A Hong Kong court has sentenced key pro-democracy leaders to years in jail for subversion, following a controversial national security trial.

Activists Benny Tai and Joshua Wong were among the so-called Hong Kong 47 group involved in a plan to pick opposition candidates for local elections. Tai received 10 years while Wong received more than four years.

A total of 47 activists, opposition lawmakers and ordinary persons were charged for organising or taking part in the plan. Most were found guilty of conspiring to attempt subversion, while two were acquitted.

Their trial marked the largest use of the harsh national security law which China imposed on Hong Kong shortly after the city’s explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Observers say it significantly weakens the city’s pro-democracy movement and rule of law, and allow China to cement control of the city. The US has described the trial as “politically motivated”.

Beijing and Hong Kong’s governments argue that the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy. They also say the convictions serve as a warning against forces trying to undermine China’s national security.

The case has attracted huge interest from Hongkongers, dozens of whom queued up outside of the court days before the sentencing to secure a spot in the public gallery.

In 2020, hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers voted in an unofficial primary for the Legislative Council election. It was organised by pro-democracy activists to increase the opposition’s chances of blocking the pro-Beijing government’s bills.

The activists argued that their actions were legal. But officials accused the activists of attempting to “overthrow” the government, and judges in their ruling agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional crisis.

On Tuesday, the court handed out sentences ranging from four to ten years. Tai, a former law professor who came up with the plan for the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence.

Other prominent pro-democracy figures who were convicted include Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist who went into politics, and former lawmakers Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-hung. They received sentences between four to seven years in prison.

In a sports park next to the red walls and glossy blue tiles which surround Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a group of pensioners are working out.

“I’m 74 and I hope this helps me live a long time,” one man says after he finishes his pull-ups, just as a cold wind blows leaves from cypress trees across the park, disrupting another man who is mid-headstand. Women reach for gloves and sweaters as they take turns hanging from an overhead assault course.

Chinese emperors once came to this Ming dynasty holy site to pray for a good harvest. Now the park is used by locals to enjoy their retirement after spending decades contributing to China’s spectacular growth.

They’ve watched their country open up to the world and their factories propel its economy, which nips at the heels of the United States as the world’s largest.

But some fear what the promises of US president-elect Donald Trump – who has vowed steep tariffs on goods made in China – means for the country’s export-driven economy.

After all, then-President Trump declared in 2020 that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping “love each other”, even in the midst of a bitter trade war with China.

For many in China, Trump is a figure of fun and memes of him dancing to the YMCA are shared widely on social media. Others worry that he’s too unpredictable.

“I like Trump, but he’s unstable. Who knows what he might do?” says the 74-year-old pensioner, whose name has been withheld.

Some of Trump’s cabinet choices – announced since his election victory – will no doubt make people even more wary.

Marco Rubio, his pick for Secretary of State, has called Beijing “the threat that will define this century”. He is also sanctioned by Beijing. Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, wrote earlier this month that the US should “urgently” bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end so it can “finally focus strategy attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party”.

But China has been in training for a second Trump presidency, says Jie Yue, a Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Despite concern on the street, she says his return comes as “no surprise” to Beijing, although she warns that the world should still “expect a roller-coaster type of relationship to unfold” when Trump takes office in January.

The competition between the two nations has been ramping up for some time, long before Trump won the election. It turned especially tense during the Biden administration because of tariffs and geopolitical disagreements ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.

Yet there was dialogue, with several senior US officials making trips to Beijing.

President Xi has vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration, but he also used his last meeting with President Joe Biden to warn Washington that a “new cold war should not be fought and cannot be won”.

He added that “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.

Beijing has long accused the US and its allies of trying to contain China – they see tariffs targeting Chinese-made imports, laws restricting the country’s access to advanced AI chips and military alliances in the South China Sea and beyond as part of this approach.

And Trump’s decision to pick Rubio and Waltz suggests his administration will “take a much harsher, muscular approach with China,” says Lyle Morris from the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis.

“While Trump views his personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping as an avenue for negotiation, he will likely lean on Waltz and Rubio in fashioning a more aggressive, uncompromising policy towards China.”

They are far from the only voices in Washington that see China as a threat to US security and its economy – a view that surprises the average person in Beijing.

“You’re much better off here than in the US right now,” says the 74-year-old in the park before heading off to stretch.

Just north of the Temple of Heaven is the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors lived for almost 500 years. It was here, in 2017, that Xi hosted Trump, bestowing on his guest an honour not granted to any US president since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi shut down the area and took Trump on a tour of the imperial quarters, every moment broadcast live on state TV. He was served kung pao chicken for dinner, and in turn brought a video of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing a Chinese song which went viral on social media.

It was billed by both as a high point in US-China relations, but that quickly soured after the Covid pandemic broke out in Wuhan in 2019 and spread globally in 2020. Trump repeatedly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed the outbreak on Beijing. He also kicked off a tit-for-tat trade war, with tariffs still in place on more than $300bn (£238bn) of goods.

When Trump starts his second term, he will be encountering a stronger Xi, who has cemented his position at China’s helm with a historic third term – and the possibility of remaining in power for life.

Given it has the world’s largest army and navy, Washington is now concerned that the country is building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Even as Trump was unveiling his new cabinet, Chinese state media published videos from the country’s biggest airshow of a new stealth fighter jet – the J35-A – flying vertically and upside-down. China is only the second country to boast two stealth fighters in its inventory. The other is the US. The world’s first two-seat stealth fighter, the J20-S, was also on display.

Last week, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California found satellite images that indicate China is working on nuclear propulsion for a new aircraft carrier.

The studies have “sparked serious concerns over Beijing’s potential adoption of a first-use strategy and increased nuclear threats, fuelling strong support to significantly boost US nuclear capabilities in response,” says Tong Zhao from think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Unless Trump personally intervenes, which seems unlikely, it appears the two nations are on the brink of a much more intense nuclear competition with far-reaching implications for international stability.”

Under Xi’s leadership in recent years, China has also become more assertive in its territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One worry is that Beijing is ramping up militarily to invade Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control. Under Trump and his cabinet, would the US be willing to defend Taiwan?

It’s a question asked of every US president. Trump has dodged it, saying he wouldn’t have to use military force because Xi knew he was “crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

Despite Trump’s unwillingness to participate in foreign wars, most experts expect Washington to continue providing military assistance to Taipei. For one, it is bound by law to sell defensive weapons to the island. Two, the Trump administration sold more arms to Taiwan than any other.

“There is strong bipartisan support for continuing military aid to Taiwan. I don’t expect Trump to significantly change course on arms sales to Taiwan,” Mr Morris says.

These glaring differences aside, Trump does seem to admire Xi’s strongman image. “I had a very strong relationship with him,” he said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard to know what Xi thinks – he has said very little about their relationship and barely mentions Trump by name.

In 2018, Chinese state media CGTN took direct aim at the American leader, and released an unflattering video with the sarcastic title: “Thanks Mr Trump, you are great!” It was later taken down by censors.

But what we do know is both leaders project a type of muscular nationalism. Xi’s dream is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and Trump believes only he can “make America great again”. Both promise that they are working towards a new golden age for their countries.

Trump’s “golden age” for America incudes 60% tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

But Beijing is in no mood for a second trade war. It has troubles of its own.

President Xi’s dream of prosperity is in jeopardy. China’s economy is sluggish, its property sector is sinking, nearly 20% of its young people are struggling to find jobs and it has one of the world’s fastest growing ageing populations.

Some of this economic pain is clear at the Temple of Heaven. We join the throngs of Chinese tour groups walking through white marble gates. It has become fashionable for young people to dress up in Qing dynasty costumes although their long silk robes often fail to hide the other big trend – chunky white trainers.

Dozens of school groups are listening attentively to guides about their city’s colourful history while a queue forms around the altar to make a wish. I watch as a middle-aged woman dressed in black takes her turn. She turns three times, clasps her hands, closes her eyes and looks toward the sky. Later we ask what she hoped for. She says many people come here and ask for their children to get jobs or to get into a good school.

“We wish for better lives and prospects,” she says. While China claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, millions of labourers and factory workers across the country, those who contributed to China’s rise, will worry what about what’s to come.

Her future and the future of China’s economy may partly depend on just how serious Trump is about his tariffs. This time, Beijing is prepared, according to Yu Jie.

“China has already begun to diversify its sources of agricultural imports (notably from Brazil, Argentina and Russia) and increased the volumes of its exports in non-US allied countries. At a domestic level, the recent local government debt recapitalisation is also paving the way to offset the negative impacts on the likely trade war with the Trump Administration.”

Beijing may also have another hope. Billionaire Elon Musk now appears to have Trump’s ear. His company, Tesla, depends on China for production – about half of all its EVs are made in the country. Chinese leaders may ask if Musk can temper Trump’s trade impulses.

But the great power struggle of the 21st century is not just over trade. Xi’s dream also involves making China the world’s dominant power.

Some experts believe this is where another Trump presidency may offer Beijing an opportunity.

“Chinese leaders will reinforce the narrative that the US is the single and most disruptive source of global instability, while portraying China as a responsible and confident world power,” says Yu Jie.

Biden spent four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

In the past, Trump’s “America-first” doctrine isolated and weakened these US alliances. He opted for deals over delicate diplomacy and often put a price tag on America’s friendships. In 2018, for instance, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue keeping US troops in the country.

Beijing has already built up alliances with emerging economies. It is also trying to repair its relationship with the UK and Europe, while mending historical grievances with Asian neighbours, South Korea and Japan.

If Washington’s influence does wane around the world, it could be a win for President Xi.

Back at the park, as we discuss the results of the US election, one man holds up four fingers. “He’s only got four years,” he says. “The US is always changing leaders. In China, we have more time.”

Time is indeed on Beijing’s side. Xi could be president for life – and so can afford to make slow but steady progress towards his goals.

Even if Trump does get in the way, it will not be for long.

Germany and Finland say they are “deeply concerned” after an undersea cable linking the countries was severed.

The rupture of the 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable – which is being investigated – comes at a time of heightened tension with Russia.

The two countries’ foreign ministers said in a joint statement: “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

Damage to pipelines in the Baltic Sea has raised fears of sabotage in recent years.

In October 2023 a natural gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged. Finnish officials later said the incident had been caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor.

And German prosecutors are still investigating the explosion of Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022.

There have been conspiracy theories around that attack, with unconfirmed rumours that either the Ukrainian, Russian or US government was behind it.

The latest incident involves a C-Lion1 fibreoptic cable linking the Finnish capital, Helsinki and the German city of Rostock.

Finnish network operator Cinia said all fibre connections in it had been cut.

“These kinds of breaks don’t happen in these waters without an outside impact,” a Cinia spokesperson told local media.

Samuli Bergstrom, a Finnish government cybersecurity expert, said the failure had not affected internet traffic between the two countries as other cable routes were available.

Sir Keir Starmer has met President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit, and emphasised the importance of a “strong UK-China relationship” for both countries.

The meeting was the first time a UK prime minister has met the Chinese president in person since 2018, following a recent souring in relations.

Sir Keir raised the case of the jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, Jimmy Lai, saying he was concerned about reports of a “deterioration” in his health.

The PM also signalled a desire for greater business co-operation, particularly on “areas of mutual cooperation” such as international stability, climate change and economic growth.

Sir Keir met President Xi on the fringes of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and, speaking at the start of the meeting, said: “We want our relations to be consistent, durable, respectful, as we have agreed, avoid surprises where possible.”

He added: “The UK will be a predictable, consistent, sovereign actor committed to the rule of law.”

Speaking through a translator, Xi told Sir Keir that the two countries should commit to mutual respect and openness, saying: “China and the UK have broad space for co-operation across various domains, including trade, investment, clean energy, financial services, healthcare and improving our peoples’ well-being.”

A read-out of the closed door meeting said the PM set out the leaders’ shared responsibility to work together in pursuit of global stability, economic co-operation and trade, and efforts to move away from fossil fuels to renewables.

Climate change was a focus for the PM, and a Downing Street spokesperson said the PM wants China’s support on global efforts, particularly in light of President-elect Trump’s expected roll back of green policies.

However, Sir Keir also stressed his government’s approach would “always be rooted in the national interests of the UK, but that we would be a predictable and pragmatic partner” to China.

With China’s military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine having prompted criticism from the UK and other Western countries, the PM also said he wanted to “engage honestly and frankly” on areas of disagreement, including on Hong Kong, human rights and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Their first meeting follows an initial phone conversation in August after Labour’s election victory and Sir Keir has now proposed a full bilateral meeting in Beijing or London.

The pair also agreed Chancellor Rachel Reeves should visit Beijing next year to discuss economic and financial cooperation with her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng.

The Conservative’s shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said: “Britain’s standing on the world stage risks being weakened if the prime minister does not robustly defend our national interest.”

She said constructive dialogue was important but that Sir Keir “should have been stronger in raising our concerns over human rights, the repressive nature of the national security laws imposed on Hong Kong, and the security, safety and wellbeing of British nationals, like Jimmy Lai, who should be freed from custody”.

“Starmer must set out, as part of his supposed reset, what assurances he received from President Xi on the UK’s areas of concern.”

Before the meeting in Brazil, the prime minister said it was important to engage with economies like China – and Foreign Secretary David Lammy held talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, as well as Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, in Beijing last month.

The last British prime minister to meet President Xi was Theresa May, who hailed a “golden era” for UK-China relations during her 2018 visit to the country.

But since then there have been tensions over issues including China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority group in Xinjiang and pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.

Last year, then-Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said China was “the biggest state-based threat to our economic security”.

But like the current government, he also said it was necessary to engage with China on issues like climate change and the global economy.

Dr Yu Jie, a China expert from the Chatham House international think tank, said the G20 meeting was “critical” for UK-China relations to thaw after a six-year freeze – and suggested there could be a trade deal in sight, despite significant diplomatic tensions.

“Judging from the readout given by both sides, the tone of the conversation seemed to be positive,” said Dr Yu.

“But when they came to specifics it seems on the thorny issues they have not really reached any agreement at all.”

Dr Yu warned both sides’ efforts could still be overshadowed by pressure from the US.

“That’s something quite difficult for the British government, if the US is going to be adding extra pressure for the UK to be in line with the US on China policy,” she said, describing how she expected the US policy towards China to be “hawkish” under Trump.

Speaking to reporters on his way to the summit in Rio de Janeiro, Sir Keir also said “shoring up support for Ukraine” was top of his agenda.

Before the meeting, Downing Street said the prime minister will urge other G20 nations to step up their support for Ukraine or face “unfathomable consequences” if Russia is allowed to be victorious.

The summit follows large-scale missile and drone attacks by Russia across Ukraine over the weekend, and will take place as the conflict approaches its 1,000th day.

And it comes amid reports that the US has authorised the use of long-range missiles it supplies to Ukraine to strike Russia.

The weapons have so far only been used by Kyiv on Russian-occupied targets within its own territory.

The UK has also supplied Ukraine with its Storm Shadow missiles and defence officials and ministers have been making the case for Kyiv to be permitted to use them to hit targets inside Russia. But they were not willing to act alone – and had been waiting for the White House to change its mind.

Sir Keir said he was “not going to get into operational details” with regards to missiles in Ukraine.

Sir Keir is holding talks with other G20 leaders, representing 19 of the world’s largest economies and the African Union and the European Union.

The summit is overshadowed by the absence of President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump has called for allies to take a more aggressive approach towards China and may trigger a global trade war if he imposes a promised 60% tariff on Chinese goods entering the US.

This summit will provide world leaders a first chance to compare notes and prepare for Trump’s upcoming return to the White House.

