in ancient russia, it was a warrior who came from common folk and russian villagers. notjust a warrior, but a popular militia man. these were people who stood up to defend their motherland, people who thought about their motherland today and about future generations. they are with you. and today, history is repeating itself. history is circular, it goes up and it goes in a circle. everything is repeated. we are all brothers in arms. in this connection i would like to think

first of all citizens of russia, we are all one team, all citizens of russia who have come to the polling stations today and voted. once again, i would like to say this is an extremely important thing. it is not formal or legal, the source of power in the country is the russian people. and the vote of each russian citizen, the vote of each of russian citizen, the vote of each of russian citizen makes up the common will of the people of the russian federation, it is a reliable pillar of the country's is distance and its

development and its defence capability, in science, in education, in every important area. and of course, today, and the conditions that we live in, i want to give special thanks to our soldiers. the people who are fighting along the contact line and providing for the country's existence. those who spared nothing, do not spare themselves, risking their lives and providing for our country in the new regions of russia, but actually historic regions. i would like to thank all those who worked in the election headquarters, the volunteers, this is notjust routine. this is not

about some gathering of signatures, this is work. strange as it may seem, this is the kind of work that actually poses a risk to people's lives especially in these new territories. these are people who far from any kind territories. these are people who farfrom any kind of territories. these are people who far from any kind of military profession. these are people who work in civilian professions and today, here behind my back, our many women. they fear nothing, they are working and they are serving their motherland. of course, there are many tasks ahead. but when we are consolidated, i think this is clear to everyone, whoever he may wish to intimidate us, whoever may wish to suppress our will, our conscience,

nobody has ever succeeded in doing this in history and is not succeeding now and will never succeeding now and will never succeed in the future. we, on the contrary, feeling as one family, i have spoken to the patriarch and he said very good words. he said in a mono ethnic state, these results of our work together would be very good, but in a multiethnic, multi—faith country, these results are unique. this means, regardless of theirfaith or ethnic are unique. this means, regardless of their faith or ethnic origin, everybody feels as one russian family and this is extremely important. this is the most

important. this is the most important condition for our progress and in this connection, i can say with full confidence that all big, even grandiose plans to some extent, that we have conceived, that i have mentioned in my address to the federal assembly, all of these tasks will be resolved in all the goals will be resolved in all the goals will be resolved in all the goals will be achieved. we will do everything for it. in conclusion i would like to say exactly what i have just mentioned. we would like to say exactly what i havejust mentioned. we have would like to say exactly what i have just mentioned. we have a would like to say exactly what i havejust mentioned. we have a lot of specific important tasks ahead, the result of the election signifies trust on the part of the country's citizens and the hope that we will do just as we planned. i would

dojust as we planned. i would like to thank all of you, all citizens of this country for their support and for this trust. thank you very much. applause chance on the streets of moscow earlier there were not but certainly celebration in the hall there in moscow. listening back in? translation: we moscow. listening back in? translation:— moscow. listening back in? translation: ~ , ., translation: we will set out some concrete steps _ translation: we will set out some concrete steps in _ translation: we will set out some concrete steps in this _ translation: we will set out some concrete steps in this common - translation: we will set out some j concrete steps in this common effort of hours and i would like all of those here to feel as one team. i hope not to lose you. i count very much on our work together in the nearfuture. thank you much on our work together in the near future. thank you so much on our work together in the

nearfuture. thank you so much. so much on our work together in the nearfuture. thank you so much. 50 i near future. thank you so much. so i think that is — near future. thank you so much. so i think that is the — near future. thank you so much. sol think that is the end of the press conference there. a veryjubilant putin confirmed he is going to be in powerfor putin confirmed he is going to be in power for another six years. this putin confirmed he is going to be in powerfor another six years. this is his fifth term and i was just looking at some statistics we have on the website here at bbc news. pointing out that putin has already beenin pointing out that putin has already been in powerfor 21t years in one way or another. on course for another six. way or another. on course for anothersix. in way or another. on course for another six. in power longer than anyone sincejosef stalin. he does appear to be very happy as he confirms his fifth term. we understand exit polls about two hours ago confirming were around 88% in favour of putin. his opponent around the 1t% mark. what has he been

saying? just at the end there, you caught him thanking the people of russia, thanking them for their trust in him. he also added, we are one team and, i hope not to lose you, he said. he said, there is the stress in the result but it comes with signifies, to him, that he can accomplish the tasks ahead and we can dojust as accomplish the tasks ahead and we can do just as we had planned. accomplish the tasks ahead and we can dojust as we had planned. we will go through that shortly in terms of what he has promised and what will likely happen next both in russia and of course abroad. there are a lot of relations abroad across the world with russia. he also pointed out that he spoke to the patriarch of the russian orthodox church. and there they had spoken of one russian family, he said, the source of power in russia, putin said, is russian people. so as we

have been discussing over the last 2-3 have been discussing over the last 2—3 days, the fact that he needed to look legitimate in front of the russian people goes back to this. the source of power in the country, according to putin, is the russian people. he also added that, his win will allow russia to become stronger and more effective. i was not quite able to pick up stronger, how whether economically or militarily or if if he is also referring to the war in ukraine. adding, mr putin, adding how his win was showing how russia was right to choose its own path and allowing russia to consolidate society. he is still talking let's just go back. consolidate society. he is still talking let'sjust go back. though the state has been cleared he is now alone at the podium. let's listen

in. speaking in russian. so president putin there, a slightly stenocaptioner face, so president putin there, a slightly stenocaptionerface, none of so president putin there, a slightly stenocaptioner face, none of the volunteers and the staff with him, i believe that could well be because there is a bank of press there, may be he is taking questions, we are waiting for a translation. but that is vladimir putin, 88% was the exit poll turn out. francis works with bbc monitoring his specialist area is russia itself. francis, from what you were haring take us through it u there were two key messages there,

he is of course trying to