A federal judge has dismissed a major case against Donald Trump that alleged he illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who brought the criminal case against Trump, had asked to have the charges dropped, citing a Justice Department policy that bans the prosecution of a sitting president.

Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the case “without prejudice”, meaning the charges could be refiled after Trump finishes his second term.

Smith has also asked to have his case charging Trump with improperly storing classified documents dismissed. Trump had pleaded not guilty in both cases.

“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President,” Smith wrote in a filing in the election case.

“This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant,” Smith added in the six-page filing.

After leaving office, Trump crossed into unprecedented legal territory for a former president, becoming the first to face a criminal trial and later conviction, in a case tied to a payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

At the beginning of the year, he faced nearly 100 criminal charges connected to the two federal cases and others. Then, the Supreme Court ruled this summer that he could not be prosecuted for “official acts” taken as president, and Trump went on to win the election a few months later. Now almost all those charges have been dropped, with a Georgia state prosecution currently on pause.

Smith’s request in the documents case, also seeking a dismissal “without prejudice”, must also be approved by a judge,

Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social that the federal cases were “empty and lawless, and should never have been brought”.

“It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds,” he wrote.

Vice-President-elect JD Vance said the prosecutions were “always political”.

“If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” he wrote on social media.

Trump had pledged to get rid of Smith as soon as he took office. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in 2022 to take over the two federal investigations into Trump’s conduct. Smith has reportedly said he plans to step down next year.

The request to dismiss Trump’s election subversion case marks an end to a lengthy legal saga.

Smith had to refile the election-subversion charges against the former president based on the Supreme Court ruling that Trump was immune from some prosecution.

The special counsel had argued in a revised indictment that Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were related to his campaign and therefore not official acts.

The Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit was also weighing an appeal from Smith to carry on with the classified documents case, in which Trump was accused of storing dozens of sensitive files in his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. Trump-appointee Judge Aileen Cannon initially dismissed it because she ruled Smith was improperly appointed to lead the case.

When Trump won the 2024 election this month, Smith began to take steps to wind down both cases, though he said in the Monday filing that the documents appeal would continue for two other defendants in the classified documents case, Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

Trump’s return to the White House left several state-level criminal cases against him in limbo, too.

His sentencing for his criminal conviction in the state of New York has been indefinitely delayed.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, where Trump also faces election subversion charges, an appeals court is considering whether to overturn a previous ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the case despite a relationship she had with a prosecutor she hired.

Since Trump won the 2024 presidency, “his criminal problems go away”, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.

“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted,” he said.

The Israeli cabinet will meet to discuss approval of a ceasefire to temporarily end hostilities with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

The proposed truce would reportedly be for an initial period of 60 days and include the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, according to media reports.

In return, Hezbollah would end its presence south of the Litani River, about 30km (18 miles) north of the international border, and be replaced by Lebanese Army troops.

Even as diplomats suggested on Monday that a deal was close, fierce fighting continued, with Lebanese authorities reporting at least 31 killed in Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon and Hezbollah firing barrages of rockets at Israel.

Ministers are expected to vote on the deal during the meeting on Tuesday, according to Haaretz. Reuters news agency cited a senior Israeli official as saying the meeting was intended to approve the agreement’s text.

The news agency also reported four senior Lebanese sources as saying the US and France – a long-term ally of Lebanon – were expected to announce a ceasefire imminently.

According to Israel’s Channel 12, the possible deal includes:

• A mutual ceasefire
• An IDF presence in Lebanon for up to 60 days
• The Lebanese Army replacing the IDF as it withdraws
• No Israeli-occupied buffer zone in southern Lebanon
• The US heading the five-country committee set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire
• The Lebanese government overseeing arms purchases and production in the country

In addition, the US would issue a letter recognising Israel’s right to attack Lebanon if Hezbollah is perceived to be in violation of the agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to have agreed to the deal “in principle”. The Lebanese deputy speaker of parliament, Elias Bou Saab, told Reuters that there were now “no serious obstacles” to a ceasefire “unless Netanyahu changes his mind”.

The French presidency said on Monday evening negotiations had “significantly advanced” and urged Israel and Hezbollah to “quickly seize this opportunity”.

“We believe we’ve reached this point where we’re close,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. But he added: “We’re not there yet.”

But Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, spoke out against a ceasefire.

He said Israel should press on with the war until “absolute victory”, and, addressing Netanyahu on X, said: “It is not too late to stop this agreement!”

Lebanese authorities have said any ceasefire deal should be limited to the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The resolution includes the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s fighters and weapons in areas between the Blue Line – the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani river, about 30km (18 miles) from the boundary with Israel.

Israel says that was never fully respected, while Lebanon says Israeli violations included military flights over Lebanese territory.

Though negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be bearing fruit, parallel talks to end the war in Gaza have been deadlocked for months. This month, Qatar withdrew from its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group Israel is fighting in Gaza.

The war in Lebanon began on 8 October last year when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in support of the deadly Hamas attack a day earlier.

Israel’s stated goal is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in northern Israel because of Hezbollah attacks.

In September, Israel launched a major escalation of the war against the militia, destroying much of its infrastructure and weapons, and killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior figures.

In Lebanon, more than 3,750 people have been killed and at least 15,600 injured since October 2023, according to Lebanese authorities, with more than one million forced from their homes.

Egyptian authorities say 16 people are missing, including foreigners, and 28 have been rescued after a tourist boat sank in the Red Sea.

Two of those missing are British, the BBC understands. Finland has confirmed one of their nationals is unaccounted for, while authorities say four Egyptians are also missing.

The boat with 44 people on board – including 13 crew – sent a distress signal at 05:30 (03:30 GMT), according to the governor of Red Sea province.

Authorities have not indicated the possible cause of the incident, but added accounts of people onboard mentioned a wave hit the boat and caused it to capsize. Weather forecasters had warned against marine activities for Sunday and Monday.

The Sea Story left port near Marsa Alam on Sunday for a five-day diving trip, according to officials.

Red Sea Governor Maj-Gen Amr Hanafi said the survivors were found in the Wadi el-Gemal area, south of Marsa Alam, and that they were receiving the necessary medical care.

He added the Egyptian Navy warship El Fateh and military aircraft were intensifying their efforts to locate the missing, with rescue teams working around the clock.

On Saturday, the Egyptian Meteorological Authority forecast turbulence on the Mediterranean and Red Seas due to the weather.

Wind speeds were between 37-43 mph (60-70 km/h), and wave heights were three to four metres (10-13ft) high, they said.

According to the local council in Marsa Alam, the crew of the Sea Story are all Egyptians and the tourists on board included five Spanish, four British, four Germans and two US nationals.

It is unclear who is among the rescued and who is still missing, but the Red Sea governorate’s latest report said four Egyptians remained unaccounted for.

The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP news agency that one of its nationals is also among the missing.

A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said they were in contact with the authorities, and were providing “support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt”.

The Chinese embassy in Egypt confirmed two of its nationals were “in good health” after being rescued, according to their state media, as reported by AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski, told state-run Polish news agency PAP that authorities had information that two Polish citizens may have been aboard the boat.

Earlier reports from Egyptian authorities said there had been 45 people on the Sea Story when it sank – 14 crew and 31 tourists.

Marsa Alam is a popular destination for tourists on Egypt’s southern Red Sea coast and is surrounded by diving spots, including renowned coral reefs.

The Red Sea governorate said the boat was owned by an Egyptian national, and had received a one-year validity certificate in March 2024 when it was inspected by maritime safety.

Hanafi said there were no technical faults at the time of the incident, adding that reports from survivors said the boat capsized after being hit by a large wave, all of which took five to seven minutes.

He also visited Marsa Alam to see the people rescued, and said they were all in good health, and no-one had needed admission to hospital. The passengers are being received in a tourist hotel in the area, he added.

There was no immediate comment from Sea Story’s Egypt-based owner and operator, Dive Pro Liveaboard.

But its website says the vessel was built in 2022 and is 44m (144ft) long. It has four decks and 18 cabins that can accommodate up to 36 passengers.

Last year, three Britons died off the coast of Marsa Alam after their dive boat caught fire.

At least one policeman has been killed and more than 50 injured, Pakistan’s authorities say, as officials try to stop thousands of opposition protesters reaching Islamabad.

Scores of supporters of jailed former PM Imran Khan have been arrested and the capital is under lockdown for a second day.

Khan has been detained for more than a year on various charges, but remains hugely popular despite his legal troubles.

His wife, Bushra Bibi, told supporters on Monday the march would continue until her husband was freed.

Roads to D Chowk – a key point in central Islamabad near government buildings, the Supreme Court and parliament – remain blocked with shipping containers to keep protesters at bay. The streets are lined with coaches that have carried police from around the country to the capital.

Paramilitaries in riot gear are lined up, water cannon ready, but on Monday the atmosphere was calm as protesters were yet to reach the city.

As news circulated that the protesters were on the move, the police began to close more streets and move some of their officers around the city.

Some internet services have been suspended. Schools and colleges have been shut because of fears of violence.

Imran Khan’s party has been protesting for months. The latest rally came after he issued a “final call” to his supporters, urging them to stay in the capital until their demands were met.

They are also calling for the overturning of election results they say were rigged – a claim disputed by the government.

The march, which began on Sunday, has seen police using tear gas against protesters, who have responded by pelting officers with stones.

Police told the BBC on Monday that 139 people had been arrested.

Khan’s wife is one of the leaders of the main convoy.

“Until Khan comes to us, we will not end this march,” Bushra Bibi told crowds as the rally neared the capital.

“I will stand till my last breath and you have to support me. This is not just about my husband but about this country and its leader,” she said.

Bushra Bibi was sentenced alongside Khan in January, but released on bail in late October.

Although Khan has now been behind bars for more than a year, he is still the dominant force of Pakistan’s opposition politics.

He was voted out of power by parliament in 2022 amid reports that he had fallen out with the country’s powerful military.

He denies all the charges against him, which range from corruption to instigating violence to getting married to Bushra Bibi illegally.

In February’s general election, his party was banned from standing. Independent candidates backed by the PTI unexpectedly won the most seats – but not enough to form a government.

Khan accused the two parties now in government – the PML-N and PPP – of stealing the election. The authorities deny accusations of vote tampering.

On the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Anton says the nuclear weapons base he was serving at was put on full combat alert.

“Before that, we had only exercises. But on the day the war started, the weapons were fully in place,” says the former officer in the Russian nuclear forces. “We were ready to launch the forces into the sea and air and, in theory, carry out a nuclear strike.”

I met Anton in a secret location outside Russia. For his own protection, the BBC will not reveal where. We have also changed his name and are not showing his face.

Anton was an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility in Russia.

He has shown us documents confirming his unit, rank and base.

The BBC is unable to independently verify all the events he described, although they do chime with Russian statements at the time.

Three days after troops poured over Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces had been ordered into a “special mode of combat service”.

Anton says that combat alert was in place on day one of the war and claims his unit was “shut inside the base”.

“All we had was Russian state TV,” says the former officer, “I didn’t really know what it all meant. I automatically carried out my duties. We weren’t fighting in the war, we were just guarding the nuclear weapons.”

The state of alert was cancelled, he adds, after two to three weeks.

Anton’s testimony offers an insight into the top-secret inner workings of the nuclear forces in Russia. It is extremely rare for service members to talk to journalists.

“There is a very strict selection process there. Everyone is a professional soldier – no conscripts,” he explains.

“There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone. The pay is much higher, and the troops aren’t sent to war. They’re there to either repel, or carry out, a nuclear strike.”

The former officer says life was tightly controlled.

“It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn’t take any phones on to the nuclear base,” he explains.

“It’s a closed society, there are no strangers there. If you want your parents to visit, you need to submit a request to the FSB Security Service three months in advance.”

Anton was part of the base’s security unit – a rapid-reaction force that guarded the nuclear weapons.

“We had constant training exercises. Our reaction time was two minutes,” he says, with a hint of pride.

Russia has around 4,380 operational nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, but only 1,700 are “deployed” or ready for use. All the Nato member states combined possess a similar number.

There are also concerns about whether Putin could choose to deploy “non-strategic”, often called tactical, nuclear weapons. These are smaller missiles that generally don’t cause widespread radioactive fallout.

Their use would nevertheless lead to a dangerous escalation in the war.

The Kremlin has been doing all it can to test the West’s nerves.

Only last week Putin ratified changes to the nuclear doctrine – the official rules dictating how and when Russia can launch nuclear weapons.

The doctrine now says Russia can launch if it comes under “massive attack” from conventional missiles by a non-nuclear state but “with the participation or support of a nuclear state”.

Russian officials say the updated doctrine “effectively eliminates” the possibility of its defeat on the battlefield.

But is Russia’s nuclear arsenal fully functional?

Some Western experts have suggested its weapons mostly date from the Soviet era, and might not even work.

The former nuclear forces officer rejected that opinion as a “very simplified view from so-called experts”.

“There might be some old-fashioned types of weapons in some areas, but the country has an enormous nuclear arsenal, a huge amount of warheads, including constant combat patrol on land, sea and air.”

Russia’s nuclear weapons were fully operational and battle-ready, he maintained. “The work to maintain the nuclear weapons is carried out constantly, it never stops even for one minute.”

Shortly after the full-scale war began, Anton said he was given what he describes as a “criminal order” – to hold lectures with his troops using very specific written guidelines.

“They said that Ukrainian civilians are combatants and should be destroyed!” he exclaims. “That’s a red line for me – it’s a war crime. I said I won’t spread this propaganda.”

Senior officers reprimanded Anton by transferring him to a regular assault brigade in another part of the country. He was told he would be sent to war.

These units are often sent in to battle as the “first wave” and a number of Russian deserters have told the BBC that “troublemakers” who object to the war have been used as “cannon fodder”.

The Russian embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.

Before he could be sent to the front line, Anton signed a statement refusing to take part in the war and a criminal case was opened against him. He showed us documents confirming his transfer to the assault brigade and details of the criminal case.

He then decided to flee the country with the help of a volunteer organisation for deserters.

“If I had run away from the nuclear forces base, then the local FSB Security Service would’ve reacted decisively and I probably wouldn’t have been able to leave the country,” he said.

But he believes that, because he had been transferred to an ordinary assault brigade, the system of top-level security clearance failed.

Anton said he wanted the world to know that many Russian soldiers were against the war.

The volunteer organisation that helps deserters, “Idite Lesom” [‘Go by the Forest’, in English, or ‘Get Lost’] has told the BBC that the number of deserters seeking help has risen to 350 a month.

The risks to those fleeing are growing, too. At least one deserter has been killed after fleeing abroad, and there have been several cases of men being forcibly returned to Russia and put on trial.

Although Anton has left Russia, he says security services are still looking for him there: “I take precautions here, I work off the books and I don’t show up in any official systems.”

He says he has stopped speaking to his friends at the nuclear base because he could put them in danger: “They must take lie-detector tests, and any contact with me could lead to a criminal case.”

But he is under no illusion about the risk he is himself in by helping other soldiers to flee.

“I understand the more I do that, the higher the chances they could try and kill me.”

Donald Trump says he will hit China, Mexico and Canada with new tariffs on day one of his presidency, in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the US.

The president-elect said that immediately after his inauguration on 20 January he will sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada.

He also said an additional 10% tariff will be levied on China until the government there blocks smuggling of the synthetic opioid fentanyl from the country.

The Biden administration has been calling on Beijing to do more to stop the production of ingredients used in fentanyl, which Washington estimates killed almost 75,000 Americans last year.

The tariffs on Mexico and Canada will remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants illegally crossing the border, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem,” he said.

“It is time for them to pay a very big price!”

In a separate post, Trump attacked Beijing for failing to follow through on promises he said Chinese officials made to carry out the death penalty for people caught dealing fentanyl.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the BBC “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality”.

“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” he added.