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Russia says the use of US long-range missiles by Ukraine will lead to “an appropriate and tangible” response.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

President Joe Biden approved the use of the missiles on targets in Russia in a major change of US policy – two months before he is due to leave the White House.

It is not clear if his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, was consulted or whether he will stick by the decision, having promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukraine has had US ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) with a range of 300km (190 miles) – as well as French and British Storm Shadow missiles of a similar range – but the Western allies had barred Kyiv from hitting Russia with them.

Biden’s decision to lift that condition is a significant moment in the war, which marks its 1,000th day on Tuesday.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Moscow has now intensified attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure as the sides appear to have reached a stalemate on the battlefield.

• Could missiles change the course of the war?
• Rosenberg: Fury in Russia
• What we know about North Korean soldiers in Russia
• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia

The US decision also follows the arrival in Russia’s western Kursk region – where Ukrainian forces captured and are holding onto a small piece of territory – of more than 10,000 troops from North Korea to help President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Unconfirmed reports say North Korea may send as many as 100,000 soldiers, in addition to artillery and other weapons to its ally.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has indicated there may be no formal announcement of the US deal – “the missiles will speak for themselves,” he said on Sunday.

Ukraine may use the ATACMS in Kursk first – in fact some reports suggest the US may have restricted their use there as a signal to North Korea to stop sending aid to Russia and to Moscow itself.

Biden’s approval of the long-range missiles – which may be followed by similar authorisations by the UK and France – is being seen in the West as a way of signalling to the Russian leader that he cannot win the Ukraine war militarily.

Putin has not commented on the latest move.

In September, the Russian leader said the use of such missiles by Ukraine would represent the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the war.

On Monday, Putin’s spokesman said the US was “adding oil to the fire”.

But Jon Finer, US deputy national security adviser, said Washington had made it “clear to the Russians that we would respond” – both to the presence of North Korean forces and the “major escalation” in Russian aerial attacks on infrastructure across Ukraine.

The weekend saw intense Russian attacks against Ukraine’s power grid, causing large-scale blackouts. Several people were killed or injured.

On Monday, a Russian strike on Odesa killed another 10 people and injured nearly 50.

Donald Trump has not reacted to Biden’s decision so far.

He swept to victory on 5 November and will return to the White House on 20 January.

Trump has promised to end US involvement in foreign wars and use the taxpayers’ money to improve the lives of Americans.

He has also said he will end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but has not given details how.

Zelensky recently said he expected Trump to exert pressure on Ukraine and Russia to agree a peace deal within the next year.

Biden’s decision was hailed by French President Emmanuel Macron as a “totally good” step.

The US authorisation could potentially enable France and the UK to grant Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia. Storm Shadow is a Franco-British long-range cruise missile with similar capabilities to the ATACMS.

So far, neither Macron nor UK Prime Minister Sir Keir have publicly said whether they will allow Kyiv to use their missiles in the same way.

Meanwhile, China’s Xi Jinping urged world leaders to “cool the Ukraine crisis” and seek a political solution, according to Chinese state media.

China has become a vital partner for Russia, as it seeks to soften the impact of US and European sanctions imposed over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Beijing has repeatedly denied allegations that it supplies Moscow with weapons.

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.

Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.

Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.

Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.

Without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen for the two million people depending on humanitarian aid to survive, according to Unrwa.

A UN-backed assessment warned earlier this month that there was “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip”.

It came after Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in the north and the UN said fewer aid lorries had entered Gaza last month than at any time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.

Saturday’s looting was first reported by Reuters news agency, which cited an Unrwa official in Gaza as saying that the convoy was instructed by Israeli authorities to “depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route” from Kerem Shalom.

Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry said its security staff killed “more than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks” in an operation carried out in cooperation with “tribal committees”, a network of traditional family clans.

Lazzarini said he could not comment on the route when asked at a news conference in Geneva on Monday, but he confirmed the looting and said: “We have been warning a long time ago about the total breakdown of civil order.”

“Until four or five months ago, we still had local capacity, people who were escorting the convoy. This has completely gone, which means we are in an environment where local gangs, local families, are struggling among each other to take control of any business or any activities taking place in the south. It has become an impossible environment to operate in.”

He added that hundreds of people desperate for food had tried to storm the Unrwa-run vocational centre in the southern city of Khan Younis because they thought the aid had been delivered there.

“But the convoys were looted and there was absolutely nothing to take from the warehouses.”

Unrwa put out a separate statement on X that accused Israeli authorities of continuing to “disregard their legal obligations under international law to ensure the population’s basic needs are met and to facilitate the safe delivery of aid”.

“Such responsibilities continue when trucks enter the Gaza Strip, until people are reached with essential assistance.”

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Earlier, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in the Gaza Strip, Cogat, said on X: “With the challenges the UN aid organisations experience in distributing aid, we are working together on various measures that will facilitate the transfer of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gazans in need.”

“For months now, aid has been piling up on the Gazan side, after Israeli inspection, waiting for collection and distribution, and we’ve been taking many measures to assist with the pick-up of aid,” it added.

Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group has denied.

Last week, a group of 29 non-governmental organisations said in a report that the looting of aid convoys was “a consequence of Israel’s targeting of the remaining police forces in Gaza, scarcity of essential goods, lack of routes and closure of most crossing points, and the subsequent desperation of the population amid these dire conditions”.

They cited media reports as saying that “many incidents are taking place close by or in full view of Israeli forces, without them intervening, even when truck drivers asked for assistance”.

Also on Monday, Palestinian authorities said Israeli strikes had killed more than 30 people across Gaza.

At least 17 were reportedly killed when a house was hit near Kamal Adwan hospital in the Beit Lahia Project, in northern Gaza.

The director of Gaza’s health ministry cited Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, as saying that the dead were members of the family of one of the hospital’s medics, Dr Hani Badran. A video purportedly showed Dr Badran being comforted on a ward.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency meanwhile said its first responders had recovered the bodies of seven people from a home that was struck in the north-west of Gaza City.

Another four people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent inside the Israeli-designated al-Mawasi humanitarian area, in southern Gaza, it added.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 43,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

More than 35,000 people have protested outside New Zealand’s parliament against a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding document between British colonisers and Māori people.

The demonstration marked the end of a nine-day hīkoi, or peaceful protest, that had made its way through the country.

The hīkoi swelled dramatically on Tuesday as participants, many draped in colours of the Māori flag, marched through the capital Wellington.

It brought together activists and supporters who opposed the bill, which was introduced by a junior member of the governing coalition.

The bill, introduced by the Act political party, argues that New Zealand should reinterpret and legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a document that is seen as fundamental to the country’s race relations.

The party’s leader, David Seymour, says that over time the treaty’s core values have led to racial divisions, not unity.

“My Treaty Principles Bill says that I, like everybody else, whether their ancestors came here a thousand years ago, like some of mine did, or just got off the plane at Auckland International Airport this morning to begin their journey as New Zealanders, have the same basic rights and dignity,” says Seymour, who has Māori ancestry.

“Your starting point is to take a human being and ask, what’s your ancestry? What kind of human are you? That used to be called prejudice. It used to be called bigotry. It used to be called profiling and discrimination. Now you’re trying to make a virtue of it. I think that’s a big mistake.”

The proposed bill was met with fierce opposition, leading to one of the biggest protest marches New Zealand has ever seen.

Wellington’s rail network saw what might have been its busiest morning ever as the hīkoi poured through the capital, according to the city’s transport chair Thomas Nash.

The Māori Queen Ngā Wai hono i te pō led the delegation into the grounds surrounding the Beehive, New Zealand’s parliament house, as thousands followed behind.

Meanwhile, inside the Beehive, MPs discussed the bill.

Among them was Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who said it would not pass into law – despite him being part of the same coalition as Act.

“Our position as the National Party is unchanged. We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law,” Luxon said, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“We don’t think through the stroke of a pen you go rewrite 184 years of debate and discussion.”

New Zealand is often considered a world leader when it comes to supporting indigenous rights – but under Luxon’s centre-right government, many fear those rights are now at risk.

“They are trying to take our rights away,” said Stan Lingman, who has both Māori and Swedish ancestry. “[The hikoi is] for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, pink, blue. We will fight against this bill.”

Stan’s wife Pamela said she was marching for her “mokos”, which means grandchildren in the Māori language.

Some New Zealanders feel the march has gone too far.

“They [Māori] seem to want more and more and more,” said Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the coastal suburbs north of Wellington. “There’s a whole cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities now. We are all New Zealanders. I think we should work together and have equal rights.”

Equality, though, is still a way off, according to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (Maori Party).

“We can’t live equally if we have one people who are the indigenous people living ‘less than’,” she argued. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to divide an otherwise progressive country and it’s really embarrassing”.

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt last week by MPs performing a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. Footage of the incident went viral.

“To see it in parliament, in the highest house in Aotearoa, there’s been a real state of surprise and I think disappointment and sadness that in 2024 when we see politics and the Trump extremes, this is what the Māori are having to endure,” said Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we [New Zealand] are normally seen as punching above our weight in all of the great things in life.”

Protest organisers on Monday taught participants the words and moves of the rally’s haka, the subject of which is Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Waitangi Treaty). Those in the audience enthusiastically repeated the lyrics written on a large white sheet, trying to soak in as many words as possible ahead of the rally.

“This isn’t just any normal hīkoi – this is the hīkoi of everybody,” said grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they’ve called on non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and the wider population in New Zealand to support them.

This was the fourth hīkoi Rose had been on. She comes from New Zealand’s northernmost settlement, Te Hāpua, right above Auckland. It’s the same village that the most famous hīkoi started from, back in 1975, protesting over land rights.

This time, she brought her children and grandchildren.

“This is our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just one person or one party – and to alter [it] is wrong.”

A car has been driven into a crowd of people outside a primary school in China’s Hunan province, with multiple injuries feared.

There are no details of casualties yet but state media said “several students and adults were injured and fell to the ground”.

Several people have been sent to hospital.

The driver of the vehicle – identified as a white SUV – was caught by parents and school security officers and handed over to police.

Mr Zhu, a parent of one of the children at the school, told the BBC that he had dropped his eight-year-old at the school and was leaving when he heard a disturbance outside the school premises.

“Six or seven parents had forced the car of the person who hit others to stop. Even the security guard was knocked down. The guard is quite old, in his seventies or eighties, and couldn’t do much,” he said.

“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously, but luckily the ambulance came very quickly.”

Video from the scene posted on a private WeChat account showed some children lying on the ground, while panicked students carrying school bags flee the scene.

The school has been identified as the Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District in China’s southern Hunan province.

Another video filmed soon after the incident showed an angry pedestrian hitting the SUV with a snow shovel while the driver is still inside.

The driver gets out of the other side of the vehicle and is then seized by bystanders who start beating him with sticks.

The driver is now in police custody.

This is the third seemingly random attack on crowds in China in a week.

At least 35 people were killed in a car attack in southern China on 12 November, and eight people were killed in a stabbing at a school in eastern China over the weekend.

On social media, there have been discussions about the social phenomenon of “taking revenge on society“, where individuals act on personal grievances by attacking strangers.

Nearly three years after an Indian family of four froze to death in Canada during an ill-fated attempt to enter the US, two men are facing trial, accused of trying to help smuggle them across the border.

It was a backpack with child’s clothing and toys that first worried US Border Patrol agents.

That winter morning in January 2022, after a fierce blizzard, authorities had arrested a man driving a van near the US-Canada border, suspecting him of smuggling migrants.

Along with the driver, border guards picked up seven Indian nationals. One was carrying the backpack, but there were no children.

A family with two children had been with the other migrants as they made their way across the border at night, border agents were told, but they had become separated.

A search was launched and Canadian police found the bodies of Vaishaliben Patel, her husband Jagdish and their two young children, 11-year-old Vihangi and three-year-old Dharmik, in a Manitoba field just 12m (39ft) from the US border.

It is believed that the family – who had travelled on visitor visas from their home village in western India to Toronto, Canada – were trying to cross into the US when they were caught in the blinding blizzard with a bone-chilling cold that hovered below -35C (-31F).

• The family that froze to death a world away from home

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel (who is not related to the deceased family) and Steve Anthony Shand are accused of helping them make the fatal journey.

They each face charges of human trafficking, criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the US state of Minnesota, with their trial set to begin on Monday with jury selection. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Court documents filed in the case reveal an alleged complex, global web behind human smuggling operations that are designed to get foreign nationals into North America.

In this alleged case, it began with thousands of dollars in payments to illegal immigration agents in India, who then connected those eager to move abroad with a network of smugglers based in the US and Canada.

Since the Patel tragedy, at least two more families have died trying to unlawfully cross the US-Canada border.

Immigration experts fear clandestine smuggling networks will be used more by undocumented migrants in the coming years, in light of Donald Trump’s incoming administration and its plan for mass deportations.

Mr Shand was the van driver, arrested on the same day the Patels’ bodies were discovered.

Police say they found him with a 15-passenger van near the border of Minnesota in the US and Winnipeg in Canada, with two Indian nationals who were unlawfully in the US.

Five others – all from Gujarat, the Patels’ home state in India – were found walking towards where Mr Shand was apprehended.

One of them, identified in documents only as VD, told officers that the group had walked across the border at night. It took them 11 hours and they had expected to be picked up by someone once in the US.

VD told authorities that he paid “a significant sum” of US$87,000 (£68,519) to an organisation in India that arranged for him to enter Canada – under the guise of a fraudulently obtained student visa – and later help him illegally enter the US.

Meanwhile, Mr Patel is accused of being a key organiser of the smuggling effort.

He managed a casino in Orange City, Florida, according to testimony provided by Mr Shand to the authorities after his arrest. Mr Patel, who police say also went by the nickname “Dirty Harry”, does not have legal status in the US and has been refused a US visa five times, per government records.

He is believed to have recruited Mr Shand to transport people illegally across the US-Canada border, communicating with him regularly about travel logistics, rental car arrangements, hotel bookings and pick-up locations for Indian nationals.

The two had discussed the severe weather on the day the Patels’ bodies were found, according to court documents, with Mr Shand texting Mr Patel: “Make sure everyone is dressed for blizzard conditions please.”

The Patel family are believed to have been connected to the two men through a contact in Toronto, who was connected to the India-based organisation that used student visas to grant people entry into Canada and then smuggle them into the US.

A lawyer for Mr Patel said in a statement to the BBC that: “We look forward to the trial and the chance to show that Mr Patel took no part in this tragic event.”

No other lawyers involved in the case commented.

Two Indian nationals in Gujarat have also been arrested by police in connection with the Patels’ death. Indian police said the men were “illegal immigration” agents.

A related investigation into this India-based operation has revealed that, once crossing into the US, some Indian nationals would then be transported to a Chicago restaurant chain – unnamed by investigators – where they worked for “substandard wages” to pay off debts they owed to the smugglers.

It is unclear what the Patels’ final destination was, or why they had made the treacherous and unlawful journey.

Shortly after their death, residents from their home village in India told the BBC that they had known of the family’s plan to travel, and that they had arrived in Canada on visitors’ visas. Their relatives grew concerned when messages from the family stopped coming, about a week after they had left.

Both Jagdish and Vaishaliben were working at one point as teachers, and had appeared to have a well-anchored life in India. But like many in the village of Dingucha, they felt compelled to leave, idealising a life abroad full of opportunity.

“Every child here grows with the dream of moving to a foreign country,” a Dingucha councilman told the BBC at the time.

As the Patels finalised their travel plans, Border Patrol agents an ocean away in the US had noticed a pattern of “fresh footsteps” in northern Minnesota, near the US-Canada border, that would appear each week on a Wednesday.

Suspecting that they had belonged to people crossing the border unlawfully, the agents began surveying the area regularly, including on the morning of 19 January 2022, despite the snowstorm that made the rural roads practically impassable.

