BBC 2024-11-29 12:08:07


Putin threatens Kyiv decision-makers after striking energy grid

Paul Adams & Thomas Mackintosh

BBC News in Uman, Ukraine, and London

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to attack decision-making centres in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with the country’s new ballistic missile, Oreshnik.

Putin was speaking hours after Russia launched a “comprehensive” strike on Ukraine’s energy grid overnight, in what he called a response to “continued attacks” using US-supplied Atacms missiles on Russian soil.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that any “Russian blackmail” would be met with a “tough response”.

Ukraine used Atacms and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russian territory last week for the first time since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, following approval by the Western suppliers, the US, the UK and France.

The overnight Russian strike unfolded over several hours with waves of drones and missiles flying across the length and breadth of Ukraine – the second attack of its kind this month.

There were no fatalities, but it left more than one million people in Ukraine without power.

Zelensky said cluster munitions had been used against civilian and energy infrastructure.

“Cluster warheads [are] a particularly dangerous type of Russian weaponry used against civilians,” he said, adding that they “significantly complicated” the work of rescuers and repair crews.

Putin said the Russia attack involving 90 missiles and 100 drones also included the “Oreshnik” – a new ballistic missile which, according to Putin, cannot be intercepted.

US officials believe Russia is likely only to have a small number of the experimental Oreshnik missiles and would need time to produce more of them.

Responding in his nightly address, Zelensky said Putin “has no interest in ending this war” and sought to “prevent others from ending this war”.

“[His] escalation now is a form of pressure aimed at eventually forcing the president of the United States to accept Russia’s terms.”

The Russian leader also said Moscow would not allow Ukraine to get nuclear weapons, and if it ever did, would use “all means of destruction at Russia’s disposal”, according to Russia’s state-run news agency RIA.

This is thought to be a reference to reports in the New York Times newspaper last week that unnamed Western officials had suggested giving Ukraine nuclear weapons before US President Joe Biden leaves office in January.

Zelensky has also repeatedly complained that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, by which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons inherited from the USSR, had left the country without the necessary security.

The Russian attacks caused explosions in several cities, including Odesa, Kharkiv and Lutsk.

Kyiv was also the target of attacks, but Ukrainian authorities say all missiles targeting the capital were intercepted. Kyiv’s military administration said the attack lasted almost nine-and-a-half hours.

At least 12 areas across Ukraine, including three western regions, were hit and Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said emergency power outages had been introduced.

Elsewhere, the head of the Rivne administration Oleksandr Koval said electricity supplies had been cut to more than 280,000 people in the western region. In the Lviv region, as many as 523,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to regional head Maksym Kozytsky. In Kherson, authorities said they could be left without electricity for days.

Ukrainian authorities have responded by implementing pre-emptive emergency power cuts in order to minimise damaging overloads to the country’s grid.

Temperatures are dropping and the country has already experienced its first snowfalls, but the full force of Ukraine’s famously harsh winter has not yet been felt.

Ukrainian officials fear another concerted Russian attempt to deplete the power grid as winter arrives.

They have been warning for some time that Russia has been stockpiling cruise and ballistic missiles in order to launch coordinated and country-wide attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.

  • A week of massive changes in Ukraine war – and why they all matter
  • What we know about Russia’s Oreshnik missile

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said its thermal energy plants suffered “significant damage”, resulting in blackouts.

Thursday’s attack was the eleventh “major attack” the country’s energy system had faced since March, DTEK said.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its plants have been attacked more than 190 times.

DTEK added that the European Commission and the US had given them up to €107m (£89m) of equipment aid to restore power.

Having already endured two-and-a-half bitter winters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are bracing themselves for another.

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Sweden asks China to co-operate over severed cables

Christy Cooney

BBC News

Sweden has formally asked China to co-operate with an investigation into damage to two cables in the Baltic Sea after a Chinese ship was linked to the incidents.

The cables – one linking Sweden to Lithuania, the other linking Finland to Germany – were damaged in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic Sea on 17 and 18 November.

A Chinese ship, the Yi Peng Three, is believed to have been in the area at the time and has since been anchored in international waters off Denmark.

China has denied any involvement in sabotage.

The Yi Peng Three left the Russian port of Ust-Luga, west of St Petersburg, on 15 November.

Early on 17 November, the Arelion cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania was damaged.

The following day, the C-Lion 1 cable between the Finnish capital Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was severed.

Data from ship tracking websites suggest the Yi Peng Three sailed over the cables at around the time that each was cut.

According to the Wall Street Journal, investigators suspect the ship deliberately damaged the cables by dropping and dragging its anchor along the seabed for more than 160km (100 miles).

The ship has been in the Kattegat strait – a passage between Sweden and Denmark that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – since 19 November and is being monitored by the Danish navy.

On Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference that his government had “sent a formal request to China to co-operate with Swedish authorities in order to create clarity on what has happened”.

“We think it’s extremely important to find out exactly what happened and, of course, we expect also China to comply with the request we have sent,” he said.

He also reiterated an earlier request for the ship to move back into Swedish waters so the ship could be searched as part of the investigation, though added that he was not making an “accusation” of any sort.

The period since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has seen heightened tension in the Baltic Sea and a number of incidents involving damage to undersea infrastructure.

In September 2022, a series of explosions blew holes in the two Nord Stream gas pipelines between western Europe and Russia, and in October 2023 damage was done to an undersea telecoms cable between Estonia and Sweden.

Speaking last week, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said of the latest incident that “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”, though he did not specify who he believed was responsible.

Russia has rejected suggestions it could have been involved as “absurd” and “laughable”.

K-Pop group NewJeans split from agency in mistreatment row

Ruth Comerford

BBC News

Chart-topping K-pop group NewJeans have said they are leaving their agency after accusing it of “mistreatment” and “manipulation”.

The five-member girl band announced their departure from Ador, a subsidiary of powerhouse label Hybe, in a late-night press conference held on Thursday.

Ador however has said its contract with NewJeans still stands, as the agency has not violated any terms.

This dispute is the latest development in a long-running conflict between former NewJeans producer Min Hee-Jin and Hybe’s chairman Bang Si-hyuk, which has made headlines in South Korea.

  • K-pop star gives tearful testimony on harassment
  • NewJeans face uncertainty after failed ultimatum

One of the group’s members, Hanni, has alleged that she suffered workplace harassment while working with the label.

“This is not the type of work ethic we respect and not one we want to be a part of, and to continue working under a company with no intention of protecting NewJeans would only do us harm,” Hanni said.

She added the group had faced “mistreatment, not just towards us but also including our staff”, and said the group had experienced “deliberate miscommunications and manipulation in multiple areas”.

Ador maintains that its contract with NewJeans remains valid as it has not violated its duty and has asked the group to “continue their activities” with the agency.

“A unilateral claim that trust has been broken does not constitute valid grounds for termination of a contract,” Ador said in the statement after the group’s announcement.

“We regret that the press conference on the termination of the contract took place without sufficient consideration, and even before we gave our response to the demand letter,” the agency said.

NewJeans said they would like to work with Min, the group’s former mastermind who left Ador in August following accusations that she had planned to split from Hybe, taking NewJeans with her.

This would have made NewJeans and Ador independent of Hybe. Min has denied the accusations against her.

She has previously accused Hybe of launching another girl group, Illit, that was copying NewJeans’ music and appearance.

On 13 November, NewJeans filed a legal notice to Ador demanding the company resolve breaches of their exclusive contracts within 14 days.

They said that failure to meet their demands would result in the termination of their contracts.

The group has asked for an apology for a comment allegedly made by an executive at Belift Lab, another subsidiary of Hybe, and accused the company of workplace bullying. They have also asked for the immediate reinstatement of Min.

They added that they would fulfil their contractual obligations, but at the conference warned their fans they might not be able to use the band’s name after the contract terminates.

Prior to the NewJeans’ announcement, the band were committed to a seven-year contract, which runs out in 2029.

The contract includes a clause specifying that parties can unilaterally terminate the contract if the other has violated its duty. However, the matter is likely to go to court as both sides do not agree. In such a scenario, a judge would decide if the contract can be terminated and if one side owes the other any damages.

In October, the K-pop news site Koreaboo estimated that the members would have to pay about 300bn South Korean Won (about £170m) to terminate the contract early.

But group singer Haerin said it made “no sense” that the group would be liable to pay a contract breach fee.

“We never broke any rules,” Haerin said. “We did nothing but try our best – they are the ones at fault. Hybe and Ador are the ones responsible.”

Ador said it had not “violated” the terms of the contract, adding that it “respectfully requests that the group continue its collaboration with Ador on upcoming activities”.

“Despite multiple requests for meetings with the artists, our efforts have not been successful. We hope the members will now be willing to engage in an open and candid discussion,” it said, referring to NewJeans.

The group has been embroiled in a year-long controversy with audits and emotional accusations making South Korean headlines.

In October, a member of the group, Hanni, 20, testified at the Labour Committee of South Korea’s National Assembly at a hearing about workplace harassment.

She alleged that entertainment agency Hybe had deliberately undermined her band, and accused senior managers of deliberately ignoring her.

Following several incidents, she said: “I came to the realisation that this wasn’t just a feeling. I was honestly convinced that the company hated us.”

Hybe shares were trading around 3% lower in Friday morning trading in Seoul.

NewJeans made its debut in 2022 and is among Hybe’s most successful K-pop groups, along with BTS.

With slick pop hits including Super Shy and OMG, NewJeans were the eighth biggest-selling act in the world last year, and were nominated for best group at this year’s MTV Awards.

Formed by Ador in 2022, its five members – Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein – range in age from 16 to 20.

Can flights really reach net zero by 2050 – and what will it cost holidaymakers?

Justin Rowlatt

Climate Editor

It is the perfect start to a holiday: your plane ticket is cheap, your cabin baggage is safely stowed, the engines are roaring into life – and the pilot has announced that there’s no need to worry about the environmental impact.

This is Jet Zero, a vision where air travel is entirely carbon neutral thanks to new technology and green ventures that offset the environmental impact. The plan was drafted in 2022 when Boris Johnson was prime minister, marking a step towards the government’s legal obligation to reach net zero by 2050. The Labour government has since made a similar pledge, and in addition it wants all domestic flights and UK airport operations to reach zero emissions by 2040.

This is no easy feat when you consider the scale of the challenge: one passenger taking an economy-class flight from London to New York generates 309kg of carbon dioxide, which would take roughly a year to absorb via 10 mature trees.

Multiply this on the global scale and the aviation industry would need to plant roughly 100 billion mature trees each year to offset its emissions. For UK emissions alone you’d need a forest almost the size of Wales.

So, just how realistic is the plan to hit Jet Zero by 2050? And what is the knock-on cost for passengers?

Earlier this year, Anthony Browne, who was the aviation minister in the Conservative government at the time, said that he thought any increase in ticket prices would be “marginal”.

“We don’t think the difference will be noticeable to most consumers,” he said.

But some experts claim that politicians are not being realistic. Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, argues that there “definitely would be higher cost”.

“Governments desperately don’t want to tell people they’re going to have to pay for what they do.”

But ultimately, the cost depends on which methods are employed to cut or reduce emissions.

From sharklets to UltraFans

The previous government said that it aimed reach Jet Zero by focusing on “the rapid development of technologies”, as well as operational improvements and – among other things – more sustainable fuel types.

This is not an entirely new quest. Aircraft around the world have been steadily getting cleaner since 1969 when the first high-bypass turbofan engines were used on the new Boeing 747 aircraft. In the years since there have been other innovations including sharklets, or upturned wing tips on modern planes that reduce drag and save, on average, 4% of fuel per trip.

More developments are in the pipeline, including a new type of jet engine, developed by Rolls Royce, called the “UltraFan”, which will reduce average fuel consumption by 10%.

“Because it’s a gearbox, the turbine can run very fast, much more efficiently, the fan can run slower and be much bigger,“ explains Simon Burr, a director at Rolls-Royce.

The problem is that, though it was first tested in 2023, it’s unlikely to be available on commercial aircraft until the 2030s because of production lead times – and even then, a 10% improvement is impressive but not a game changer.

Aviation’s CO2 emissions come primarily through jet engines using carbon-rich fossil fuels, which produce CO2 when burned, so there have been attempts to create an alternative type made from renewable biomass and waste resources, known as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

The first SAF flight ran between London and Amsterdam in 2008 using fuel derived from a mixture of Brazilian babassu nuts and coconuts.

Now the British government says that 22% of all jet fuel from UK aviation has to come from sustainable sources by 2040. But this comes with further challenges.

In the UK, SAF is mainly made from cooking oil, some of which is shipped from Asia, and shipping is responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions.

Alternative methods of creating SAF require large quantities of electricity as part of the manufacturing process. This would involve a vast amount of renewable energy to make it sustainable.

“It’s very hard, to think there is such a thing as a sustainable aviation fuel,” says Sir Dieter Helm. “There are aviation fuels that are less polluting than the ones being used at the moment, and you can use elements of biofuel and chip fat and so on.

