The UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is launching an appeal to help the thousands of people injured and displaced as a result of last week’s powerful earthquake which struck Myanmar and the wider region.

Made up of 15 UK aid agencies, including the British Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children, the DEC is asking the British public for donations before the monsoon season arrives in two months.

More than 2,800 people have died and more than 4,500 have been injured, according to the leaders of Myanmar’s military government, with figures expected to rise.

The charities say shelter, medicine, food, water and cash support is “urgently needed”.

Baroness Chapman, minister for development, said public donations to the DEC appeal would be matched pound-for-pound by the government, up to the value of £5m.

DEC’s chief executive Saleh Saeed said the situation was “ever more critical.”

“Funds are urgently needed to help families access life-saving humanitarian aid following this catastrophe,” he said.

Multiple international aid agencies and foreign governments have dispatched personnel and supplies to quake-hit regions.

Myanmar was already facing a severe humanitarian crisis before the 7.7 magnitude earthquake due to the ongoing civil war there, with the DEC estimating a third of the population is in need of aid.

The country has been gripped by violence amid the conflict between the junta – which seized power in a 2021 coup – and ethnic militias and resistance forces across the country.

On Wednesday, Myanmar’s military government announced a temporary ceasefire lasting until 22 April, saying it was aimed at expediting relief and reconstruction efforts.

Rebel groups had already unilaterally declared a ceasefire to support relief efforts earlier this week, but the military had refused to do the same until Wednesday’s announcement.

Aid workers have come under attack in Myanmar. On Tuesday night, the army opened fire at a Chinese Red Cross convoy carrying earthquake relief supplies.

Nine of the charity’s vehicles came under attack. The UN and some charities have accused the military junta of blocking access.

The US Geological Survey’s modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000, while the cost in damages to infrastructure could surpass the country’s annual economic output.

Roads, water services and buildings including hospitals have been destroyed, especially in Mandalay, the hard-hit city near the epicentre.

In Thailand, at least 21 people have died.

The Red Cross has also issued an urgent appeal for $100m (£77m), while the UN is seeking $8m in donations for its response.

“People urgently require medical care, clean drinking water, tents, food, and other basic necessities,” the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Monday.

The DEC brings together 15 leading UK aid charities to provide and deliver aid to ensure successful appeals.

The appeal will be broadcast on the BBC and other media outlets throughout Thursday.

Uriah Rennie became a familiar face to millions of football fans after becoming the Premier League’s first black referee.

Once described as the “fittest” match official in global football and a martial arts expert, he is now learning to walk again after a rare condition left him paralysed from the waist down.

After spending five months in hospital, the 65-year-old has spoken to BBC News about rehabilitation, his fighting spirit and a brand new role.

Rennie, who officiated more than 300 top-flight fixtures between 1997 and 2008, was on a birthday trip to Turkey last year when he was hit with a sudden striking pain in his back.

“I thought I had just slept funny on a sun lounger, I was hoping to go paragliding but because of my backache I couldn’t go,” he says.

“By the end of the holiday I couldn’t sleep a wink from the pain, and by the time I got home I could barely walk.”

Rennie made history in 1997 when he officiated a match between Derby County and Wimbledon, becoming the top division’s first black referee.

Tall in stature and a kick-boxing and aikido expert, protesting players rapidly discovered he was more than comfortable standing his ground during arguments.

A magistrate in Sheffield since 1996, he has campaigned for issues such as improving equality and inclusion in sport, supporting mental health and tackling deprivation.

Rennie was on the verge of starting a new role as Sheffield Hallam University chancellor when he was admitted to Northern General Hospital in October.

“I spent a month laid on my back and another four months sitting in bed,” he says.

“They kept me in hospital until February, they found a nodule pushing on my spine and it was a rare neurological condition so it’s not something they can operate on.

“I have had to learn to move all over again, I’m retraining my legs.”

“It was strange – I went from running around the city to in essence being in traction for such a long time.

“I didn’t have any previous back problems but quite suddenly I wasn’t able to move and was in a spinal unit.”

Discussing his current movement, he says: “I can move my feet and I can stand with a frame attached to my wheelchair but I need to work on my glutes.”

He jokingly shows the wheelchair scuffs on the skirting boards around his home, with physiotherapy currently taking up much of his day.

“I rock around in my chair doing my exercises, I’m a very good, compliant patient,” he laughs.

“It has been frustrating but family and friends have been invaluable, the hospital was absolutely superb and the university has been exceptional.”

He officially starts as university chancellor in May, a position he has been determined to take up despite his recent experiences.

“I emphasised I wanted to make a difference to Sheffield and to communities here,” he says.