It was the footprints that eventually led to police finding the Patels in snow-covered field.

“What I am about to share is going to be difficult for many people to hear,” assistant commissioner Jane MacLatchy with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told reporters the following day, as they announced the news of the deaths.

“It is an absolute and heartbreaking tragedy.”

President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed on his social media network that he plans to use the US military to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

On Monday, he posted “TRUE!!!” in response to a conservative commentator who wrote that Trump would declare a national emergency and use military assets to lead “a mass deportation program”.

At campaign events, Trump repeatedly pledged to mobilise the National Guard to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency tasked with carrying out deportations.

Trump’s latest comment comes as questions grow about how he would fulfil his pledge to execute the largest mass deportation in US history.

He has repeatedly said he would begin deportations on his first day in office, which will be 20 January 2025.

But even if a US administration was able to legally move ahead with these plans, authorities would still have to contend with enormous logistical challenges.

For example, experts are doubtful that ICE’s 20,000 agents and support personnel would be enough to find and track down millions of undocumented migrants.

There would also be a major financial cost, but Trump recently told NBC News that this would not deter his administration’s efforts.

Trump’s post was made on his Truth Social network early on Monday as he continues to announce his nominations for key posts in his administration.

Trump has already chosen several loyal allies for top roles overseeing immigration and deportation policy, including Kristi Noem who has been nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, and former ICE chief Tom Homan who Trump has named his “border tsar”.

Trump’s team have so far released few details about how the plan will be executed.

He has previously said that he plans to declare a national emergency, which would authorise him to deploy troops on US soil.

Homan told Fox News on Monday that he will visit Trump’s Florida home this week “to put the final touches on the plan”, including deciding what role the US Department of Defense (DOD) will have.

“Can DOD assist? Because DOD can take a lot off our plate,” he said, saying that the pace of deportations will depend on the resources agencies are given.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued ICE for more details on how the deportation plan will work. The group plans to continue to file legal challenges in an effort to block the mass deportation.

Under the four years of the previous Trump administration, around 1.5 million people were deported, both from the border and the US interior.

The Biden administration – which had deported about 1.1 million people up to February 2024 – is on track to match that, statistics show.

The leader of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia is resigning after days of mass protests over a controversial pro-Russia bill.

Aslan Bzhania’s press office said he was quitting “to maintain stability and constitutional order” and that the two sides had agreed protesters who had stormed the parliament in Sukhumi must disperse on Tuesday.

The bill, which would have legalised Russian investment and land ownership, has been withdrawn.

Abkhazia declared its independence in 1999, and Russia recognised it as an independent state after the Georgian-Russian war in 2008. Georgia says Abkhazia is “occupied” by Moscow.

Most countries regard the area on the Black Sea coast as part of Georgia.

In a statement posted on Telegram late on Monday, Bzhania’s press office said Abkhazia’s parliament would consider his resignation on Tuesday.

It said Bzhania’s deputy would become Abkhazia’s acting leader, who would then dismiss the current prime minister.

The statement warned that Bzhania would withdraw his resignation offer if protesters refused to leave the government buildings.

Bzhania describes himself as Abkhazia’s president – Georgia and most of the world do not recognise his authority.

Abkhazia’s opposition has not commented on Bzhania’s resignation offer.

Located along the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains, Abkhazia is known for its natural beauty and coastline, and was one of the favoured holiday destinations for the Soviet elite until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Locals feared that the proposed bill would trigger an influx of Russian investment, pricing them out of the property market and further strengthening Moscow’s grip on the region.

Backed by Russia, Abkhazia fought a war of secession with Georgia in 1992-93, before unilaterally declaring independence.

Abkhazia’s economy depends overwhelmingly on tourism from Russia.

In 2009, Moscow signed a five-year agreement with Abkhazia to take formal control of its frontiers with the rest of Georgia, while in 2014 Moscow and Sukhumi signed a “strategic partnership” agreement.

Efforts for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah have intensified, with Lebanon’s government expected to respond to a draft deal presented by the US, amid an escalation of Israel’s air attacks across the country.

The strikes in the past week, which have killed dozens of people in Lebanon, appear aimed at putting pressure on both Hezbollah and the Lebanese government to accept an agreement to end more than a year of conflict.

Details of the proposal remained unclear, after it was delivered last week by the US ambassador to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been backed by Hezbollah to negotiate.

Lebanese media reported the text had been received “positively”.

Israel has stepped up its air attacks on Lebanon’s south, where it also appears to be expanding a ground invasion, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut. In the capital, it has carried out the most violent wave of strikes yet on the southern suburbs, known as Dahieh, where Hezbollah is based.

On Monday central Beirut was hit for the second consecutive day and at least five people were killed, the Lebanese health ministry said.

A day earlier, the first air strikes in the area for about a month killed seven others, including Mohammed Afif, who acted as the Hezbollah spokesman and was one of the few remaining public faces of the group.

The recent attacks are seen as part of Israel’s strategy to force Hezbollah and Lebanon to agree to a ceasefire, and an indication that it is prepared to expand its offensive by killing non-military members of the group and striking places outside areas where the movement has a strong presence, possibly to stir anti-Hezbollah sentiment.

Since the conflict intensified in late September, Lebanese authorities have said any deal should be based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The resolution includes the removal of the group’s fighters and weapons in areas between the Blue Line – the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the boundary with Israel.

A potential agreement would likely include the creation of an international mechanism to monitor its implementation, and the deployment of thousands of additional troops of the Lebanese army to southern Lebanon.

The deal would also stipulate a timeline for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the south.

A sticking point remains, however, related to Israel’s demand to have the right to act inside Lebanon if there is any violation of a deal – something the Lebanese authorities consider unacceptable.

Amos Hochstein, who has led the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts, was expected to return to Beirut on Tuesday, but his trip has been delayed until there are more clarifications about the Lebanese position, the Axios website reported, quoting unnamed US officials.

Israel’s stated goal in its war against Hezbollah is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in the country’s north because of Hezbollah’s rocket fire.

The group launched its campaign the day after the Hamas attacks on southern Israel last year, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

In the past year, Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 3,840 people and wounded nearly 15,000 others, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

More than one million people have been displaced, putting more pressure on a country that was already struggling to cope after years of a severe economic crisis.

Hezbollah’s attacks have killed 31 soldiers and 45 civilians inside Israel, Israeli authorities say. On Monday, a woman was killed when a rocket hit a building in Shfaram, in the north, according to Israel’s ambulance service. Another 45 Israeli soldiers have been killed fighting in southern Lebanon.

Israeli air strikes have destroyed large parts of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and killed many of its leaders, but the group continues to carry out daily attacks, although not with the same intensity.

President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the US has sparked a furious response in Russia.

“Departing US president Joe Biden… has taken one of the most provocative, uncalculated decisions of his administration, which risks catastrophic consequences,” declared the website of the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday morning.

Russian MP Leonid Slutsky, head of the pro-Kremlin Liberal-Democratic Party, predicted that the decision would “inevitably lead to a serious escalation, threatening serious consequences”.

Russian senator Vladimir Dzhabarov called it “an unprecedented step towards World War Three”.

Anger, yes. But no real surprise.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, called it “a predictable escalation”.

What really counts, though, is what Vladimir Putin calls it and how the Kremlin leader responds.

So far he’s stayed silent.

But on Monday President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “if such a decision has been taken it means a whole new spiral of tension and a whole new situation with regard to US involvement in this conflict”.

Mr Peskov accused the Biden administration of “adding fuel to the fire and continuing to stoke tension around this conflict”.

• Follow live: Biden allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with US missiles

Western leaders would argue that it’s Russia that is ‘adding the fuel’ by recently deploying North Korean troops to the war zone to fight alongside Russian forces and by continuing to attack Ukraine.

President Putin himself may have yet to comment. But Russia’s president has said plenty before.

In recent months, the Kremlin has made its message to the West crystal clear: do not do this, do not remove restrictions on the use of your long-range weapons, do not allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with these missiles.

In September President Putin warned that if this were allowed to happen, Moscow would view it as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the Ukraine war.

“This would mean that Nato countries… are fighting with Russia,” he continued.

The following month, the Kremlin leader announced imminent changes to the Russian nuclear doctrine, the document setting out the preconditions under which Moscow might decide to use a nuclear weapon.

This was widely interpreted as another less-than-subtle hint to America and Europe not to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles.

Guessing Vladimir Putin’s next moves is never easy.

But he has dropped hints.

Back in June, at a meeting with the heads of international news agencies, Putin was asked: how would Russia react if Ukraine was given the opportunity to hit targets on Russian territory with weapons supplied by Europe?

“First, we will, of course, improve our air defence systems. We will be destroying their missiles,” President Putin replied.

“Second, we believe that if someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why can’t we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia?”

In other words, arming Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad is something Moscow has been considering.

In my recent interview with Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, Putin’s close ally seemed to confirm the Kremlin has been thinking along these lines.

Mr Lukashenko told me he had discussed the subject at a recent meeting with Western officials.

“I warned them. ‘Guys, be careful with those long-range missiles,'” Mr Lukashenko told me.

“The Houthi [rebels] might come to Putin and ask for coastal weapons systems that can carry out terrifying strikes on ships.

“And if he gets his revenge on you for supplying long-range weapons to [President] Zelensky by supplying the Houthis with the Bastion missile system? What happens if an aircraft carrier is hit? A British or American one. What then?”

• How long-range missiles striking Russia could affect Ukraine war

But some of the media reaction in Russia appeared designed to play things down.

“The Russian armed forces had already [previously] intercepted ATACMS missiles during attacks on the Crimean shore,” a military expert told the Izvestia newspaper, which went on to suggest that President-elect Trump might “revise” the decision.

This is, to put it mildly, an unusual situation.

In two months’ time, President Biden will be out of office and Donald Trump will be in the White House.

The Kremlin knows that President-elect Trump has been far more sceptical than President Biden about military assistance for Ukraine.

Will that be a factor in Vladimir Putin’s calculations as he formulates Russia’s response?

US officials say President Biden has given the green light for Ukraine to use long range missiles supplied by Washington to strike deep inside Russia.

Washington had previously refused to allow such strikes with US-made ATACMS missiles because it feared they would escalate the war.

The major policy reversal comes two months before President Joe Biden hands over power to Donald Trump, whose election has raised fears over the future of US support for Kyiv.

• Follow live updates on this story

Ukraine has been using ATACMS on Russian targets in occupied Ukrainian territory for more than a year.

American munitions and hardware are already being used inside Russia – in the Kursk border region, according to local reports.

But the US has never allowed Kyiv to use the ATACMS inside Russia – until now.

Ukraine had argued that not being allowed to use such weapons inside Russia was like being asked to fight with one hand tied behind its back.

The change in policy reportedly comes in response to the recent arrival of North Korean troops to support Russia in the Kursk region, where Ukraine has occupied territory since August.

Also, Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House is raising fears over the future of US support for Ukraine, and President Biden is apparently keen to do all he can to help in the little time he has left in office.

Strengthening Ukraine’s hand militarily – so the thinking goes – could grant Ukraine leverage in any peace talks that may lie ahead.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has not yet confirmed the move. But he said on Sunday: “Strikes are not made with words … The missiles will speak for themselves.”

The Army Tactical Missile System is a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of hitting targets at up to 300km (186 miles) and it is their range that makes them particularly important for Ukraine.

Built by the defence manufacturer Lockheed Martin, they’re fired from either the tracked M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or the wheeled M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). Each missile costs around $1.5m (£1.2m).

ATACMS (pronounced “attack-‘ems”) are fuelled by solid rocket propellant and follow a ballistic path into the atmosphere before coming back down at a high speed and high angle, making them difficult to intercept.

They can be configured to carry two different types of warhead. The first is a cluster fitted with hundreds of bomblets designed to destroy lighter-armoured units over a wide area. These might include parked aircraft, air defences and concentrations of troops. Cluster warheads, while useful, risk leaving behind unexploded bomblets which pose a risk long after the fighting has stopped.

The second type is a single warhead, a 225kg high explosive variant of which is designed to destroy hardened facilities and larger structures.

ATACMS have been around for decades. They were first used in the Gulf War of 1991.

The US Army is replacing it with the next-generation Precision Strike Missile, a faster, slimmer weapon that can go out to 500km. There is no suggestion Ukraine will be getting these.

• Which weapons are countries giving Ukraine?

Ukraine will now be able to strike targets inside Russia, most likely at first around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold over 1,000 sq km of territory.

Ukrainian and US officials expect a counter-offensive by Russian and North Korean troops to regain territory in Kursk.

Ukraine may use ATACMS to defend against the assault, targeting Russian positions including military bases, infrastructure and ammunition storage.

The supply of the missiles will probably not be enough to turn the tide of the war. Russian military equipment, such as jets, has already been moved to airfields further inside Russia in anticipation of such a decision. However, moving equipment further back from the front lines may make life difficult for Russian troops as supply lines are stretched and air support takes longer to arrive.

And the weapons may grant Ukraine some advantage at a time when Russian troops have been gaining ground in the country’s east and morale is low.

“I don’t think it will be decisive,” a Western diplomat in Kyiv told the BBC, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“However, it’s an overdue symbolic decision to raise the stakes and demonstrate military support to Ukraine.

“It can raise the war cost for Russia.”

There are also questions over how much ammunition will be provided, said Evelyn Farkas, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defence in the Obama administration.

“The question is, of course, how many missiles do they have? We have heard that the Pentagon has warned there aren’t that many of these missiles that they can make available to Ukraine.”

Farkas added that the ATACMS could have a “positive psychological impact” in Ukraine if they are used to strike targets such as the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to mainland Russia.

The US authorisation will also have a further knock-on effect: potentially enabling the UK and France to grant Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia. Storm Shadow is a Franco-British long-range cruise missile with similar capabilities to the American ATACMS.

The Biden administration had for months refused to authorise Ukraine to hit Russia with long-range missiles, fearing escalation of the conflict.

Vladimir Putin has warned against allowing Western weapons to be used to hit Russia, saying Moscow would view that as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the war in Ukraine.

“It would substantially change the very essence, the nature of the conflict,” Putin said in September. “This will mean that Nato countries, the USA and European states, are fighting with Russia.”

Russia has set out “red lines” before. Some, including providing modern battle tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine, have since been crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and Nato.

Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador to Nato, said: “By restricting the range of Ukraine’s use of American weapons, the US was unjustifiably imposing unilateral restrictions on Ukraine’s self-defence.”

He added that the decision to limit the use of ATACMS was “completely arbitrary and done out of fear of ‘provoking’ Russia.”

“However, it is a mistake to make such a change public, as it gives Russia advance notice of potential Ukrainian strikes.”

The move comes just two months before Donald Trump returns to the White House.

He has already said he intends to bring the war in Ukraine to a swift end – without specifying how he plans to do it – and he could cancel the use of the missiles once he takes office.

President-elect Trump has not yet said whether he would continue the policy, but some of his closest allies have already criticised it.

Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s son, wrote on social media: “The military industrial complex seems to want to make sure they get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”

Many of Trump’s top officials, such as Vice President-elect JD Vance, say the US should not provide any more military aid to Ukraine.

But others in the next Trump administration hold a different view. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has argued that the US could accelerate weapons deliveries to Ukraine to force Russia to negotiate.

Which way the president-elect will go is unclear. But many in Ukraine fear that he will cut off weapons deliveries, including ATACMS.

“We are worried. We hope that [Trump] will not reverse [the decision],” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian MP, told the BBC.

President Joe Biden’s apparent green light for Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made long-range missiles has caused consternation among some of Donald Trump’s allies.