“Think about the scale that’s required to do it.”

Remapping the sky

There is another more unexpected way that airlines could reduce emissions. That is, making their flight paths more direct to reduce fuel consumption.

Currently most planes fly on routes determined by a network of beacons, many of which were put in place decades ago. As a result they don’t always fly by the shortest route, but “airspace modernisation”, as it is known, will allow for straighter paths to destinations.

Satellite technology is required to do this: aircraft flying over the Atlantic used to have to fly at least 40 miles apart, but the satellite technology means that aircraft can in theory fly as close as 14 miles apart, allowing more aircraft to fly on the direct flight paths.

The Jet Zero Strategy estimates that this, together with other fuel efficiency improvements, could cut emissions by as much as 15% by 2050.

But the National Air Traffic Services (NATS), which control most flights in and out of England and Wales, caution that these changes are neither easy nor quick. “It’s a very, very complicated thing to do,” warns Chris Norsworthy, director of future planning.

“The national infrastructure change of this type takes many years. The deployments we’ve made already are years in the making.”

The electric plane race

Hidden away in a mini aircraft hangar of sorts, just outside Bristol, inventor Stephen Fitzpatrick has spent seven years working on a pioneering aircraft that could be the basis of another solution. His carbon fibre creation, known as VX4, has eight propellers and looks like a giant drone, but what’s crucial is that it doesn’t use fuel. Instead it is powered by lithium-ion batteries similar to those in electric cars.

The batteries alone weigh 800kg, which brings the first challenge: the sheer weight limits how far it can fly.

Mr Fitzpatrick says the VX4 will have a range of around 100 miles to begin with. “Each year the batteries that we use will improve… Over time, we’ll be able to develop a hybrid powertrain, probably using hydrogen fuel cells and batteries, and that will increase the range further.”

The prospect of replacing jet engine-powered long-haul flights is, however, remote. “There is no battery chemistry in the world that will give us the energy we need to take hundreds of passengers over the Atlantic,” he concedes.

Harnessing hydrogen in other ways may be a better bet.

The British-American aircraft company, ZeroAvia, says it expects to have an 80-seater powered entirely by hydrogen in the air within two to three years. Airbus is developing something similar.

Both are propeller planes, however, with limited speeds and ranges.

The pricetag for passengers

The reductions from SAF, fuel efficiency improvements and zero carbon aircraft will only cut aviation emissions by around a third, according to the previous government’s estimates. So another part of the Jet Zero strategy involves a pricing scheme to charge airlines for CO2 emissions and carbon offsetting.

Airlines already pay a duty for each flight someone takes in the UK, a cost that is passed to passengers. In much of the UK (excluding Scotland) this adds £7 to each domestic flight, £14 to short-haul ones and £92 for long-haul. But carbon offsetting means paying another fee.

Some schemes have been highly controversial, with questions around how to prove how many trees have been prevented from being cut down.

Cait Hewitt, policy director at the Aviation Environment Federation, is concerned that the current informal offsetting projects may be counterproductive: “They could actually have made that problem a bit worse over time by giving consumers the false impression that the emissions from their flight [are] being cancelled out somehow by an offset.”

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Duncan McCourt, chief executive of Sustainable Aviation, an umbrella group for UK airlines, airports, manufacturers and others in the business, is optimistic that removing carbon from flying won’t add much more than a few pounds to the cost of an airline ticket.

“We think we can do it while enabling people to continue to fly and continue to get that benefit of flying, such as connecting people, such as being able to go on holiday,” he says.

But the Jet Zero plan says nothing directly about the knock-on cost to passengers. Instead, it refers to “demand management”.

Sir Dieter Helm has his own take on what Jet Zero means for holidaymakers and fully believes that it will lead to higher costs. As for the likelihood of the government hitting its Jet Zero target on time, he is unconvinced of this too, but he also suggests that this may not be the point.

“It depends whether you think Jet Zero is… genuinely a target and they mean to achieve it. I’m really sceptical about the second.”

And now, the number of flights taken annually by people in the UK is projected to rise even further, translating into an additional 150 million more flights a year. So the scale of the government’s challenge, which was large enough when it began, is only set to grow.

Childcare worker who abused more than 60 girls jailed for life

Tiffanie Turnbull

BBC News, Sydney

A former childcare worker dubbed “one of Australia’s worst paedophiles” has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 girls.

Ashley Paul Griffith, 47, confessed to 307 offences committed at childcare centres in the Australian state of Queensland and Italy between 2003 and 2022. His victims were aged between one and seven.

Judge Paul Smith called the scale and nature of the crimes “depraved” and “horrendous”, saying “there was a significant breach of trust”.

Griffith is separately accused of abusing an unknown number of children in the state of New South Wales.

In the Brisbane District Court on Friday, Judge Smith said Griffith – who the court heard had a “paedophilic disorder” – had a high risk of reoffending, ordering a non-parole period of at least 27 years.

Griffiths was first arrested in August 2022 by Australia’s federal police, and a year later charged with more than 1,600 child sex offences. Most of these were eventually dropped.

Investigators found thousands of photographs and videos of his abuse, which he had filmed and uploaded onto the dark web.

Although faces were cropped out of the footage, they managed to trace them to Griffith because of a unique set of bedsheets seen in the background of the videos, which had been sold to childcare centres across Queensland.

He pleaded guilty to 28 counts of rape, almost 200 charges relating to indecent treatment of a child, and several related to making and sharing child exploitation material.

Four of the victims were under his care at a childcare centre in Pisa, Italy, while the other 65 were from 11 locations across Brisbane, Australia.

Ahead of his sentence behind handed down, the court heard a string of emotional statements from Griffiths’ victims and their parents.

Among them were two sisters who were abused in kindergarten, one of whom recalled Griffith being her favourite teacher.

“To find out what he was really doing was devastating and brought on conflicting emotions, to say the least,” she said, according to The Courier Mail.

“I don’t seem to be able to process it even now, because there’s a disconnect between what I remember and the reality.”

Another of his victims told how his actions had robbed her of a normal childhood, recounting her struggles with mental illness in the years since.

“I will never know what my life could have been like,” she said, in a report by the Guardian Australia.

“I can never know what it would have been to grow up unafraid of people.”

Parents meanwhile told the court of their horror upon discovering the crimes inflicted upon their children, with several saying they struggled to forgive themselves for trusting Griffith.

“(My daughter) loved you like an uncle and you used her like a toy,” one said, according to News Corp Australia.

Another explained how she was trying to keep the burden of knowledge of the abuse from her daughter.

“I cannot undo what you did to her body but will do everything I can to limit the damage to her mind,” she said, according to the Courier Mail.

A fatal car crash in India sparks concerns over Google Maps

Cherylann Mollan & Syed Moziz Imam

BBC News and BBC Hindi

Can a navigation app be held responsible if a user gets into an accident?

That is the question being asked in India after three men died when their car veered off an unfinished bridge and fell on to a riverbed in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Police are still investigating the incident, which took place on Sunday, but they believe that Google Maps led the group to take that route.

A part of the bridge had reportedly collapsed earlier this year because of floods and while locals knew this and avoided the bridge, the three men were not aware of this and were from outside the area. There were no barricades or sign boards indicating that the bridge was unfinished.

Authorities have named four engineers from the state’s road department and an unnamed official from Google Maps in a police complaint on charges of culpable homicide.

A spokesperson from Google told BBC Hindi that it was co-operating with the investigation.

The tragic accident has spotlighted India’s poor road infrastructure and sparked a debate on whether navigation apps like Google Maps share responsibility for such incidents.

Some blame the app for not providing accurate information while others argue that it is a larger failure on the part of the government for not cordoning off the place.

Google Maps is the most popular navigation app in India and has become synonymous with GPS (Global Positioning System), a satellite-based radio navigation system.

It also powers the services of many ride-sharing, e-commerce and food delivery platforms. The app reportedly has around 60 million active users and witnesses around 50 million searches in a day.

But the app has frequently come under scrutiny for providing incorrect directions, sometimes leading to fatal accidents.

In 2021, a man from Maharashtra state drowned after he drove his car into a dam, allegedly while following directions on the app.

Last year, two young doctors in Kerala state died after they drove their car into a river. Police said that they had been following a route shown by the app and cautioned people against relying on it too much when roads were flooded.

But how does Google Maps learn about changes on a road?

GPS signals from users’ apps track traffic changes along routes – an increase signals congestion, while a decrease suggests a road is less used. The app also receives updates from governments and users about traffic jams or closures.

Complaints related to high traffic, or the ones notified by authorities are given priority, as Google does not have the manpower to deal with the millions of complaints streaming in daily, says Ashish Nair, the founder of mapping platform Potter Maps and a former Google Maps employee.

“A map operator then uses satellite imagery, Google Street View and government notifications to confirm the change and update the map.”

According to Mr Nair, navigating apps cannot be held responsible for mishaps as their terms of services make it clear that users must apply their own judgement on the road and that the information provided by the app might differ from actual conditions.

Besides, it is simply very difficult for a platform like Google, which manages maps across the world, to keep across every change that happens on a road, he adds.

Unlike other countries, India also does not have a robust system for reporting such issues on time.

“Data remains a big challenge in India. There is no system for infrastructural changes to be logged into a web interface, which can then be used by apps like Google Maps. Countries like Singapore have such a system,” Mr Nair says.

He adds that India’s vast population and fast-paced development make it even more challenging to get accurate, real-time data. “In other words, bad maps are here to stay until governments become more proactive about collecting and sharing data.”

Lawyers are divided on whether GPS apps can be held legally responsible for road accidents.

Advocate Saima Khan says that since India’s Information Technology (IT) Act gives digital platforms like Google Maps the status of an ‘intermediary’ (a platform that merely disseminates information provided by a third party) it is protected against liability.

But she adds that if it can be proven that the platform did not rectify its data despite being given correct, timely information, then it might be held liable for negligence.

Death threats and division: A political feud takes a dramatic turn

Jonathan Head

Southeast Asia correspondent

When a sitting vice-president says she has hired assassins to kill the president, and dreams of cutting off his head, you might think that country was in serious trouble.

But then this is the Philippines, where politics and melodrama go hand in hand.

“I have talked to a person,” Vice-president Sara Duterte said on her Facebook page last weekend. “I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [President Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke. I said, do not stop until you kill them, and then he said yes.”

Last month she told reporters her relationship with President Marcos had become toxic, and she dreamed of cutting off his head. She also threatened to dig up the body of the president’s father from the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila and dump the ashes in the sea.

Behind all this drama is a once powerful political alliance which has spectacularly unravelled.

A marriage of convenience

The decision by the Marcos and Duterte clans to join forces in the 2022 presidential election was a marriage of convenience. Both candidates were the offspring of presidents – Sara Duterte’s father Rodrigo was the incumbent then – and had strong support in different regions of the Philippines. Both had populist appeal.

However, having both run for president risked dividing their supporters and losing to a third candidate.

So she agreed that Marcos would go for president, while she went for vice-president – the two posts are elected separately – but that they would form one team on the campaign trail. The assumption was that the younger Duterte would then be in prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028.

It proved a very effective strategy. The UniTeam, as they branded themselves, won by a landslide.

However, as any of her predecessors could have told Duterte, the vice-presidency is largely ceremonial, and has few powers.

The Dutertes had wanted the influential defence portfolio; President Marcos instead gave her Education, an early sign he was wary of letting his vice-president build up her power base.

He also made an abrupt turn away from the politics of his predecessor.

He ordered the Philippines navy and coastguard to stand up to China in disputed areas of the South China Sea. This was a marked contrast to President Rodrigo Duterte who had refused to challenge China’s dominant presence there, and even declared that he loved Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Marcos also toned down President Duterte’s infamous war on drugs, in which thousands of suspected drug dealers were gunned down.

He has hinted at the possibility of rejoining the International Criminal Court, which has issued an indictment for crimes against humanity against Rodrigo Duterte. The former president has also found himself in front of the Philippines Senate being grilled about the extrajudicial killings that happened during his presidency.

Relations between the two camps soured further when Marcos’s allies in the lower house launched an investigation into Sara Duterte’s use of the confidential funds she was allocated when she got the job.

In July, the vice-president resigned as education secretary, and her language became increasingly inflammatory.

The ‘alpha’ VP

Sara Duterte is no stranger to controversy. Thirteen years ago, when she was mayor of Davao City, she was filmed repeatedly punching a court official.

She comes from the same political mould as her outspoken father, both of them known for tough talking. He called the Pope a “son of a whore” and boasted of having killed people.

He describes her as the “alpha” character of the family who always gets her way; she says he is hard to love. Like her father she likes riding big motorbikes.

Her latest threats to her one-time ally President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, though, may prove to be one verbal indiscretion too far.

Marcos has responded by calling Duterte’s comments “reckless” and “troubling”. The Philippines National Bureau of Investigation – its equivalent of the American FBI – has summoned the vice-president to explain her threats on Friday.