During his election campaign, Trump threatened Mexico and China with tariffs of up to 100%, if he deemed them necessary, much higher than those he put in place during his first term in office.

Trump has also said he will end China’s most-favoured-nation trading status with the US – the most advantageous terms Washington offers on tariffs and other restrictions.

“It’s clearly consistent with his promise that he made during the campaign to utilise tariffs as a weapon to accomplish many of his policy initiatives,” Stephen Roach, Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School told the BBC’s Business Today programme.

Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously suggested that the president-elect’s threats to impose major tariff hikes were part of his negotiating strategy.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said of Trump in an interview with the Financial Times before he was nominated for the role.

“It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

It comes as the Chinese economy is in a significantly more vulnerable position than it was during the previous Trump presidency.

The country has been struggling with a number of serious issues, including an ongoing property market crisis, weak domestic demand and growing local government debt.

The new tariffs appear to break the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade.

The deal, which Trump signed into law, took effect in 2020. It continued a largely duty-free trading relationship between the three neighbouring countries.

After Trump made his tariff threat, he discussed trade and border security with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to the Reuters news agency.

Mexico’s finance ministry said: “Mexico is the United States’ top trade partner, and the USMCA provides a framework of certainty for national and international investors.”

“When I stepped out of my house, it felt like I was inhaling smoke,” says Imran Ahmed Ali, a lawyer in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh.

Pollution levels in Chandigarh – India’s first planned city, located about 240km (150 miles) from capital Delhi – have been at more than 15 times the safe limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for more than a month.

It is now common for air quality in the city to dip every winter, but Mr Ali says he has never felt so sick before.

A few weeks ago, the 31-year-old began experiencing a dry cough and shortness of breath, which he initially dismissed as symptoms of a seasonal cold. But as the temperature dropped, his chest congestion worsened and he went to a doctor.

“After running several tests, the doctor told me that my symptoms were caused by pollution. I’m now taking medicine twice a day to manage my breathing,” he says.

Mr Ali is among hundreds of millions of people living in northern India who are forced to breathe toxic polluted air for extended periods every winter.

According to Swiss firm IQAir, eight of the 10 most polluted cities in the world last year were located in the Indo-Gangetic plains – a densely populated region which stretches across northern and eastern India, along with parts of Pakistan and Nepal.

A recent report by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago reiterates that the northern plains – home to 540.7 million people across Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal – is the most polluted region in India. When compared with the WHO’s standards, air pollution at current levels could reduce the life expectancy of people here by 5.4 years, it adds.

But as the toxic smog closes in every winter, headlines and attention are mostly focused on Delhi.

Delhi receives significant attention due to its position as the capital of India, says Partha Basu, strategic adviser at the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit group focused on delivering climate solutions.

Every year, the Delhi government implements an annual action plan, which includes measures such as driving restrictions and a ban on construction activities during peak pollution periods.

Even though there is criticism that this isn’t enough, most other places in northern India have not seen such proactive steps.

Mr Basu says that often, people don’t associate other parts of northern India – particularly villages and small towns and cities – with high pollution.

“In [people’s] minds, villages are clean, green and pristine – but that’s far from the reality,” he says.

• Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again

Pollution in the region is not caused by a single factor, but a combination of elements – such as construction activities, vehicular emissions, industrial pollutants and the seasonal burning of crop residue.

While many of these factors are present throughout the year, the difference in the winter months – from October to January – is the weather conditions.

The air quality worsens each winter because cold stagnant air traps pollutants near the ground, making it harder for them to disperse, says Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at weather forecasting company Skymet.

The landlocked geography of the Indo-Gangetic Plain worsens the situation. The region is surrounded by mountains and lacks strong winds, which normally help blow polluted air away.

Doctors and health experts warn of the risks of breathing in these pollutants.

“Patients complain of a burning sensation in their eyes and throat when they step outside. Some face difficulty in breathing,” says Dr Rajesh Gupta, director of the pulmonary department at Fortis Hospital in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh state.

Dr Gupta says that people who are otherwise healthy also develop respiratory troubles this time of the year, and that children and the elderly are especially vulnerable.

The bleak conditions also exact a mental toll. Aditi Garg, who works in Meerut town – about 100km from Delhi – used to cherish the quiet moments on her balcony each morning.

That routine has been disrupted completely.

Since mid-October, pollution levels in Meerut have remained at levels classified as “poor” or “severe”, making it difficult to breathe.

Ms Garg now spends nearly all her time indoors, next to her air purifier, trying to shield herself from the toxic air outside.

“I don’t have an option but to stay inside, this is the best I can do,” she says.

And not everyone has the privilege of staying indoors.

In Uttar Pradesh alone, more than 83 million people are registered as employees in the unorganised sector. The actual number is likely to be much higher.

This includes daily wage workers, street vendors and agricultural labourers who have no choice but to work outdoors, risking their health.

Standing outside his shanty in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur city, Mohammad Salim Siddiqui gasps for breath as he speaks.

An automobile spare parts vendor and the sole breadwinner of his family, Mr Siddiqui has to brave the pollution every day.

“Two members of my family are struggling with respiratory problems because of the pollution,” says Mr Siddiqui, adding that it’s particularly bad in crowded slums.

“We need help,” he says.

Over the years, governments in some states have made efforts to counter the pollution problem.

In 2019, India launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) with an aim to reduce particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5, tiny particles that can enter the lungs and cause diseases) levels by 20-30% by 2026 as compared to 2017 levels.

The goal was later updated to reduce PM10 levels up to 40% by 2026.

Under this programme, 131 Indian cities – including many in the Indo-Gangetic Plains – were to develop tailored plans to address local pollution sources.

While it has helped raise awareness and set goals, experts say stronger action and better coordination between local and state governments are needed to make a real difference.

Mr Basu says that the lack of dialogue remains the biggest barrier against meaningful change.

Both Ms Garg and Mr Ali echo this, saying there is barely any conversation about the toxic air quality in their cities.

“People have unfortunately accepted this as a part of their lives,” says Mr. Ali.

“It’s a discussion they have every year when pollution is at its peak, and then conveniently forget about – until next time.”

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the BBC the gas deals she made with Russia were intended to help German firms and kept the peace with Moscow.

She also insisted the war with Ukraine would have started earlier if she hadn’t blocked Kyiv’s entry into Nato in 2008.

Angela Merkel led Germany for 16 years. She was in office during the financial crisis, the 2015 migrant crisis and, significantly, Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

Was she too soft on Moscow? Too slow to help Kyiv? If she hadn’t blocked Ukraine’s Nato membership in 2008, would there be a war there now?

Speaking to the BBC in Berlin, Mrs Merkel is robust in her defence of her time in office.

She says she believes the war in Ukraine would have started sooner and would likely have been worse, if Kyiv had begun the path to Nato membership in 2008.

“We would have seen military conflict even earlier. It was completely clear to me that President Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join Nato.

“And back then, Ukraine as a country would certainly not have been as prepared as it was in February 2022.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky disagrees.

He describes Mrs Merkel’s Nato decision, backed by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as a clear “miscalculation” that emboldened Russia.

In a rare interview since she stepped down from politics three years ago, Mrs Merkel expresses concern about Vladimir Putin’s renewed threats of using nuclear weapons.

The two leaders got to know each other well over the course of two decades.

“We must do everything possible to prevent the use of nuclear weapons,” the former German Chancellor says.

“Thankfully, China also spoke about this a while back. We shouldn’t be paralysed by fear, but we must also acknowledge that Russia is the biggest, or alongside the US, one of the two biggest nuclear powers in the world.

“The potential is frightening.”

Despite enjoying high popularity ratings during most of her time in office, Mrs Merkel now finds herself on the defensive.

She has just published her memoir, Freedom. And the timing is interesting.

She says she did everything in her power to ensure peaceful means of co-operation with Russia.

In fact, Mr Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine just months after she left office.

This prompted a thorough re-examination in Europe of energy policies, diplomacy with Russia and also migration policies that had become the norm under Mrs Merkel.

At the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, she was, as former Italian premier Matteo Renzi says, the de-facto leader of Europe – “the boss of the European Union”.

“Do you remember when [former US Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger used to say ‘what is the telephone number of Europe?’,” he says. “My answer was: clearly, the mobile number of Angela Merkel.”

He adds that when judging the Merkel legacy – over Russia and otherwise – it is important to remember the norms of the time.

“One cannot attack Angela for the relations with Russia,” he says.

“In 2005, 2006 [they] were a goal of everyone in Europe, not only a goal of Angela Merkel.”

Under Mrs Merkel, Germany and its energy-hungry big industries became dependent on Moscow. Germany built two gas pipelines directly linked to Russia.

President Zelensky described that cheap gas as a geopolitical tool of the Kremlin.

Mrs Merkel tells the BBC she had two motives with the pipelines: German business interests but also maintaining peaceful links with Russia.

Fellow EU and Nato members in eastern Europe strongly disagreed with her.

The Polish MP, Radoslaw Fogiel, said German gas money filled Russia’s war chest – used to fund the invasion of Ukraine.

Mrs Merkel insists she tried to curb Russian attacks on Ukraine using diplomacy and negotiations, which – she admits – ultimately failed.

And German industry has been disproportionately hit by sanctions on Russian energy. Forced to look for other suppliers, the country is now buying expensive LNG. Businesses says they are crippled by the costs.

A new era in Europe’s relations with Russia “regrettably” began following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, says Mrs Merkel.

On Monday, defence ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Italy are meeting to discuss the deteriorating situation on Ukraine’s frontlines.

Ms Merkel, 70, now finds herself having to defend her legacy in other areas too.

The migration crisis of 2015, when she famously opened Germany’s doors to over a million asylum seekers, was perhaps the defining moment of her time in office.

It was hated by some, hailed by others.

US President Barack Obama praised her as a courageous and moral leader.

But critics blamed her for breathing life into the then almost redundant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

It is now polling comfortably in second place in German public opinion polls, ahead of a snap general election early next year.

The AfD’s main political rallying cry: a strong anti-migrant message.

Angela Merkel admits the AfD made big gains, but she makes no apology for her political decisions.

As for suggestions that her 2015 policies helped fuel anti-immigration and far-right parties elsewhere too, including the Netherlands, Poland and France, after she tried to impose migrant quotas across EU countries, Mrs Merkel says she can’t be held responsible for all of Europe.

The only way to combat the far right is to stop illegal migration, she says.

She calls on Europe’s leaders to invest more in African nations to improve standards of living there, so fewer people will be tempted to leave their homes.

But with Europe’s economies sluggish, and voters worried about the cost of living, governments say there is little cash to spare.

Angela Merkel appeared to put her country and its economic interests first when it came to buying Russian energy or during the eurozone crisis – when southern EU nations blamed her for squeezing them with austerity measures in order to rescue German banks and businesses.

But even at home in Germany, she is now accused of simply “managing” successive crises and failing to make far-reaching, perhaps painful reforms to future-proof her country and the EU.

Germany is now labelled by some as “the sick man of Europe”.

Once an export powerhouse on the world stage, its economy hovers just above recession.

Voters complain she failed to invest in roads, railways and digitalisation, in favour of maintaining a balanced budget.

Under Angela Merkel, Germany not only became reliant on Russia for energy, but on China and the US for trade. Those decisions have not stood the test of time.

Donald Trump threatens punishing tariffs on imports when he returns to the White House in January.

Mrs Merkel does have some thoughts for Europe’s nervous leaders faced with Trump 2.0.

His first term in office was marked by anger at Europe, particularly Germany, over low defence spending and trade deficits. Those gripes with Europe haven’t changed.

What are the Merkel tips for handling him?

“It’s really important to know what your priorities are, to present them clearly and not to be scared, because Donald Trump can be very outspoken,” she says.

“He expresses himself very clearly. And if you do that, there is a certain mutual respect. That was my experience anyway.”

But Europe’s leaders facing the US, China, and Russia, are apprehensive – arguably more so than during Angela Merkel’s time.

Economies are sluggish, voters unhappy, traditional politics under pressure from the far-right and the far-left.

China and Russia are more bullish, the West weaker on the world stage.

Wars burn in the Middle East and in Europe, with Donald Trump appearing less interested in bolstering European security.

Perhaps that’s why Angela Merkel says, these days, when world leaders she knows well call her for advice, she happily responds.

But when I ask if she misses all that power and politics, her swift answer is: “No, not at all.”

BBC iPlayer.

A Malaysian court has ordered the country’s government to return 172 rainbow-coloured watches it seized from watchmaker Swatch last year.

The government said it took the timepieces from the Swiss company because they featured “LGBT elements” – homosexuality is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

However, a court ruled the government did not have a warrant to confiscate the items and a law prohibiting their sale was only passed later, making the seizure unlawful.

Malaysia’s Home Affairs minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government’s legal team will need to “examine the basis of the judgement” before deciding to appeal against the order.

He said the government “must respect the decision, or else it would be viewed as contempt of court”.

He went on to say his ministry may appeal against the ruling but must first “examine the basis of the judgement thoroughly”.

Authorities raided Swatch shops across Malaysia in May 2023, but an order prohibiting sale of the watches was not issued until August 2023.

Therefore, Swatch had not committed an offence at the time of the seizure, the court ruled.

But the prohibition order has not been overturned, so although the watches – worth $14,000 (£10,700) – have been returned they cannot be sold.

The authorities must hand back the items within 14 days, government prosecutor Mohammad Sallehuddin Md Ali told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

Swatch took legal action contesting the seizure in June 2023, arguing the product was “not in any way capable of causing any disruption to public order or morality or any violations of the law”.

Homosexuality is illegal under both secular and religious laws in Malaysia.

Swatch described the Pride flag as a “symbol of humanity that speaks for all genders and races”, but at the time of the confiscation, the Malaysian government claimed the acronym “LGBTQ” could be found on the watches themselves.

The Swiss manufacturer argued the company’s reputation had been damaged and business had suffered after the seizures.

Malaysian authorities claimed the watches “may harm… the interests of the nation by promoting, supporting and normalising the LGBTQ+ movement that is not accepted by the general public”.

The Swatch Group declined to comment.

Amid severe food shortages in Gaza, increasingly violent thefts by criminal gangs are now the main obstacle to distributing supplies in the south, aid workers and locals say.

They allege that armed men operate within plain sight of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a restricted zone by the border.

The BBC has learnt that Hamas – sensing an opportunity to regain its faltering control – has reactivated a special security force to combat theft and banditry.

After gangsters robbed nearly 100 UN lorries, injuring many of the Palestinian drivers, on 16 November – one of the worst single losses of aid during the war – a number of alleged looters were then killed in an ambush.

A notorious Gazan criminal family then blocked the main Salah al-Din Road leading from Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing point for two days last week.

Witnesses said iron barriers were erected and lorries trying to access the aid distribution point were fired at.

“Law and order have broken down in the area around the Kerem Shalom crossing, which remains the main entry point of goods, and gangs are filling the power vacuum,” says Sam Rose, deputy director of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza.

“It’s inevitable after 13 months of intense conflict – things fall apart.”

As the rainy winter weather begins, humanitarian officials say solving the worsening situation is critical to meet the huge, deepening needs of most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – now displaced to the centre and south.

“It is tactical, systematic, criminal looting,” says Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN’s humanitarian office, Ocha, in Gaza.

He says this is leading to “ultra-violence” in all directions – “from the looters towards the truckers, from the IDF towards the police, and from the police towards the looters”.

There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers early this year, citing their role in Hamas governance.

“Hamas’s security control dropped to under 20%,” the former head of Hamas police investigations told the BBC, adding: “We are working on a plan to restore control to 60% within a month.”

Some displaced Gazans in the south welcome the new Hamas efforts against criminal gangs.

“Killing the thieves who stole aid is a step in the right direction,” exclaims one man, Mohammed Abu Jared.

However, others see them as a cynical attempt to take control of lucrative black markets.

“Hamas is killing its competitors in stealing aid,” says Mohammed Diab, an activist in Deir al-Balah. “A big mafia has finished off a small mafia.”