Trump himself has not commented, but he won the election after promising to end the war – and several people close to him have condemned the move as dangerous escalation.

Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv’s war effort, and at the weekend he reportedly ditched a long-standing red line on Ukraine’s use of American weaponry to launch attacks deep into Russia.

Donald Trump Jr tweeted that the president was trying to “get World War Three going” before his father took office.

Biden’s decision has not been formally confirmed and it may never be.

When asked about how typical it would be for a presidential administration to take such a significant policy decision in its final months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Biden was “elected to a four year-term, not a term of three years and 10 months.”

“We will use every day of our term to pursue policy interests that we believe are in the interests of the American people,” he said. “If the incoming administration wants to take a different view, that is, of course, their right to do so.”

“There’s one president at a time,” he added. “When the next president takes office, he can make his own decisions.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said no such announcement was forthcoming – “missiles will speak for themselves”.

Trump swept to victory on 5 November and is due to be back in the White House for a second term from 20 January next year.

Trump has campaigned on a promise to end the US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.

He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.

One thing is certain, though: Trump has always seen himself as a dealmaker and will not want Biden to take any such credit.

His son, Donald Trump Jr, was among the first Republicans to respond.

“The military industrial complex seems to want to make sure they get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he said.

Another vocal Trump supporter, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, condemned Biden, too.

“The American people gave a mandate on Nov 5th against these exact America last decisions and do NOT want to fund or fight foreign wars. We want to fix our own problems,” she wrote on X.

Not all of Trump’s allies, including some who advised him on national security affairs during his first term, shared this view – though they were critical of the Biden administration’s approach.

James Gilmore, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told the BBC that the main issue with Biden’s decision to provide Ukraine this new capability is that it came so late in the war.

“My criticism of Biden is the same as every other conservative and supporter of Trump – which is that the Biden administration slow walked this,” he said.

Gilmore said he did not know what the president-elect would choose to do regarding Ukraine once he entered office. “I don’t believe that he’s a man that usually walks away,” he said.

Polls suggest a large number of Republicans want US support for Ukraine to stop – 62% told a poll by Pew Research the US had no responsibility to support the country against Russia.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine. He argued that the US lacks the manufacturing capacity to continue providing weapons like the missile systems that Kyiv will use to strike within Russia.

Gilmore, however, said the US was able to backfill and upgrade its weapon systems through this process, but he said the US’s European allies would need to take on a bigger role.

“President Trump is exactly right about this – the alliance is stronger when Western European countries step up to the plate,” he said. “The United States cannot continue to act alone. The taxpayer won’t permit it, the next administration won’t permit it, and I wouldn’t, either.”

Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s president has been railing against the US-led Nato alliance – and described every pledge of military support by the Western allies for Ukraine as a direct involvement and warned of retribution.

His spokesman said on Monday that the US was “adding fuel to the fire”.

At times, Putin has mooted the possibility of using nuclear weapons, too.

Few believe this may come to pass as, under the mutual-destruction doctrine established during the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were built up, Putin knows their use would bring untold suffering to all, including Russians.

• Live: Reaction to the US decision
• How could missiles affect the war

But the Russian leader will be fully aware of the magnitude of the threat of Western-supplied long-range missiles.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, has published a map of 225 Russian military installations within range of ATACMS.

Former US envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, said Biden’s decision would enable Ukraine “to go after airfields, the ammunition depots and the fuels supplies, logistics that Russia has, which right now are in a sanctuary zone in Russia”.

Biden’s decision will cause Russia to be more cautious, Volker told the BBC.

Dismissing Putin’s threats, he said the Russian leader “should have anticipated that there would be efforts by Ukraine to fire back”.

Ukraine has had ATACMS as well as UK and French Storm Shadow missiles of similar range for some time, though the numbers are not known. But it has not been allowed to use them inside Russia.

France and the UK are expected to follow the US lead and issue the same authorisation to Ukraine. So far, they have not commented.

White House officials are emphasising to US media that Biden’s change of heart is in response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops – a signal to Pyongyang not to send any more.

Gilmore, Trump’s OSCE ambassador, told the BBC that he believes it is “Putin who has escalated the war” by deploying North Korean soldiers, and the US cannot “just stand aside and let this dictator go ahead and conquer Ukraine”.

“I don’t like it and I take it all very seriously, but the decision is not ours. The decision is being forced upon us by Putin – by the dictator,” he said.

The move also follows a barrage of Russian attacks on Ukraine in recent days.

One strike on Odesa on Monday killed 10 people, including seven policemen, and injured 47 others.

When rumours first emerged in October that North Korean troops were about to start supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, it wasn’t immediately clear what role they would be fulfilling.

Their lack of battlefield experience was given as a key reason why they might just be assigned to non-combat roles.

But after the US and Ukraine revealed North Korean troops have already engaged in combat with Ukrainian soldiers, their role in the fight is being re-evaluated.

Even the number being deployed – originally put at around 11,000 by the Pentagon – has been debated. According to Bloomberg, unnamed sources believe Pyongyang may actually deploy as many as 100,000 troops.

Accurate information is difficult to come by, however, as Moscow and Pyongyang have not responded directly to any of these reports.

So what do we know about the presence of North Korean troops in Russia?

In short, it is hard to say.

The secretive kingdom may have one of the world’s largest militaries, with 1.28 million active soldiers, but – unlike Russia’s military – the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has no recent experience of combat operations.

Mark Cancian, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), believes Pyongyang’s army is “thoroughly indoctrinated but with low readiness”.

However, he says, they should not be presumed to be cannon fodder – adding such a characterisation is “Ukrainian bravado”.

Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence services have said that many of the troops deployed to Russia are some of Pyongyang’s best, drawn from the 11th Corps, also known as the Storm Corps – a unit trained in infiltration, infrastructure sabotage and assassinations.

These soldiers are “trained to withstand a high degree of physical pain and psychological torture”, says Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington.

“What they lack in combat they make up for with what they can tolerate physically and mentally,” he adds.

Mr Cancian agrees that “if these are special operations forces, they will be much better prepared than the average North Korean unit”.

“Further, the Russians appear to be giving them additional training, likely on the special circumstances of the war in Ukraine,” he adds.

This appears to be backed up by the appearance of videos on social media showing men believed to be North Koreans in Russian uniforms, at what appear to be military training facilities in Russia.

And as the war in Ukraine creeps towards its third year, these North Korean troops may be among “the best capable” among the troops available to Russia, says Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean army lieutenant-general.

Moscow has been recruiting at least 20,000 new soldiers a month to help bolster its war effort, with more than 1,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded on average daily, according to Nato and military officials in the West.

“[Russia] has been sending troops to the front without proper training. Compared to such recruits, North Koreans are trained and motivated. They are not combat-tested currently, but that soon will not be the case,” Lt-Gen (retd) Chun said.

Still, some experts believe the obvious language barrier and unfamiliarity with Russian systems would complicate any fighting roles, suggesting instead that Pyongyang’s troops would be tapped for their engineering and construction capabilities.

Given these disadvantages, what is in this deal for the two countries?

Observers say Moscow needs manpower, while Pyongyang needs money and technology.

“For North Korea, [such deployments are] a good way to earn money,” says Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group.

South Korean intelligence puts this at $2,000 (£1,585) per soldier per month, with most of this money expected to end up in the state’s coffers.

Pyongyang could also gain access to Russian military technology, which Moscow would otherwise have been reluctant to transfer, Mr Lankov adds.

Moscow’s manpower problems have been widely reported, with the US estimating that some 600,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order – for the third time since the war started – to expand his army.

It has also pursued personnel strategies that “minimise domestic political impact”, such as offering bonuses to recruits who volunteer and enlisting foreigners with the promise of citizenship, says Mr Cancian from CSIS.

“With Russia reportedly suffering over 1,000 casualties on the battlefield, reducing its own losses could alleviate some pressure on the Putin regime,” agrees Lami Kim, a professor of Security Studies at the Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

These developments, coming at a time when tensions within the Korean peninsula have spiralled to their highest in years, are worrying Seoul.

In October, the North blew up sections of two roads that connected it to South Korea, days after accusing Seoul of flying drones into the North’s capital Pyongyang.

That came after the two countries engaged in a tit-for-tat balloon campaign, flying thousands of trash and propaganda balloons towards each other’s territories. The Koreas have also suspended a pact aimed at lowering military tensions between them, shortly after North Korea said that the South was now “enemy number one”.

So it makes sense that South Korea would be uneasy about the North acquiring new military prowess amid these tensions. After all, troops in South Korea have also not fought in another major conflict since the Korean War.

According to Mr Madden and Mr Cancian, it is thought the North Korean troops are being employed around the embattled Kursk border region, which Moscow has been trying to recapture from Ukraine.

The South fears that “its adversary could boast more hostile capabilities” as a result of the experience its soldiers would get on the battlefield, says Lt-Gen (retd) Chun.

While South Korea has long accused the North of supplying weapons to Russia, it says the current situation has gone beyond the transfer of military materials.

It has also expressed “grave concern” over a pact between Pyongyang and Moscow, which pledges that the two counties will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has reiterated – at least three times in the past two months – that the South would consider aiding Ukraine “for defensive purposes”. If this happens, it would mark a shift from the South’s longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to countries engaged in active conflict.

Last month, Ellen Konyak was shocked to discover that a 19th-Century skull from the north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland was up for auction in the UK.

The horned skull of a Naga tribesman was among thousands of items that European colonial administrators had collected from the state.

Konyak, a member of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation (NFR) which is making efforts to bring these human remains back home, says the news of the auction disturbed her.

“To see that people are still auctioning our ancestral human remains in the 21st Century was shocking,” she said. “It was very insensitive and deeply hurtful.”

The Swan at Tetsworth, the UK-based antique centre that put the skull on auction, advertised it as part of their “Curious Collector Sale”, valued between £3,500 ($4,490) and £4,000 ($5,132). Alongside the skull – which is from a Belgian collection – the sale listed shrunken heads from the Jivaro people of South America and skulls from the Ekoi people of West Africa.

Naga scholars and experts protested against the sale. The chief minister of Nagaland, Konyak’s home state, wrote a letter to the Indian foreign ministry describing the act as “dehumanising” and “continued colonial violence upon our people”.

The auction house withdrew the sale following the outcry, but for the Naga people the episode revived memories of their violent past, prompting them to renew calls for the repatriation of their ancestral remains stored or displayed far from their homeland.

Scholars suggest that some of these human remains were bartered items or gifts, but others may have been taken away without the consent of their owners.

Alok Kumar Kanungo, a scholar of Naga culture, estimates that the UK’s public museums and private collections alone hold around 50,000 Naga objects.

Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM), which has the largest Naga collection, features approximately 6,550 items taken from the state, including 41 human remains. The museum also has human remains from several other states of British India.

But in recent years, experts say, with growing ethical concerns about collection, sale and display of human remains, many collectors are reconsidering their approach.

Kanungo says human remains have become “white elephants” for museums.

“They are no longer an object that can be disposed of or possessed by its owners; no longer a source of tourists’ money; can no longer be used to present Naga peoples as ‘uncivilised’; and of late have become an emotionally and politically charged issue.”

So, museums have started returning human remains from communities such as the Maori tribes of New Zealand, the Mudan warriors of Taiwan, the Aboriginal people of Australia and the Native Hawaiians.

In 2019, PRM told the BBC that it had returned 22 such objects.

A museum spoksperson told the BBC that the figure has now gone up to 35. “So far these [objects] have all been returned to Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada.”

As part of an ethical review, the museum removed Naga skulls from public display in 2020 and placed them in storage. This is when FNR demanded their repatriation for the first time.

The museum said it was yet to receive a formal claim from Naga descendants and the processes to return human remains “can take between 18 months and several years, depending on the complexity of the case”.

Repatriating human remains is more complicated than returning artefacts. It requires extensive research to determine whether the items were collected ethically, to identify descendants and to navigate complex international regulations on movement of human remains.

The Naga forum has formed a group called Recover, Restore and Decolonise under anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer to facilitate returns.

“It is a bit like detective work,” Longkumer said. “We have to sift through different layers of information and try to read between the lines to actually find out about the exact nature of the collections and where they are from.”

But for the Naga people, this process is not merely logistical. “We are dealing with human remains,” said Konyak. “It’s an international and legal process, but it’s also a spiritual one for us.”

The group has been travelling to villages, meeting Naga elders, organising lectures and distributing educational materials such as comic books and videos to spread awareness.

They are also trying to build consensus around subjects such as the last rites of repatriated remains. Most Nagas now follow Christianity, but their ancestors were animists who followed different birth and death rituals.

The group found that even Naga elders were unaware that their ancestral remains were in foreign land. Anthropologist and archaeologist Tiatoshi Jamir said one elder told him that this could make “the soul of their ancestors restless”.

Jamir said even he was not aware about the skulls on display in foreign museums until he read about them in a local paper in the early 2000s.

The British took over the Naga areas in 1832 and, in 1873, introduced a special permission for travellers – called the Inner Line Permit – to strictly control access to the region.

Historians say the colonial administrators put down any rebellions and often burnt Naga villages to subdue them, in the process erasing much of their important cultural markers such as paintings, engravings and artefacts.

Konyak says she has discovered that one of the human remains in PRM’s list is of a person from her village and tribe.

“I am like, ‘Oh my goodness! It belongs to one of ancestors’,” she told the BBC.

She is still undecided about how the last rites would be performed once the remains are returned.

“But we want them back as a mark of respect to our elders,” she said. “To reclaim our history. To claim our narrative.”

Actress Michelle Yeoh has said she felt “like such a failure” for not having a baby.

The Oscar winner said she always wanted to have a family, and her first marriage – to businessman Sir Dickson Poon – was partly “about having children, a next generation and all that”.

She had fertility treatment but that was unsuccessful, she told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

“And I think the worst moment to go through is every month you feel like such a failure,” she said.

“And then you go, why? And I think at some point you stop blaming yourself. I go, there are certain things in your body that doesn’t function in a certain way. That’s how it is.

“You just have to let go and move on. And I think you come to a point where you have to stop blaming you.”

• Listen to Michelle Yeoh on Woman’s Hour

Yeoh, 62, won an Oscar last year for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and is also known for films like Tomorrow Never Dies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Crazy Rich Asians.

She is about to be seen as Madame Morrible in the new film version of Wicked.

Yeoh and Poon were married from 1988 to 1992.

She said not having children was “honestly not for the lack of trying because I have always and still do love babies”.

Asked by Woman’s Hour presenter Nuala McGovern how long it took her to reconcile with the fact she would not be able to do so, she replied: “Sometimes, honestly, I still think about it.

“I’m 62. Of course, I’m not going to have a baby right now, but the thing is we just had a grandchild.

“Then you feel you’re still very, very blessed because you do have a baby in your life.”

She remarried last year, and her stepson and his wife had a baby in January.

Yeoh added that she felt blessed to also have a number of godchildren, nieces and nephews.

However, it “took a long time” to come to terms with not having children of her own “because that also maybe would be the main factor that broke up my first marriage”, Yeoh said.

“But you also have to understand, these are conversations that you really have to have with yourself and be able to look ahead and think, yes, we love each other very much now, but in 10 years or 20 years, I still can’t give him the family that he craves for. And you have to be fair.

“That’s why this dialogue between a couple is so important. Like, if one wants [a baby] and the other doesn’t, this is something you have to face right at the beginning, because along the way, there will be a lot of hurt and difficult times.

“And so I think it was very brave on our path to admit, to say, ‘OK, let’s not drag this out, because that’s what we are doing. Because, we tried.'”

Yeoh got engaged to French motor racing executive Jean Todt in 2004, and they got married in 2023.