She has now walked them back, denying they were real. “This is a plan without flesh,” she explained, accusing Marcos of being a liar who was leading the country to hell.

Perhaps it was inevitable that two such powerful families would become rivals in the maelstrom of Filipino politics, which is still largely about personalities, big families and regions.

Political loyalties are fluid; senators and members of congress constantly shift their party allegiances. Power inevitably concentrates around the president, with his authority to dispense government funds. Former presidents are routinely investigated for corruption or abuses of power once they leave office.

President Marcos wants to rehabilitate the reputation of his family, after his father’s shameful ejection by a popular uprising in 1986, and will be keen to influence the choice of his successor in 2028. The Dutertes have their own dynastic ambitions.

For now Sara Duterte is still vice-president. She could be removed through impeachment by the Senate, but that would be a risky move for President Marcos. She enjoys strong popular support in the south, and among the millions of overseas Filipino workers, and getting sufficient support in the Senate for impeachment could be difficult.

Mid-term elections are due in May next year, in which the entire lower house and half of the 24 senatorial seats will be contested. They will be seen as a test of the strength for each of the rival camps.

Duterte’s explosive break with the president is an opportunity for her to back her own candidates, and present herself as an alternative to a government which has lost popularity over the lacklustre performance of the economy. That could give her a better launching pad for the 2028 presidential race than staying shackled to the Marcos administration.

But after her incendiary comments of the past few weeks, Filipinos must be wondering: what will she say next?

Australia approves social media ban on under-16s

Hannah Ritchie

BBC News, Sydney

Australia will ban children under 16 from using social media, after its parliament approved the world’s strictest laws.

The ban, which will not take effect for at least 12 months, could see tech companies fined up to A$50m ($32.5m; £25.7m) if they don’t comply.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the legislation is needed to protect young people from the “harms” of social media, something many parent groups have echoed.

But critics say questions over how the ban will work – and its impact on privacy and social connection – have been left unanswered.

This is not the first attempt globally to restrict children’s social media use, but the minimum age of 16 is the highest set by any country. Unlike other attempts, it also does not include exemptions for existing users or those with parental consent.

Having passed the Senate by 34 votes to 19 late on Thursday, the bill returned to the House of Representatives where it passed early on Friday.

“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs,” Albanese told reporters afterwards.

The legislation does not specify which platforms will be banned. Those decisions will be made later by Australia’s communications minister, who will seek advice from the eSafety Commissioner – an internet regulator that will enforce the rules.

However the minister, Michelle Rowland, has said the ban will include Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X. Gaming and messaging platforms are exempt, as are sites that can be accessed without an account, meaning YouTube, for instance, is likely to be spared.

The government says will it rely on some form of age-verification technology to implement the restrictions, and options will be tested in the coming months. The onus will be on the social media platforms to add these processes themselves.

However digital researchers have warned there are no guarantees the unspecified technology – which could rely on biometrics or identity information – will work. Critics have also sought assurances that privacy will be protected.

They have also warned that restrictions could easily be circumvented through tools like a VPN – which can disguise a user’s location and make them appear to be logging on from another country.

Children who find ways to flout the rules will not face penalties, however.

Polling on the reforms, though limited, suggests it is supported by a majority of Australian parents and caregivers.

“For too long parents have had this impossible choice between giving in and getting their child an addictive device or seeing their child isolated and feeling left out,” Amy Friedlander, who was among those lobbying for the ban, recently told the BBC.

“We’ve been trapped in a norm that no one wants to be a part of.”

But many experts say the ban is “too blunt an instrument” to effectively address the risks associated with social media use, and have warned it could end up pushing children into less regulated corners of the internet.

During a short consultation period before the bill passed, Google and Snap criticised the legislation for not providing more detail, and Meta said the bill would be “ineffective” and not meet its stated aim of making kids safer.

In its submission, TikTok said the government’s definition of a social media platform was so “broad and unclear” that “almost every online service could fall within [it]”.

X questioned the “lawfulness” of the bill – saying it may not be compatible with international regulations and human rights treaties which Australia has signed.

Some youth advocates also accused the government of not fully understanding the role social media plays in their lives, and locking them out of the debate.

“We understand we are vulnerable to the risks and negative impacts of social media… but we need to be involved in developing solutions,” wrote the eSafety Youth Council, which advises the regulator.

Albanese has acknowledged the debate is complex but steadfastly defended the bill.

“We don’t argue that its implementation will be perfect, just like the alcohol ban for [children] under 18 doesn’t mean that someone under 18 never has access – but we know that it’s the right thing to do,” he said on Friday.

Last year, France introduced legislation to block social media access for children under 15 without parental consent, though research indicates almost half of users were able to avoid the ban using a VPN.

A law in the US state of Utah – which was similar to Australia’s – was overturned by a federal judge who found it unconstitutional.

Australia’s laws are being watched with great interest by global leaders.

Norway has recently pledged to follow in the country’s footsteps, and last week the UK’s technology secretary said a similar ban was “on the table” – though he later added “not… at the moment”.

Ceasefire largely holds but Israelis near Lebanon border have their doubts

Lucy Williamson

BBC Middle East Correspondent
Reporting fromNorthern Israel

Israel says its forces fired artillery and carried out airstrikes against targets in southern Lebanon, on the second day of a ceasefire brokered after more than a year of war between Israel and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah.

The Israeli army said it had fired at suspects after spotting activity at a Hezbollah weapons facility, and vehicles arriving in several areas that breached the terms of the ceasefire deal.

Lebanon accused Israel of violating the agreement “multiple times” and said it was monitoring the situation.

Despite fraying around the edges, so far the ceasefire appears to be largely holding, and the Israeli military road leading to the northern tip of the Lebanese border was sleepier than it has been for months. Through the open gates of bases, soldiers were carrying out routine maintenance, stick figures on the lines of tanks, etched against the late afternoon sky.

One captain, who crossed out of Lebanon this morning, told me he and his team were happy to be out of the fighting and going back to their lives – but that they all hoped they had done enough.

“If not, we all understand that we’ll find ourselves back here soon enough,” he said.

“Personally, I think there’s still work to be done. It’s clear that Hezbollah is still strong enough to threaten Israel.”

Israel’s leaders are signalling their confidence to the public – lifting daily restrictions in some areas, and removing blast walls and makeshift shelters from border roads.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has also vowed an “intensive war” if Hezbollah violates the ceasefire.

There is vocal support from Washington for using this truce as a springboard to a wider regional ceasefire. And Hamas has reportedly signalled its willingness to talk about a deal along similar lines.

But there are many voices here in the north who say the ceasefire with Hezbollah is a mistake, even a “surrender”.

One of them is Michael Kabesa, mayor for the northern community of Hatzor Haglilit.

“It’s more a surrender agreement than a ceasefire,” he told me. “We didn’t finish the job, we stopped at 70% – so they will grow, restore their abilities, and we will meet again in another 20 years.”

The focus on this side of the border is when and how residents might begin to return to communities that were evacuated at the start of the war, almost 14 months ago.

“We need a very safe parameter,” Mayor Kabesa told me. “We need to see the army on the border on a big scale, so it will give us confidence.”

Israeli forces are due to gradually hand over control of southern areas of Lebanon over the next two months, to the Lebanese army, with Unifil support, and oversight from the American military and the French.

“The Americans and the French are a really nice addition,” said Mr Kabesa, “but we know that no power, no international force, can enforce the situation. We need to take care of ourselves – this is the biggest lesson after 7 October.”

The 7 October attacks on Israel last year – carried out by the Palestinian armed group Hamas, a Hezbollah ally in Gaza – have transformed social and political life here.

Mayor Kabesa was among the first Israeli soldiers who helped to clear the ravaged kibbutzim around the Gaza border in the early days after the attack.

What he saw after the Hamas invasion, he said, has changed his assessment of security in the north.

But there are some in these northern communities who have refused to evacuate during almost 14 months of war, staying on in abandoned towns that were regularly hit by Hezbollah rockets and missiles.

Chris Coyle, originally from Edinburgh, is one of only four residents left in his apartment complex in Kiryat Shmona.

All the windows in his block – and those of the buildings 200m around it – are boarded up, after being blown out when a missile landed in the road outside several months ago.

Rockets and missiles landed here several times a day – sometimes several times an hour.

Before Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon to push back Hezbollah positions, Chris had four seconds to get to the safe room – it wasn’t enough, so he used to just lie on the kitchen floor, using the fridge door as a shield.

“We need a ceasefire,” he told me. “If it holds for a month, we can have some hope.”

For the past year, Kiryat Shmona has been a ghostly empty place, scarred by rockets, where lone soldiers buy off-duty supplies from the few shops still open.

But Chris says a ceasefire will bring the town back to life.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have said they’ll come back,” he said. “It’ll take a month or two, but they’ll come back.”

The army captain I met on his way out of Lebanon today said he thought troops had delivered the opportunity for Israel to stop and evaluate the operation.

“I think it’s a good time to give this a chance,” he said. “I hope the politicians will make the best out of it – and also to know when to stop accepting what the other side is doing, and react.”

Hope, fear, faith and love: Four people on why assisted dying vote matters

Fergus Walsh, Camilla Horrox, Dominic Hughes and George Sandeman

BBC News

For the first time in almost a decade, MPs will on Friday debate and vote on whether terminally ill people should have the right to end their lives.

If MPs vote in favour of assisted dying, it could lead to a significant change to society in the UK, on a par with reforms around the death penalty, divorce, abortion and gay marriage.

MPs last voted on this deeply sensitive issue nearly a decade ago, when they comprehensively rejected the idea. But it is hard to predict how a House of Commons, filled with many first-time MPs and given a free vote on the matter, will approach such a significant debate.

Jan Butterworth wants the choice to end her life. She has advanced endometrial cancer and has been told she has less than six months to live.

She witnessed her husband’s death from liver cancer 30 years ago and does not want to go the same way. “It was a very difficult and very distressing death,” she says.

Under the proposed new law, people like Jan – who have been told they have less than six months to live – would be able to access drugs to end their lives, but only with the agreement of two doctors and a High Court judge who would review the decision.

Jan would like to die at home with her son and daughter by her side but she knows that isn’t likely, even if the bill does pass, because she only has months to live.

“It leaves me with a very poor set of options,” she says. “We should make it right for people, give them the opportunity to have a smooth passing – a comfortable death.”

More on the assisted dying vote

  • EXPLAINED: What is assisted dying and when is the vote?
  • TERMINALLY ILL: Two people close to death on what they want from vote
  • CLOSE CALL: MPs talk of hardest decision of their careers
  • CHRIS MASON: Our politics editor says far from clear if vote will pass

But opponents of the bill are concerned, among other things, that assisted dying being legal would create implicit pressure on those who were eligible for it.

Becki Bruneau has cancer which has spread to her lungs. She is against any change to the law.

“My absolute worry is that if I am in a position like I was two years ago, where I was in so much excruciating pain, and I don’t have someone with me, I could potentially make the wrong decision,” she tells us. “And the wrong decision is not something you can come back from. You’re dead.”

Her view is partly informed by her religious beliefs but also that the bill would be a danger to people with disabilities or terminal illnesses.

It’s an argument often made by opponents of the legislation and especially those who live with disabilities. They are concerned the proposed law would devalue the lives of many vulnerable people.

Becki shares those fears. She says it would open the door to people being subjected to coercive control or being pressured to end their lives prematurely.

“This law potentially puts people in a position where they think they are a burden and the easy option is to end their life. That’s very worrying, especially at a time when people are at their most vulnerable.”

The proposed bill in England and Wales comes with safeguards supporters say will make it the strictest set of rules in the world

But others worry that, if approved, the law on assisted dying could later become looser, meaning more people could have an assisted death.

Mark Blackwell has Parkinson’s disease and is cared for round the clock by his wife Eppie. He wouldn’t be eligible for assisted dying under the terms of the bill – but he’s still concerned about the impact the law could have on people like him who have progressive illnesses.

Parkinson’s is not considered a terminal illness. It is a condition affecting specific parts of the brain that become progressively damaged over many years.

Mark’s illness means he can’t speak anymore but he can communicate a little through blinking his eyes.

Asked by BBC News if assisted dying being legalised would make him feel a burden and a pressure to end his life, he indicates it would.

Mark and Eppie have been married for 45 years and she tells us caring for him until the end of his natural life is her way of showing her love for him.

“When we got married we made a vow, for better or worse, in sickness and in health,” says Eppie. “Love is unconditional.”

Again their views are partly shaped by their Christian faith but also, they say, their professional experience. Both worked in psychiatry and had patients who took their own lives.

Religious groups, with a strong belief in the sanctity of human life, alongside disability charities, have formed the backbone of the opposition to the proposed legislation, but the arguments against a change in the law have been couched in very secular terms.

For Mark and Eppie, the argument comes down to simply valuing life.

‘Prolonged and very unpleasant’

Friday’s vote is just the latest attempt to introduce assisted dying – it was first debated in Parliament in 1936.