Many see Hamas’s attempts to take a lead against the criminality as the direct consequence of Israels’ failure to agree on a post-war plan in Gaza.

There are currently no alternatives to replace the Islamist movement and armed group which Israeli leaders pledged to destroy after last year’s deadly 7 October attacks.

The chaos comes at a time when aid entering the Palestinian territory has dropped to some of the lowest levels since the start of the war.

While the threat of famine is greatest in besieged parts of the north where Israel is conducting a new, intense military offensive, in the south there are also major shortages of food, medicines and other goods.

“Prices of basic commodities are sky-rocketing – a bag of flour costs more than $200 (£160), a single egg $15 – or else goods are simply not available,” Sam Rose of Unrwa says.

Every day in the past week, Umm Ahmed has stood with her children in a huge queue outside a bakery in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where ultimately some loaves are given out.

“My children are very hungry every day. We can’t afford the basics. It’s constant suffering. No food, no water, no cleaning products, nothing,” she says.

“We don’t want much, just to live a decent life. We need food. We need goods to come in and be distributed fairly. That’s all we’re asking for.”

The US has been pressing for Israel to allow more aid lorries into Gaza.

However, Israeli officials say that the main reason that their goal of 350 a day has not been reached is the inability of the UN and other international aid agencies to bring enough lorries to the crossings.

Aid workers reject that. They are urgently calling for many entry restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities to be lifted, and for more crossing points to be opened and secured so they can collect and distribute supplies.

They say the breakdown in public order needs to be addressed and that Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged to provide protection and security.

The BBC was told that thefts often happen in clear sight of Israeli soldiers or surveillance drones – but that the army fails to intervene.

Stolen goods are apparently being stored outside or in warehouses in areas under Israeli military control.

The IDF did not respond to BBC requests for comment on how it combats organised looting and smuggling. It has previously insisted that it takes countermeasures and works to facilitate the entry of aid.

Early in the war, as food became increasingly scarce, desperate Gazans were sometimes seen stealing from incoming aid lorries.

Soon, cigarette smuggling became a huge business with gangs holding up convoys at gunpoint after they arrived from Egypt’s Rafah crossing and, after this shut in May, Kerem Shalom.

A cigarette packet can sell for exorbitant amounts in Gaza: while a packet of 20 cost about 20 shekels ($5.40) before the war, now a single cigarette can cost 180 shekels ($48.60).

Cigarettes are being found within the frames of wooden aid pallets and inside closed food cans, indicating that there is a regional racket involved in smuggling.

For the past six weeks, the Israeli authorities have banned commercial imports, arguing that these benefit Hamas.

This has added to the decrease in the supply of food, which is in turn driving the rise in armed looting.

Stolen goods, from flour to winter shelters, sent as international donations and meant to be given as free handouts to needy people can only be bought at extortionate prices on Gaza’s black market.

Meanwhile, months’ worth of donated supplies are being held back in Egypt due to hold-ups in aid delivery.

In recent days, local media reports are suggesting that Israel is now studying the option of delivering aid to Gaza by means of a private, armed American security contractor.

While nothing has yet been officially announced, aid workers are worried.

Georgios Petropoulos of Ocha questions which donor countries would want supplies distributed this way.

“How safe is it really going to be?” he asks: “I think it will be a vector for more bloodshed and violence.”

An independent candidate with a nationalist background has stunned Romania and alarmed its allies by coming first in the initial round of the presidential elections on Sunday.

Calin Georgescu is a 62-year-old expert on sustainable development and agriculture, with no party of his own, but a background in the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) nationalist movement.

His programme calls for a radical transformation of Romania, to one based on small-scale organic agriculture, Christian values, and national sovereignty. His programme has similarities to that of Robert F Kennedy Jr in the US – Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary – who has pledged to “make America healthy again”. Some of his videos on TikTok show him bathing in icy water.

Georgescu bases his own expertise on his past work in the Romanian Foreign Ministry, and in a number of think tanks and NGOs linked to the United Nations.

One key to his sudden popularity is his promise to “restore Romania’s dignity” and end subservience to the international organisations it belongs to, including Nato and the EU.

The post of president in Romania is significant, with considerable influence on foreign policy. Romania has been a staunch US ally and Nato member, and hosts US Nato bases which play an important logistical role in monitoring the war in neighbouring Ukraine.

Considerable Western military support for Ukraine passes through Romania, though few details are given due to national security concerns. Georgescu has criticised the US-supplied missile shield at Deveselu as “a diplomatic embarrassment”, and questioned its defensive role – echoing the Kremlin narrative, which describes the base as an example of Nato aggression towards Russia.

“Romania will respect its obligations towards the alliances, organisations and partnerships of which it is a member,” reads point 13 of Georgescu’s campaign programme for this election, “to the extent that they will respect their obligations towards Romania”.

In a TV interview in May 2018, he called Russian President Putin one of the few politicians in the world who is “a true leader”. This has earned him a reputation as a pro-Russian politician, though there is little other evidence. His victory on Sunday was warmly welcomed in several Russian media, including Sputnik, Russia Today and RIA Novosti. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, remarked obliquely that “he had never heard of him”.

Other international comparisons have been made with Hungary’s veteran prime minister, Viktor Orban, whom he is said to admire. The two men could find common ground, in their demand for an end to the war in Ukraine, and the importance of restoring peace in Europe.

Some of his most controversial remarks concern two leaders of the Romanian Iron Guard, a fascist and mystically Christian movement in Romania between 1927 and 1944, whom he described as “heroes”. This led to his expulsion from George Simion’s AUR.

Nevertheless Georgescu denies that his programme is in any way antisemitic or xenophobic.

A key factor in his victory on Sunday was his adept use of social media, especially TikTok, where he has more than 330,000 followers – up from 30,000 a fortnight ago – and more than 4m likes. That translated into over two million votes in this election.

In October, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) sent a chartered flight carrying Indian nationals back home, marking a growing trend in deportations to India.

This was no ordinary flight – it was one of multiple large-scale “removal flights” carried out this year, each typically carrying more than 100 passengers. The flights were returning groups of Indian migrants who “did not establish a legal basis to remain in the US”.

According to US officials, the latest flight carrying adult men and women was routed to Punjab, close to many deportees’ places of origin. No precise breakdown of hometowns was provided.

In the US fiscal year 2024 which ended in September, more than 1,000 Indian nationals had been repatriated by charter and commercial flights, according to Royce Bernstein Murray, assistant secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security.

“That has been part of a steady increase in removals from the US of Indian nationals over the past few years, which corresponds with a general increase in encounters that we have seen with Indian nationals in the last few years as well,” Ms Murray told a media briefing. (Encounters refer to instances where non-citizens are stopped by US authorities while attempting to cross the country’s borders with Mexico or Canada.)

As the US ramps up repatriations of Indian nationals, concerns grow about how President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policies will affect them. Trump has already promised the biggest deportation of migrants in history.

Since October 2020, US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) officials have detained nearly 170,000 Indian migrants attempting unauthorised crossings at both the northern and southern land borders.

“Though smaller than the numbers from Latin America and the Caribbean, Indian nationals represent the largest group of migrants from outside the Western Hemisphere encountered by the CPB in the past four years,” say Gil Guerra and Sneha Puri, immigration analysts at Niskanen Center, a Washington-based think tank.

As of 2022, an estimated 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants were in the US, making them the third-largest group after those from Mexico and El Salvador, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Unauthorised immigrants in all make up 3% of US’s total population and 22% of the foreign-born population.

Looking at the data, Mr Guerra and Ms Puri have identified notable trends in the spike in Indians attempting illegal border crossings.

For one, the migrants are not from the lowest economic strata. But they cannot secure tourist or student visas to the US, often due to lower education or English proficiency.

Instead, they rely on agencies charging up to $100,000 (£79,000), sometimes using long and arduous routes designed to dodge border controls. To afford this, many sell farms or take out loans. Not surprisingly, data from the US immigration courts in 2024 reveals that the majority of Indian migrants were male, aged 18-34.

Second, Canada on the northern border has become a more accessible entry point for Indians, with a visitor visa processing time of 76 days (compared to up to a year for a US visa in India).

The Swanton Sector – covering the states of Vermont and counties in New York and New Hampshire – has experienced a sudden surge in encounters with Indian nationals since early this year, peaking at 2,715 in June, the researchers found.

Earlier, most irregular Indian migrants entered the Americas through the busier southern border with Mexico via El Salvador or Nicaragua, both of which facilitated migration. Until November last year, Indian nationals enjoyed visa-free travel to El Salvador.

“The US-Canada border is also longer and less guarded than the US-Mexico border. And while it is not necessarily safer, criminal groups do not have the same presence there as they do along the route from South and Central America,” Mr Guerra and Ms Puri say.

Thirdly, much of the migration appears to originate from the Sikh-dominated Indian state of Punjab and neighbouring Haryana, which has traditionally seen people migrating overseas. The other source of origin is Gujarat, the home state of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Punjab, which accounts for a large share of irregular Indian migrants, is facing economic hardships, including high unemployment, farming distress and a looming drug crisis.

Migration has also long been common among Punjabis, with rural youth still eager to move abroad.

A recent study of 120 respondents in Punjab by Navjot Kaur, Gaganpreet Kaur and Lavjit Kaur found that 56% emigrated between ages 18-28, often after secondary education. Many funded their move through non-institutional loans, later sending remittances to their families.

Then there has been a rise in tensions over the separatist Khalistan movement, which seeks to establish an independent homeland for Sikhs. “This has caused fear from some Sikhs in India about being unfairly targeted by authorities or politicians. These fears may also provide a credible basis for claims of persecution that allows them to seek asylum, whether or not true,” says Ms Puri.

But pinning down the exact triggers for migration is challenging.

“While motivations vary, economic opportunity remains the primary driver, reinforced by social networks and a sense of pride in having family members ‘settled’ in the US,” says Ms Puri.

Fourth, researchers found a shift in the family demographics of Indian nationals at the borders.

More families are trying to cross the border. In 2021, single adults were overwhelmingly detained at both borders. Now, family units make up 16-18% of the detentions at both borders.

This has sometimes led to tragic consequences. In January 2022, an Indian family of four – part of a group of 11 people from Gujarat – froze to death just 12m (39ft) from the border in Canada while attempting to enter the US.

Pablo Bose, a migration and urban studies scholar at the University of Vermont, says Indians are trying to cross into the US in larger numbers because of more economic opportunities and “more ability to enter the informal economies in the US cities”, especially the large ones like New York or Boston.

“From everything I know and interviews I have conducted, most of the Indians are not staying in the more rural locations like Vermont or upstate New York but rather heading to the cities as soon as they can,” Mr Bose told the BBC. There, he says, they are entering mostly informal jobs like domestic labour and restaurant work.

Things are likely to become more difficult soon. Veteran immigration official Tom Homan, who will be in charge of the country’s borders following Trump’s inauguration in January, has said that the northern border with Canada is a priority because illegal migration in the area is a “huge national security issue”.

What happens next is unclear. “It remains to be seen if Canada would impose similar policies to prevent people migrating into the US from its borders. If that happens, we can expect a decline in detentions of Indians nationals at the border,” says Ms Puri.

Whatever the case, the dreams driving thousands of desperate Indians to seek a better life in the US are unlikely to fade, even as the road ahead becomes more perilous.

An extraordinary week stands ahead of us at Westminster.

A week in which MPs will be asked to make a decision that could have consequences for decades.

If the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill for England and Wales becomes law, it would give people, in certain circumstances, the right to die at a time of their choosing.

Scotland is also considering a change in the law on the issue too.

It is a colossal potential social change, compared by many to the Abortion Act of 1967, the abolition of capital punishment, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the introduction of gay marriage.

Opinion polls suggest most people are broadly in favour of a change in the law and have been for years.

But it is impossible to be certain how the House of Commons will vote, not least because MPs are not being instructed on how to by their parties, as normally happens.

MPs have a free vote on Friday.

Speaking to those on both sides of the debate who are trying to keep a track on the numbers, there is an acknowledgement that sentiment has ebbed and flowed over the last few weeks, with opponents of change perhaps gaining some momentum after the Health Secretary Wes Streeting came out on their side of the argument.

It is, for so many MPs, an intensely personal moment.

Their usual political compass bearings, party loyalty and a broad sense of being on the left or the right, count for little here.

Instead, an experience in their own life, such as the loss of a relative or their religious conviction may weigh considerably.

There are three groups of MPs on this issue.

There are the unshiftably opposed, who won’t change their minds whatever arguments are made in the next few days.

There are the unshiftably in favour, who also won’t change their minds whatever is said this week.

And then there are those still making up their minds.

The running tallies of public declarations leave you hundreds of MPs short and so little the wiser about how things might shake out in the end.

Those in favour of change say that if all of those who have indicated privately that they are inclined to back it do back it, it will clear its first hurdle, what is known as second reading, on Friday.

Those against it telling me “it is on a knife edge”, think the more people are exposed to the arguments the more doubts creep in and believe the debate itself on Friday will sway some people to vote against.

There will be five hours of debate on Friday and I am told more than 100 MPs have said they would like to speak.

That would amount to three minutes each but the indication at this stage is there won’t be time limits imposed on speeches.

Some of those opposed to a change in the law say the lack of time for adequate debate and scrutiny is itself a problem.

Those in favour say the scope for much more detailed discussion would come after an approval in principle for a change in the law on Friday, in the far more detailed examination of the plans that would follow in the new year.

They are saying to some waverers that the pragmatic thing to do if you are open minded but uncertain is to allow the debate to continue in 2025, with the option still open to reject it at a later stage.

Those who are opposed point to the lack of an impact assessment – a consequence of this being a bill brought forward by a backbencher, Labour’s Kim Leadbeater, rather than the government – and a fear that if the idea isn’t rejected now a badly thought through idea could gather unstoppable momentum.

So, in the next few days, there will be intense discussion and debate at Westminster.

Talks and presentations are being held by both sides, with discussions, for instance, on opinion polling, palliative care, and international comparisons.

And then, on Friday, the debate and the vote.

At 31 years old, I was told by doctors that if I didn’t stop drinking alcohol, I could die.

I was shocked because I didn’t drink every day, I never drank alone and I drank because I enjoyed it as a social activity, not because I felt alcohol-dependent.

But by definition, my alcohol consumption from my late teens to late 20s would be considered binge drinking. It felt normal because people around me were doing the same – and now it was catching up with me.

I’d recently become a mum and had gone to the GP because I felt tired all the time. This led to blood tests and a liver function check.

Further tests revealed I had severe alcohol-related liver fibrosis, or extreme scarring on my liver, most likely because of my drinking habits.

I trundled home from the hospital in a daze, with my daughter in her pram. This might have happened to me, I thought, but I could not be the only one.

I wanted to know what this said about the UK’s drinking culture and began looking into it for BBC Panorama.

Alcohol-specific deaths are at their highest levels in the UK since records began in 2001.

While the problem is undoubtedly bigger in men – particularly older men – more women under the age of 45 are dying due to alcohol-related liver disease, or ARLD, than ever before, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures from 2001-22.

If we binge a given amount of alcohol in one go – for example on a night out – it can be much more damaging than if we drink the same amount over a longer period.

The latest research, by a team at University College London and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, suggests bingeing may be up to four times as damaging for the liver.

When we think of binge drinking, we tend to imagine people drunkenly sprawling out of bars and falling over at bus stops. But actually, a binge can be less alcohol than you might think.

In the UK, a binge is considered as drinking six or more units of alcohol in one sitting for women, and eight or more for men. That is two large glasses of wine for a woman.

At King’s College Hospital in London, consultant hepatologist Debbie Shawcross tells me that she regularly treats professional women in their 40s and 50s with liver disease.

“They’re spinning plates in the air, and maybe they have young families,” she says. “They’re not alcoholics… but they are just drinking too much as a habit.”