The man picked to be America’s next top law enforcement officer, Matt Gaetz, is at the centre of a number of allegations which could prevent him from getting the job. Here’s all you need to know about them.

The Florida lawmaker is the subject of a long-running investigation by a congressional ethics panel into a number of claims involving drugs, bribes and sex.

A woman who attended a 2017 party with him has testified to the House committee that she saw the then-congressman having sex with a minor, her lawyer has said. He has denied any wrongdoing and called the investigation into him a “smear campaign”.

The Justice Department – which Gaetz would lead in the post – also investigated the claim but ultimately did not file any criminal charges against him.

When he learned of his nomination by President-elect Donald Trump, he resigned from Congress, putting him out of reach of the investigation by the ethics panel.

Pressure is building for it to publish its findings and the level of cross-party concern risks derailing his nomination, which requires Senate approval.

Here are the allegations broken down.

Gaetz, 42, represented Florida’s first congressional district in the US House of Representatives from 2017 until his resignation on Thursday.

A fierce Trump defender, he has long upset Democrats but also many Republicans with his bombastic public conduct and alleged hard-partying lifestyle.

On and off since 2021, the secretive House Ethics Committee has investigated Gaetz over various allegations, including a claim that he had sex with an underage girl, used illicit drugs, accepted bribes, misused campaign funds and shared inappropriate images on the House floor.

The Floridian has repeatedly and vehemently denied wrongdoing, casting the probe as an attempt to smear his name by powerful enemies he has made in politics.

He has also raised in his defence the fact that the Justice Department ended a separate three-year federal sex-trafficking investigation last year by deciding not to bring charges against him.

“Lies were Weaponized to try to destroy me,” Gaetz posted on X on Friday.

“These lies resulted in prosecution, conviction, and prison. For the liars, not me.”

Joel Greenberg, Gaetz’s one-time friend, was the lone person charged in the Justice Department sex trafficking’s investigation. He cooperated with investigators and reportedly told prosecutors information about multiple others, including Gaetz.

Greenberg is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence after agreeing to plead guilty to multiple federal charges, including under-age sex trafficking, wire fraud, stalking, identity theft, producing a fake ID card, and conspiring to defraud the US government.

As part of his cooperation with federal prosecutors, Greenberg – a local tax collector in the Orlando, Florida area – admitted he had repeatedly paid young women to attend parties with him and his friends, where they used drugs and had sex.

At least one of the girls he paid for sex was 17 years old at the time – and Greenberg alleged that Gaetz had also had sex with her – a claim federal authorities investigated but were unable to verify.

No charges were filed against Gaetz, who has fiercely denied these allegations, and the probe was later closed.

But now, the explosive claim sits at the core of the House ethics probe and is endangering his nomination.

The committee inquiry had been paused to allow the Justice Department to do its work. Gaetz claimed it was only revived because then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy considered him a nagging thorn in the side of Republican leadership.

Last year, Gaetz spearheaded an unprecedented internal revolt to oust McCarthy from the speakership – the top job in the US House of Representatives. The California Republican, who resigned from Congress less than three months later, has claimed Gaetz only wanted him removed because of the ethics investigation.

Gaetz’s nomination as Attorney General this past Thursday was followed hours later with his resignation from the House.

His resignation halted the release – which was reportedly planned just days later – of the ethics probe’s findings. His departure from Congress means he is no longer under congressional jurisdiction.

An attorney who represents the then-minor has called for the report’s release, saying that she had testified to the committee that she had sex with Gaetz while “she was a high school student, and there were witnesses”.

Sitting House Speaker Mike Johnson argued against the report’s release in a Sunday appearance on Fox News, saying it could “open Pandora’s box” if the panel started issuing reports about those who are not members of the body.

“We don’t issue investigations and ethics reports on people who are not members of Congress,” he said. “I think this would be a breach of protocol that could be dangerous for us going forward in the future.”

He also told reporters that he would “strongly request” the report isn’t made public because the rules outline that “a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the ethics committee”.

Members of the committee initially planned to meet behind closed doors on Friday and hold a vote on whether to release the report.

But the meeting never happened, with Chairman Michael Guest saying it was postponed and would be re-scheduled. Guest has previously indicated he is inclined to “maintain [the] confidentiality” of the panel’s work.

The panel is now expected to meet this Wednesday and may hold a vote then, according to US media. A spokesperson declined to comment when reached by the BBC.

Public pressure is mounting and even some Senate Republicans, who will be tasked with vetting Gaetz’s nomination and voting on whether to confirm him to the attorney general post, have indicated they would like to see the report.

Many in Washington expect that, even if the report is not formally released, it may yet be leaked to the press.

Last week, Joel Leppard – a lawyer who represents two women who have testified in the ethics probe – said one of his clients said she had witnessed Gaetz having sex with the then-17-year-old.

“What if sworn testimony detailed conduct that would disqualify anyone from serving as our nation’s chief law enforcement officer?” he said in a Friday statement.

“Democracy demands transparency. Release the Gaetz Ethics report.”

CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, has learned that the committee has heard from at least four women who say they were paid to attend parties with drugs and sex where Gaetz was allegedly present.

Mr Leppard told CBS on Monday that the panel had seen evidence of transactions on the Venmo mobile app between Gaetz and the women, which they alleged was used to pay for sex.

Mr Leppard also said that two of the women testified in the ethics probe that Gaetz had asked in text messages about “party favours” and “vitamins” at upcoming parties, which was understood to be code for drugs. However, Mr Leppard’s clients told the House panel they could not specifically recall whether they had seen Gaetz use any drugs.

On Monday, Trump’s team said the allegations against Gaetz were “baseless” and “intended to derail the second Trump administration”.

“Matt Gaetz will be the next attorney general. He’s the right man for the job and will end the weaponization of our justice system,” Trump transition spokesman Alex Pfeiffer told CBS.

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If it hadn’t been for the squirrels, George Matthew’s attempt to become a cocoa bean producer might have failed.

His farming career began in the 1970s when he inherited a rubber plantation in the the southern Indian state of Kerala , which he managed alongside his career as a doctor.

It was a bad time to inherit a rubber plantation, falling rubber prices meant it kept losing money. So, 10 years ago Dr Matthew decided to experiment with cocoa trees, hoping they would generate some funds to support the rest of the farm.

He bought some saplings and planted them. It didn’t go well.

“It was not that successful – most of the saplings died,” he says.

Squirrels appeared to be making the situation worse by grabbing cocoa bean pods and eating them.

But those raids had an unexpected benefit – cocoa seeds were spread all over the farm.

“All the scattered seeds soon grew in to plants and they were much healthier and stronger than the saplings I had planted,” says Dr Matthew.

“The trick was in sowing the seeds,” he realised.

Today Mr Matthews has 6,000 cocoa trees on his 50 acres of land.

“I think it was the best decision I have made,” he says.

Despite having several regions with weather conditions suitable for cocoa trees, India only accounts for 1% of the world’s cocoa bean production.

Global production is currently dominated by West Africa, where Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana between them produce more than half of the world’s annual output.

Indian growers can only supply a quarter of the beans needed by Indian makers of chocolate and other confectionary.

“The challenge is that it is grown in very fragmented small holdings, so it does not get the kind of attention cocoa should get,” says Renny Jacob, chairman of India Cocoa, a private company that has been growing and processing cocoa beans for more than 30 years.

In particular he says that Indian farmers are poor at handling beans after they have been harvested. Once removed from their pods, beans go through a fermentation process at the farm, which can make a huge difference to their flavour.

“Cocoa fermentation is a critical process in the production of chocolate, transforming raw cocoa beans into a form suitable for chocolate making,” says Sarin Partrick, chief executive of India Cocoa.

“This complex process involves several stages and the activity of various micro-organisms, which help develop the beans’ flavour, aroma, and colour,” he says.

• From bean to bar: How chocolate is made

To raise the quantity and quality of cocoa bean production, the government has introduced several initiatives.

It is investing in schemes to develop hybrid cocoa plants, that are more productive than existing varieties.

In addition there are schemes to train farmers on the latest techniques for growing and processing beans.

“There is a vast opportunity for Indian farmers to enter into cocoa cultivation and avail the benefits,” says Dr Femina, who works in the government department tasked with developing cocoa production.

Business is also investing in new cocoa tree vareities.

Dr Minimol J.S., is the head of cocoa research at Kerala Agriculture University and is working with Cadbury to develop hybrid cocoa trees.

In the project’s orchard existing high-performing varieties are cross-bred with exotic species.

So far the programme has come up with 15 new varieties.

“These are India’s first hybrid, disease-resistant seeds,” she says.

“The seeds are drought tolerant varieties, and have withstood temperatures of even 40C, which is usually not possible,” she adds.

The hybrids are also much more productive than traditional varieties.

“The global average production is 0.25 kilogram per year per tree.

“In Kerala, we get 2.5 kilograms per year per tree. In Andhra and Telangana, we are even getting a yield of four or five kilograms per tree per year,” she says.

India’s production of cocoa beans has risen significantly. This year it hit 110,000 tonnes, up 40% from 2015. But it’s still not enough to meet demand from local chocolate and confectionary makers.

India’s Cocoa Board estimates the demand from industry is rising at 15% per year.

Founded in 2019, Kocoatrait is one of a new generation of Indian chocolate makers.

Based in the east coast city of Chennai, the company only uses Indian cocoa beans.

One reason for that is that locally sourced beans have a much smaller carbon footprint than beans that have been shipped from another continent.

In addition, says Kocoatrait founder Nitin Chordia, Indian beans are cheaper than imports and have a distinctive flavour.

Mr Chordia also runs an agricultural school, where farmers are shown the latest innovations in fermenting and drying beans.

“We are constantly focussing on improving the post-harvest practices for cocoa farmers in India,” he says.

He adds that Indian farmers need to be producing higher quality beans.

“We are not able to compete with international players in the bulk cocoa bean segment,” he says.

While there has been improvement, Indian producers have some way to go.

“Over the last decade, in the fine-flavour cocoa bean segment, India has started to get noticed… but it will be several years before all Indian fine flavour cocoa beans reach a stage of large-scale international recognition.”

Back in Kerala, Dr Matthew reflects on his decade as a cocoa farmer.

“It’s a tricky plant,” he says. “Last year I had no yield. So no farmer can depend solely on cocoa – one has to plant other trees along with it.”

Despite the challenges, he’s optimistic. “The future is bright, with huge demand.”

“I have been approached by a multi-national company to sell my production to them, so I will be making a good profit.”

A Russian software company has invited a seven-year-old coding prodigy to join its management team, as soon as he is old enough to take up paid employment.

Sergey from the Russian city of St Petersburg has built a name for himself, uploading videos that explain how to write software since he was five.

On the strength of those videos, the information security firm Pro32 sent him a written job offer, for the post of head of corporate training.

Under Russian law, Sergey would not be able to take up any paid role until he is 14.

But Pro32’s chief executive Igor Mandik told the BBC World Service he had spoken to Sergey’s parents about finding ways to collaborate in the meantime.

“His father, Kirill, was surprised and said that [they were] really happy and looking forward [to when] Sergey would be able to join the company,” Mr Mandik said.

On his videos, Sergey appears fresh-faced and smiling enthusiastically. Speaking in Russian and sometimes in slightly broken English, he goes through coding challenges step-by-step.

His YouTube channel has more than 3,500 subscribers, interested in learning programming languages Python and Unity, or who want to hear more about neural networks, which underlie many artificial intelligence tools.

Mr Mandik said Sergey showed not only remarkable developer skills but also “equally unique” skills in teaching.

“For me, he is kind of a Mozart.”

“I’m absolutely sure that when he reaches 14, he’ll be a guru of teaching and a guru of developing, and that is why we’re really looking forward to this time,” he said.

Not just coders, but salesmen, accountants and others at Moscow-based Pro32 could learn from Sergey, Mr Mandik said.

No promises have been made over pay, as yet, given that the going rate is likely to change significantly.

“We have to wait for seven years,” Mr Mandik said. “Then we will definitely start a conversation about his salary.”

Mahamudu Bawumia soared from being a political outsider to become Ghana’s second-in-command – and in December he could make history as the country’s first Muslim president.

Bawumia, currently Ghana’s vice-president, was chosen by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) as their candidate for the forthcoming general election.

The 61-year-old Tottenham Hotspur supporter has quite the reputation.

He is an intellectual educated at Oxford University, is never seen without his signature slim, rectangular glasses and has been dubbed “Mr Digital” thanks to his pledge to whip Ghana into a technological heavyweight.

But because he is head of the government’s economic management team, many Ghanaians associate Bawumia with the punishing cost of living crisis they’re experiencing.

Should Bawumia overcome the criticism and win the election, he will replace his current boss President Nana Akufo-Addo, who is approaching the end of his two-term limit.

“Mr Digital” barrelled onto the political scene in 2008, sparking bemusement and scepticism.

Bawumia was a 44-year-old who had never held public office, yet Akufo-Addo – then a mere presidential candidate – had chosen him as a running mate.

Bawumia’s father Alhaji had served in Ghana’s earliest governments after the country gained independence from Britain in 1957, working closely with revered Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.

But the younger Bawumia had forged a career in economics and banking – serving as the deputy governor of Ghana’s central bank.

To many commentators and NPP insiders, it made no sense for Akufo-Addo to pick Bawumia over seasoned party members.

Akufo-Addo ended up losing the election to John Atta Mills from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) by a tiny margin.

Bawumia lost out on the VP job – but his charismatic campaign had silenced the naysayers.

“He fired [up] the NPP campaign. I think no-one else could have done a better job, to be honest, in terms of the support he gave to the NPP,” Ghanaian political scientist Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko told the BBC.

Akufo-Addo and Bawumia gave the elections another go in 2012. Again, they lost.

The NPP challenged the election results in the Supreme Court, choosing Bawumia as their star witness.

During the proceedings, which were broadcast on national television, Bawumia came across as witty and unflustered by the relentless, days-long cross-examination.

“People were like, who is this guy? He’s really the guy to root for,” said Dr Sefa-Nyarko, who lectures on African leadership at King’s College London.

Akufo-Addo decided to keep Bawumia on his ticket and in 2016, on their third shot at power, the NPP won with 51.3% of the vote. Bawumia finally became vice-president.

Bawumia’s journey to the top began in 1963, when he was born into a large family in the northern city of Tamale.

He was the 12th of his father’s 18 children.

After completing primary and secondary school in Ghana, Bawumia moved to the UK for undergraduate study and went on to gain a masters in economics from the prestigious Oxford University.

To support himself during his studies, he took up jobs as a taxi driver and cleaner.

He returned to Ghana in 2000 to work at the central bank, where he worked his way up to become deputy governor.

Bawumia campaigned on this economic know-how during his attempts to become VP. Therefore, he faced heavy criticism when Ghana plummeted into its most severe economic crisis in years under his watch.

Inflation hit a record 54% in December 2022 and the country was forced to take a $3bn (£2.3bn) loan from the International Monetary Fund after government debt soared.

In response to the criticism, Bawumia has said the economic management team he headed had no “decision-making powers” and that it merely provided advice to the government.

But for many, this wasn’t good enough.

“In terms of character, in terms of integrity, people started questioning themselves: ‘What is this? How did it end up here? We thought you were the best guy, and look at where we’ve ended up’,” Franklin Cudjoe, a Ghanaian political commentator and head of the Imani Centre for Policy and Education, told the BBC.

Along with his role as an economist, Bawumia has also built the reputation of being a digital visionary.

Ghana’s digital ecosystem has seen “significant growth” especially in areas such as mobile phone connectivity, Charles Abani, head of the United Nations team in Ghana, remarked last month.

This “remarkable digital transformation” was “spearheaded” by Bawumia, news website African Business reported, while Ghanaian newspaper The Chronicle hailed Bawumia’s “expertise in global digital transformation”.