The current bill – called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – has been introduced by the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

She came top of a ballot of MPs and so her bill – known as a Private Members’ Bill – is the first to be considered and has probably the best chance of becoming law.

Even though the government has remained neutral on the issue, and MPs can vote according to their own beliefs, ministers have already come out in favour or against the bill.

For Sir Nicholas Mostyn, a retired High Court judge, the compassionate thing to do would be to give him the choice to end his life before his body deteriorates to the point he can no longer physically do everyday tasks.

Like Mark, he has also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s but he is not yet in the advanced stages of the disease.

“The likelihood, if you’ve got Parkinson’s disease, your ending is going to be prolonged and very unpleasant,” he tells BBC News. He supports the bill – even though it would not give him the right to end his life.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s include parts of the body shaking uncontrollably and slow movement. In the most advanced stages, the disease people can find themselves unable to move and unable to speak.

Sir Nicholas, and some sufferers of other debilitating conditions not considered terminal illnesses, would like the bill to be amended to cover them.

For some critics, this is an important reason to vote against it.

They fear, whether now or in the future, this bill could be widened to include sufferers of non-terminal conditions – this, they say, would be a danger to disabled people.

The example most regularly cited is Canada, which opponents say is an example of a so-called “slippery slope”.

Legislation introduced there in 2016 was initially just for the terminally ill, but was extended in 2021 to those experiencing “unbearable suffering” from an irreversible illness or disability. There have been delays to further extensions, but it is still due to become available to those with a mental illness in three years.

Sir Nicholas says: “I just don’t understand the moral argument, which is that because I wish to exercise sovereignty over my own body, that I am in some way facilitating a ‘slippery slope’ for abusive treatment of people who don’t actually want to [end their lives].”

Friday’s vote – if it passes – would just be the beginning of a long parliamentary process; weeks of scrutiny by a committee of MPs will follow, as they go through the legislation line-by-line.

The bill will then return to the House of Commons and then the House of Lords where it could be amended in further votes.

Even if MPs vote in favour of the bill – there is still a long way to go before these proposed changes become law.

But if they do, it will mark another significant reform of the law that has seen our society change so much over the past 50 years.

Paris’s Gothic jewel Notre-Dame to reopen five years after fire

Hugh Schofield

BBC News, Paris

The world gets a first look inside a resplendent new Notre-Dame on Friday, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron conducts a televised tour to mark the cathedral’s imminent re-opening.

Five-and-a-half years after the devastating fire of 2019, Paris’s Gothic jewel has been rescued, renovated and refurbished – offering visitors what promises to be a breathtaking visual treat.

The president – accompanied by his wife Brigitte and Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich – are kicking off a programme of ceremonies that culminates with an official “entry” into the cathedral on 7 December and the first Catholic Mass the next day.

After being shown highlights of the building’s €700m (£582m) renovation – including the massive roof timbers that replace the medieval frame consumed in the fire – he will give a speech of thanks to around 1,300 craftsmen and women gathered in the nave.

Notre-Dame’s re-vamped interior has been kept a closely-guarded secret – with only a few images released over the years marking the progress of the renovation work.

But people who have been inside recently say the experience is awe-inspiring, the cathedral lifted by a new clarity and brightness that mark a sharp contrast with the pervading gloom of before.

“The word that will best capture the day is ‘splendour’,” said an insider of the Elysée closely involved with the restoration.

“People will discover the splendour of the cut stone, [which is] of an immaculate whiteness such as has not been seen in the cathedral maybe for centuries.”

On the evening of 15 April 2019, viewers around the world watched aghast as live pictures were broadcast of orange flames spreading along the roof of the cathedral, and then – at the peak of the conflagration – of the 19th Century spire crashing to the ground.

The cathedral – whose structure was already a cause for concern before the inferno – was undergoing external renovation at the time. Among the theories for the cause of the fire are a cigarette left by a workman, or an electrical fault.

Some 600 firefighters battled the flames for 15 hours.

At one point, it was feared that the eight bells in the north tower were at risk of falling, which would have brought the tower itself down, and possibly much of the cathedral walls.

In the end the structure was saved.

What was destroyed were the spire, the wooden roof beams (known as the “forest”), and the stone vaulting over the centre of the transept and part of the nave.

There was also much damage from falling wood and masonry, and from water from firehoses.

Thankfully what was saved made a much longer list – including all the stained-glass windows, most of the statuary and artwork, and the holy relic known as the Crown of Thorns. The organ – the second biggest in France – was badly affected by dust and smoke, but reparable.

Cathedral clergy also celebrated certain “miraculés” – miraculous survivors.

These include the 14th Century statue in the choir known as the Virgin of the Pillar, which narrowly avoided being crushed by falling masonry.

Sixteen massive copper statues of the Apostles and Evangelists, which surrounded the spire, were brought down for renovation just four days before the fire.

After inspecting the devastation the next day, Macron made what to many at the time seemed a rash promise: to have Notre-Dame re-opened for visitors within five years.

A public body to manage the work was created by law, and an appeal for funds brought an immediate response. In all €846m were raised, much from big sponsors but also from hundreds of thousands of small donors.

Responsibility for the task was given to Jean-Louis Georgelin, a no-nonsense army general who shared Macron’s impatience with committees and the “heritage” establishment.

“They’re used to dealing with frigates. This is an aircraft-carrier,” he said.

Georgelin is given universal credit for the project’s undoubted success, but he died in an accident in the Pyrenees in August 2023 and was replaced by Philippe Jost.

An estimated 2,000 masons, carpenters, restorers, roofers, foundry-workers, art experts, sculptors and engineers worked on the project – providing a huge boost for French arts and crafts.

Many trades – such as stone-carving – have seen a big increase in apprenticeships as a result of the publicity.

“[The Notre Dame project] has been the equivalent of a World Fair, in the way it has been a showcase for our craftsmanship. It is a superb shop-window internationally,” said Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, whose association promotes traditional building skills.

The first task of the project was to make the site safe, and then to dismantle the massive tangle of metal scaffolding that had previously surrounded the spire but melted in the fire and fused with the stonework.

Early on a decision had to be made about the nature of renovation: whether to faithfully recreate the medieval building and the 19th Century neo-Gothic changes wrought by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, or to use the opportunity to mark the building with a modern imprint.

An appeal for new designs produced unusual ideas, including a glass roof, a green “eco-roof”, a massive flame instead of a spire, and a spire topped by a vertical laser shooting into the firmament.

In the face of opposition from experts and the public, all were abandoned and the reconstruction is essentially true to the original – though with some concessions to modern materials and safety requirements. The roof timbers, for example, are now protected with sprinklers and partitioning.

The only remaining point of contention is over Macron’s desire for a modern design for stained-glass windows in six side-chapels. Artists have submitted entries for a competition, but there is stiff opposition from many in the French arts world.

Macron has tried to make the renovation of Notre-Dame a theme and a symbol.

He has closely involved himself with the project, and visited the cathedral several times.

At a moment when his political fortunes are at an all-time low – following bruising parliamentary elections in July – the re-opening is a much-needed boost for morale.

Some said he was stealing the limelight by organising Friday’s ceremony – officially to mark the end of the project – a week ahead of the formal re-opening. It means that the first, long-awaited images of the interior will also inevitably focus on him.

In answer Elysée officials point out that the cathedral – like all French religious buildings under a law of 1905 – belongs to the state, with the Catholic Church its “assigned user”; and that without Macron’s rapid mobilisation, the work would never have been completed so quickly.

“Five years ago everyone thought the president’s promise would be hard to keep,” said the Elysée insider.

“Today we have the proof not only that it was possible – but that it was at heart what everyone ardently wanted.

“What people will see [in the new Notre Dame] is the splendour and the strength of collective will-power – .”

Syria rebels launch major offensive in north-west and gain territory

David Gritten

BBC News

Rebel forces have launched a major offensive in north-western Syria, capturing territory from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time in years.

The Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions said they had seized control of a number of towns and villages in Aleppo and Idlib provinces since Wednesday.

The Syrian military said its forces were confronting a “large-scale” attack by “terrorists” and inflicting heavy losses on them.

A UK-based monitoring group said more than 180 combatants on both sides had been killed in the fighting. At least 19 civilians had also been killed in Syrian and Russian air strikes on opposition-held areas, it added.

More than half a million people have been killed in the civil war that erupted after the government cracked down violently on peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011.

Idlib is the last remaining opposition stronghold and is home to more than 4 million people, many of whom have been displaced during the conflict and are living in dire conditions.

The enclave is mostly controlled by HTS, but Turkish-backed rebel factions operating under the banner of the Syrian National Army (SNA) and Turkish forces are also based there.

In 2020, Turkey and Russia – a staunch ally of Assad – brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib. That led to an extended lull in violence, but sporadic clashes, air strikes and shelling continued.

Last month, the UN special envoy for Syria warned that the wars in Gaza and Lebanon appeared to be “catalysing conflict in north-west Syria in a dangerous manner”.

Geir Pedersen said HTS had carried out a significant raid into government-held areas, Russia had resumed air strikes for the first time in months, and pro-government forces had significantly accelerated drone strikes and shelling.

On Wednesday, HTS and its allies said they had launched their offensive to “deter aggression” and “thwart the enemy’s plans”, accusing the government and allied Iran-backed militias of escalation and aggression in north-west.

But it came as the Syrian government and its allies were preoccupied with other conflicts.

In neighbouring Lebanon, an Israeli military campaign has devastated the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, whose fighters helped turned the tide of the Syrian civil war.

Israel has also stepped up its air strikes inside Syria on targets linked to Iran, Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militia groups, while Russian forces are focused on the war in Ukraine.

By the end of the first day of the offensive, the rebels had advanced into the western Aleppo countryside, taking them within 10km (6 miles) from the outskirts of Aleppo city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

It reported that they had seized the Syrian army 46th Regiment’s base and at least eight villages.

On Thursday, the monitoring group said the rebels had cut the M5 highway between Aleppo and the capital Damascus near Zarbah, 15km south-west of Aleppo city, and taken control of the interchange between the M5 and the M4 highway further south, near Saraqeb.

The SOHR said 121 rebels, most of them members of HTS, and 40 government troops and 21 militiamen had been killed over the past two days.

The rebels said in a Telegram statement that they had seized the town of Khan al-Assal, which is 5km west of Aleppo city, and had killed more than 200 members of pro-government forces.

A Syrian military statement put out on Thursday said its forces had “confronted the terrorist attack that is still ongoing with various weapons and in co-operation with friendly forces, leaving heavy losses in equipment and causalities among terrorists”.

It did not mention any losses among its forces, but Iranian news agencies said a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards serving as a “military adviser” in Syria, Brig Gen Kioumars Pourhashemi, had been killed in Aleppo province.

Meanwhile, the Syria Civil Defence, whose first responders are known as the White Helmets, said on Thursday that Syrian and Russian warplanes had struck residential neighbourhoods and shops in the opposition-controlled town of Atareb, 20km west of Aleppo, killing 14 civilians, including three children and two women.

It also reported that four civilians had been killed Darat Izza, north of Atareb.

Another civilian was by a rocket attack on a camp for displaced people near the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border on Wednesday, it said.

The UN’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Syria, David Carden, said he was deeply alarmed by the impact of the escalating hostilities on civilians.

The International Rescue Committee said almost 7,000 families had been displaced and that some health facilities and schools had been forced to suspend services.

It appealed for an “immediate de-escalation” and called on all parties to ensure the protection of civilians, civilian infrastructure and humanitarian operations.

Voters to take to the polls in Irish general election

Kevin Sharkey

BBC News NI

The polls are set to open for the Irish general election.

Polling stations will be open between 07:00 and 22:00 local time on Friday to allow voters to choose representatives to serve as Teachtaí Dála (TDs) in the Dáil, the lower house of the Oireachtas (Ireland’s parliament).

The next Dáil, which will be the 34th, will have 174 TDs, up from 160 in 2020.

Friday’s vote comes after a three-week election campaign.

Voters will elect 173 TDs, one seat in the Dáil goes to the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker).

Eighty-eight TDs is the number required for an overall majority.

The new TDs will represent 43 constituencies throughout the Republic of Ireland.

More than 3.4 million people are registered to vote in the Republic of Ireland.

To vote in the election, voters must be over 18 years of age, be an Irish or British citizen, be resident in Ireland, and be listed on the Irish Electoral Register.

Election candidates include representatives from the three main parties – outgoing coalition partners Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and the leading opposition party in the outgoing Dáíl, Sinn Féin.

These parties are joined by many smaller parties and a significant number of independent candidates.

The counting of votes begins on Saturday morning and is expected to continue over the weekend and possibly into the following week.

The first sitting of the 34th Dáil is scheduled for Wednesday 18 December at 10:30.

A government will be officially formed when the Dáil passes a vote to install a new taoiseach (Irish prime minister).

Israelis survey damage and mull return to north as ceasefire begins

Lucy Williamson

BBC Middle East correspondent
Reporting fromKibbutz Menara, northern Israel

In Kibbutz Menara in northern Israel, the sound of gunfire from across the border marked the first day of the ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Menara sits face to face with the Lebanese village of Meiss el-Jabal. It was one of several places where the Israeli military said it fired towards suspects spotted nearby.