“I carried on working with community sports teams while in hospital, directing them from my bed.”

He studied for an MBA at the university during his refereeing career and received an honorary doctorate in 2023 for his work with sport and local communities.

“I’m aiming to be the best I can physically,” he says.

“No one has told me I won’t walk again, but even if someone did say that I want to be able to say I did everything I could to try.”

Rennie, who moved from Jamaica to the UK as a young child and grew up in the Wybourn area of the city, says being the first black referee was about “creating a legacy to enable other people to stand on your shoulders”.

Discussing his latest challenge, he says the spinal cord compression has given him a new outlook on life.

“Lots of people are in wheelchairs, but it doesn’t define them,” he says.

“It has made me resilient and forceful and I will never give up – I’m not on my own, there is a village helping me.”

He concludes: “I recognise how brittle things are in life now.

“I don’t know if I am going to walk fully, but I know what I need to do to try and you must never give up hope.”

President Donald Trump has announced new import taxes on all goods entering the US, in the biggest upheaval of the international trade order since the aftermath of World War Two.

His plan sets a baseline tariff of 10% on all imports, consistent with his proposal during last year’s White House campaign.

Items from about 60 trade partners that the White House described as the “worst offenders”, including the European Union and China, face higher rates – payback for unfair trade policies, Trump said.

Analysts said the trade war escalation was likely to lead to higher prices for Americans and slower growth in the US, while some countries around the world could be plunged into recession.

But in Wednesday’s announcement at the White House, Trump said the measures were necessary because countries were taking advantage of the US by imposing high tariffs and other trade barriers.

Declaring a national emergency, the Republican president said the US had for more than five decades been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike”.

“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump said in the Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags.

The White House said the US would start charging the 10% tariffs on 5 April, with the higher duties for certain nations starting on 9 April.

“Today we are standing up for the American worker and we are finally putting America first,” Trump said, calling it “one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history”.

His decision stunned many analysts.

“He just dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system,” Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told the BBC.

Tariffs are taxes on imports. On the campaign trail last year, Trump said he would use them to boost manufacturing, promising a new age of US prosperity.

The import taxes could raise $2.2tn (£1.7tn) of revenue by 2034, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

He spent weeks previewing Wednesday’s announcement, which followed other orders raising tariffs on imports from China, foreign cars, steel and aluminium and 25% on some goods from Mexico and Canada.

For now, the White House said the latest changes would not change anything for Mexico and Canada, two of America’s closest trading partners.

But other allies will face new tariffs, including 10% for the UK and 20% for the European Union, said Trump.

The measure introduces a new 34% tariff on goods from China, on top of an existing 20% levy, bringing total duties to at least 54%.

The tariff rate will be 24% on goods from Japan, and 26% from India.

Some of the highest duties will hit exports from countries that have seen a rush of investment in recent years, as firms shifted supply chains away from China following tariffs in Trump’s first term.

Goods from Vietnam and Cambodia will be hit with 46% and 49% respectively.

Higher levies will also fall on much smaller nations, with products from the southern African country of Lesotho facing 50%.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned other countries not to hit back.

“My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate,” Bessent told Fox News.

“Sit back, take it in, let’s see how it goes. Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation,” he said. “If you don’t retaliate, this is the high watermark.”

The duties will affect trillions of dollars in trade, likely setting the stage for higher prices in the US on clothing, European wine, bicycles, toys and thousands of other items.

Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at the Fitch Ratings agency, said the measures would bring the US tariff rate to what was in place in 1910.

“Many countries will likely end up in a recession,” he said.

The US stock market was closed for trading by the time that Trump made his announcement, which he billed as “Liberation Day”.

But shares in the Asia-Pacific region opened lower on Thursday morning.

Japan’s benchmark stock index, the Nikkei 225, was down by 4% in early trading. Australia’s ASX 200 was around 2% lower.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives described the tariffs as “worse than the worst case” that investors had anticipated.

But he said he believed there would be negotiations and exemptions.

Trump has described his measures as “reciprocal” – intending them as a retaliation for other countries’ policies that he says fuel high trade imbalances.

These include high tariffs, as well as Value Added Tax (VAT) or regulations that bar foods with traces of certain chemicals.

Trump also reinstated plans to end tax-free treatment for small packages from China as of May, a move that would hurt Amazon rivals such as Shein and Temu.

He confirmed that a 25% tax on imports of all foreign-made cars, which he announced last week, would begin from midnight.

And he repeated his intention to hit specific items that were exempt from Wednesday’s action, such as copper and pharmaceuticals, with separate tariffs.