Bawumia said he initiated a partnership between Ghana’s government and US-based company Zipline, which led to the creation of the world’s largest vaccine delivery network.

He said he reached out to Zipline, which uses drones to fly health products to hard-to-reach clinics, after his father died from a loss of blood.

Although this passion for technology is celebrated by some, others are more sceptical.

Mr Cudjoe said Bawumia has been campaigning on digitalisation rather than confronting debates about the government’s handling of the economy.

“Whether Bawumia was in power or not, digitalisation was bound to happen in this country because we had already started it anyway,” Mr Cudjoe said.

Dr Sefa-Nyarko said of Bawumia: “What he has been very successful at is to push and also claim all credit for digitalisation outcomes of the current government.”

Bawumia’s personal life has also been a strength in his presidential campaign. His wife of 20 years, Samira, is a former beauty queen who is widely admired for her chic outfits.

The Second Lady is also vocal when it comes to party politics – and has embarked on campaign tours for the NPP.

The couple have four children together. They are proud followers of Islam – a religion practised by roughly one in five Ghanaians.

Most people in Ghana are Christians but there is not much evidence that coming from a religious minority will hinder Bawumia’s election chances, Dr Sefa-Nyarko said.

The NPP has given its “full support” to Bawumia’s candidacy, “his Muslim faith notwithstanding”, Dr Sefa-Nyarko added.

“This could translate into widespread support across the country as well.”

Bawumia’s geographical identity might be of greater consequence than his religion. The vice-president hails from northern Ghana, which is one of the NDC’s strongest political bases.

By choosing Bawumia as its presidential candidate, the NPP will be hoping to make inroads in the north, while retaining support in its heartland in the south.

Bawumia has been traversing north, south, east and west in what he calls the “possibilities bus”, a blue and red campaign vehicle emblazoned with the slogan “it is possible”.

To some, he is the face of economic mismanagement, but the vice-president retains some of the optimism he held when he was a 44-year-old embarking on an eight-year battle for power.

“I have the courage to accept when things do not go as well as planned,” he told voters in his manifesto.

“But I also have a mindset of possibilities, and faith in ourselves, that we can rise and achieve great things in our lifetime.”

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Australian lawmakers have voted to censure an Aboriginal senator who heckled King Charles during his visit to Canberra last month, to express their “profound disapproval” of her protest.

Lidia Thorpe shouted “you are not my King” and “this is not your land” shortly after the King addressed the Great Hall of Parliament, in an effort to highlight the impacts of British colonisation.

The Senate’s censure, which passed 46-12, described Thorpe’s actions as “disrespectful and disruptive” and said they should disqualify her from representing the chamber as a member of any delegation.

A censure motion is politically symbolic but carries no constitutional or legal weight.

Shortly after the Senate vote on Monday, Thorpe told reporters she had been denied her right to respond in the chamber due to a flight delay.

“The British Crown committed heinous crimes against the first peoples of this country… I will not be silent,” the independent senator said.

Her protest last month drew immediate ire from across the political aisle, as well as from some prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders.

But it also drew praise from some activists who argued that it highlighted the plight of Australia’s first inhabitants, who endured colonial violence and still face acute disadvantages in terms of health, wealth, education, and life expectancy compared to non-Indigenous Australians.

Thorpe is among those who have advocated for a treaty between Australia’s government and its first inhabitants.

Unlike New Zealand and other former British colonies, a treaty with Indigenous peoples in Australia was never established. Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people emphasise that they never ceded their sovereignty or land to the Crown.

Despite the protest, the King was warmly greeted by Australian crowds during his five-day tour alongside Queen Camilla.

“You have shown great respect for Australians, even during times when we have debated the future of our own constitutional arrangements and the nature of our relationship with the crown. Nothing stands still,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in an official address.

Thorpe has a history of Indigenous activism which has, at times, grabbed global headlines.

During her swearing in ceremony in 2022, the Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman referred to the Queen Elizabeth II as a coloniser – and was asked to retake her oath after facing criticism.

Last year, Australia decisively rejected a proposal to grant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people constitutional recognition and allow them to establish a body to advise parliament on issues impacting their communities.

The referendum – known as the Voice – became ensnared in a bruising campaign, and both sides of politics have sought to move on swiftly, leaving uncertainty over future policy.

While the data suggests a majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people voted ‘Yes’, support wasn’t unanimous. Thorpe herself was a leading ‘No’ campaigner, having criticised the measure as tokenistic.

Air pollution in India’s capital Delhi has soared to extremely severe levels, choking residents and engulfing the city in thick smog.

Monitors recorded pollution levels of 1,500 on the Air Quality Index (AQI) at 15:00 IST (09:30 BST), according to tech company IQAir – 15 times the level the World Health Organization (WHO) considers satisfactory for breathing.

The toxic air has disrupted flight services, and had already prompted authorities to shut schools and ban construction work in the city.

It comes just weeks after Lahore, in neighbouring Pakistan, also recorded pollution levels above 1,000.

And experts warn that the situation could get worse in Delhi in the coming days, saying more severe measures may be needed to combat the city’s pollution problem.

According to the WHO, air with AQI values above 300 are considered to be hazardous for health.

India’s pollution control authority has classified the air in Delhi as “severe plus”, after the city passed 450 according to its measurements on Monday morning.

As well as shutting schools and banning construction work, the city has also banned the entry of non-essential trucks into Delhi and has asked all offices to ask 50% of their staff to work from home.

Last week, the government banned all activities that involve the use of coal and firewood, as well as diesel generator use for non-emergency services.

Every year, Delhi, India’s northern states and parts of Pakistan battle hazardous air during the winter months of October to January due to plummeting temperatures, smoke, dust, low wind speed, vehicular emissions and crop stubble burning.

And every year, the government imposes pollution control measures during these months.

Yet, Delhi’s pollution problem hasn’t gone away.

On Monday, Delhi’s Chief Minister Atishi said that all of northern India was experiencing a “medical emergency” due to stubble burning continuing unchecked across the country, particularly in the neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

She accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of not taking steps to curb the practice despite the problem intensifying over the past five years.

The BJP, in turn, has blamed Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for not being able to put a check to pollution in the city.

Meanwhile, Delhi’s residents continue to gasp for air.

“Woke up with a itchy, painful throat.. even two air purifiers are not making the AQI breathable indoors. Children are breathing in gas chamber,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Another user called for a “peaceful mass protest on the streets”. “The air we breathe is lethally toxic,” he wrote.

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Roblox has announced it will block under-13s from messaging others on the online gaming platform as part of new efforts to safeguard children.

Child users will not be able to send direct messages within games by default unless a verified parent or guardian gives them permission.

Parents will also be able to view and manage their child’s account, including seeing their list of online friends, and setting daily limits on their play time.

Roblox is the most popular gaming platform for eight to 12 year olds in the UK, according to Ofcom research, but it has been urged to make its experiences safer for children.

The company said it would begin rolling out the changes from Monday, and they will be fully implemented by the end of March 2025.

It means young children will still be able to access public conversations seen by everyone in games – so they can still talk to their friends – but cannot have private conversations without parental consent.

Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, said the game is played by 88 million people each day, and over 10% of its total employees – equating to thousands of people – work on the platform’s safety features.

“As our platform has grown in scale, we have always recognised that our approach to safety must evolve with it,” he said.

Besides banning children from sending direct messages (DMs) across the platform, it will give parents more ways to easily see and manage their child’s activity.

Parents and guardians must verify their identity and age with a form of government-issued ID or a credit card in order to access parental permissions for their child, via their own linked account.

But Mr Kaufman acknowledged identity verification is a challenge being faced by a lot of tech companies, and called on parents to make sure a child has the correct age on their account.

“Our goal is to keep all users safe, no matter what age they are,” he said.

“We encourage parents to be working with their kids to create accounts and hopefully ensure that their kids are using their accurate age when they sign up.”

Richard Collard, associate head of policy for child safety online at UK children’s charity the NSPCC, called the changes “a positive step in the right direction”.

But he said they need to be supported by effective ways of checking and verifying user age in order to “translate into safer experiences for children”.

“Roblox must make this a priority to robustly tackle the harm taking place on their site and protect young children,” he added.

Roblox also announced it planned to simplify descriptions for content on the platform.

It is replacing age recommendations for certain games and experiences to “content labels” that simply outline the nature of the game.

It said this meant parents could make decisions based on the maturity of their child, rather than their age.

These range from “minimal”, potentially including occasional mild violence or fear, to “restricted” – potentially containing more mature content such as strong violence, language or lots of realistic blood.

By default, Roblox users under the age of nine will only be able to access “minimal” or “mild” experiences – but parents can allow them to play “moderate” games by giving consent.

But users cannot access “restricted” games until they are at least 17-years-old and have used the platform’s tools to verify their age.

It follows an announcement in November that Roblox would be barring under-13s from “social hangouts”, where players can communicate with each other using text or voice messages, from Monday.

It also told developers that from 3 December, Roblox game creators would need to specify whether their games are suitable for children and block games for under-13s that do not provide this information.

The changes come as platforms accessed and used by children in the UK prepare to meet new rules around illegal and harmful material on their platforms under the Online Safety Act.

Ofcom, the UK watchdog enforcing the law, has warned that companies will face punishments if they fail to keep children safe on their platforms.

It will publish its codes of practice for companies to abide by in December.

The ballet world is mourning the death of Vladimir Shklyarov, one of its leading male dancers.

Shklyarov, a principal with the prestigious Mariinsky Theatre, was an “extraordinary artist” who inspired fans worldwide, one tribute said.

His death, announced by the St Petersburg company on Saturday, is being investigated by federal authorities, according to Russian media reports.

Mariinsky representatives told media he had fallen from the fifth floor of a St Petersburg building while on painkillers.

“This is a huge loss not only for the theatre’s staff but for all of contemporary ballet,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.

“Our condolences to the artist’s family, loved ones, friends and all the numerous admirers of his work and talent.”

Shklyarov was married to fellow company dancer Maria Shklyarov, with whom he had two children.

Born in Leningrad, he studied at the famed Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, graduating in 2003.

He joined the Mariinsky Theatre the same year, becoming a principal in 2011.

Over 20 years with the company, he danced leads across several productions, including Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet.

He performed at prestigious venues around the world, including the Royal Opera House in London and Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In 2014 and 2015, he featured as a guest artist at the American Ballet Theatre. The company issued a statement on Sunday mourning his “tragic loss.”

“We mourn the tragic loss of Vladimir Shklyarov, an extraordinary artist whose grace and passion inspired audiences worldwide.

“Your light will continue to shine through the beauty you brought to this world,” the company wrote on Instagram.

Shklyarov received several accolades during his lifetime, including the Léonide Massine International Prize in 2008. He was also appointed an Honoured Artist of Russia in 2020.

“He forever inscribed his name in the history of world ballet,” the Mariinsky Theatre said.

India’s north-eastern state of Manipur is on high alert after authorities recovered the bodies of six women and children, who reportedly belonged to the majority Meitei community.

Meitei groups have alleged that they were kidnapped and murdered by armed groups of the minority Kuki group. The police, however, have not confirmed this.

The news sparked a fresh wave of violent protests, prompting authorities to snap internet services in some parts of the state over the weekend.

The two ethnic groups have been locked in a deadly ethnic conflict since last May, which has killed 200 people and displaced thousands.

On Saturday, protesters ransacked and torched the houses and offices of at least a dozen lawmakers, mostly from the state’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Police have arrested 23 people in connection with the violence and authorities have imposed an indefinite curfew and suspended internet services in Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley and Bishnupur district.

At least 20 people – both Kukis and Meities – have died in flare-ups that have erupted between the two ethnic groups this month.

Tensions began on 7 November, after members of an armed group allegedly raped a woman, who reportedly belonged to the Kuki community, and set her on fire in the state’s Jiribam district.

Four days later, a police station and a relief camp housing Meitei refugees in the area was attacked. The majority community blamed Kuki groups for the assault.

Police on the same day shot dead 10 armed men in what they said was a shoot-out, also known as an “encounter” in India.

Police alleged that the men were suspected Kuki militants, but Kuki organisations deny this and claim that the individuals were “village volunteers” – or armed civilians protecting the community.

Following the attack on the relief camp, six inhabitants – a grandmother, her two daughters and three grandchildren – went missing. Meitei groups alleged that they were abducted by armed Kuki men.

On Friday, police reportedly recovered six bodies – and though they have not confirmed their identities, rumours spread that they were the same Meitei family, setting off a wave of violent protests.

Protesters and civil society groups are demanding that authorities put an end to the atrocities and take strong action against the armed groups operating in the state.

In the wake of the unrest, the federal government has rushed top security officials to Manipur. Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a high-level security meeting on the situation on Sunday, but the state remains on edge.

Clashes between the Kukis and Meiteis erupted in May last year – they were sparked by Kuki protests against demands from Meiteis to be given official tribal status, which would make them eligible for affirmative action and other benefits.

Since then, the state has witnessed months of violence and unrest, with only sporadic moments of calm.

Today, Manipur is divided into two camps, with Meiteis inhabiting the Imphal Valley and Kukis living in the surrounding hill areas. Borders and buffer zones guarded by security forces separate the two regions.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been breaking prison rules by contacting potential witnesses in his upcoming sex trafficking trial, prosecutors have alleged.

The music mogul is accused of making “relentless efforts” to “corruptly influence witness testimony”, by using other inmates’ telephone accounts, and using three-way calls to speak to people who are not on his approved contacts list.

Prosecutors said a review of recorded calls also found that Mr Combs instructed his family to contact potential witnesses in his case, they said in a court filing.

Mr Combs, 55, is currently in custody in Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

Best known for 1990s hits such as I’ll Be Missing You and Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems, the musician has been denied bail since his arrest, with multiple judges citing a risk that he might tamper with witnesses.

His lawyers made a renewed bid for bail last week, proposing a $50m (£39.6m) package that would see Mr Combs be monitored around the clock by security personnel, while under house arrest.

Lawyer Alexandra Shapiro argued it was impossible for the musician to prepare for trial from behind bars because of the “incredibly voluminous” amount of material to review, especially without a laptop computer.

She also said his preparation has been hampered by conditions at the jail, including frequent lockdowns and officers taking away the pens he uses to take notes.

Detention is stripping Mr Combs of “any real opportunity” to be ready for trial, violating his rights under the US Constitution, Shapiro said.

In response, prosecutors argued that the request for bail should be denied, alleging that Mr Combs “poses serious risks of danger and obstruction of these proceedings”.

In court documents, they accused the star of orchestrating social media posts in order to “influence a potential jury pool” at his trial.

Amongst those efforts, they cited an Instagram statement posted by a woman known only as “witness two”, countering allegations made by singer Dawn Richard in a civil lawsuit against Mr Combs.

Prosecutors alleged that her statement was drafted with Mr Combs during “multiple texts” and “multiple calls” from prison.

They further alleged there was a “strong inference” that Mr Combs “paid witness two, after she posted her statement”.

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A video posted by the star’s seven children on 5 November was also cited as evidence of a “public relations strategy to influence this case”.

The video, which was reported by multiple media outlets, showed the family wishing Mr Combs a happy birthday during a prison phone call.

“The defendant then monitored the analytics – ie audience engagement – and explicitly discussed with his family how to ensure that the video had his desired effect on potential jury members in this case,” prosecutors said.

Mr Combs was also accused of using the phone accounts of at least eight other inmates to make calls, which is against prison regulations; and of “directing others” to orchestrate payment for this access.

Prosecutors characterised Mr Combs as running a “relentless” scheme to “contact potential witnesses, including victims of his abuse who could provide powerful testimony against him”.