They were not gun battles with Hezbollah fighters, it said, but warning shots to push the suspects back. Four of them were arrested.

The handover of control on the Lebanese side of the border, from Israeli troops to the Lebanese army, has not yet begun.

And Lebanese residents have been told not to return there yet.

In Menara, the ceasefire bought Meitel and her 13-year-old daughter Gefen back their first visit home in more than a year.

“This is unbelievable. It’s like a nightmare,” Meitel said, as they inspected a damaged building.

They left the kibbutz on 8 October 2023, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel the day after Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel’s government said its intense bombardment and ground invasion in Lebanon would ensure the tens of thousands of northern Israeli residents of the evacuated from their homes would be able to return safely.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that would happen during a speech on Tuesday in which he said he had agreed to the ceasefire because the war had set Hezbollah back “tens of years”, destroyed most of its rockets, and demolished its infrastructure next to the border.

However, Meitel said she had little trust in the ceasefire, noting the gunfire that echoed through Menara’s empty streets during her visit.

“They want to come back. We need to keep them away,” she said.

Three quarters of the buildings in Menara have been destroyed in almost 14 months of fighting, along with the electricity, sewage and gas supplies.

The roof of the communal kitchen, caved in from a direct hit, lies tangled in hills of concrete and metal on the floor.

In house after house, the tell-tale tattoos of shrapnel damage, and rough-edged holes from anti-tank missiles have left homes burned out and unsafe.

Through the burned-out windows, the many shattered houses of their Lebanese neighbours are also visible.

Orna has lived in Menara through two previous wars but she said this ceasefire was different.

“Our forces will not leave these villages and will not allow terrorists to come back here. You can hear it yourself. Whenever someone tries to come back, they will be shot,” she explained.

“I personally will be come and be here regardless of what goes on there. But I’m a crazy, stubborn old lady. Families will not come back here. It’s impossible.”

The ceasefire is triggering the first discussions of what it would take for residents to return.

Repairing Menara will take months, but rebuilding a sense of security could take longer still.

The damage, a practical challenge, is also a reminder of what Hezbollah weapons can do.

Displaced Lebanese head for homes as fragile truce appears to hold

Hugo Bachega

BBC Middle East correspondent
Reporting fromSouthern Lebanon

Early in the morning they grabbed what they could – bags with clothes, blankets, and mattresses – and headed south.

Families who had been forced to flee because of the war did not wait to see if the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah would hold.

Just hours after it came into effect they were driving back home on the main road from Beirut.

Some waved the yellow and green flag of Hezbollah, others carried posters with images of the group’s former leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli air strike two months ago.

For many this was a moment of celebration.

“What happened is very good. This is a victory for the resistance,” said Abu Ali, referring to the ceasefire that had been brokered by the US and France.

“May God have mercy on our martyrs. The resistance is a source of honour and pride for us. Without its existence, there would be no homeland, no south, nothing.”

His plan was to return to the village Houla, right next to the border. But Israeli troops were still there, he said.

“We don’t know whether our house is still standing or has been destroyed,” Ali said. “But we’ll go there.”

The 60-day ceasefire will see the gradual withdrawal of the Israeli military, and of Hezbollah fighters and weapons, from Lebanon’s south.

The Lebanese army said it was already strengthening its presence there, as part of the deployment of an additional 5,000 soldiers under the deal. Both Israel and Hezbollah have said they are ready to respond to any violations.

The ceasefire is the main hope to bring an end to over a year of conflict, that intensified in September with widespread Israeli air strikes, assassinations of top Hezbollah officials and a ground invasion.

Israel’s stated goal was to move the group away from the border and stop the attacks on its northern communities.

Long queues formed on the main routes towards southern Lebanon

In Lebanon, more than one million people were displaced, mostly from Shia Muslim areas in the south, the eastern Bekka Valley and Dahieh in Beirut – which are essentially controlled by Hezbollah, the powerful militia and political party supported by Iran.

They started to return despite warnings from Israeli and Lebanese authorities that it was not yet safe to do so.

“It doesn’t matter if the house is still intact or not, the important thing is that we are returning, thanks to the blood of our martyr, Nasrallah,” said Fatma Balhas, who was travelling to the town of Seddiqine.

Hezbollah-allied media also said this was a sign the group had been victorious in the war.

Near Sidon, the first big city on the coast south of Beirut, cars drove on the opposite carriageway, as a traffic jam formed just outside a military checkpoint.

Soldiers handed out leaflets telling people to not touch unexploded ordnance. “Don’t get close, don’t touch it, report it immediately”.

As night fell on Wednesday the truce appeared to be holding, with UN chief Antonio Guterres describing it as the “first ray of hope for peace amid the darkness of the past months”.

The war has devastated this country, and recovery will be long and difficult. And what will happen with Hezbollah is not clear. The group has been diminished, but it still enjoys significant support.

For Lebanon, it means this crisis is not over.

Beirut resident returns home: “All is gone.”

Israel-Hezbollah conflict in maps: Ceasefire in effect in Lebanon

the Visual Journalism team

BBC News

A ceasefire has come into effect between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon after a deal was agreed to end 13 months of fighting.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza and Israel launched retaliatory air strikes in Lebanon.

The conflict escalated in late September 2024, when Israel launched an intense air campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

In Lebanon, more than 3,800 people have been killed since October 2023, according to Lebanese authorities, with one million people forced to flee their homes.

On the Israeli side, at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed, while 60,000 people have been displaced, Israeli authorities say.

  • Follow live updates on this story
  • What we know about Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal
  • Questions over Hezbollah’s future after ceasefire
  • Israeli anger at ‘irresponsible and hasty’ ceasefire
  • Watch: People in Israel and Lebanon react to ceasefire deal

Map: Where is Lebanon?

Lebanon is a small country with a population of about 5.5 million people, which borders Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. It is about 170km (105 miles) away from Cyprus.

What has been agreed in the ceasefire?

Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah must end its armed presence in the area of southern Lebanon between the Blue Line – the unofficial border between Lebanon and Israel – and the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) to the north.

Over the next 60 days, Israel will gradually withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon and thousands of Lebanese army troops will move into the vacated positions in parallel, the agreement says.

The Lebanese army will ensure that Hezbollah’s infrastructure or weaponry is removed and that it cannot be rebuilt, according to a senior US official.

Under UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the last war in 2006, the area south of the Litani should be free of any armed personnel or weapons other than those of the Lebanese state and the UN peacekeeping force (Unifil). However, both sides claimed violations of the resolution.

The US and France will join the existing tripartite mechanism, involving Unifil, Lebanon and Israel, which will be charged with monitoring violations, the senior US official said.

The agreement also says that “these commitments do not preclude either Israel or Lebanon from exercising their inherent right of self-defence, consistent with international law”. Israel’s prime minister insisted it would “maintain full freedom of military action” to attack Hezbollah if it violated the agreement.

Tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians displaced by the war have started returning to their homes in the south, despite being warned by the Israeli military that it was not safe to return to areas where its soldiers were still deployed.

Where were Israel’s ground operations?

Israel launched its ground invasion of southern Lebanon on the night of 30 September 2024, with troops and tanks crossing the border in several locations.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was carrying out “limited, localised, and targeted ground raids” to dismantle what it called Hezbollah’s “terrorist infrastructure”.

Analysis by experts at the Institute for the Study of War suggests Israeli ground operations were limited to areas within a few kilometres of the border, as shown in the map below.

The IDF warned people living in dozens of towns and villages in southern Lebanon to leave their homes and head north of the Awali River, which meets the coast about 50km (30 miles) from the border with Israel.

Lebanese civilians were also told by the IDF not to use vehicles to travel south of the Litani River.

What did Israel’s air strikes target?

The IDF carried out air strikes in Lebanon throughout the conflict.

But it sharply escalated the air campaign on 23 September 2024, when it launched an operation targeting what it said were Hezbollah infrastructure sites and weapons in all areas of the country where the group has a strong presence.

However, Lebanese authorities say more than 700 women and 200 children have been killed since the start of the conflict, as well as another 200 people working in the country’s health sector.

As the chart below shows, the intensity of the strikes stepped up significantly in the weeks before the Israeli ground invasion in late September and peaked in October.

The majority of Israeli strikes were in southern Lebanon, where about a million people lived before the conflict escalated over a year ago.

The map below – using analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University – shows which areas of Lebanon sustained the most concentrated damage during the conflict.

As the following map shows, Beirut was also heavily targeted by Israeli air strikes.

There were some strikes close to central Beirut but the majority of them hit the southern suburbs of the city – densely populated areas that were home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.

These areas, close to the international airport, have a strong Hezbollah presence and it was a series of strikes on buildings there that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on 27 September.

There were several dozens air strikes in the southern suburbs and central Beirut on 26 November hours before the ceasefire deal was agreed.

How does this fit in with wider Middle East conflict?

Israel has a decades-long history of conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon but it is just one of the fronts that it is currently engaged in hostilities.

The others include armed forces and non-state armed groups in several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Syria and Iran-backed groups operating in Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

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Canada’s oil patch rattled by Trump’s tariff plan

Nadine Yousif

BBC News, Toronto

In Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta, there is a deep sense of unease over President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods.

Canadian politicians and energy experts are warning the hefty tariff would have dire consequences for the economy of America’s northern neighbour – and hike prices on US consumers.

“Canada has no choice in this,” Dennis McConaghy, an Alberta-based former energy executive, told the BBC.

“It has to find an accommodation with Trump.”

Trump announced on Monday that, upon taking office in January, he would slap an across-the-board tariff on Mexico and Canada – with no suggestion that would exclude oil and gas.

Lisa Baiton, president and CEO of the Calgary-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the levy would likely mean Canada producing less oil.

Mr McConaghy said that would lead to job losses in Alberta, with potential repercussions for Canada as a whole, as poorer provinces rely on cash transfers from revenues generated by wealthier provinces – like Alberta – to help offset costs and provide social services.

It could also lead to a devaluation of the Canadian dollar at a time when the currency is already struggling due to domestic economic factors, he said.

“Keep in mind, roughly 80% of Canada’s trade is with the United States, and a majority of that trade is in hydrocarbons. Canadians can’t escape how integrated they are with the US.”

US fuel makers have also urged Trump to rule out oil and gas from any proposed levies given that Americans rely heavily on imported Canadian crude.

“Crude oil is to refineries what flour is to bakeries,” said the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) industry group in a statement this week.

“It’s our number one feedstock and input cost. If those feedstocks were to become significantly more expensive, so too would the overall cost of making fuel here in the United States.”

The US is the world’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, but some regions – California, the northeast and parts of the Midwest – do not have the infrastructure or pipeline capacity to rely solely on US oil and need imports to supply fuel to consumers.

Around 40% of the crude that runs through US oil refineries is imported, and the vast majority of it comes from Canada.

Canadian oil is especially relied on in the landlocked Midwest, where refineries have been outfitted to process the heavier Canadian blends.

The AFPM said there is no easy replacement for that crude without relying on overseas sources that could erode US energy security.

The industry group warned that a tariff on Canadian oil would drive up operating costs in the Midwest – costs some experts say will be downloaded onto consumers.

Patrick De Haan, a Chicago-based gas prices analyst, estimated that states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan could see gas prices rising by up to 75 cents a gallon.

Mr De Haan noted in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that these higher prices would not only be felt at the pump, but could potentially increase costs for airlines and freight haulers as well.

An increase in oil prices for US consumers would run counter to Trump’s promise to slash energy costs.

On the campaign trail, Trump frequently said he planned to cut the price of gasoline to under $2 (£1.57) a gallon. As of late November, the price of regular gasoline in the US sat around $3 a gallon.

But Trump has also vowed to increase American energy independence by boosting domestic drilling and being less reliant on foreign oil and gas, particularly from countries not allied with the US.

It remains unclear whether the tariffs will ultimately materialise, analysts have noted, as Trump has been known to use such threats in the past as a negotiation tactic to achieve certain goals.

In this case, Trump could be using the tariffs to get Canada and Mexico to cooperate on border security.

Trump has signalled that the levies would remain in place until both Canada and Mexico work on securing their shared borders with the US, limiting the number of unlawful migrants and drugs flowing into the country.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is promising to present a united “Team Canada” front and to work together with the incoming Trump administration to avoid the blanket tariffs.

The leaders of major Canadian provinces like Ontario, Quebec and Alberta have urged Trudeau to act quickly on these demands, and on Wednesday, Trudeau held an emergency meeting with provincial and territorial leaders to discuss how to move forward.

Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, said her province will be “working aggressively” in the coming months to connect with US counterparts and to drill home the message that a strong partnership with Canada would be of benefit to the US and its energy security.

She said that in her view, Trump “and the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him have valid concerns” related border security.

She and other premiers, Smith said, have asked Trudeau to come up with a comprehensive border security plan.