I’m not in my 40s yet, but she could have been describing me.

When I was younger, I would easily drink more than what’s defined as a binge on a night out. I didn’t think anything of it until I got my diagnosis.

After my blood tests came back as abnormal I was sent to Glasgow’s New Victoria Hospital, where I had an ultrasound, and finally a fibroscan. All this took place over the course of about a year.

A fibroscan is a type of non-invasive ultrasound which measures liver stiffness. A reading of seven kPA (a unit used to measure the level of oxygen in the blood) or below is considered normal. My reading was 10.2.

This indicated severe scarring – if it had not been caught, and if I had not stopped drinking, it could have developed into cirrhosis.

I received my diagnosis in February 2024. My consultant, Dr Shouren Datta, said if I abstained from alcohol, then there was a possibility that my fibrosis could be reversed.

I feel extremely lucky that the problem was picked up in time for me to try to do something about it.

Doctors had discovered the problem while investigating my tiredness.

However, part of the problem with liver disease is that there are often no initial symptoms.

Seven in 10 people with end-stage liver disease don’t know anything about it until they are admitted to hospital with symptoms such as jaundice, fluid retention and abnormal bleeding.

That is what happened to Emma Jones, 39, originally from north Wales. I met her 15 months after her successful liver transplant.

Like me, Emma was a social drinker, with a successful career and vibrant social life. But during the Covid lockdowns things spiralled for her – at the worst point, she was drinking three bottles of wine a day.

Emma was admitted to hospital where she found out she was in end-stage liver disease. She was given less than 36 hours to live.

Miraculously, she pulled through and – after fulfilling the required six months of sobriety – got the transplant she so desperately needed.

Emma’s recovery is ongoing and is not without major life changes. She will be on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life and is immunosuppressed, meaning it is harder for her body to fight infections and disease.

But she is alive, well, and says she is in the best place she has ever been. I find her positivity and determination infectious.

According to the most recent ONS statistics, from 2018, liver disease is consistently among the top three causes of death each year among women aged 39-45.

“Women’s drinking pretty much doubled in a really short period of time… about 10 years,” Prof Fiona Measham, a leading expert in drink and drug culture from the University of Liverpool, tells me.

Her research suggests that in the 1990s and 2000s, the alcohol industry zeroed in on female drinkers, targeting them with products such as alcopops and shots – and using feminism, female empowerment and liberation as a marketing tool.

She thinks these practices established a drinking culture in a whole generation of young women that would leave a lasting legacy.

“What we’re seeing now is that young people, their consumption is falling fastest, but it’s still holding quite steady for people in their 30s, 40s and 50s,” she says.

The same aggressive approach persists today within the alcohol industry, believes Prof Carol Emslie, from Glasgow Caledonian University. Only now it is pushing things like prosecco, “gin o’clock” and “wine time” as a way for women to relax and practise self-care after a hard day.

The Portman Group, which represents the alcohol industry, says:

While “the increase in alcohol-related liver disease among both women and men in the UK is a serious concern, it’s important to remember that alcohol has always been a legal product.”

It says its Code of Practice… “does not protect against gender-based marketing specifically” but sets “minimum standards for alcohol producers to market their products responsibly”.

And it is “committed to continuing…(its) efforts to promote moderate drinking as well as holding the alcohol industry to account.”

• Support and information for anyone affected by these issues can be found at BBC Action Line

Binge Drinking and Me

BBC journalist Hazel Martin goes on a personal journey to find out why alcohol-related deaths from liver disease among women under 40 have risen sharply over the last decade.

Watch now on BBC iPlayer or on Monday 25 November at 20:00 (20:30 in Wales and Northern Ireland) on BBC One.

Several months after my diagnosis, I went back for a repeat fibroscan to see if there had been any improvement.

I was relieved to see that my fibroscan reading had gone from 10.2 to 4.7 – back in the normal and healthy range.

I was surprised what a dramatic difference cutting out alcohol had made in such a short space of time.

I don’t plan on drinking again – I’ve been advised not to.

I haven’t touched a drop for nearly a year and feel much better for it – but I still mourn it in a way I can’t quite put my finger on.

Alcohol is ingrained in our culture. We drink at birthday parties, weddings and funerals. And then of course there’s the festive season, which builds up ahead of Christmas and lasts right through to New Year’s Day.

For me growing up, alcohol felt normalised and I don’t think I was fully aware how much pressure there was to drink until I was forced to give it up.

Abstaining hasn’t been easy though. It has taken a long time to reprogramme my brain to not need or want alcohol as a treat, a reward, or as a way to relax and have fun socially.

I think that was part of the problem for me then, and it remains a problem for our society now.

When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed.

Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum – carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to climate change – were carpeting the region’s prized coastlines, repelling holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots.

Precisely how to tackle it was a dilemma of unprecedented proportions for the tiny tourism-reliant islands with limited resources.

In 2018, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley declared sargassum a national emergency.

Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel.

They recently launched one of the world’s first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas. The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island’s indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria.

The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 (£1,940).

Researchers had initially looked into using sugarcane to reduce reliance on costly, imported fossil fuels and help steer the Caribbean towards its ultimate target of zero emissions.

However, despite Barbados being one of few islands still producing sugarcane, the quantity was deemed insufficient for the team’s ambitious goals, explains the project’s founder Dr Legena Henry.

Sargassum on the other hand, she grimaces, is something “we will never run out of”.

“Tourism has suffered a lot from the seaweed; hotels have been spending millions on tackling it. It’s caused a crisis,” Dr Henry, a renewable energy expert and UWI lecturer, continues.

The idea that it could have a valuable purpose was suggested by one of her students, Brittney McKenzie, who had observed the volume of trucks being deployed to transport sargassum from Barbados’ beaches.

“We’d just spent three weeks researching sugarcane. But I looked at Brittney’s face and she was so excited, I couldn’t break her heart,” Dr Henry recalls.

“We already had rum distillery waste water so we decided to put that with sargassum and see what happened.”

Brittney was tasked with collecting seaweed from beaches and setting up small scale bioreactors to conduct preliminary research.

“Within just two weeks we got pretty good results,” Brittney tells the BBC. “It was turning into something even bigger than we initially thought.”

The team filed a patent on their formula and, in 2019, presented their project to potential investors during a side meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Upon touchdown back in Barbados, Dr Henry’s phone was “buzzing” with messages of congratulation – including one from US non-profit Blue Chip Foundation offering $100,000 to get the work off the ground.

Biologist Shamika Spencer was hired to experiment with differing amounts of sargassum and waste water to figure out which combination produced the most biogas.

She says she leapt at the chance to take part.

“Sargassum has been plaguing the region for several years,” Ms Spencer, who is from Antigua and Barbuda, explains. “I had always wondered about this new seaweed ruining the beaches in Antigua, and when I came to Barbados to study I noticed it here too.”

The algae do not just threaten tourism. They also pose a threat to human health through the hydrogen sulphide they release as they decomposes, along with native wildlife like critically endangered sea turtle hatchlings which get trapped in thick mats of beached seaweed.

Water pollution and warming seas are credited with the upsurge in sargassum, another cataclysmic result of climate change that the Caribbean has done little to contribute to but often bears the brunt of.

Calls for eco reparations from leaders including Barbados’ leader Mia Mottley and Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne have been clamorous in recent years as the region battles ever-rising sea levels and worsening storms.

While waiting for those to bear fruit, this project represents one example of the Caribbean taking its environmental future into its own hands.

“I realised it was important that after removing the sargassum from beaches, it doesn’t just go to landfills,” Ms Spencer continues.

“By repurposing it in vehicles you protect tourism and prevent people from inhaling it. When we scale up to fuel more vehicles it will require a very large volume.”

Watching the successful test drive of a biogas-charged Nissan Leaf – supplied by the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency – was utterly exhilarating, smiles Dr Henry.

The MIT-educated mechanical engineer knew she was risking her reputation should the venture fail.

“We didn’t sleep the night before the test drive event,” she admits. “I was putting my whole life’s work on the line.”

Dr Henry and her husband, career data scientist Nigel Henry, created deep tech firm Rum and Sargassum Inc and are on a mission to change the face of energy production in the Caribbean.

Both are originally from leading oil producer Trinidad, studied in the US and were determined to bring their skills back home.

“My goal is to help build up this region,” Dr Henry says. “We are now setting up a four-car pilot to demonstrate real life working prototypes to convince funders that this is workable and scalable.”

She estimates it will cost around $2m to display initial commercial activity and $7.5m to reach the point where the company is able to sell gas to 300 taxis in Barbados.

Potential funders include the US Agency for Internationals Development, the European Union and international development banks through debt financing.

The team plans to expand its work by setting up a biogas station to replace its small existing facility.

UWI hopes to introduce other sargassum-based innovations too, such as pest control products.

Ms Spencer says it’s been “heart-warming” to witness the results of the team’s research.

“Just seeing the actual potential is motivating me to keep working,” she adds.

As for Brittney, five years after her eureka moment, she says she’s still “pinching” herself.

“To see the car in action was mind-blowing,” she grins. “I would encourage all young scientists to press ahead with their ideas. You never know when you might make the next big discovery.”

“It’s taken years of work, plenty of grit and pushing against walls to reach this point,” Dr Henry concurs. “It’s an example of UWI innovation and is exportable to the wider world, because it’s not just the Caribbean that’s affected; sargassum also impacts parts of West Africa, South America and Florida.

“These small islands have created technology that can benefit the rest of the world; this is a big win for the Caribbean.”

The Erik and Lyle Menendez case has turned a nondescript Los Angeles courthouse into the hottest ticket in Tinseltown – sparking the kind of frenzy usually seen at red-carpet Hollywood premieres.

The brothers – who shot and killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989 – could win freedom after more than 30 years in prison.

On Monday the duo appeared in court via teleconference – the first time they’ve attended a hearing in years – to find out next steps in their bid for release.

Trail-watchers began queuing outside at 05:15 local time – more than five hours before the proceedings were due to start.

A heady mix of new evidence, a popular Netflix docuseries, and a dash of politics have turbocharged public interest in the case.

Several members of the Menendez family testified during Monday’s hearing, arguing for the brothers’ release.

But the judge overseeing the case postponed a hearing on whether they should be resentenced until January, after the county’s newly elected district attorney is sworn in and has time to review the case.

MORE: Menendez brothers’ resentencing hearing delayed until January

Only 16 seats were available on Monday for the several dozen members of the public who waited outside.

Officials handed out red raffle tickets and hosted a lottery on the steps of the courthouse to determine who those lucky individuals would be.

Peggy Savani, 60, was on holiday in nearby Venice Beach with her family from Ohio and decided she had to go. Her husband was working, and her daughter wasn’t interested in tagging along.

“I told them, ‘I’m going. I don’t care,'” she told the BBC after grabbing her red raffle ticket.

Ms Savani remembered all the hype surrounding the case when she watched the brothers’ two criminal trials in the late 1990s – one ended in a mistrial and the second with their conviction and sentence to life in prison.

She noted the new evidence into their claims of sexual abuse by their father – a key element to their defence – and how society had changed in its understanding of sexual violence against both males and females.

“I think that what happened to them is not right and so I’m really glad that this is happening,” Ms Savani said.

“I just thought I’d come down and see what it’s all about and maybe be part of it.”

As she took a photo of her red raffle ticket, she laughed and said it was almost “like a golden ticket” – a reference to the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The crowd was filled with a mix of local residents who remembered watching the original trials, students who were studying law or criminal justice and those who simply wanted a ringside seat to one of the most notorious criminal cases in US history.

“I think this might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for us to experience,” Elena Gordon, 43, told the BBC. “I feel like this is a historical moment for southern California.”

A lifelong resident of nearby Orange County, she said she remembered watching the case when she was young and “to see it just ripped back open is pretty incredible”.

“It’s not about gawking at the brothers,” she added. “It’s about witnessing history.”

Greta and Anna, international students from Italy and the United Kingdom who are studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, said they both watched the Netflix drama series about the case, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Anna, who is from Notting Hill, west London. “It will be interesting to see what happens behind the scenes.”

The group of hopefuls huddled in the Van Nuys courthouse square, which was littered with autumn leaves, to find out if they won. A hush fell over the boisterous crowd – including dozens of journalists – as officials drew tickets from a manila envelope.

As numbers were read, each person peered intently at their ticket and then glanced around at the crowd to see who was called.

Bursts of excited screams cut through the silence.

Some jolted forwards while others tried to scurry past the throngs of cameras and media equipment to grab one of the lucky yellow badges – their key to enter the court.

Christian Garcia won the last ticket.

“It was very emotional,” the social media influencer said after the hearing.

“Honestly, today’s been a rollercoaster, but I had a gut feeling I was going to enter,” he added.

“I told my followers I’m going to enter into that room and God opened the door.”

Chioma is adamant that Hope, the baby boy she is holding in her arms, is her son.  After eight years of failed attempts to conceive, she sees him as her miracle baby.

“I’m the owner of my baby,” she says defiantly.

She’s sitting next to her husband, Ike, in the office of a Nigerian state official who spends the best part of an hour interrogating the couple.

As the commissioner for women affairs and social welfare in Anambra state, Ify Obinabo has plenty of experience in resolving family disputes – but this is no ordinary disagreement.

Five members of Ike’s family, who are also present in the room, do not believe Hope is the couple’s biological child, as Chioma and Ike claim.

Chioma claims to have “carried” the child for about 15 months. The commissioner and Ike’s family are in disbelief at the absurdity of the claim.

Chioma says she faced pressure from Ike’s family to conceive. They even asked him to marry another woman.

In her desperation, she visited a “clinic” offering an unconventional “treatment” – an outlandish and disturbing scam preying on women desperate to become mothers that involves the trafficking of babies.

The BBC was allowed by authorities to sit in on the commissioner’s discussion with Chioma as part of our investigation into the cryptic pregnancy scam.

We have changed the names of Chioma, Ike and others in this article to protect them from reprisal in their communities.

Nigeria has one of the highest birth rates in the world, with women often facing social pressure to conceive and even ostracisation or abuse if they cannot.

Under this pressure, some women go to extremes to realise their dream of motherhood.

For over a year, BBC Africa Eye has been investigating the “cryptic pregnancy” scam.

Scammers posing as doctors or nurses convince women that they have a “miracle fertility treatment” guaranteed to get them pregnant. The initial “treatment” usually costs hundreds of dollars and consists of an injection, a drink, or a substance inserted into the vagina.

None of the women or officials we spoke to during our investigation know for sure what is in these drugs. But some women have told us they led to changes in their bodies – such as swollen stomachs – which further convinced them they were pregnant.

Women given the “treatment” are warned not to visit any conventional doctors or hospitals, as no scan or pregnancy test would detect “the baby”, which the scammers claim is growing outside the womb.

When it’s time to “deliver” the baby, women are told labour will only begin once they are induced with a “rare and expensive drug”, requiring further payment.

Accounts of how the “delivery” happens vary, but all are disturbing. Some are sedated only to wake up with a Caesarean-like incision mark. Others say they are given an injection that causes a drowsy, hallucinatory state in which they believe they’re giving birth.

Either way, the women end up with babies they are supposed to have given birth to.

Chioma tells commissioner Obinabo that when her time to “deliver” came, the so-called doctor injected her in the waist and told her to push. She does not spell out how she ended up with Hope, but says the delivery was “painful”.

Our team manages to infiltrate one of these secretive “clinics” – connecting with a woman known as “Dr Ruth” to her clients – by posing as a couple who have been trying to conceive for eight years.

This so-called “Dr Ruth” runs her clinic every second Saturday of the month in a dilapidated hotel in the town of Ihiala, in the south-eastern Anambra state. Outside her room, dozens of women wait for her in the hotel corridors, some with visibly protruding stomachs.

The whole atmosphere is buzzing with positivity. At one point, huge celebrations erupt inside the room after a woman is told she is pregnant.