Urging the judge to deny Mr Combs’ request for bail, the prosecutors wrote that “no set of conditions” could eliminate the potential risks to the trial.

“The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding – employees, family members, and [prison] inmates alike,” they claimed.

“There is no reason to believe that private security personnel would be immune.”

Prosecutors also rejected criticism of the conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, citing an interview from the star’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo, who said “food’s probably the roughest part” of Mr Combs’ adjustment to life behind bars.

The musician’s lawyers have yet to react to the court motion. The BBC has contacted his legal team for a response.

Mr Combs’ legal troubles began last November, when his ex-partner Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura filed a civil lawsuit, alleging incidents of rape and physical assault between 2007 and 2018.

Although the case was quickly settled out of court, it led to a flurry of similar accusations and an investigation by the US Government.

The star’s properties were raided by federal agents in March, and he was arrested in New York in September.

Mr Combs was charged with three counts of sex trafficking and racketeering, in a federal indictment that described allegations of drug-fuelled, days-long sexual performances dubbed as “Freak Offs”.

The musician is simultaneously facing more than two dozen civil cases by men and women accusing him of sexual assault, rape and sexual exploitation.

The star has vehemently denied all of the charges against him, and the claims in the civil suits, arguing that the sexual encounters at the heart of his criminal case were all consensual.

In a separate development on Monday, a lawsuit was filed against one of the lawyers known for spearheading more than 120 lawsuits against Mr Combs.

The lawsuit, filed by an unnamed “high-profile individual” against Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, alleged that Mr Buzbee attempted to extort him by threatening to make public “entirely fabricated and malicious allegations of sexual assault”.

In court documents obtained by the BBC, the plaintiff identified himself as a former associate of Diddy and acknowledged attending events with the embattled music mogul.

The lawsuit against Mr Buzbee claims the Houston attorney follows a “clear playbook” for extorting celebrities involving fabricating allegations and demanding letters seeking payment.

The lawsuit alleges that if the demands are not met, he turns to the media to apply public pressure.

Mr Buzbee, who denies wrongdoing, described the filing as a “last-ditch attempt” to stop him from naming the individual.

“It is obvious that the frivolous lawsuit filed against my firm is an aggressive attempt to intimidate or silence me and ultimately my clients,” he said in a statement sent to the BBC.

“No amount of money was included in the demand letters,” he wrote. “No threats were made. The demand letters sent are no different than the ones routinely sent by lawyers across the country in all types of cases.”

A Hong Kong court has sentenced key pro-democracy leaders to years in jail for subversion, following a controversial national security trial.

Activists Benny Tai and Joshua Wong were among the so-called Hong Kong 47 group involved in a plan to pick opposition candidates for local elections. Tai received 10 years while Wong received more than four years.

A total of 47 activists, opposition lawmakers and ordinary persons were charged for organising or taking part in the plan. Most were found guilty of conspiring to attempt subversion, while two were acquitted.

Their trial marked the largest use of the harsh national security law which China imposed on Hong Kong shortly after the city’s explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Observers say it significantly weakens the city’s pro-democracy movement and rule of law, and allow China to cement control of the city. The US has described the trial as “politically motivated”.

Beijing and Hong Kong’s governments argue that the law is necessary to maintain stability and deny it has weakened autonomy. They also say the convictions serve as a warning against forces trying to undermine China’s national security.

The case has attracted huge interest from Hongkongers, dozens of whom queued up outside of the court days before the sentencing to secure a spot in the public gallery.

In 2020, hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers voted in an unofficial primary for the Legislative Council election. It was organised by pro-democracy activists to increase the opposition’s chances of blocking the pro-Beijing government’s bills.

The activists argued that their actions were legal. But officials accused the activists of attempting to “overthrow” the government, and judges in their ruling agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional crisis.

On Tuesday, the court handed out sentences ranging from four to ten years. Tai, a former law professor who came up with the plan for the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence.

Other prominent pro-democracy figures who were convicted include Gwyneth Ho, a former journalist who went into politics, and former lawmakers Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-hung. They received sentences between four to seven years in prison.

President Joe Biden’s apparent green light for Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made long-range missiles has caused consternation among some of Donald Trump’s allies.

Trump himself has not commented, but he won the election after promising to end the war – and several people close to him have condemned the move as dangerous escalation.

Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv’s war effort, and at the weekend he reportedly ditched a long-standing red line on Ukraine’s use of American weaponry to launch attacks deep into Russia.

Donald Trump Jr tweeted that the president was trying to “get World War Three going” before his father took office.

Biden’s decision has not been formally confirmed and it may never be.

When asked about how typical it would be for a presidential administration to take such a significant policy decision in its final months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Biden was “elected to a four year-term, not a term of three years and 10 months.”

“We will use every day of our term to pursue policy interests that we believe are in the interests of the American people,” he said. “If the incoming administration wants to take a different view, that is, of course, their right to do so.”

“There’s one president at a time,” he added. “When the next president takes office, he can make his own decisions.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said no such announcement was forthcoming – “missiles will speak for themselves”.

Trump swept to victory on 5 November and is due to be back in the White House for a second term from 20 January next year.

Trump has campaigned on a promise to end the US involvement in wars and instead use taxpayers’ money to improve Americans’ lives.

He has said he will bring the Russia-Ukraine war to an end within 24 hours, without saying how.

One thing is certain, though: Trump has always seen himself as a dealmaker and will not want Biden to take any such credit.

His son, Donald Trump Jr, was among the first Republicans to respond.

“The military industrial complex seems to want to make sure they get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he said.

Another vocal Trump supporter, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, condemned Biden, too.

“The American people gave a mandate on Nov 5th against these exact America last decisions and do NOT want to fund or fight foreign wars. We want to fix our own problems,” she wrote on X.

Not all of Trump’s allies, including some who advised him on national security affairs during his first term, shared this view – though they were critical of the Biden administration’s approach.

James Gilmore, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told the BBC that the main issue with Biden’s decision to provide Ukraine this new capability is that it came so late in the war.

“My criticism of Biden is the same as every other conservative and supporter of Trump – which is that the Biden administration slow walked this,” he said.

Gilmore said he did not know what the president-elect would choose to do regarding Ukraine once he entered office. “I don’t believe that he’s a man that usually walks away,” he said.

Polls suggest a large number of Republicans want US support for Ukraine to stop – 62% told a poll by Pew Research the US had no responsibility to support the country against Russia.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump’s vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine. He argued that the US lacks the manufacturing capacity to continue providing weapons like the missile systems that Kyiv will use to strike within Russia.

Gilmore, however, said the US was able to backfill and upgrade its weapon systems through this process, but he said the US’s European allies would need to take on a bigger role.

“President Trump is exactly right about this – the alliance is stronger when Western European countries step up to the plate,” he said. “The United States cannot continue to act alone. The taxpayer won’t permit it, the next administration won’t permit it, and I wouldn’t, either.”

Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s president has been railing against the US-led Nato alliance – and described every pledge of military support by the Western allies for Ukraine as a direct involvement and warned of retribution.

His spokesman said on Monday that the US was “adding fuel to the fire”.

At times, Putin has mooted the possibility of using nuclear weapons, too.

Few believe this may come to pass as, under the mutual-destruction doctrine established during the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were built up, Putin knows their use would bring untold suffering to all, including Russians.

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But the Russian leader will be fully aware of the magnitude of the threat of Western-supplied long-range missiles.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, has published a map of 225 Russian military installations within range of ATACMS.

Former US envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, said Biden’s decision would enable Ukraine “to go after airfields, the ammunition depots and the fuels supplies, logistics that Russia has, which right now are in a sanctuary zone in Russia”.

Biden’s decision will cause Russia to be more cautious, Volker told the BBC.

Dismissing Putin’s threats, he said the Russian leader “should have anticipated that there would be efforts by Ukraine to fire back”.

Ukraine has had ATACMS as well as UK and French Storm Shadow missiles of similar range for some time, though the numbers are not known. But it has not been allowed to use them inside Russia.

France and the UK are expected to follow the US lead and issue the same authorisation to Ukraine. So far, they have not commented.

White House officials are emphasising to US media that Biden’s change of heart is in response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops – a signal to Pyongyang not to send any more.

Gilmore, Trump’s OSCE ambassador, told the BBC that he believes it is “Putin who has escalated the war” by deploying North Korean soldiers, and the US cannot “just stand aside and let this dictator go ahead and conquer Ukraine”.

“I don’t like it and I take it all very seriously, but the decision is not ours. The decision is being forced upon us by Putin – by the dictator,” he said.

The move also follows a barrage of Russian attacks on Ukraine in recent days.

One strike on Odesa on Monday killed 10 people, including seven policemen, and injured 47 others.

Russia says the use of US long-range missiles by Ukraine will lead to “an appropriate and tangible” response.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

President Joe Biden approved the use of the missiles on targets in Russia in a major change of US policy – two months before he is due to leave the White House.

It is not clear if his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, was consulted or whether he will stick by the decision, having promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukraine has had US ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) with a range of 300km (190 miles) – as well as French and British Storm Shadow missiles of a similar range – but the Western allies had barred Kyiv from hitting Russia with them.

Biden’s decision to lift that condition is a significant moment in the war, which marks its 1,000th day on Tuesday.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Moscow has now intensified attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure as the sides appear to have reached a stalemate on the battlefield.

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The US decision also follows the arrival in Russia’s western Kursk region – where Ukrainian forces captured and are holding onto a small piece of territory – of more than 10,000 troops from North Korea to help President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Unconfirmed reports say North Korea may send as many as 100,000 soldiers, in addition to artillery and other weapons to its ally.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has indicated there may be no formal announcement of the US deal – “the missiles will speak for themselves,” he said on Sunday.

Ukraine may use the ATACMS in Kursk first – in fact some reports suggest the US may have restricted their use there as a signal to North Korea to stop sending aid to Russia and to Moscow itself.

Biden’s approval of the long-range missiles – which may be followed by similar authorisations by the UK and France – is being seen in the West as a way of signalling to the Russian leader that he cannot win the Ukraine war militarily.

Putin has not commented on the latest move.

In September, the Russian leader said the use of such missiles by Ukraine would represent the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the war.

On Monday, Putin’s spokesman said the US was “adding oil to the fire”.

But Jon Finer, US deputy national security adviser, said Washington had made it “clear to the Russians that we would respond” – both to the presence of North Korean forces and the “major escalation” in Russian aerial attacks on infrastructure across Ukraine.

The weekend saw intense Russian attacks against Ukraine’s power grid, causing large-scale blackouts. Several people were killed or injured.

On Monday, a Russian strike on Odesa killed another 10 people and injured nearly 50.

Donald Trump has not reacted to Biden’s decision so far.

He swept to victory on 5 November and will return to the White House on 20 January.

Trump has promised to end US involvement in foreign wars and use the taxpayers’ money to improve the lives of Americans.

He has also said he will end the Ukraine war within 24 hours, but has not given details how.

Zelensky recently said he expected Trump to exert pressure on Ukraine and Russia to agree a peace deal within the next year.

Biden’s decision was hailed by French President Emmanuel Macron as a “totally good” step.

The US authorisation could potentially enable France and the UK to grant Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia. Storm Shadow is a Franco-British long-range cruise missile with similar capabilities to the ATACMS.

So far, neither Macron nor UK Prime Minister Sir Keir have publicly said whether they will allow Kyiv to use their missiles in the same way.

Meanwhile, China’s Xi Jinping urged world leaders to “cool the Ukraine crisis” and seek a political solution, according to Chinese state media.

China has become a vital partner for Russia, as it seeks to soften the impact of US and European sanctions imposed over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Beijing has repeatedly denied allegations that it supplies Moscow with weapons.

A car has been driven into a crowd of people outside a primary school in China’s Hunan province, with multiple injuries feared.

There are no details of casualties yet but state media said “several students and adults were injured and fell to the ground”.

Several people have been sent to hospital.

The driver of the vehicle – identified as a white SUV – was caught by parents and school security officers and handed over to police.

Mr Zhu, a parent of one of the children at the school, told the BBC that he had dropped his eight-year-old at the school and was leaving when he heard a disturbance outside the school premises.

“Six or seven parents had forced the car of the person who hit others to stop. Even the security guard was knocked down. The guard is quite old, in his seventies or eighties, and couldn’t do much,” he said.

“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously, but luckily the ambulance came very quickly.”

Video from the scene posted on a private WeChat account showed some children lying on the ground, while panicked students carrying school bags flee the scene.

The school has been identified as the Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District in China’s southern Hunan province.

Another video filmed soon after the incident showed an angry pedestrian hitting the SUV with a snow shovel while the driver is still inside.

The driver gets out of the other side of the vehicle and is then seized by bystanders who start beating him with sticks.

The driver is now in police custody.

This is the third seemingly random attack on crowds in China in a week.

At least 35 people were killed in a car attack in southern China on 12 November, and eight people were killed in a stabbing at a school in eastern China over the weekend.

On social media, there have been discussions about the social phenomenon of “taking revenge on society“, where individuals act on personal grievances by attacking strangers.

A convoy of 109 UN aid lorries carrying food was violently looted in Gaza on Saturday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says.

Ninety-seven of the lorries were lost and their drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload their aid after passing through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza, in what is believed to have been one of the worst incidents of its kind.

Eyewitnesses said the convoy was attacked by masked men who threw grenades.

Unrwa commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini did not identify the perpetrators, but he said the “total breakdown of civil order” in Gaza meant it had “become an impossible environment to operate in”.

Without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen for the two million people depending on humanitarian aid to survive, according to Unrwa.

A UN-backed assessment warned earlier this month that there was “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip”.

It came after Israeli forces launched a major ground offensive in the north and the UN said fewer aid lorries had entered Gaza last month than at any time since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023.

Saturday’s looting was first reported by Reuters news agency, which cited an Unrwa official in Gaza as saying that the convoy was instructed by Israeli authorities to “depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route” from Kerem Shalom.

Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry said its security staff killed “more than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks” in an operation carried out in cooperation with “tribal committees”, a network of traditional family clans.

Lazzarini said he could not comment on the route when asked at a news conference in Geneva on Monday, but he confirmed the looting and said: “We have been warning a long time ago about the total breakdown of civil order.”

“Until four or five months ago, we still had local capacity, people who were escorting the convoy. This has completely gone, which means we are in an environment where local gangs, local families, are struggling among each other to take control of any business or any activities taking place in the south. It has become an impossible environment to operate in.”

He added that hundreds of people desperate for food had tried to storm the Unrwa-run vocational centre in the southern city of Khan Younis because they thought the aid had been delivered there.

“But the convoys were looted and there was absolutely nothing to take from the warehouses.”

Unrwa put out a separate statement on X that accused Israeli authorities of continuing to “disregard their legal obligations under international law to ensure the population’s basic needs are met and to facilitate the safe delivery of aid”.

“Such responsibilities continue when trucks enter the Gaza Strip, until people are reached with essential assistance.”

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Earlier, the Israeli military body responsible for humanitarian affairs in the Gaza Strip, Cogat, said on X: “With the challenges the UN aid organisations experience in distributing aid, we are working together on various measures that will facilitate the transfer of aid from the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gazans in need.”

“For months now, aid has been piling up on the Gazan side, after Israeli inspection, waiting for collection and distribution, and we’ve been taking many measures to assist with the pick-up of aid,” it added.

Israel has previously insisted there are no limits to the amount of aid that can be delivered into and across Gaza, and accused Hamas of stealing aid, which the group has denied.

Last week, a group of 29 non-governmental organisations said in a report that the looting of aid convoys was “a consequence of Israel’s targeting of the remaining police forces in Gaza, scarcity of essential goods, lack of routes and closure of most crossing points, and the subsequent desperation of the population amid these dire conditions”.