Smith also said the province is exploring the option of creating specialised sheriff units to patrol its own shared border with the US state of Montana.

No matter the approach, Mr McConaghy said he hopes there is an urgency among Canadian officials to get the risk of tariffs “off the table as soon as possible”.

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The Lebanon ceasefire is a respite, not a solution for the Middle East

Jeremy Bowen

International Editor@BowenBBC
  • Listen to Jeremy read this article

For most of the people of Lebanon, a ceasefire could not come quickly enough. A leading Lebanese analyst at a conference on the Middle East that I’m attending in Rome said she couldn’t sleep as the appointed hour for the ceasefire came closer.

“It was like the night before Christmas when you’re a kid. I couldn’t wait for it to happen.”

You can see why there’s relief. More than 3,500 citizens of Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes. Displaced people packed their cars before dawn to try to get back to whatever remains of their homes.

Well over one million of them have been forced to flee by Israeli military action. Thousands have been wounded and the homes of tens of thousands of others have been destroyed.

But in Israel, some feel they have lost the chance to do more damage to Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the heads of Israel’s northern municipalities, which have been turned into ghost towns with around 60,000 civilians evacuated further south.

Israel’s Ynet news website reported that it was an angry meeting that turned into a shouting match, with some of the local officials frustrated that Israel was taking the pressure off their enemies in Lebanon and not offering an immediate plan to get civilians home.

In a newspaper column, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, close to the border, said he doubted the ceasefire would be enforced, demanding that Israel creates a buffer zone in south Lebanon. In a poll commissioned by the Israeli station Channel 12 News those questioned were roughly split between supporters and opponents of the ceasefire.

Half of the participants in the survey believe Hezbollah has not been defeated and 30% think the ceasefire will collapse.

Back in late September, at the UN General Assembly in New York, a deal looked as if it was close. Diplomats from the US and UK were convinced that a ceasefire very similar to the one that is now coming into force was about to happen.

All sides in the war appeared to have signalled their willingness to accept a ceasefire based on the provisions of Security Council resolution 1701, which was passed to end the 2006 Lebanon war: Hezbollah would pull back from the border to be replaced by UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese Armed Forces. As they moved in, Israeli forces would gradually move out.

But Prime Minister Netanyahu went to the podium at the UN to deliver a fiery speech that refused to accept any pause in Israel’s offensive.

Back at his New York hotel Netanyahu’s official photographer captured the moment as he ordered the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, along with most of his high command. Netanyahu’s office released the photos, in another calculated snub for American diplomacy.

The assassination was a significant escalation and a blow to Hezbollah. In the weeks since, Israel’s military has inflicted immense damage to Hezbollah’s military organisation. It could still fire rockets over the border and its fighters continued to engage Israel’s invasion force. But Hezbollah is no longer the same threat to Israel.

Netanyahu: Time to ‘replenish stocks’

Military success is one of several factors that have come together to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu that this is a good time to stop.

Israel’s agenda in Lebanon is more limited than in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. It wants to push Hezbollah back from its northern border and to allow civilians to return to border towns.

If Hezbollah looks to be preparing an attack, Israel has a side letter from the Americans agreeing that it can take military action.

In a recorded statement announcing his decision, Netanyahu listed the reasons why it was time for a ceasefire. Israel, he said, had made the ground in Beirut shake. Now there was a chance ‘to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks,’ he continued.

Israel had also broken the connection between Gaza and Lebanon. After the late Hassan Nasrallah ordered the attacks on Israel’s north, the day after Hamas went to war on 7 October last year, he said they would continue until there was a ceasefire in Gaza.

Now, Netanyahu said, Hamas in Gaza would be under even more pressure. Palestinians fear another escalation in Israel’s Gaza offensive.

There was one more reason; to concentrate on what Netanyahu called the Iranian threat. Damaging Hezbollah means damaging Iran. It was built up by the Iranians to create a threat right on Israel’s border. Hezbollah became the strongest part of Iran’s axis of resistance, the name it gave to its network of forward defence made up of allies and proxies.

Why Iran wanted a ceasefire

Just like Hezbollah’s surviving leaders, their patrons in Iran also wanted a ceasefire. Hezbollah needs a pause to lick its wounds. Iran needs to stop the geostrategic bleeding. Its axis of resistance is no longer a deterrent. Iran’s missile attack on Israel after Nasrallah’s assassination did not repair the damage.

Two men, both now assassinated, designed Hezbollah to deter Israel not just from attacking Lebanon – but also from attacking Iran. They were Qasem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who was killed by an American drone strike at Baghdad airport in January 2020. The order was issued by Donald Trump in his last few weeks in the White House at the end of his first term. The other was Hassan Nasrallah, killed by a huge Israeli air strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Hezbollah and Iran’s deterrence strategy matched Israel’s own deterrence for almost 20 years after the end of the 2006 war. But among the profound changes caused by the 7 October attacks was Israel’s determination not to accept restrictions on the wars it would wage in response. America, its most important ally, also put almost no restrictions on the supply or use of the weapons it kept on providing.

Nasrallah and Iran failed to see what had happened. They did not understand how Israel had changed. They sought to impose a war of attrition on Israel, and succeeded for almost a year. Then on 17 September Israel broke out of it by triggering the miniature bombs built into the network of booby-trapped pagers its intelligence services had duped Hezbollah into buying.

Hezbollah was thrown off balance. Before it could react with the most powerful weapons Iran had provided, Israel killed Nasrallah and most of his key lieutenants, accompanied by massive strikes that destroyed arms dumps. That was followed by an invasion of South Lebanon and the wholesale destruction of Lebanese border villages as well as Hezbollah’s tunnel network.

Trump, Gaza and the future

A ceasefire in Lebanon is not necessarily a precursor to one in Gaza. Gaza is different. The war there is about more than security of the border, and Israeli hostages.

It is also about revenge, about Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival, and his government’s absolute rejection of Palestinian aspirations for independence.

The Lebanon ceasefire is fragile and deliberately paced to buy time for it to work. When the 60 days in which it is supposed to take effect ends, Donald Trump will be back in the Oval Office. President-elect Trump has indicated that he wants a ceasefire in Lebanon, but his precise plans have not yet emerged.

The Middle East is waiting for the ways he might affect the region. Some optimists hope that he might want to create a moment akin to President Nixon’s sensational visit to China in 1972 by reaching out to Iran.

The pessimists fear he might abandon even the hollow genuflection that the US still makes to the idea of a creating an independent Palestine alongside Israel – the so-called two state solution. That might pave the way to annexation of those parts of the occupied Palestinian territories Israel wants, including much of the West Bank and northern Gaza.

What is certain though is that the Middle East has no chance of escaping more generations of war and violent death until the region’s fundamental political ruptures are faced and fixed. The biggest is the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, along with most Israelis believe it is possible to dominate their enemies by pressing on to a military victory. Netanyahu is actively using force, unrestrained by the US, to alter the balance of power in the Middle East in Israel’s favour.

In a conflict that has lasted more than a century both Arabs and Jews have dreamt repeatedly of peace through military victory. Every generation has tried and failed. The catastrophic consequences of the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023 ripped away any pretence that the conflict could be managed while Israel continued to deny Palestinian rights to self-determination. The ceasefire in Lebanon is a respite. It is not a solution.

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Uniqlo does not use Xinjiang cotton, boss says

Mariko Oi

Business reporter

The boss of the company behind global fashion chain Uniqlo has told the BBC that the Japanese firm does not use cotton from the Xinjiang region of China in its products.

It is the first time Fast Retailing’s chief executive Tadashi Yanai has directly addressed the contentious issue.

China is a crucial market for Uniqlo not just for customers but also as a major manufacturing hub.

Xinjiang cotton was once known as some of the best fabric in the world.

But it has fallen out of favour after revelations that it is produced using forced labour by people from the Muslim Uyghur minority.

In 2022, tough US regulations on the import of goods from Xinjiang came into effect.

Many global brands removed products using Xinjiang cotton from their shelves, which led to fierce backlash in China. Brands such as H&M, Nike, Burberry, Esprit and Adidas were boycotted.

Sweden’s H&M saw its clothing pulled from major e-commerce stores in China.

At the time, Mr Yanai – who is Japan’s richest man – refused to confirm or deny whether Xinjiang cotton was used in Uniqlo clothing, saying he wanted “to be neutral between the US and China”.

His decision not to take a side helped Uniqlo to remain popular in China’s huge retail market.

But speaking to the BBC in Tokyo about the firm’s measures to be more transparent about where the materials in its clothes come from and how they are made, he said: “We’re not using [cotton from Xinjiang].”

“By mentioning which cotton we’re using…” he continued, before pausing and ending his answer with “Actually, it gets too political if I say anymore so let’s stop here”.

Isaac Stone Fish, the chief executive and founder of Strategy Risks, a business intelligence firm with a China focus highlights the pressures on firms from both China and the US.

“Not a single large company can remain politically neutral anymore,” he says.

“Both Beijing and Washington want companies to choose sides, and Tokyo will continue to lean closer to the United States in this matter.”

Even though Uniqlo has been expanding aggressively in Europe and the US, in Mr Yanai’s own words, “we are not a known brand globally” and Asia is still its biggest market.

The company has more stores in China than in its home country Japan, and Mr Yanai says he does not plan to change that strategy despite challenges in the world’s second biggest economy.

“There are 1.4 billion people in China and we only have 900 to 1,000 stores,” he says. “I think we can increase that to 3,000.”

Meanwhile, China is Uniqlo’s single biggest manufacturing hub. The company also makes clothes in countries including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India.

In 2009, when 80% of its products were made in China, Mr Yanai told the BBC that China was getting too expensive and the firm was shifting production away “to lower-wage Cambodia to keep prices low”.

He now says it was challenging to repeat China’s success as the world’s factory in other countries as transferring years of experience proved difficult.

Retailers like Uniqlo are also facing intense competition from ultra-fast fashion as brands like China’s Shein and Temu gain popularity with price-conscious customers.

But Mr Yanai says “I don’t think there’s a future for fast fashion”.

“They’re producing clothes without any careful consideration which you only wear for one season. That is a waste of the planet’s resources.”

He adds that Uniqlo’s strategy is to focus on essential items that can be worn for years.

In the 40 years that he has been in charge of the firm, Mr Yanai has grown the business he inherited from his father from a company with annual sales of around 100 million yen ($656,700; £522,400) to a global chain with 3 trillion yen of revenues this year.

The 75-year-old says he aims to overtake Inditex, which owns the global chain Zara, as the world’s biggest fashion retailer before he retires.

But to achieve that, Uniqlo needs to expand not just in China but also in the West, where shoppers are increasingly conscious of human rights issues such as forced labour.

Mr Yanai’s ambitions may also face more hurdles as Donald Trump returns to the White House on a pledge to impose much higher tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

Why Muslims in India are opposing changes to a property law

Meryl Sebastian & Neyaz Farooquee

BBC News

A proposal to amend a decades-old law that governs properties worth millions of dollars donated by Indian Muslims over centuries has triggered protests in the country.

The properties, which include mosques, madrassas, shelter homes and thousands of acres of land, are called waqf and are managed by a board.

The new bill – which introduces more than 40 amendments to the existing law – was expected to be tabled in the current parliament session after incorporating changes suggested by a joint committee of MPs.

But the committee is now set to ask for more time to submit its recommendations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says that the proposed changes are necessary to root out corruption in the management of these properties and address demands for reform from the Muslim community.

But several Muslim groups and opposition parties have called the changes politically motivated and an attempt by Modi’s Hindu nationalist party to weaken the rights of minorities.

The bill was first introduced in parliament in August but then sent to a joint parliamentary committee for their recommendations.

What is waqf?

In Islamic tradition, a waqf is a charitable or religious donation made by Muslims for the benefit of the community. Such properties cannot be sold or used for any other purpose – which implies that waqf properties belong to God.

A vast number of these properties are used for mosques, madrassas, graveyards and orphanages, and many others are vacant or have been encroached upon.

The tradition of waqf in India can be traced back to the Delhi Sultanate period in the 12th Century when the early Muslim rulers from Central Asia came to India.

The properties are now governed by the Waqf Act, 1995, which mandated the formation of state-level boards. These boards include nominees from the state government, Muslim lawmakers, members of the state bar council, Islamic scholars and managers of waqf properties.

The government says that the waqf boards are among India’s largest landholders. There are at least 872,351 waqf properties across India, spanning more than 940,000 acres, with an estimated value of 1.2 trillion rupees ($14.22bn; £11.26bn).

Is there a need for reform?

Muslim groups agree that corruption is a serious issue in waqf boards – its members have been accused several times of colluding with encroachers to sell waqf land.

But critics also say that a significant number of these properties have been encroached by individuals, businesses and government bodies – which too requires immediate attention.

A report submitted in 2006 by the Justice Sachar Committee – formed by the earlier Congress party-led government to assess the socioeconomic conditions of Muslims in India – had recommended waqf reform, as it found that the revenues from the boards were low compared to the vast number of properties they managed.