When it’s our undercover reporters’ turn to see her, “Dr Ruth” tells them the treatment is guaranteed to work.

She offers the woman an injection, claiming it will enable the couple to “select” the sex of their future baby – a medical impossibility.

After they turn down the injection, “Dr Ruth” hands them a sachet of crushed pills as well as some more pills for them to take at home, along with instructions on when to have intercourse.

This initial treatment costs 350,000 naira ($205; £165).

Our undercover reporter neither takes the drugs nor follows any of “Dr Ruth’s” instructions and returns to see her four weeks later.

After running a device that looks like an ultrasound scanner across our reporter’s stomach, a sound like a heartbeat is heard and “Dr Ruth” congratulates her on being pregnant.

They both cheer with joy.

After delivering the good news, “Dr Ruth” explains how they’ll need to pay for a “scarce” and expensive drug needed for the baby to be born, costing somewhere between 1.5 and two million naira ($1,180; £945).

Without this drug, the pregnancy could extend beyond nine months, “Dr Ruth” claims with disregard for scientific fact, adding: “The baby will become malnourished – we’d need to build it up again.”

“Dr Ruth” has not responded to allegations the BBC has put to her.

The extent to which the women involved genuinely believe the claims is unclear.

But clues as to why they would be susceptible to such brazen lies can, in part, be found in online groups where disinformation around pregnancy is widespread.

Cryptic pregnancy is a recognised medical phenomenon, in which a woman is unaware of her pregnancy until the late stages.

But during our investigation, the BBC found widespread misinformation in Facebook groups and pages about this type of pregnancy.

One woman from the US, who dedicates her entire page to her “cryptic pregnancy”, claims to have been pregnant “for years” and that her journey cannot be explained by science.

In closed groups on Facebook, many posts use religious terminology to hail the bogus “treatment” as a “miracle” for those who’ve been unable to conceive.

All of this misinformation helps solidify women’s belief in the scam.

Members of these groups are not only from Nigeria, but also from South Africa, the Caribbean, and the US.

The scammers also sometimes manage, and post in, these groups, enabling them to reach out to women expressing an interest in the “treatment”.

Once someone expresses readiness to start the scam process, they are invited into more secure WhatsApp groups. There, admins share information about “cryptic clinics” and what the process involves.

Authorities tell us that to complete the “treatment”, the scammers need new-born babies and to do that they seek out women who are desperate and vulnerable, many of them young and pregnant, in a country where abortion is illegal.

In February 2024, the Anambra state health ministry raided the facility where Chioma “delivered” Hope.

The BBC obtained footage of the raid, which showed a huge complex made up of two buildings.

In one were rooms containing medical equipment – apparently for clients – while in the other were several pregnant women being kept against their will. Some were as young as 17.

Some tell us they were tricked into going there, unaware their babies would be sold to the scammer’s clients.

Others, like Uju, which is not her real name, felt too scared to tell their family they were pregnant and sought a way out. She said she was offered 800,000 naira ($470; £380) for the baby.

Asked if she regrets her decision to sell her baby, she says: “I’m still confused.”

Commissioner Obinabo, who has been part of efforts in her state to crack down on the scam, says scammers prey on vulnerable women like Uju to source the babies.

At the end of a tense interrogation, commissioner Obinabo threatens to take away baby Hope from Chioma.

But Chioma pleads her case, and the commissioner eventually accepts her explanation that she is a victim herself and that she hadn’t realised what was going on.

On this basis she allows Chioma and Ike to keep the baby – unless the biological parents come forward to claim him.

But unless attitudes towards women, infertility, reproductive rights and adoption change, scams like this will continue to thrive, experts warn.

• ‘Try or die’ – one man’s determination to get to the Canary Islands
• How sailors say they were tricked into smuggling cocaine by a British man
• Kidnapped and trafficked twice – a sex worker’s life in Sierra Leone
• World’s police in technological arms race with Nigerian mafia
• ‘Terrible things happened’ – inside TB Joshua’s church of horrors

As cities across North America grapple with homelessness, one Canadian city has taken a different approach by regulating tent encampments instead of banning them, as it tries to tackle what one official calls the issue “of the decade”.

Andrew Goodsell has called his small orange tent on a grassy patch in downtown Halifax home for almost a year.

In late October, on a park bench outside his makeshift dwelling, the 38-year-old described life at the homeless encampment where he lives with about a dozen or so others as “depressing”.

“I wake up in an area I don’t want to be,” Mr Goodsell said, as a stream of cars drove by.

“I’d much rather wake up in a spot where I could take a shower and maybe make myself something to eat. But I’ll still get myself out of bed.”

Mr Goodsell has been without a home on-and-off for a decade.

He once got by with couch surfing or working minimum-wage jobs to pay rent, but with Halifax’s skyrocketing housing costs, he can no longer afford a place to live.

His encampment is one of nine sites chosen by the city as a place where people without housing can lawfully camp outside. The sites were approved this summer as a temporary, but some argue necessary, solution while indoor shelters are at-capacity.

The policy has been adopted by at least one other municipality in Canada and is being considered by others who too are facing a rise in homelessness.

It’s in stark contrast to other North American cities where police officers forcibly remove homeless encampments. These so-called “street sweeps” have been criticised as violent and ineffective in addressing the housing crisis.

But they have become increasingly popular as homelessness has grown since the pandemic. California has cleared more than 12,000 encampments since 2021, while cities like Fresno, California and Grants Pass, Oregon have passed complete bans on camping in public spaces.

Proponents of banning encampments say that the campsites lead to disorder, and that funding should go to getting people off the streets.

Among detractors of Halifax’s approach are some encampment residents themselves, who say they want resources spent on affordable housing instead.

“Canada is one of the richest, most beautiful countries around,” Mr Goodsell said. “We have so much land, so much resource, but we must be one of the greediest countries out there.”

Although several Canadian cities, including Halifax, have tried to remove homeless encampments in the past, recent court decisions in British Columbia and Ontario have ruled that people without homes can camp outside if there are no appropriate indoor shelters available.

In contrast, the US Supreme Court ruled in June that cities can fine and arrest homeless people, even if there is no shelter for them to go to, paving the way for the outright bans on encampments in California and Oregon.

Another difference is the growing recognition in Canada that previous approaches have failed, says Stepan Wood, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, who has studied the issue.

“The approach up until a couple years ago had been to clear them out, but it’s now no longer deniable that that doesn’t solve the problem,” he told the BBC.

Canada’s national database estimates that there are 235,000 homeless people across the country in a given year, though experts argue that number is higher.

This figure puts the rate of homelessness in Canada above that of the US and England, according to a comparison of official data. Globally, many cities have seen a rise in homelessness since the pandemic.

In 2018, Halifax – the largest city on Canada’s Atlantic Coast with a population of around 518,000 – only had 18 people sleeping rough, said Max Chauvin, the director of housing and homelessness in Halifax. Now it’s over 200.

While Halifax has approved nine designated encampment sites, only five are operating. Each has a proposed limit of up to a dozen tents, but most are over capacity.

The city provides the sites with portable toilets, while outreach workers come by weekly to drop off bottled water and check in on people, encampment residents told the BBC.

Sometimes they will bring things that residents need, like a coat, or a warmer sleeping bag for the winter.

Mr Chauvin said the designated encampments are born out of a realisation that the city has run out of options to immediately address its housing crisis.

The city is waiting for the provincial government to ramp up affordable housing construction. Nova Scotia has not built any new public housing units since 1995.

In the meantime, “the question becomes: ‘Where are people going to go?’” Mr Chauvin said.

He believes solving the housing crisis will be “the item of the decade” for his city and others.

“One of the largest groups of homelessness we see growing is simply people who don’t have enough money to pay rent, and that’s new,” he said, adding that includes seniors, students, and entire families.

Mr Chauvin also points to a lack of accessible healthcare for people with mental and physical illnesses.

Proponents of the designated sites say they prevent the criminalisation of people who are homeless and allow the city to concentrate its outreach services.

Still, Halifax’s policy is both provisional and divisive.

It was a focal point of the city’s October mayoral election, where the winner promised to end the expansion of designated encampments and to remove unlawful ones.

Trish Purdy, a city councillor, unsuccessfully fought to remove a proposed designated site in her district, after hearing from constituents who feared it would bring crime and drug use.

She acknowledged that the issue is socially and morally complex, but said she believes allowing people to live in “horrible conditions” is not “empathetic or compassionate”.

“I’m sure the residents who live by any of the encampments could tell you they didn’t receive any empathy or compassion when the encampments were placed on their doorstep,” Ms Purdy told the BBC.

One such encampment in Dartmouth, a Halifax suburb, sits adjacent to a row of public housing units, where residents complain of needle debris, violence and disputes with those living at the site.

“This used to be a fun field where the kids can come out and play baseball or kickball,” said Clarissa, a mother of three who declined to give her last name.

“Now we can’t even do that, because we’re too worried about stepping on a needle.”

Clarissa said she and her neighbours were not consulted about the encampment and believes the site was chosen because their neighbourhood is low-income.

But Ames Mathers, who lives near another encampment, called its residents her neighbours.

“It’s really messed up that people are having to live in parks at all as an only option for housing,” she said.

“We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, and our province and city are dropping the ball.”

Some encampment residents told the BBC they welcomed knowing they wouldn’t be asked to leave at a moment’s notice. But many said they themselves didn’t always feel safe at the sites.

They also question the government’s willingness to find them housing, saying they have received more help from volunteers than officials. They note that multiple high-rise condominiums are under development in Halifax – none of which, they say, are affordable.

“We would like to be treated like people,” said Samantha Nickerson, who lived with her fiance, Trent Smith, at the same encampment as Mr Goodsell.

“Some of us really are trying hard to get our lives back together and work.”

Ms Nickerson and Mr Smith, who are in their 30s, said they faced violence from other residents and were often verbally harassed by members of the public.

“We understand that this is an eyesore, and nobody wants it,” Ms Nickerson said.

“We don’t want to be here. We don’t want to be in this situation.”

By mid-November, the couple had been moved to a temporary indoor shelter with the help of volunteers.

Mr Goodsell and a handful of others remain at site, which was recently de-designated over concerns it would be in the way of snow-clearing operations.

He said he has not been offered indoor shelter and does not want to be uprooted to another encampment.

He has outfitted his tent for the coming harsh Canadian winter as he waits for news.

“Outside in the winter in a tent anywhere is unsafe,” he told the BBC in a phone call.

“I’m prepped as I can be, and I consider myself luckier than most.”

Author Barbara Taylor Bradford, known for best-selling novels including A Woman of Substance, has died at the age of 91.

Published in 1979, A Woman of Substance sold 30 million copies and spawned seven sequels and a TV adaptation, which is still the most-watched programme in Channel 4’s history.

It was the first of 40 novels by Taylor Bradford; others include the Ravenscar, Cavendon and the House of Falconer series.

Paying tribute, her publisher and editor Lynne Drew said: “Dominating the bestseller lists, she broke new ground with her sweeping epic novels spanning generations, novels which were resolutely not romances, and she epitomised the woman of substance she created, particularly with her ruthless work ethic.”

• Obituary: An author of substance

The author was “perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven”, Drew said, and was “an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers”.

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”

She was “a natural storyteller” as well as “a great, great friend”, he added.

A Woman of Substance was the rags-to-riches tale of Emma Harte, a young woman who goes from a being a maid to building and running a major department store.

The mini-series was watched by almost 14 million people on Channel 4 in 1985 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Emma was played by Jenny Seagrove, who paid tribute to the author as a “dear friend”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Seagrove recalled being a young and nervous actress when she first met Taylor Bradford.

“I met Barbara at a screening [of A Woman of Substance] and she just walked up to me and she hugged me and said: ‘Oh, you are my Emma.’

“That was all I needed. I burst into tears.”

She added that the book was semi-autobiographical and “you could feel the truth in it”.

Taylor Bradford had a huge impact on women, Seagrove said.

“We’d go on publicity tours… and women would come up to me randomly… and say ‘You changed my life’ because Emma Harte had changed their life in some way, [like] to start a business. It literally changed women’s lives.”

The actress said she went to the US for Taylor Bradford’s 90th birthday celebrations last year.

“Even though she was ill, she put on her finery and was piped in by a bagpiper. She just never changed. She was always curious, always kind, always championing women and always giving and sharing.

“She championed women before it was fashionable, and that’s a great legacy,” Seagrove added.

A statement from Taylor Bradford’s representative on Monday said she “died peacefully at her home yesterday (24 November 2024) following a short illness, and was surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.

Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, where her mother “force-fed me books” and she was in the same primary school class as Alan Bennett.

Young Barbara had her first story published at the age of 10 in a children’s magazine, and left school at 15 to work as a typist and copytaker on the Yorkshire Evening Post.

She got her first stories into the newspaper’s pages by surreptitiously slipping them into the sub-editor’s tray. It took the editors some time to realise what she was doing, but they then promoted her to be a journalist, and she was the paper’s only female reporter at the time.

She went on to write an interior decoration column that was syndicated to 183 newspapers, and her first books were about home design.

They included the Complete Encyclopedia of Homemaking Ideas in 1968, and she also wrote a string of entries in the How to be the Perfect Wife series.

Her first foray into fiction, when she was in her mid-40s, brought huge success and broke the mould.

“When I wrote A Woman of Substance I didn’t sit down and think, I’m going to write about a woman warrior who conquers the world and smashes the glass ceiling, but I did want to write about women in a positive way,” she told the Guardian in 2017.

“At the time there were a lot of very sexy books out there but the women didn’t come out of them very well.”

Her other novels included the Ravenscar trilogy, about a 20th Century dynasty that finished with 25-year-old Elizabeth, loosely based on Elizabeth I, at the head of a business empire.

The four-book Cavendon series follows two families – one aristocratic, the other their servants – from the 1920s to the 40s.

Standalone novels included A Sudden Change of Heart, The Women in His Life and A Secret Affair.

Her most recent novel, The Wonder of it All, was published last year.

“I think people understand now, I write about women warriors – women who go out and conquer the world, who are not going to be dependent on anybody,” the author told BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions in 2022.

“They’re going to have a career, and they’re going to be successful, and they’re driven and ambitious and disciplined and determined.

“And I guess I keep borrowing from myself because that’s the way I’m made.”

A number of her books were turned into TV or film versions. A Woman of Substance starred Liam Neeson opposite Seagrove, while Elizabeth Hurley appeared in 1989’s Act of Will, and Anthony Hopkins was in 1991’s To Be The Best.

The screen versions were made by the author’s husband, Hollywood producer Robert Bradford.

They married on Christmas Eve in 1963, after which she moved to the US. He died in 2019.

Taylor Bradford’s spokeswoman said she would be buried alongside her late husband in New York.

Taylor Bradford was made an OBE for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth in 2007, and was also an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust.

In its tribute, the charity hailed her as “a passionate advocate for improving literacy skills throughout her life”, and said she “helped change lives in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities”.

As the sun slowly dips behind the jagged peaks of Mount Nam Xay, a group of brightly coloured hot air balloons drift across the Vang Vieng valley.

In the river below, young tourists laugh and splash each other from their kayaks.

It’s not hard to see what draws so many travellers here to this little town in central Laos. The scenery is stunning, the fun cheap and plentiful.

But the town has found itself at the centre of an international scandal after six tourists died last week following suspected methanol poisoning.

It is believed their alcoholic drinks may have contained methanol, an industrial chemical often used in bootleg alcohol.

For the throngs of young western travellers on South East Asia’s backpacker trail, Vang Vieng has become famous for what is called “tubing.” One described it to me as a water borne pub crawl.

Groups of friends in swimsuits and bikinis clamber aboard huge inner tubes that would normally be used on trucks and drift downstream, pulling in from time to time at river side bars where vodka shots are liberally administered, before plunging back into the water.

By the time they reach Vang Vieng everyone is fairly merry.