They cited media reports as saying that “many incidents are taking place close by or in full view of Israeli forces, without them intervening, even when truck drivers asked for assistance”.

Also on Monday, Palestinian authorities said Israeli strikes had killed more than 30 people across Gaza.

At least 17 were reportedly killed when a house was hit near Kamal Adwan hospital in the Beit Lahia Project, in northern Gaza.

The director of Gaza’s health ministry cited Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, as saying that the dead were members of the family of one of the hospital’s medics, Dr Hani Badran. A video purportedly showed Dr Badran being comforted on a ward.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency meanwhile said its first responders had recovered the bodies of seven people from a home that was struck in the north-west of Gaza City.

Another four people, including two children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent inside the Israeli-designated al-Mawasi humanitarian area, in southern Gaza, it added.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 43,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

More than 35,000 people have protested outside New Zealand’s parliament against a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding document between British colonisers and Māori people.

The demonstration marked the end of a nine-day hīkoi, or peaceful protest, that had made its way through the country.

The hīkoi swelled dramatically on Tuesday as participants, many draped in colours of the Māori flag, marched through the capital Wellington.

It brought together activists and supporters who opposed the bill, which was introduced by a junior member of the governing coalition.

The bill, introduced by the Act political party, argues that New Zealand should reinterpret and legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a document that is seen as fundamental to the country’s race relations.

The party’s leader, David Seymour, says that over time the treaty’s core values have led to racial divisions, not unity.

“My Treaty Principles Bill says that I, like everybody else, whether their ancestors came here a thousand years ago, like some of mine did, or just got off the plane at Auckland International Airport this morning to begin their journey as New Zealanders, have the same basic rights and dignity,” says Seymour, who has Māori ancestry.

“Your starting point is to take a human being and ask, what’s your ancestry? What kind of human are you? That used to be called prejudice. It used to be called bigotry. It used to be called profiling and discrimination. Now you’re trying to make a virtue of it. I think that’s a big mistake.”

The proposed bill was met with fierce opposition, leading to one of the biggest protest marches New Zealand has ever seen.

Wellington’s rail network saw what might have been its busiest morning ever as the hīkoi poured through the capital, according to the city’s transport chair Thomas Nash.

The Māori Queen Ngā Wai hono i te pō led the delegation into the grounds surrounding the Beehive, New Zealand’s parliament house, as thousands followed behind.

Meanwhile, inside the Beehive, MPs discussed the bill.

Among them was Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who said it would not pass into law – despite him being part of the same coalition as Act.

“Our position as the National Party is unchanged. We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law,” Luxon said, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“We don’t think through the stroke of a pen you go rewrite 184 years of debate and discussion.”

New Zealand is often considered a world leader when it comes to supporting indigenous rights – but under Luxon’s centre-right government, many fear those rights are now at risk.

“They are trying to take our rights away,” said Stan Lingman, who has both Māori and Swedish ancestry. “[The hikoi is] for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, pink, blue. We will fight against this bill.”

Stan’s wife Pamela said she was marching for her “mokos”, which means grandchildren in the Māori language.

Some New Zealanders feel the march has gone too far.

“They [Māori] seem to want more and more and more,” said Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the coastal suburbs north of Wellington. “There’s a whole cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities now. We are all New Zealanders. I think we should work together and have equal rights.”

Equality, though, is still a way off, according to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (Maori Party).

“We can’t live equally if we have one people who are the indigenous people living ‘less than’,” she argued. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to divide an otherwise progressive country and it’s really embarrassing”.

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt last week by MPs performing a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. Footage of the incident went viral.

“To see it in parliament, in the highest house in Aotearoa, there’s been a real state of surprise and I think disappointment and sadness that in 2024 when we see politics and the Trump extremes, this is what the Māori are having to endure,” said Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we [New Zealand] are normally seen as punching above our weight in all of the great things in life.”

Protest organisers on Monday taught participants the words and moves of the rally’s haka, the subject of which is Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Waitangi Treaty). Those in the audience enthusiastically repeated the lyrics written on a large white sheet, trying to soak in as many words as possible ahead of the rally.

“This isn’t just any normal hīkoi – this is the hīkoi of everybody,” said grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they’ve called on non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and the wider population in New Zealand to support them.

This was the fourth hīkoi Rose had been on. She comes from New Zealand’s northernmost settlement, Te Hāpua, right above Auckland. It’s the same village that the most famous hīkoi started from, back in 1975, protesting over land rights.

This time, she brought her children and grandchildren.

“This is our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just one person or one party – and to alter [it] is wrong.”

Germany and Finland say they are “deeply concerned” after an undersea cable linking the countries was severed.

The rupture of the 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable – which is being investigated – comes at a time of heightened tension with Russia.

The two countries’ foreign ministers said in a joint statement: “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.”

Damage to pipelines in the Baltic Sea has raised fears of sabotage in recent years.

In October 2023 a natural gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged. Finnish officials later said the incident had been caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor.

And German prosecutors are still investigating the explosion of Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022.

There have been conspiracy theories around that attack, with unconfirmed rumours that either the Ukrainian, Russian or US government was behind it.

The latest incident involves a C-Lion1 fibreoptic cable linking the Finnish capital, Helsinki and the German city of Rostock.

Finnish network operator Cinia said all fibre connections in it had been cut.

“These kinds of breaks don’t happen in these waters without an outside impact,” a Cinia spokesperson told local media.

Samuli Bergstrom, a Finnish government cybersecurity expert, said the failure had not affected internet traffic between the two countries as other cable routes were available.

President-elect Donald Trump has confirmed on his social media network that he plans to use the US military to carry out a mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

On Monday, he posted “TRUE!!!” in response to a conservative commentator who wrote that Trump would declare a national emergency and use military assets to lead “a mass deportation program”.

At campaign events, Trump repeatedly pledged to mobilise the National Guard to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency tasked with carrying out deportations.

Trump’s latest comment comes as questions grow about how he would fulfil his pledge to execute the largest mass deportation in US history.

He has repeatedly said he would begin deportations on his first day in office, which will be 20 January 2025.

But even if a US administration was able to legally move ahead with these plans, authorities would still have to contend with enormous logistical challenges.

For example, experts are doubtful that ICE’s 20,000 agents and support personnel would be enough to find and track down millions of undocumented migrants.

There would also be a major financial cost, but Trump recently told NBC News that this would not deter his administration’s efforts.

Trump’s post was made on his Truth Social network early on Monday as he continues to announce his nominations for key posts in his administration.

Trump has already chosen several loyal allies for top roles overseeing immigration and deportation policy, including Kristi Noem who has been nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security, and former ICE chief Tom Homan who Trump has named his “border tsar”.

Trump’s team have so far released few details about how the plan will be executed.

He has previously said that he plans to declare a national emergency, which would authorise him to deploy troops on US soil.

Homan told Fox News on Monday that he will visit Trump’s Florida home this week “to put the final touches on the plan”, including deciding what role the US Department of Defense (DOD) will have.

“Can DOD assist? Because DOD can take a lot off our plate,” he said, saying that the pace of deportations will depend on the resources agencies are given.

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued ICE for more details on how the deportation plan will work. The group plans to continue to file legal challenges in an effort to block the mass deportation.

Under the four years of the previous Trump administration, around 1.5 million people were deported, both from the border and the US interior.

The Biden administration – which had deported about 1.1 million people up to February 2024 – is on track to match that, statistics show.

When rumours first emerged in October that North Korean troops were about to start supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, it wasn’t immediately clear what role they would be fulfilling.

Their lack of battlefield experience was given as a key reason why they might just be assigned to non-combat roles.

But after the US and Ukraine revealed North Korean troops have already engaged in combat with Ukrainian soldiers, their role in the fight is being re-evaluated.

Even the number being deployed – originally put at around 11,000 by the Pentagon – has been debated. According to Bloomberg, unnamed sources believe Pyongyang may actually deploy as many as 100,000 troops.

Accurate information is difficult to come by, however, as Moscow and Pyongyang have not responded directly to any of these reports.

So what do we know about the presence of North Korean troops in Russia?

In short, it is hard to say.

The secretive kingdom may have one of the world’s largest militaries, with 1.28 million active soldiers, but – unlike Russia’s military – the Korean People’s Army (KPA) has no recent experience of combat operations.

Mark Cancian, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), believes Pyongyang’s army is “thoroughly indoctrinated but with low readiness”.

However, he says, they should not be presumed to be cannon fodder – adding such a characterisation is “Ukrainian bravado”.

Ukrainian and South Korean intelligence services have said that many of the troops deployed to Russia are some of Pyongyang’s best, drawn from the 11th Corps, also known as the Storm Corps – a unit trained in infiltration, infrastructure sabotage and assassinations.

These soldiers are “trained to withstand a high degree of physical pain and psychological torture”, says Michael Madden, a North Korea expert from the Stimson Center in Washington.

“What they lack in combat they make up for with what they can tolerate physically and mentally,” he adds.

Mr Cancian agrees that “if these are special operations forces, they will be much better prepared than the average North Korean unit”.

“Further, the Russians appear to be giving them additional training, likely on the special circumstances of the war in Ukraine,” he adds.

This appears to be backed up by the appearance of videos on social media showing men believed to be North Koreans in Russian uniforms, at what appear to be military training facilities in Russia.

And as the war in Ukraine creeps towards its third year, these North Korean troops may be among “the best capable” among the troops available to Russia, says Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean army lieutenant-general.

Moscow has been recruiting at least 20,000 new soldiers a month to help bolster its war effort, with more than 1,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded on average daily, according to Nato and military officials in the West.

“[Russia] has been sending troops to the front without proper training. Compared to such recruits, North Koreans are trained and motivated. They are not combat-tested currently, but that soon will not be the case,” Lt-Gen (retd) Chun said.

Still, some experts believe the obvious language barrier and unfamiliarity with Russian systems would complicate any fighting roles, suggesting instead that Pyongyang’s troops would be tapped for their engineering and construction capabilities.

Given these disadvantages, what is in this deal for the two countries?

Observers say Moscow needs manpower, while Pyongyang needs money and technology.

“For North Korea, [such deployments are] a good way to earn money,” says Andrei Lankov, director of the Korea Risk Group.

South Korean intelligence puts this at $2,000 (£1,585) per soldier per month, with most of this money expected to end up in the state’s coffers.

Pyongyang could also gain access to Russian military technology, which Moscow would otherwise have been reluctant to transfer, Mr Lankov adds.

Moscow’s manpower problems have been widely reported, with the US estimating that some 600,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order – for the third time since the war started – to expand his army.

It has also pursued personnel strategies that “minimise domestic political impact”, such as offering bonuses to recruits who volunteer and enlisting foreigners with the promise of citizenship, says Mr Cancian from CSIS.

“With Russia reportedly suffering over 1,000 casualties on the battlefield, reducing its own losses could alleviate some pressure on the Putin regime,” agrees Lami Kim, a professor of Security Studies at the Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

These developments, coming at a time when tensions within the Korean peninsula have spiralled to their highest in years, are worrying Seoul.

In October, the North blew up sections of two roads that connected it to South Korea, days after accusing Seoul of flying drones into the North’s capital Pyongyang.

That came after the two countries engaged in a tit-for-tat balloon campaign, flying thousands of trash and propaganda balloons towards each other’s territories. The Koreas have also suspended a pact aimed at lowering military tensions between them, shortly after North Korea said that the South was now “enemy number one”.

So it makes sense that South Korea would be uneasy about the North acquiring new military prowess amid these tensions. After all, troops in South Korea have also not fought in another major conflict since the Korean War.

According to Mr Madden and Mr Cancian, it is thought the North Korean troops are being employed around the embattled Kursk border region, which Moscow has been trying to recapture from Ukraine.

The South fears that “its adversary could boast more hostile capabilities” as a result of the experience its soldiers would get on the battlefield, says Lt-Gen (retd) Chun.

While South Korea has long accused the North of supplying weapons to Russia, it says the current situation has gone beyond the transfer of military materials.

It has also expressed “grave concern” over a pact between Pyongyang and Moscow, which pledges that the two counties will help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has reiterated – at least three times in the past two months – that the South would consider aiding Ukraine “for defensive purposes”. If this happens, it would mark a shift from the South’s longstanding policy of not supplying weapons to countries engaged in active conflict.

President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the US has sparked a furious response in Russia.

“Departing US president Joe Biden… has taken one of the most provocative, uncalculated decisions of his administration, which risks catastrophic consequences,” declared the website of the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday morning.

Russian MP Leonid Slutsky, head of the pro-Kremlin Liberal-Democratic Party, predicted that the decision would “inevitably lead to a serious escalation, threatening serious consequences”.

Russian senator Vladimir Dzhabarov called it “an unprecedented step towards World War Three”.

Anger, yes. But no real surprise.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, called it “a predictable escalation”.

What really counts, though, is what Vladimir Putin calls it and how the Kremlin leader responds.

So far he’s stayed silent.

But on Monday President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that “if such a decision has been taken it means a whole new spiral of tension and a whole new situation with regard to US involvement in this conflict”.

Mr Peskov accused the Biden administration of “adding fuel to the fire and continuing to stoke tension around this conflict”.

• Follow live: Biden allows Ukraine to strike inside Russia with US missiles

Western leaders would argue that it’s Russia that is ‘adding the fuel’ by recently deploying North Korean troops to the war zone to fight alongside Russian forces and by continuing to attack Ukraine.

President Putin himself may have yet to comment. But Russia’s president has said plenty before.

In recent months, the Kremlin has made its message to the West crystal clear: do not do this, do not remove restrictions on the use of your long-range weapons, do not allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with these missiles.

In September President Putin warned that if this were allowed to happen, Moscow would view it as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the Ukraine war.

“This would mean that Nato countries… are fighting with Russia,” he continued.

The following month, the Kremlin leader announced imminent changes to the Russian nuclear doctrine, the document setting out the preconditions under which Moscow might decide to use a nuclear weapon.

This was widely interpreted as another less-than-subtle hint to America and Europe not to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles.

Guessing Vladimir Putin’s next moves is never easy.

But he has dropped hints.

Back in June, at a meeting with the heads of international news agencies, Putin was asked: how would Russia react if Ukraine was given the opportunity to hit targets on Russian territory with weapons supplied by Europe?

“First, we will, of course, improve our air defence systems. We will be destroying their missiles,” President Putin replied.

“Second, we believe that if someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why can’t we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia?”

In other words, arming Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad is something Moscow has been considering.

In my recent interview with Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, Putin’s close ally seemed to confirm the Kremlin has been thinking along these lines.

Mr Lukashenko told me he had discussed the subject at a recent meeting with Western officials.

“I warned them. ‘Guys, be careful with those long-range missiles,'” Mr Lukashenko told me.

“The Houthi [rebels] might come to Putin and ask for coastal weapons systems that can carry out terrifying strikes on ships.

“And if he gets his revenge on you for supplying long-range weapons to [President] Zelensky by supplying the Houthis with the Bastion missile system? What happens if an aircraft carrier is hit? A British or American one. What then?”

• How long-range missiles striking Russia could affect Ukraine war

But some of the media reaction in Russia appeared designed to play things down.

“The Russian armed forces had already [previously] intercepted ATACMS missiles during attacks on the Crimean shore,” a military expert told the Izvestia newspaper, which went on to suggest that President-elect Trump might “revise” the decision.

This is, to put it mildly, an unusual situation.

In two months’ time, President Biden will be out of office and Donald Trump will be in the White House.

The Kremlin knows that President-elect Trump has been far more sceptical than President Biden about military assistance for Ukraine.

Will that be a factor in Vladimir Putin’s calculations as he formulates Russia’s response?