The committee estimated that efficient use of the land had the potential to generate an annual revenue of about 120bn rupees (1.4bn; £1.1bn). The current annual revenue, according to some estimates, is around 2bn rupees.

The committee also noted that “encroachments by the State, who is the custodian of the Wakf interests, is common”, listing hundreds of instances of such “unauthorised occupation” of waqf land by government authorities.

According to government data, at least 58,889 of waqf properties are currently encroached upon, while more than 13,000 are under litigation. The status of more than 435,000 properties remains unknown.

The amendments, the government says, address these issues and advance the recommendations made by the Sachar Committee.

Parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju told The Times of India newspaper that the reforms were also necessary as only an elite section in the Muslim community managed these properties.

Why the controversy?

But many Muslims see the proposed changes with scepticism.

One of the most contentious aspects of the bill is the change to ownership rules, which would impact historical mosques, dargahs and graveyards owned by the board.

Many of these properties – in use by Muslims for generations – lack formal documentation as they were donated orally or without legal records decades or centuries ago.

The 1954 Waqf Act recognised such properties under the category of “waqf by user”, but the proposed law omits the provision, leaving the fate of a significant number of these properties uncertain.

Professor Mujibur Rehman, author of Shikwa-e-Hind: The Political Future of Indian Muslims, explains that tracing the ownership of such long-standing community properties is complicated, as their management and deed systems have shifted over the centuries from the Mughal system to the British colonial system, and now to the current system.

“You can trace personal properties up to a few generations, but tracing community properties is more difficult, as their management keeps changing over time,” Prof Rehman says.

Others worry that the new bill may not address the community’s concerns but could instead considerably take away the role of Muslims in controlling waqf properties.

That’s because the proposed changes include tweaks to the composition of waqf boards, making it compulsory to include non-Muslims as its members.

Some agree that a general law mandating people of all religions to be part of boards that run religious institutions is not a bad idea – as it would make processes more secular.

But the current move appears to favour majoritarian politics, Prof Rehman says. “There seems to be an attempt not only to get the state’s control over Muslims’ properties, but also of Hindu community over Muslim community’s lives.”

What are the other proposed changes?

Among other crucial changes is the mandatory requirement for boards to register their properties with district collectors, who would recommend to the government whether the waqf’s claim to a property is valid.

Critics say this will undermine the powers of the waqf boards.

Asaduddin Owaisi, a prominent Muslim MP, alleges that these changes are intended to strip Muslims of their land.

The current law requires state governments to appoint a survey commissioner who identifies waqf properties, and subsequently prepares a list. The list is then sent to the state government which issues a legally mandated notification. If unchallenged for a year, the final nature of the property becomes waqf.

But some of the changes would mean that the status of several waqf properties will have to be re-established.

“Many have illegally encroached upon waqfs. This means they will get a chance to claim that the property is theirs,” Owaisi recently told reporters.

This process, Muslim groups say, will put many historical dargahs and masjids at risk. They say that reform is needed but it must keep the sensitivity and interests of the community in mind.

“The diagnosis may be correct,” Prof Rehman says, “but the treatment is not.”

Families return to destruction in southern Lebanon

Hugo Bachega

BBC Middle East Correspondent
Reporting fromTyre, southern Lebanon

The family of four stood in the middle of the street in front of the pile of twisted metal and broken concrete, struggling to comprehend the devastation they were seeing.

The building had been destroyed by a recent Israeli air strike and smoke was still rising from the rubble. The next building to the right had partially collapsed; the one behind it had a huge hole at the top.

They continued walking to the building where they used to live, in Tyre in southern Lebanon. The displaced family was back, hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah had come into effect. Nobody seemed to have stayed in their home.

As there was no electricity they took the stairs to the sixth floor, helped by the torches on their phones.

Mohamad Marouf led his wife and two sons. He struggled to open the main door. When he finally got in, he instantly realised that his home as he knew it was, for now, gone.

“I’m so sad, it’s a nice and decent house,” said Mr Marouf, a car dealer. “There’s just so much damage.”

Panels had fallen from the ceiling. Windows, doors and furniture were destroyed. In the kitchen, cups and plates lie broken on the floor. There was dust and debris everywhere. Room by room, he mourned objects that were now beyond repair, and celebrated those that somehow had remained intact.

The destruction, Mr Marouf said, had been caused by an attack on a residential building nearby. It was so powerful that his building, too, was heavily damaged.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. They were living with his brother, and did not know when they would be able to move back.

On Tyre’s beachfront, a yellow banner with a Hezbollah logo was put up next to one of many residential buildings hit. It said, “Made in USA”, in reference to the bombs that were probably used in the attack.

As the pause in the fighting held, residents returned to badly damaged homes. All day Wednesday a constant flow of cars arrived, packed with families, bags and mattresses.

Some people waved Hezbollah flags; in the distance, there was the sporadic sound of celebratory gunfire. Many supporters say the ceasefire is a sign of the group’s victory. The “resistance”, as they often refer to Hezbollah, stopped the Israeli military’s advances on the ground, they contend, and Israel failed to achieve its objectives in Lebanon.

It is a narrative that will find very little – if any – support elsewhere.

Hezbollah has been weakened, large parts of the country lie in ruins, and many, including those who had accused the group of dragging Lebanon to a conflict that was not in its interests, say the war has only led to death and destruction.

Nearly 4,000 people were killed and more than 16,000 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

The conflict began last October when Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing into Israel in support of Palestinians in Gaza, and escalated dramatically in September, with intense Israeli air strikes, the killings of several top Hezbollah leaders including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah, and a ground invasion in the south.

Israel’s stated goal was to remove the group from the border and allow the return of around 60,000 residents who had been displaced.

Israeli bombardments were mostly contained to mainly Shia Muslim areas of the country where Hezbollah was essentially in control. More than one million people were forced to leave their homes.

A 60-day pause is now in force as part of a ceasefire deal, which many hope will bring an end to the conflict. Under its terms Israel and Hezbollah will pull out from the south, a traditional Hezbollah stronghold, and the Lebanese military will deploy an additional 5,000 soldiers to the area.

In the morning, Hezbollah organised a tour for journalists to show the damage around Tyre, a sign that they are still very much present – and in control – here.

“We’re unbeatable,” said Hussein Jashi, a Hezbollah MP, by the rubble of a water pumping station destroyed in an air strike.

“All this destruction is worth nothing if you are proud and dignified. This [destruction] doesn’t defeat a man as long as one has the will to fight.”

One of the stops of the tour was Deed Badawi’s restaurant, opened more than 80 years ago.

“They destroy, we build again. It was a beautiful restaurant, and I love it so much,” he said. “I’ll rebuild it even more beautiful than it was.”

Next door, Mr Yaser, who did not want to give his full name, was cleaning up his corner shop, which had reopened for the first time.

“I’m very emotional. You can’t describe the damage and the losses of people,” he said.

“This is not the Tyre that we know. We lost too many loved ones. But now we will reunite with the ones still alive, and wait and see what happens next.”

Recovery will be difficult, and costly. No-one knows how it will happen, and who will pay.

Mr Marouf, the car dealer, expected Hezbollah to help him repair the damage. “May God protect us all,” he said.

Israel building new military dividing line across Gaza, satellite images suggest

Benedict Garman, Nick Eardley & Matt Murphy

BBC Verify

Israel is creating a new military dividing line in Gaza, separating off the far north of the strip, satellite images studied by BBC Verify appear to show.

Troops are in control of, and are clearing, an area across the width of north Gaza. Satellite images and videos show that hundreds of buildings have been demolished between the Mediterranean Sea and the Israel border, mostly through controlled explosions.

Images also show Israeli troops and vehicles have been stationed across the new divide. Analysts said the images suggest Gaza is being split into zones to make it easier to control.

An IDF spokesperson told the BBC it was “targeting terrorist operatives and infrastructure” in north Gaza.

Dr H A Hellyer, a Middle East security expert from the Rusi think tank, said the satellite images suggested Israel was preparing to block Palestinian civilians from returning to the north Gaza governorate. More than 100,000 people have already been displaced from the far north of Gaza, according to the UN.

Images appear to show two long sections of road on either end of the strip being connected by cleared land through an urban area. Buildings are being demolished between the two sections of road, with a clear pattern visible since early October.

This partition stretches about 5.6 miles (9km) across Gaza, from east to west, dividing Gaza City and the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in north Gaza.

The BBC has been told that there is a tactical route between Jabalia and Gaza City, which is part of operational activities targeting Hamas in Jabalia.

Videos filmed by the IDF and posted online show several multi-storey buildings being destroyed in controlled explosions since the beginning of October.

The graphic below shows examples geolocated by BBC Verify along the new corridor.

An IDF spokesperson told the BBC that it had no intention of destroying civilian infrastructure “without operational necessity” to neutralise Hamas.

Other footage shows IDF Humvee vehicles being driven through the cleared area from the direction of Israel. Humvees are not as heavily armoured as other military vehicles – and Dr Hellyer told the BBC that they were unlikely to be used unless the military was confident about their safety, indicating that Israeli troops are in control of the area.

Some analysts believe the IDF’s presence could indicate a permanent military partition – giving it control of who can travel between the Gaza and the North Gaza governorates.

Dr Hellyer said of the IDF: “They’re digging in for the long term. I would absolutely expect the north partition to develop exactly like the Netzarim Corridor.”

The BBC has previously documented how two partitions have been constructed in Gaza since the start of the current war. The Netzarim Corridor splits an area south of Gaza City, while the Philadelphi Corridor gives the IDF control of land running the length of Gaza’s border with Egypt.

BBC analysis of this new partition in the north shows a similar pattern to the construction of the previous corridors over the past year, with existing and newly built roads being connected and military positions emerging at regular intervals. Buildings and agricultural land are cleared so roads can be paved and military infrastructure built.

Dr Eado Hecht from the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Besa), an Israeli think tank specialising in national security and foreign policy, agreed that the data showed a new dividing line, but questioned whether it was designed to be permanent.

“There is a new partition corridor separating Gaza City and the northern towns of the Gaza Strip. The goal is to cut off the Hamas – and other organizations’ – forces that have returned to that area from support and the ability to retreat, so they can be dealt with more effectively.”

Israel has denied that it is implementing the “General’s Plan”. Under the strategy, devised by former general Giora EIland, civilians would be told to leave the north, supplies would be blocked and the area would become a military zone. Those who remained would be treated as combatants and faced with the choice of “surrender or starve”, with the aim of putting pressure on Hamas to release its hostages.

In a statement to the BBC, an IDF spokesperson said: “The IDF operates according to well-established military plans, and the claim that the IDF is implementing this specific plan is incorrect.”

But concerns have mounted over the safety of the thousands of Palestinian civilians who remain in besieged towns in north Gaza.

The UN and aid charities have raised significant concerns about the situation in the north of Gaza. While thousands of people have been displaced, the UN says over 65,000 people could remain in the area.

The UN also said that “virtually no aid” has entered parts of the North Gaza governorate in 40 days on 20 November. A spokesperson on 26 November said that Palestinians were facing “facing critical shortages of supplies and services, as well as severe overcrowding and poor hygiene conditions” due to the blockade.

Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in the besieged areas of northern Gaza.

BBC analysis shows around 90% of north Gaza has been subject to evacuation orders since the start of October. Videos posted on social media document people being moved south of the new partition. It is not clear if and when they will be able to return, but Israel’s foreign minister has insisted civilians will be allowed to return after the war.

Satellite images show the displacement of people in north Gaza. Large groups of tents, erected as temporary shelter, disappear. In the area left behind, there are often destroyed buildings and other examples of military activity.

While the IDF appears to have established enough control in the area to travel in lightly armoured vehicles, heavy fighting has also persisted in the area between IDF troops and Hamas fighters.

Videos posted by Hamas fighters show clashes with IDF tanks in the area around the dividing line.

Experts disagree over how long the new partition might be intended to remain in place. Dr Hellyer suggested that it could form the basis of plan to expel Palestinians from the area permanently.

“Personally I think they’re going to settle Jewish settlers in the north, probably in the next 18 months,” he said. “They won’t call them settlements. To begin with they’ll call them outposts or whatever, but that’s what they’ll be and they’ll grow from there.”

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that troops should occupy Gaza and “encourage” about half of Palestinian civilians to leave the territory within two years.

But the Israeli government denies that it plans to build settlements in Gaza once the war ends, and Dr Hecht dismissed such suggestions as nothing more than a “dream” for some ultranationalist ministers.

“All three corridors (Philadelphi in the south, Netzarim just south of Gaza City and the new one just north of Gaza City) are for control purposes,” Dr Hecht said.

“The duration of their existence depends on when the war ends and in what manner it ends.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Chinese companies apologise for ‘shrunken’ sanitary pads

Koh Ewe

BBC News

Major sanitary pad makers in China are apologising after being accused of selling pads that are shorter than advertised.

It comes amid a storm of anger after viral social media videos showed Chinese women measuring the lengths of sanitary pads from popular brands – showing that most of them fell short of what was stated on their packaging.