“I think we’re going to give the tubing a miss” two 27-year-old women from Hertfordshire in the UK tell me (they didn’t want to give their names).

“The vodka shots are part of the package, but no one wants to drink the local vodka right now.”

The pair arrived here from Vietnam, just as news of the deaths from methanol poisoning was spreading across the world.

“In Vietnam we got free drinks, particularly when you’re playing games in the evening,” one of them tells me. “And we just never thought about it, you just presume what they are giving you is safe. We’ve drunk buckets before, but we are not going to take the risk again, and a lot of people here feel the same.”

“Buckets” are exactly what they sound like – small plastic buckets filled with cheap vodka and other liquor. Groups of friends share the mixture through long plastic straws.

“Now this has happened it really makes you think about it,” the woman’s friend says. “You wonder why are the drinks free? At the hostel associated with the deaths we heard they were giving free vodka and whisky shots for an hour each evening. I think if that happened in the UK you would definitely think it was dodgy.”

Both women said they are now sticking to drinking bottled or canned beer.

The deaths of six tourists has sent shock waves through the backpacker scene. Young female travellers feel most vulnerable. The dead include Briton Simone White, 28, two young Australians, Holly Bowles and her best friend Bianca Jones, and two young Danish women, Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman and Freja Vennervald Sorensen.

Only one of the dead, a 57-year-old American, James Louis Hutson, was male. On the travellers’ chat-groups many have been questioning whether only women’s drinks had been spiked with methanol. The truth is, it’s still a mystery.

What we do know is all the victims stayed at the same place, The Nana Backpackers hostel. It’s now been confirmed the American victim was found dead in his bedroom there on 13 November. On the same morning the two Danish victims were found unconscious in their rooms and rushed to the local hospital.

Today, the Nana hostel is closed, the swimming pool that until a few days ago was hosting pool parties, is empty. A short walk away beside the river a bar called “JaiDees” has also been raided. The owners of both have forcefully denied serving any illegal or homemade alcohol.

Out on the river there is little sign that the poisonings are stopping people coming to Vang Vieng. Late November is peak tourist season. The rainy season is over, the skies are clear and the temperature is a relatively cool 28C (82F).

Along the main drag hostel owners told me they are fully booked. The young travellers from Europe and Australia are actually the minority. By far the largest groups are from neighbouring Thailand and China, the latter shuttling south on the newly finished Chinese-built Laos high-speed rail line.

Vang Vieng is still a dusty rural town. But it’s booming. Local business owners glide past in big black land cruisers and range rovers. As I walked back to my hotel on Saturday night, I was taken aback by the loud bark from the exhaust pipes of a Lamborghini cruising along Vang Vieng’s single main street.

Twenty years ago this was a sleepy little town surrounded by rice fields. Now it is being transformed by Thai and Chinese money. Fancy new hotels are springing up with riverside cocktail bars and infinity pools.

But the young western backpackers are not here for the five-star experience, they come for the friendly anything-goes atmosphere.

At a local motorbike rental I meet two fresh graduates from Sussex University.

Ned from Somerset says he has no intention of cancelling plans because of what happened. “People are scared for sure,” he says, “but I don’t get the impression anyone is leaving. Everyone is still here having a good time.”

He adds: “But everyone is also saying the same thing, don’t drink the spirits, so people are being careful, there’s definitely that feeling in the air, but I think it’s actually quite safe now because all the bars are on edge, no-one wants to go to jail”.

His friend Jack is equally unflustered. “We’ve come here to meet up with some friends and have some fun, and we’re still going to do that,” he says. “I’ve been here a week now and I can tell you the people here are absolutely lovely. They are some of the nicest people we’ve met in all of South East Asia. So whatever happened, I don’t think there’s anything malicious about it.”

Malicious or not, six people are dead, five of them young women.

The shock waves from what happened here has rippled out around the world to suburban homes from London to Melbourne, where worried parents with children on the backpacker trail are frantically messaging, checking where they are, and trying to persuade them not to go to Vang Vieng.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates say they have identified three Uzbek nationals as the suspects arrested over the murder of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi and said they were working to determine a motive.

The interior ministry published photos of three blindfolded men whom it named as Olimboy Tohirovich, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim and Azizbek Kamilovich.

The body of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, a 28-year-old emissary for the Orthodox Jewish organisation Chabad Lubavitch in Abu Dhabi, was found on Sunday, three days after he had disappeared.

Israel condemned the killing as an “abhorrent antisemitic terrorist attack” and vowed to track down those responsible. Moldova also called it an “act of antisemitism”.

The UAE’s ambassador to the US said it was a crime against the Gulf Arab state, which established full diplomatic and trade relations with Israel in 2020.

Rabbi Kogan’s funeral is expected to take place at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem on Monday evening, after an Israeli religious organisation that collects remains of the dead for burial said a plane carrying his body had left the UAE.

“At this moment, his coffin has been placed on a flight to Israel,” Zaka said in a statement.

The UAE’s interior ministry announced on Monday that security authorities had “begun initial investigations with the three suspects arrested for committing the murder of Moldovan resident Zvi Kogan in preparation for referring to the public prosecution”.

It also expressed a commitment to “swiftly take the necessary measures to uncover the details, circumstances and motives of the incident”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper cited Emirati security sources as saying over the weekend that a suspected cell “indirectly operated by Iran” was responsible.

However, Iran’s embassy in the UAE said it “categorically rejects allegations” of any Iranian involvement.

On Monday, the Israeli news website Ynet reported that the killers might be linked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas or another “terrorist organisation”.

Rabbi Kogan was in the UAE as an emissary for Chabad, which caters to the religious, social and humanitarian needs of Jews around the world, and he also managed a kosher supermarket in Dubai.

The rabbi was reported missing by his wife after he did not show up to a meeting on Thursday.

Chabad said he was abducted in Dubai and driven towards the border with Oman.

His car was abandoned in Al Ain, which is about 90 minutes’ drive away from his home in Abu Dhabi, his body was found on Sunday morning after “security and intelligence agencies from a number of countries co-ordinated an intensive investigation to locate him”, it added.

Speaking at the start of the Israeli government’s weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to track down the rabbi’s killers.

“The State of Israel will use all means, and will deal with these murderers, and those who dispatched them, to the fullest extent of the law. None of them will get away,” he said.

Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, said her country mourned “the tragic loss” of Rabbi Kogan and “strongly condemn this hateful act”.

“Our thoughts are with his family, the Jewish community, and all who grieve,” she said.

Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the US, said: “Zvi Kogan’s murder was more than a crime in the UAE – it was a crime against the UAE. It was an attack on our homeland, on our values and on our vision.”

US department store Macy’s has said a rogue staffer concealed more than $130m (£103m) in company costs over roughly three years, causing it to delay the release of its latest accounts.

Macy’s, also the owner of Bloomingdales and the make-up chain Bluemercury, said it was postponing its quarterly sales update as it investigates the incident.

The person was responsible for tracking expenses related to small package deliveries, the retailer said. It added that it believed the person had acted alone.

Macy’s also said the impact was limited and would not affect its payments to other firms.

Macy’s said it had discovered an issue related to delivery expenses earlier this month as it started to prepare its financial update.

An investigation and forensic analysis subsequently identified that a “single employee with responsibility for small package delivery expense accounting intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries” starting around the end of 2021, Macy’s said.

The more than $130m that was concealed was a small fraction of the more than $4.3bn in overall delivery expenses during that time, it added.

Macy’s said it expected to give a final report to investors on 11 December. The person allegedly responsible is “no longer employed” at the firm, it said.

It did not respond to a message seeking to confirm the person had been fired.

“At Macy’s, Inc., we promote a culture of ethical conduct,” chief executive Tony Spring said.

“While we work diligently to complete the investigation as soon as practicable and ensure this matter is handled appropriately, our colleagues across the company are focused on serving our customers and executing our strategy for a successful holiday season.”

The issue adds to the challenges facing Macy’s, the biggest department store chain in the US, which has been struggling with shrinking sales and is heading into an uncertain festive shopping season.

Over the three months to 2 November, sales fell 2.4% from the same period in 2023, as growth at Bloomingdales and Bluemercy was offset by declines at older Macy’s locations.

The bodies of at least eight people, including six children, have been recovered after a migrant boat sank off the Greek island of Samos, the coastguard has said.

Around 40 people were rescued by authorities during an operation in the Aegean Sea involving aircraft and vessels, authorities said.

Strong winds have been complicating rescue efforts.

An official said a non-governmental organisation alerted authorities, and that it was believed about 50 people were on board the vessel.

Greece’s migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, said the incident “fills us with sadness and anger”, while also pledging to crack down on people-smugglers.

Samos is just off the Turkish coast and has long been a regular destination for migrants trying to reach European soil.

More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in Greece by boat so far this year, making it the second most used European migrant route – behind only Italy.

Migrant arrivals had been steadily declining since August 2023, but increased again since summer, according to data from United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.

About 160,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea this year, agency figures show, while 2,000 people were dead or missing.

Around 23% of arrivals were children.

A left-wing former history teacher, Yamandú Orsi, has won the presidential election in Uruguay.

Orsi beat Álvaro Delgado, the candidate for the governing conservative coalition, by more than three percentage points in Sunday’s run-off.

Delgado conceded defeat and congratulated Orsi and his Broad Front coalition, which will now return to power after five years of conservative rule.

The Broad Front governed Uruguay for 15 years from 2005 to 2020 before being beaten by outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou – who under Uruguay’s constitution was barred from standing for a second consecutive term in this election.

Orsi, 57, is seen as a protege of former President José Mujica, who won the hearts of many in Uruguay through his modest lifestyle, prompting many to label him “the world’s poorest president”.

Orsi himself comes from a humble background, having grown up in rural Uruguay in a house without electricity.

While working as a school history teacher, he became active in local politics, eventually becoming mayor of Canelones, Uruguay’s second-most populous department.

During Orsi’s time at the helm in Canelones, tech giant Google announced it would build a huge data centre in the department.

Orsi struck a business-friendly note in his campaign, saying that he planned to avoid raising taxes that could scare off investors.

Addressing his supporters on Sunday evening, he stressed he wanted to be a president for all 3.4 million Uruguayans, saying he would “call for a national dialogue again and again” and that he would listen to those who had voted for his rival.

“I’m going to be the president who builds a more integrated country, where we set aside our differences and nobody is left behind, neither economically, socially or politically.”

Outgoing President Luis Lacalle Pou said he would work with Orsi to ensure a smooth transition ahead of the swearing-in of the new president on 1 March next year.

Orsi’s Broad Front also won a majority in the Uruguyan Senate, but his coalition did not clinch a majority in the Chamber of Representatives.

Uruguay’s election – which pitted two moderates against each other – has bucked the trend seen in other countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as Argentina, Brazil and the US, where deep divisions came to the fore.

A Malaysian court has ordered the country’s government to return 172 rainbow-coloured watches it seized from watchmaker Swatch last year.

The government said it took the timepieces from the Swiss company because they featured “LGBT elements” – homosexuality is illegal in Muslim-majority Malaysia and punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

However, a court ruled the government did not have a warrant to confiscate the items and a law prohibiting their sale was only passed later, making the seizure unlawful.

Malaysia’s Home Affairs minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government’s legal team will need to “examine the basis of the judgement” before deciding to appeal against the order.

He said the government “must respect the decision, or else it would be viewed as contempt of court”.

He went on to say his ministry may appeal against the ruling but must first “examine the basis of the judgement thoroughly”.

Authorities raided Swatch shops across Malaysia in May 2023, but an order prohibiting sale of the watches was not issued until August 2023.

Therefore, Swatch had not committed an offence at the time of the seizure, the court ruled.

But the prohibition order has not been overturned, so although the watches – worth $14,000 (£10,700) – have been returned they cannot be sold.

The authorities must hand back the items within 14 days, government prosecutor Mohammad Sallehuddin Md Ali told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.

Swatch took legal action contesting the seizure in June 2023, arguing the product was “not in any way capable of causing any disruption to public order or morality or any violations of the law”.

Homosexuality is illegal under both secular and religious laws in Malaysia.

Swatch described the Pride flag as a “symbol of humanity that speaks for all genders and races”, but at the time of the confiscation, the Malaysian government claimed the acronym “LGBTQ” could be found on the watches themselves.

The Swiss manufacturer argued the company’s reputation had been damaged and business had suffered after the seizures.

Malaysian authorities claimed the watches “may harm… the interests of the nation by promoting, supporting and normalising the LGBTQ+ movement that is not accepted by the general public”.

The Swatch Group declined to comment.

On the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Anton says the nuclear weapons base he was serving at was put on full combat alert.

“Before that, we had only exercises. But on the day the war started, the weapons were fully in place,” says the former officer in the Russian nuclear forces. “We were ready to launch the forces into the sea and air and, in theory, carry out a nuclear strike.”

I met Anton in a secret location outside Russia. For his own protection, the BBC will not reveal where. We have also changed his name and are not showing his face.

Anton was an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility in Russia.

He has shown us documents confirming his unit, rank and base.

The BBC is unable to independently verify all the events he described, although they do chime with Russian statements at the time.

Three days after troops poured over Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces had been ordered into a “special mode of combat service”.

Anton says that combat alert was in place on day one of the war and claims his unit was “shut inside the base”.

“All we had was Russian state TV,” says the former officer, “I didn’t really know what it all meant. I automatically carried out my duties. We weren’t fighting in the war, we were just guarding the nuclear weapons.”

The state of alert was cancelled, he adds, after two to three weeks.

Anton’s testimony offers an insight into the top-secret inner workings of the nuclear forces in Russia. It is extremely rare for service members to talk to journalists.

“There is a very strict selection process there. Everyone is a professional soldier – no conscripts,” he explains.

“There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone. The pay is much higher, and the troops aren’t sent to war. They’re there to either repel, or carry out, a nuclear strike.”

The former officer says life was tightly controlled.

“It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn’t take any phones on to the nuclear base,” he explains.

“It’s a closed society, there are no strangers there. If you want your parents to visit, you need to submit a request to the FSB Security Service three months in advance.”

Anton was part of the base’s security unit – a rapid-reaction force that guarded the nuclear weapons.

“We had constant training exercises. Our reaction time was two minutes,” he says, with a hint of pride.

Russia has around 4,380 operational nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, but only 1,700 are “deployed” or ready for use. All the Nato member states combined possess a similar number.

There are also concerns about whether Putin could choose to deploy “non-strategic”, often called tactical, nuclear weapons. These are smaller missiles that generally don’t cause widespread radioactive fallout.

Their use would nevertheless lead to a dangerous escalation in the war.

The Kremlin has been doing all it can to test the West’s nerves.

Only last week Putin ratified changes to the nuclear doctrine – the official rules dictating how and when Russia can launch nuclear weapons.

The doctrine now says Russia can launch if it comes under “massive attack” from conventional missiles by a non-nuclear state but “with the participation or support of a nuclear state”.

Russian officials say the updated doctrine “effectively eliminates” the possibility of its defeat on the battlefield.

But is Russia’s nuclear arsenal fully functional?

Some Western experts have suggested its weapons mostly date from the Soviet era, and might not even work.

The former nuclear forces officer rejected that opinion as a “very simplified view from so-called experts”.

“There might be some old-fashioned types of weapons in some areas, but the country has an enormous nuclear arsenal, a huge amount of warheads, including constant combat patrol on land, sea and air.”

Russia’s nuclear weapons were fully operational and battle-ready, he maintained. “The work to maintain the nuclear weapons is carried out constantly, it never stops even for one minute.”

Shortly after the full-scale war began, Anton said he was given what he describes as a “criminal order” – to hold lectures with his troops using very specific written guidelines.

“They said that Ukrainian civilians are combatants and should be destroyed!” he exclaims. “That’s a red line for me – it’s a war crime. I said I won’t spread this propaganda.”

Senior officers reprimanded Anton by transferring him to a regular assault brigade in another part of the country. He was told he would be sent to war.

These units are often sent in to battle as the “first wave” and a number of Russian deserters have told the BBC that “troublemakers” who object to the war have been used as “cannon fodder”.

The Russian embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.

Before he could be sent to the front line, Anton signed a statement refusing to take part in the war and a criminal case was opened against him. He showed us documents confirming his transfer to the assault brigade and details of the criminal case.

He then decided to flee the country with the help of a volunteer organisation for deserters.

“If I had run away from the nuclear forces base, then the local FSB Security Service would’ve reacted decisively and I probably wouldn’t have been able to leave the country,” he said.

But he believes that, because he had been transferred to an ordinary assault brigade, the system of top-level security clearance failed.

Anton said he wanted the world to know that many Russian soldiers were against the war.

The volunteer organisation that helps deserters, “Idite Lesom” [‘Go by the Forest’, in English, or ‘Get Lost’] has told the BBC that the number of deserters seeking help has risen to 350 a month.

The risks to those fleeing are growing, too. At least one deserter has been killed after fleeing abroad, and there have been several cases of men being forcibly returned to Russia and put on trial.

Although Anton has left Russia, he says security services are still looking for him there: “I take precautions here, I work off the books and I don’t show up in any official systems.”

He says he has stopped speaking to his friends at the nuclear base because he could put them in danger: “They must take lie-detector tests, and any contact with me could lead to a criminal case.”

But he is under no illusion about the risk he is himself in by helping other soldiers to flee.

“I understand the more I do that, the higher the chances they could try and kill me.”

Donald Trump says he will hit China, Mexico and Canada with new tariffs on day one of his presidency, in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the US.

The president-elect said that immediately after his inauguration on 20 January he will sign an executive order imposing a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Mexico and Canada.

He also said an additional 10% tariff will be levied on China until the government there blocks smuggling of the synthetic opioid fentanyl from the country.

The Biden administration has been calling on Beijing to do more to stop the production of ingredients used in fentanyl, which Washington estimates killed almost 75,000 Americans last year.

The tariffs on Mexico and Canada will remain in place until the two countries clamp down on drugs, particularly fentanyl, and migrants illegally crossing the border, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem,” he said.

“It is time for them to pay a very big price!”

In a separate post, Trump attacked Beijing for failing to follow through on promises he said Chinese officials made to carry out the death penalty for people caught dealing fentanyl.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington told the BBC “the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality”.

“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war,” he added.

During his election campaign, Trump threatened Mexico and China with tariffs of up to 100%, if he deemed them necessary, much higher than those he put in place during his first term in office.

Trump has also said he will end China’s most-favoured-nation trading status with the US – the most advantageous terms Washington offers on tariffs and other restrictions.

“It’s clearly consistent with his promise that he made during the campaign to utilise tariffs as a weapon to accomplish many of his policy initiatives,” Stephen Roach, Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School told the BBC’s Business Today programme.

Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously suggested that the president-elect’s threats to impose major tariff hikes were part of his negotiating strategy.

“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said of Trump in an interview with the Financial Times before he was nominated for the role.

“It’s escalate to de-escalate.”

It comes as the Chinese economy is in a significantly more vulnerable position than it was during the previous Trump presidency.

The country has been struggling with a number of serious issues, including an ongoing property market crisis, weak domestic demand and growing local government debt.

The new tariffs appear to break the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade.

The deal, which Trump signed into law, took effect in 2020. It continued a largely duty-free trading relationship between the three neighbouring countries.

After Trump made his tariff threat, he discussed trade and border security with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to the Reuters news agency.

Mexico’s finance ministry said: “Mexico is the United States’ top trade partner, and the USMCA provides a framework of certainty for national and international investors.”

With special counsel Jack Smith’s move on Wednesday to drop the 2020 election interference prosecution against Donald Trump, one of the last remaining legal threats against the president-elect has turned to ash and blown away in the wind.

Smith is also abandoning an appeal of a federal judge’s dismissal of his case against Trump for mishandling sensitive national security documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Those were two of the biggest, most imposing judicial proceedings against Trump, which had been hanging over his head for more than a year as he began his slow, steady march back to the White House.

His victory in November, and the prospect that he would unceremoniously end what he called a “political hijacking” of the legal system upon taking office in January, removed much of the drama from Smith’s Monday announcement.

It was not a legal or political earthquake so much as a reflection of the new balance of power in the nation’s capital.

• Judge dismisses special counsel’s election case against Trump
• Who else is in Trump’s top team?
• Just how big was Trump’s victory?

Department of Justice guidance prohibits the criminal prosecution of a sitting president. In his filing, Smith said that the DoJ recently concluded that this legal protection also applies to the prosecution of a private citizen who is subsequently elected president.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind,” he writes.

Such insistences on the strength and validity of the case will be cold comfort for those who had been clamouring for Trump to be held accountable for the violence surrounding the 6 January, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by the president-elect’s supporters.

The Biden administration and Attorney General Merrick Garland have been sharply criticised by some on the left, and among Trump opponents on the right, for moving too slowly in bringing cases against the then-former president after he left office – setting up the kind of resolution that played out on Monday.

Federal investigators focused their early efforts on prosecuting individuals who were directly involved in the Capitol attack, while a special committee of the US House of Representatives, then under control of Democrats, held hearings and gathered testimony against Trump.

It wasn’t until Trump launched his third White House bid in November 2022 that Garland appointed Smith to handle an independent investigation – ultimately resulting in 37 counts of document-handling and obstruction of justice against the president in June 2023 and four election interference charges two months later.

Trump’s legal team vigorously contested those prosecutions, filing a flurry of legal challenges to the validity of the claims and delaying any attempt to bring the cases to trial. It wasn’t long before some of those efforts paid off.

And with every success, even temporary ones, the calendar ticked ever closer to the November 2024 presidential election, when a victory by the former president could bring those prosecutions to a grinding halt.

In June, the US Supreme Court held that current and former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for their official actions, casting doubt on the election-interference case.

Then, in July, the judge overseeing the documents case dismissed those charges, ruling that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was invalid because it was not approved by Congress – a requirement that had not been applied to previous investigations.

Smith pressed on, retooling his election-interference indictment and appealing against the document-case dismissal. But the timeline for any trials had disappeared over the horizon.

And with Trump’s election victory – and the near certainty that his administration would drop the cases once they took power – the final resolution was all but inevitable.

Smith’s decision to abandon the prosecutions amounted to little more than an early mercy killing – one that was quickly celebrated by the Trump team.

“Today’s decision by the DoJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump and is a major victory for the rule of law,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung wrote in a statement.

“The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponisation of our justice system, and we look forward to uniting our country.”

There is still the possibility that Trump will be sentenced in his New York criminal conviction for hush-money payments earlier this year, but his lawyers are pressing for that case to be thrown out.

The sprawling multi-party indictments for election interference in Georgia is not affected by Smith’s decision, but it currently exists in legal limbo amidst efforts to remove Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis from the case. Neither at the moment appears to present a serious legal threat to the incoming president.

Smith has promised to continue his appeal of prosecutions of Trump’s associates in the documents case, but Trump could end that upon taking office in January with the flick of his pardoning pen.

After years of living in legal jeopardy, Trump’s election victory appears to have all but wiped away those concerns, leaving four years to focus on governing and implementing his agenda. It is perhaps the most immediate and tangible consequence of his return to the apex of political power.

More than a year of work by dozens of government lawyers, including hundreds of interviews and subpoenas and millions of dollars spent, has ended not with the bang of a gavel, but with the click of an electronic court filing.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the presidential election in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A father of a missing Hawaii woman was found dead on Sunday in California after he travelled there to search for her.

Ryan Kobayashi had recently journeyed to Los Angeles to help search for his daughter, Hannah Kobayashi, 30. She went missing earlier this month after a stopover at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on her way to New York City.

Officials in LA confirmed that Mr Kobayashi, who was 58, has since been found dead in a car park near the airport.

Both police and the coroner’s office have not publicly given a suspected cause of death.

Ms Kobayashi, a photographer who lived in Maui, went missing shortly after landing in LAX on 8 November. It remains unclear what has happened to her, and the LAPD has launched a search.

She was set to visit her aunt Geordan Montalvo in New York to attend a concert, in what was described as a “bucket list” trip.

Since her disappearance, family and friends have said that they received odd text messages from her mobile phone, in which she said she had been “tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds” to “someone I thought I loved”.

She has been spotted a few times, they said – once at a Los Angeles mall on 10 November, and again the following day in surveillance video around a downtown metro train station with an unknown person.

On Monday, a non-profit group aiding in the search confirmed that Mr Kobayashi had died by suicide.

“After tirelessly searching throughout Los Angeles for 13 days, Hannah’s father, Ryan Kobayashi, tragically took his own life,” the group, known as the RAD Movement, said in a Facebook post.

“This loss has compounded the family’s suffering immeasurably.”

The group called for the search for Ms Kobayashi to continue, while the family takes “space to grieve and process this significant loss”.

“Hannah IS still actively missing and is believed to be in imminent danger,” the group wrote. “It is crucial for everyone to remain vigilant in their efforts to locate Hannah.”

Speaking to the media at a rally before his death, Mr Kobayashi said: “We’re just trying to get us as much information as we can.”

He added that he had been worried and confused since his daughter’s disappearance.

“Everything is just a blur it seems, because I haven’t slept well since I’ve heard the news,” he said.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised you can visit the BBC’s Action Line pages, or contact Samaritans in the UK.

If you’re in the US, call 988, or contact Lifeline.

Egyptian authorities say 16 people are missing, including foreigners, and 28 have been rescued after a tourist boat sank in the Red Sea.

Two of those missing are British, the BBC understands. Finland has confirmed one of their nationals is unaccounted for, while authorities say four Egyptians are also missing.

The boat with 44 people on board – including 13 crew – sent a distress signal at 05:30 (03:30 GMT), according to the governor of Red Sea province.

Authorities have not indicated the possible cause of the incident, but added accounts of people onboard mentioned a wave hit the boat and caused it to capsize. Weather forecasters had warned against marine activities for Sunday and Monday.

The Sea Story left port near Marsa Alam on Sunday for a five-day diving trip, according to officials.

Red Sea Governor Maj-Gen Amr Hanafi said the survivors were found in the Wadi el-Gemal area, south of Marsa Alam, and that they were receiving the necessary medical care.

He added the Egyptian Navy warship El Fateh and military aircraft were intensifying their efforts to locate the missing, with rescue teams working around the clock.

On Saturday, the Egyptian Meteorological Authority forecast turbulence on the Mediterranean and Red Seas due to the weather.

Wind speeds were between 37-43 mph (60-70 km/h), and wave heights were three to four metres (10-13ft) high, they said.

According to the local council in Marsa Alam, the crew of the Sea Story are all Egyptians and the tourists on board included five Spanish, four British, four Germans and two US nationals.

It is unclear who is among the rescued and who is still missing, but the Red Sea governorate’s latest report said four Egyptians remained unaccounted for.

The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP news agency that one of its nationals is also among the missing.

A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said they were in contact with the authorities, and were providing “support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt”.

The Chinese embassy in Egypt confirmed two of its nationals were “in good health” after being rescued, according to their state media, as reported by AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski, told state-run Polish news agency PAP that authorities had information that two Polish citizens may have been aboard the boat.

Earlier reports from Egyptian authorities said there had been 45 people on the Sea Story when it sank – 14 crew and 31 tourists.

Marsa Alam is a popular destination for tourists on Egypt’s southern Red Sea coast and is surrounded by diving spots, including renowned coral reefs.

The Red Sea governorate said the boat was owned by an Egyptian national, and had received a one-year validity certificate in March 2024 when it was inspected by maritime safety.

Hanafi said there were no technical faults at the time of the incident, adding that reports from survivors said the boat capsized after being hit by a large wave, all of which took five to seven minutes.

He also visited Marsa Alam to see the people rescued, and said they were all in good health, and no-one had needed admission to hospital. The passengers are being received in a tourist hotel in the area, he added.

There was no immediate comment from Sea Story’s Egypt-based owner and operator, Dive Pro Liveaboard.

But its website says the vessel was built in 2022 and is 44m (144ft) long. It has four decks and 18 cabins that can accommodate up to 36 passengers.

Last year, three Britons died off the coast of Marsa Alam after their dive boat caught fire.

“When I stepped out of my house, it felt like I was inhaling smoke,” says Imran Ahmed Ali, a lawyer in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh.

Pollution levels in Chandigarh – India’s first planned city, located about 240km (150 miles) from capital Delhi – have been at more than 15 times the safe limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for more than a month.

It is now common for air quality in the city to dip every winter, but Mr Ali says he has never felt so sick before.

A few weeks ago, the 31-year-old began experiencing a dry cough and shortness of breath, which he initially dismissed as symptoms of a seasonal cold. But as the temperature dropped, his chest congestion worsened and he went to a doctor.

“After running several tests, the doctor told me that my symptoms were caused by pollution. I’m now taking medicine twice a day to manage my breathing,” he says.

Mr Ali is among hundreds of millions of people living in northern India who are forced to breathe toxic polluted air for extended periods every winter.

According to Swiss firm IQAir, eight of the 10 most polluted cities in the world last year were located in the Indo-Gangetic plains – a densely populated region which stretches across northern and eastern India, along with parts of Pakistan and Nepal.

A recent report by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago reiterates that the northern plains – home to 540.7 million people across Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal – is the most polluted region in India. When compared with the WHO’s standards, air pollution at current levels could reduce the life expectancy of people here by 5.4 years, it adds.

But as the toxic smog closes in every winter, headlines and attention are mostly focused on Delhi.

Delhi receives significant attention due to its position as the capital of India, says Partha Basu, strategic adviser at the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit group focused on delivering climate solutions.

Every year, the Delhi government implements an annual action plan, which includes measures such as driving restrictions and a ban on construction activities during peak pollution periods.

Even though there is criticism that this isn’t enough, most other places in northern India have not seen such proactive steps.

Mr Basu says that often, people don’t associate other parts of northern India – particularly villages and small towns and cities – with high pollution.

“In [people’s] minds, villages are clean, green and pristine – but that’s far from the reality,” he says.

• Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again

Pollution in the region is not caused by a single factor, but a combination of elements – such as construction activities, vehicular emissions, industrial pollutants and the seasonal burning of crop residue.

While many of these factors are present throughout the year, the difference in the winter months – from October to January – is the weather conditions.

The air quality worsens each winter because cold stagnant air traps pollutants near the ground, making it harder for them to disperse, says Mahesh Palawat, vice president of meteorology and climate change at weather forecasting company Skymet.

The landlocked geography of the Indo-Gangetic Plain worsens the situation. The region is surrounded by mountains and lacks strong winds, which normally help blow polluted air away.

Doctors and health experts warn of the risks of breathing in these pollutants.

“Patients complain of a burning sensation in their eyes and throat when they step outside. Some face difficulty in breathing,” says Dr Rajesh Gupta, director of the pulmonary department at Fortis Hospital in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh state.

Dr Gupta says that people who are otherwise healthy also develop respiratory troubles this time of the year, and that children and the elderly are especially vulnerable.

The bleak conditions also exact a mental toll. Aditi Garg, who works in Meerut town – about 100km from Delhi – used to cherish the quiet moments on her balcony each morning.

That routine has been disrupted completely.

Since mid-October, pollution levels in Meerut have remained at levels classified as “poor” or “severe”, making it difficult to breathe.

Ms Garg now spends nearly all her time indoors, next to her air purifier, trying to shield herself from the toxic air outside.

“I don’t have an option but to stay inside, this is the best I can do,” she says.

And not everyone has the privilege of staying indoors.

In Uttar Pradesh alone, more than 83 million people are registered as employees in the unorganised sector. The actual number is likely to be much higher.

This includes daily wage workers, street vendors and agricultural labourers who have no choice but to work outdoors, risking their health.

Standing outside his shanty in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur city, Mohammad Salim Siddiqui gasps for breath as he speaks.

An automobile spare parts vendor and the sole breadwinner of his family, Mr Siddiqui has to brave the pollution every day.

“Two members of my family are struggling with respiratory problems because of the pollution,” says Mr Siddiqui, adding that it’s particularly bad in crowded slums.

“We need help,” he says.

Over the years, governments in some states have made efforts to counter the pollution problem.

In 2019, India launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) with an aim to reduce particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5, tiny particles that can enter the lungs and cause diseases) levels by 20-30% by 2026 as compared to 2017 levels.

The goal was later updated to reduce PM10 levels up to 40% by 2026.

Under this programme, 131 Indian cities – including many in the Indo-Gangetic Plains – were to develop tailored plans to address local pollution sources.

While it has helped raise awareness and set goals, experts say stronger action and better coordination between local and state governments are needed to make a real difference.

Mr Basu says that the lack of dialogue remains the biggest barrier against meaningful change.

Both Ms Garg and Mr Ali echo this, saying there is barely any conversation about the toxic air quality in their cities.

“People have unfortunately accepted this as a part of their lives,” says Mr. Ali.

“It’s a discussion they have every year when pollution is at its peak, and then conveniently forget about – until next time.”

The Erik and Lyle Menendez case has turned a nondescript Los Angeles courthouse into the hottest ticket in Tinseltown – sparking the kind of frenzy usually seen at red-carpet Hollywood premieres.

The brothers – who shot and killed their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989 – could win freedom after more than 30 years in prison.

On Monday the duo appeared in court via teleconference – the first time they’ve attended a hearing in years – to find out next steps in their bid for release.

Trail-watchers began queuing outside at 05:15 local time – more than five hours before the proceedings were due to start.

A heady mix of new evidence, a popular Netflix docuseries, and a dash of politics have turbocharged public interest in the case.

Several members of the Menendez family testified during Monday’s hearing, arguing for the brothers’ release.

But the judge overseeing the case postponed a hearing on whether they should be resentenced until January, after the county’s newly elected district attorney is sworn in and has time to review the case.

MORE: Menendez brothers’ resentencing hearing delayed until January

Only 16 seats were available on Monday for the several dozen members of the public who waited outside.

Officials handed out red raffle tickets and hosted a lottery on the steps of the courthouse to determine who those lucky individuals would be.

Peggy Savani, 60, was on holiday in nearby Venice Beach with her family from Ohio and decided she had to go. Her husband was working, and her daughter wasn’t interested in tagging along.

“I told them, ‘I’m going. I don’t care,'” she told the BBC after grabbing her red raffle ticket.

Ms Savani remembered all the hype surrounding the case when she watched the brothers’ two criminal trials in the late 1990s – one ended in a mistrial and the second with their conviction and sentence to life in prison.

She noted the new evidence into their claims of sexual abuse by their father – a key element to their defence – and how society had changed in its understanding of sexual violence against both males and females.

“I think that what happened to them is not right and so I’m really glad that this is happening,” Ms Savani said.

“I just thought I’d come down and see what it’s all about and maybe be part of it.”

As she took a photo of her red raffle ticket, she laughed and said it was almost “like a golden ticket” – a reference to the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The crowd was filled with a mix of local residents who remembered watching the original trials, students who were studying law or criminal justice and those who simply wanted a ringside seat to one of the most notorious criminal cases in US history.

“I think this might be a once-in-a-lifetime event for us to experience,” Elena Gordon, 43, told the BBC. “I feel like this is a historical moment for southern California.”

A lifelong resident of nearby Orange County, she said she remembered watching the case when she was young and “to see it just ripped back open is pretty incredible”.

“It’s not about gawking at the brothers,” she added. “It’s about witnessing history.”

Greta and Anna, international students from Italy and the United Kingdom who are studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, said they both watched the Netflix drama series about the case, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Anna, who is from Notting Hill, west London. “It will be interesting to see what happens behind the scenes.”

The group of hopefuls huddled in the Van Nuys courthouse square, which was littered with autumn leaves, to find out if they won. A hush fell over the boisterous crowd – including dozens of journalists – as officials drew tickets from a manila envelope.

As numbers were read, each person peered intently at their ticket and then glanced around at the crowd to see who was called.

Bursts of excited screams cut through the silence.

Some jolted forwards while others tried to scurry past the throngs of cameras and media equipment to grab one of the lucky yellow badges – their key to enter the court.

Christian Garcia won the last ticket.

“It was very emotional,” the social media influencer said after the hearing.

“Honestly, today’s been a rollercoaster, but I had a gut feeling I was going to enter,” he added.

“I told my followers I’m going to enter into that room and God opened the door.”

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the BBC the gas deals she made with Russia were intended to help German firms and kept the peace with Moscow.

She also insisted the war with Ukraine would have started earlier if she hadn’t blocked Kyiv’s entry into Nato in 2008.

Angela Merkel led Germany for 16 years. She was in office during the financial crisis, the 2015 migrant crisis and, significantly, Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine.

Was she too soft on Moscow? Too slow to help Kyiv? If she hadn’t blocked Ukraine’s Nato membership in 2008, would there be a war there now?

Speaking to the BBC in Berlin, Mrs Merkel is robust in her defence of her time in office.

She says she believes the war in Ukraine would have started sooner and would likely have been worse, if Kyiv had begun the path to Nato membership in 2008.

“We would have seen military conflict even earlier. It was completely clear to me that President Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join Nato.

“And back then, Ukraine as a country would certainly not have been as prepared as it was in February 2022.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky disagrees.

He describes Mrs Merkel’s Nato decision, backed by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as a clear “miscalculation” that emboldened Russia.

In a rare interview since she stepped down from politics three years ago, Mrs Merkel expresses concern about Vladimir Putin’s renewed threats of using nuclear weapons.

The two leaders got to know each other well over the course of two decades.

“We must do everything possible to prevent the use of nuclear weapons,” the former German Chancellor says.

“Thankfully, China also spoke about this a while back. We shouldn’t be paralysed by fear, but we must also acknowledge that Russia is the biggest, or alongside the US, one of the two biggest nuclear powers in the world.

“The potential is frightening.”

Despite enjoying high popularity ratings during most of her time in office, Mrs Merkel now finds herself on the defensive.

She has just published her memoir, Freedom. And the timing is interesting.

She says she did everything in her power to ensure peaceful means of co-operation with Russia.

In fact, Mr Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine just months after she left office.

This prompted a thorough re-examination in Europe of energy policies, diplomacy with Russia and also migration policies that had become the norm under Mrs Merkel.

At the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, she was, as former Italian premier Matteo Renzi says, the de-facto leader of Europe – “the boss of the European Union”.

“Do you remember when [former US Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger used to say ‘what is the telephone number of Europe?’,” he says. “My answer was: clearly, the mobile number of Angela Merkel.”

He adds that when judging the Merkel legacy – over Russia and otherwise – it is important to remember the norms of the time.

“One cannot attack Angela for the relations with Russia,” he says.

“In 2005, 2006 [they] were a goal of everyone in Europe, not only a goal of Angela Merkel.”

Under Mrs Merkel, Germany and its energy-hungry big industries became dependent on Moscow. Germany built two gas pipelines directly linked to Russia.

President Zelensky described that cheap gas as a geopolitical tool of the Kremlin.

Mrs Merkel tells the BBC she had two motives with the pipelines: German business interests but also maintaining peaceful links with Russia.

Fellow EU and Nato members in eastern Europe strongly disagreed with her.

The Polish MP, Radoslaw Fogiel, said German gas money filled Russia’s war chest – used to fund the invasion of Ukraine.

Mrs Merkel insists she tried to curb Russian attacks on Ukraine using diplomacy and negotiations, which – she admits – ultimately failed.

And German industry has been disproportionately hit by sanctions on Russian energy. Forced to look for other suppliers, the country is now buying expensive LNG. Businesses says they are crippled by the costs.

A new era in Europe’s relations with Russia “regrettably” began following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, says Mrs Merkel.

On Monday, defence ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Poland and Italy are meeting to discuss the deteriorating situation on Ukraine’s frontlines.

Ms Merkel, 70, now finds herself having to defend her legacy in other areas too.

The migration crisis of 2015, when she famously opened Germany’s doors to over a million asylum seekers, was perhaps the defining moment of her time in office.

It was hated by some, hailed by others.

US President Barack Obama praised her as a courageous and moral leader.

But critics blamed her for breathing life into the then almost redundant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

It is now polling comfortably in second place in German public opinion polls, ahead of a snap general election early next year.

The AfD’s main political rallying cry: a strong anti-migrant message.

Angela Merkel admits the AfD made big gains, but she makes no apology for her political decisions.

As for suggestions that her 2015 policies helped fuel anti-immigration and far-right parties elsewhere too, including the Netherlands, Poland and France, after she tried to impose migrant quotas across EU countries, Mrs Merkel says she can’t be held responsible for all of Europe.

The only way to combat the far right is to stop illegal migration, she says.

She calls on Europe’s leaders to invest more in African nations to improve standards of living there, so fewer people will be tempted to leave their homes.

But with Europe’s economies sluggish, and voters worried about the cost of living, governments say there is little cash to spare.

Angela Merkel appeared to put her country and its economic interests first when it came to buying Russian energy or during the eurozone crisis – when southern EU nations blamed her for squeezing them with austerity measures in order to rescue German banks and businesses.

But even at home in Germany, she is now accused of simply “managing” successive crises and failing to make far-reaching, perhaps painful reforms to future-proof her country and the EU.

Germany is now labelled by some as “the sick man of Europe”.

Once an export powerhouse on the world stage, its economy hovers just above recession.

Voters complain she failed to invest in roads, railways and digitalisation, in favour of maintaining a balanced budget.

Under Angela Merkel, Germany not only became reliant on Russia for energy, but on China and the US for trade. Those decisions have not stood the test of time.

Donald Trump threatens punishing tariffs on imports when he returns to the White House in January.

Mrs Merkel does have some thoughts for Europe’s nervous leaders faced with Trump 2.0.

His first term in office was marked by anger at Europe, particularly Germany, over low defence spending and trade deficits. Those gripes with Europe haven’t changed.

What are the Merkel tips for handling him?

“It’s really important to know what your priorities are, to present them clearly and not to be scared, because Donald Trump can be very outspoken,” she says.

“He expresses himself very clearly. And if you do that, there is a certain mutual respect. That was my experience anyway.”

But Europe’s leaders facing the US, China, and Russia, are apprehensive – arguably more so than during Angela Merkel’s time.

Economies are sluggish, voters unhappy, traditional politics under pressure from the far-right and the far-left.

China and Russia are more bullish, the West weaker on the world stage.

Wars burn in the Middle East and in Europe, with Donald Trump appearing less interested in bolstering European security.

Perhaps that’s why Angela Merkel says, these days, when world leaders she knows well call her for advice, she happily responds.

But when I ask if she misses all that power and politics, her swift answer is: “No, not at all.”

BBC iPlayer.

A federal judge has dismissed a major case against Donald Trump that alleged he illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election.

Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who brought the criminal case against Trump, had asked to have the charges dropped, citing a Justice Department policy that bans the prosecution of a sitting president.

Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the case “without prejudice”, meaning the charges could be refiled after Trump finishes his second term.

Smith has also asked to have his case charging Trump with improperly storing classified documents dismissed. Trump had pleaded not guilty in both cases.

“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President,” Smith wrote in a filing in the election case.

“This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant,” Smith added in the six-page filing.

After leaving office, Trump crossed into unprecedented legal territory for a former president, becoming the first to face a criminal trial and later conviction, in a case tied to a payment made to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

At the beginning of the year, he faced nearly 100 criminal charges connected to the two federal cases and others. Then, the Supreme Court ruled this summer that he could not be prosecuted for “official acts” taken as president, and Trump went on to win the election a few months later. Now almost all those charges have been dropped, with a Georgia state prosecution currently on pause.

Smith’s request in the documents case, also seeking a dismissal “without prejudice”, must also be approved by a judge,

Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social that the federal cases were “empty and lawless, and should never have been brought”.

“It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds,” he wrote.

Vice-President-elect JD Vance said the prosecutions were “always political”.

“If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” he wrote on social media.

Trump had pledged to get rid of Smith as soon as he took office. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in 2022 to take over the two federal investigations into Trump’s conduct. Smith has reportedly said he plans to step down next year.

The request to dismiss Trump’s election subversion case marks an end to a lengthy legal saga.

Smith had to refile the election-subversion charges against the former president based on the Supreme Court ruling that Trump was immune from some prosecution.

The special counsel had argued in a revised indictment that Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were related to his campaign and therefore not official acts.

The Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit was also weighing an appeal from Smith to carry on with the classified documents case, in which Trump was accused of storing dozens of sensitive files in his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. Trump-appointee Judge Aileen Cannon initially dismissed it because she ruled Smith was improperly appointed to lead the case.

When Trump won the 2024 election this month, Smith began to take steps to wind down both cases, though he said in the Monday filing that the documents appeal would continue for two other defendants in the classified documents case, Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

Trump’s return to the White House left several state-level criminal cases against him in limbo, too.

His sentencing for his criminal conviction in the state of New York has been indefinitely delayed.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, where Trump also faces election subversion charges, an appeals court is considering whether to overturn a previous ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the case despite a relationship she had with a prosecutor she hired.

Since Trump won the 2024 presidency, “his criminal problems go away”, said former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.

“It’s well established that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted,” he said.

US universities have been emailing international students and staff advising them to return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, amid concerns over his plans for mass deportations.

“All international students are worried right now,” University of Colorado Denver professor Chloe East told the BBC.

Trump, a Republican, has pledged to enact the largest deportation operation in history, and use the US military to help.

More than 400,000 undocumented students are enrolled in US higher education, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

Officials in Trump’s incoming administration have suggested they will build vast holding facilities for undocumented immigrants on the deportation list.

His incoming border tsar Tom Homan has said violent criminals and national security threats will take priority for removal from the country. But that has not allayed concerns in higher education.

• Trump’s ‘border tsar’ vows to cut funding to ‘sanctuary’ states

“Students are incredibly overwhelmed and stressed out right now as a result of the uncertainty around immigration,” Prof East told the BBC.

“A lot of students have concerns about their visas and whether they’ll be allowed to continue their education.”

In November, the University of Massachusetts issued a travel advisory to its international students and faculty, encouraging them to “strongly consider” returning to campus from winter break before Trump takes office on 20 January.

“Based on previous experience with travel bans that were enacted in the first Trump Administration in 2016, the Office of Global Affairs is making this advisory out of an abundance of caution,” the college said.

Trump signed an executive order during his first week in the White House in 2017 banning nationals of several predominantly Muslim nations, as well as North Korea and Venezuela, from visiting the US. During his first presidency he also proposed some limitations on student visas.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wesleyan University have also issued travel advisories, urging students and staff to return to the US before inauguration day.

At Yale University, the Office of International Students and Scholars hosted a webinar this month fielding concerns from students about potential immigration policy shifts, the student newspaper reported.

This includes foreign-born students who are protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy.

Trump has attempted to end the Obama-era programme, which shielded over half a million migrants who came to the US as children from deportation.

Prof East said students from Asia, particularly China, are feeling “uncertainty” about US-China relations under Trump.

Aoi Maeda, an international student from Japan studying at Earlham College in Indiana, is among those with concerns about her academic future.

“I am planning to graduate in May 2026, but now that the administration is going to be a little bit more dangerous, I’m less hopeful about things going well,” she said.

“[Trump] claims that he is only interested in keeping illegal immigrants out of the country, but he also kind of tries to move the goal post a lot of times,” Maeda continued.

“I feel like us international students with a visa might get affected, and it’ll become easier to deport us.”

• How these new recruits will be vetted
• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• What Trump picks say about Mid East policy