The uproar has extended into broader grievances about women being short-changed by feminine hygiene products, which have a history of safety scandals in China.

Chinese women have taken it upon themselves to call out quality concerns in sanitary pads, the most commonly used feminine hygiene product in the country.

In one of the earliest videos, posted on 3 November, a user on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu examined nine brands of sanitary pads with a measuring tape, showing that they all fell short of the length stated on their packaging.

“Will cutting a few centimetres help you strike it rich?” the user wrote in her video.

The revelations soon ignited widespread criticism, with consumers accusing sanitary pad makers of being deceitful.

“The inflated sanitary pad length is just like the insoles under men’s feet,” reads one popular Weibo post.

Amid the uproar, an investigation of over 20 different sanitary pads by Chinese news outlet The Paper found that nearly 90% of the products were “shrunken”, measuring at least 10mm shorter than claimed on their packaging. Tucked within most of them were even shorter absorbent layers, which are meant to soak up menstrual flow.

The Paper also reported that while national standards for sanitary pads specify that the products can measure within 4% of advertised lengths, they do not specify the length of the absorbent layer in sanitary pads.

Following a torrent of complaints, authorities said they were revising the current national standard on sanitary pads, according to local media.

Met with enquiries and complaints from customers about the discrepancy in its sanitary pad lengths, the popular Chinese brand ABC further stoked outrage after its customer service reportedly responded to a complaint by saying “if you cannot accept [the length difference] then you can choose not to buy it”.

ABC said in a statement in mid-November that it was “deeply sorry” for the “inappropriate” response, and promised to improve its products to achieve “zero deviation”. Other companies including Shecare and Beishute have also issued apologies.

Chinese state media has also weighed in on the controversy, criticising manufacturers for cutting corners.

“As a daily necessity for women, quality of sanitary pads is directly related to the health and comfort of the user,” reads a Xinhua article. “The problems existing in some products on the market cannot be ignored.”

Sanitary pads are the most commonly used feminine hygiene product in China, where the market is valued at $13bn (£10bn). However, the products have also made headlines over the years for safety issues.

In 2016, police busted a massive “fake sanitary towel” operation in southeast China, where millions of sanitary pads were manufactured in a factory without proper hygiene measures and packaged as popular brands. In 2021, popular feminine hygiene brand Space 7 apologised and vowed an investigation after a woman claimed she found a needle in one of its sanitary pads.

The wave of anger also reflects broader grievances felt by women over the quality of products meant for them.

“Is it that hard for sanitary pads to tackle women’s needs?” reads a trending hashtag on Weibo.

Another trending phrase that has caught on amid the blowback encapsulates the outrage: “Sanitary pads yield a centimetre; women yield for a lifetime.”

Conor McGregor waxwork removed from museum

A wax figure of Conor McGregor has been removed from the National Wax Museum Plus in Dublin.

The museum has said it removed the figure of the mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter from public viewing two weeks ago in light of his civil trial case.

On Friday, a jury at the High Court in Dublin found he had assaulted Nikita Hand by raping her in a hotel in Dublin in December 2018.

McGregor was ordered to pay Ms Hand almost €250,000 (£206,000) in damages.

In the statement, the museum said: “As a family-friendly attraction, we regularly review our exhibits to ensure they align with our values and the expectations of our visitors.

“We will continue to monitor the situation and make decisions about future displays accordingly.”

The sculpture was “one of the more popular ones”, especially with tourists, a spokesperson told Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

“If you look at most photos online taken by people visiting the museum, a lot would be with McGregor,” the spokesperson said.

The MMA fighter’s father, Tony McGregor, unveiled the waxwork in August 2017.

Nikita Hand says she hopes her story acts as a reminder to “speak up” and “keep on fighting for justice”

Following the verdict of the civil rape case, a number of companies have said they will no longer stock products which have been linked to Conor McGregor.

The company that now owns a whiskey originally co-founded by the fighter has said it would no longer be using his name and image for their marketing.

A spokeswoman for Proximo Spirits said it had been the “100% owner of Proper No. Twelve Irish Whiskey since 2021”.

Belfast bar Filthy McNasty’s on the Dublin Road has said it is suspending its sale of McGregor’s Forged branded stout, which it helped to launch in December 2023.

The bar, which sports a mural on the side of its building advertising the brand, told the Irish News it is “currently awaiting” the mural being removed.

Pub chain JD Wetherspoon has also pulled products associated with the fighter.

‘The values of our customers’

Earlier this week, Tesco said it was removing McGregor’s products from its stores and online.

It was joined by BWG Foods, which said the products were no longer listed for distribution across its network of SPAR, EUROSPAR, MACE, Londis and XL stores.

Cork-based Barry Group said it had also decided to delist Forged Stout and Proper No Twelve from its Costcutter and Carry Out retail outlets.

A spokeswoman said it reflected the company’s “commitment to maintaining a retail environment that resonates with the values of our customers and partners.”

Supervalu, Centra, Daybreak and Mace, all owned by Musgrave, are also no longer stocking products linked to the mixed martial arts fighter.

Irish airport operator DAA said the whiskey was removed from sale in both Dublin and Cork airports over the weekend.

On Monday evening, several hundred people marched in Dublin in support of Ms Hand.

The protesters marched from Dublin City Hall to the office of the Irish director of public prosecutions (DPP) to express concern at what they believe to be a failure in not taking a criminal case against McGregor.

A higher legal threshold applies to a criminal case than a civil case as in a criminal case the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt.

The DPP told Ms Hand in 2020 that there was “insufficient evidence” to bring a criminal case and there was not a reasonable prospect of conviction.

Ms Hand asked the DPP to review the decision, saying she felt she was being treated differently because one of the suspects was famous.

Asked about the DPP’s decision not to prosecute, the outgoing Irish justice minister, Helen McEntee said at the weekend: “We have a very independent system in this country, and I think that’s right.

“I really think it’s important that we respect that independence.”

‘Arctic’ blast in US after Thanksgiving travellers fill airports

Nadine Yousif and James FitzGerald

BBC News
BBC Weather presenter Elizabeth Rizzini with the US forecast for the Thanksgiving weekend

Parts of the US face a “significant Arctic outbreak” for the Thanksgiving holiday, which includes some of the country’s busiest travel days of the year.

“Dangerously cold wind chills” are anticipated over the northern Plains on Thursday by the National Weather Service (NWS) with wind chills as low as -40C (-40F) in North Dakota into Saturday.

Meanwhile, parts of the north-east including New England could see heavy snow into Friday morning, and the East Coast is expected to be hit by thunderstorms.

The severe conditions come in a week expected to set records for Thanksgiving travel. More than a thousands flights were delayed and 55 cancelled on Thursday, according to tracking site FlightAware.

Stormy conditions are then expected to reach the Midwest on Friday, bringing lake-effect snow and severe thunderstorms.

Lake-effect snow happens when cold air passes over unfrozen and relatively warm waters – in this case in the Great Lakes – causing the air to rise and form clouds that produce snow. Up to 8in (20cm) could fall in some places, the NWS says.

Flight disruption has been reported as holidaymakers attempted to make seasonal journeys. On Wednesday, more than 4,500 delays within, into or out of the US were logged by FlightAware. There were 61 cancellations.

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says passenger volumes during this year’s Thanksgiving have already reached record highs.

The busiest days were expected to be Tuesday and Wednesday, before Thanksgiving, as well as the Sunday after the holiday. The TSA expects to screen nearly nine million people at airports during those three days alone.

And a record number of nearly 80 million Americans were expected during the week to travel at least 50 miles (80km) by car. Insurance company AAA said the anticipated increase was because of petrol prices being lower than this time last year.

Preparations under way for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in NY

On the other side of the country, there are dense fog warnings on Thursday for the Pacific north-west and California, as well as freezing fog for Oregon and parts of Washington state, BBC forecaster Elizabeth Rizzini said.

Earlier this week, a winter storm brought heavy snow and high winds for higher elevations in the west. Central California was also hit by another “atmospheric river” event on Tuesday after a similar phenomenon last week. The weather event occurs when water evaporates into the air and is carried along by the wind.

And communities in the Pacific north-west continue to recover from last week’s bomb cyclone, an intense weather event that takes place when air pressure quickly drops off the coast. The storm caused mass flooding and power cuts.

Lake effect snow: what is it?

Zimbabwe parliament hit by power cut during budget speech

Shingai Nyoka

BBC News, Harare

A power cut plunged Zimbabwe’s parliament into darkness as Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube was finishing his budget speech.

The lights flickered and died, leaving top officials like President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga and members of parliament sitting in the dark.

The outage is a symptom of Zimbabwe’s ongoing crisis, with daily 12-hour blackouts driven by a prolonged drought that is crippling energy generation at the Kariba Dam, the country’s main power source.

As the lights went out, opposition MPs shouted that the outage was an apt metaphor for the country’s state of affairs.

George Manyaya, a spokesperson from Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) told local news site ZimLive that the blackout had not been planned.

He said parliament had its own dedicated electricity supply which is exempt from power cuts.

He said the blackout had happened because of a lightning strike.

Before the lights went out, Ncube said the agricultural sector would contract by 15% this year because of the drought.

He, however, projected that the economy would grow by 6% next year due to the forecast of above-average rainfall – which would also serve to improve the supply of electricity.

More BBC stories on Zimbabwe:

  • Zimbabwe power outages hit businesses and families
  • Parents beg US diplomat for apology over fatal crash
  • Job Sikhala, the man determined to wrestle Zimbabwe’s ‘crocodile’
  • Zimbabwe’s obsession with Animal Farm as novel gets Shona translation

BBC Africa podcasts

‘I sold my house to man on FBI’s most wanted list’

Rob Thomas

BBC News
Reporting fromMaenan
Oliver Slow

BBC News

A man who sold his rural home to someone who turned out to be on the FBI’s most wanted list has said it was the ideal location “if you wanted to keep your head down”.

Daniel Andreas San Diego paid £425,000 for the house near Llanrwst in north Wales in August 2023 using the name Danny Webb.

On Monday, Mr San Diego – who had a $250,000 (£199,000) bounty on his head – was arrested in Maenan after 21 years on the run following two explosions in San Francisco in 2003 he was suspected of being behind.

“He was quite excited because there was a big woodland at the back, he was into his mountain biking and that’s what sold it to him, apparently,” said Aled Evans.

“It sounded like the ideal place he wanted – but he wanted it for other reasons,” he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

‘Selling your home? Check the FBI’s wanted list’

Where was Daniel San Diego found?

Maenan sits just off the A470, one of the main roads running through north Wales, about 10 miles (16km) from Conwy.

It is a sprawling community of farms and isolated cottages, many of which are now holiday homes or holiday lets. There is no shop or village pub.

Many of the properties that you pass on the way to Llidiart y Coed appear to be holiday homes. 

Drone footage of San Diego’s house

Two of those that do live close by reported little or no contact with a man who had been on the run for 20 years. 

One identified a black Seat Leon car parked nearby as belonging to San Diego. 

Neither seemed to have any direct contact to him.


The area is a sprawling community of farms and isolated cottages, many of which are now holiday homes
The house lived in by Daniel Andreas San Diego – using the name Danny Webb – offers spectacular views

The house in question is a white villa with a balcony offering striking views of rolling hills and a well-manicured garden.

When the BBC visited, a bunch of keys was hanging from the lock on a glass door on the inside, and pans and crockery were spread over the kitchen sink and worktop.

You are greeted by a chalk message on a slate board as you walk down the garden path left for the binmen well-over a year ago by the family of four who previously lived here.

Mr San Diego was, it seems, in no hurry to make the place his own.

Just inside the door a pair of heavy duty wellies stood abandoned among a small debris pile of clothes, unopened post and a range of high-end power tools.

All the signs were that this was a home that had – in the best detective story tradition – been left in a hurry.

Mr Evans said the house was not “in the middle of nowhere” but was along an unmade track on “quite a busy” public footpath through the wood.

He added that Mr San Diego offered £15,000 over the asking price.

“The day of the viewing he spent considerable time on the balcony looking at the view and that’s what sold it to him, apparently,” Mr Evans said.

He told the BBC that “Danny” was excited about using the woodland at the back of the house for mountain biking, but thought it was strange that he did not seem worried about unfinished repair work to a damaged summer house.

What’s going on with the FBI in north Wales?

Mr Evans described Mr San Diego as a likeable, quiet man who told him his work in IT had brought him to Wales.

“I thought he was a Canadian and not an American,” he said, describing him as softly spoken.

He told BBC Radio Cymru’s Dros Frecwast he saw Mr San Diego for about 20 minutes on the day he moved in.

“He wasn’t in a hurry and was very cool about the whole situation,” adding the neighbours “never saw him”.

He only found out about Mr San Diego’s arrest after a former neighbour phoned him to tell him the shocking news.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet. But it hasn’t affected us, of course. You couldn’t make it up.

“It was a perfect place to hide and he was besotted with the view from the house. His view for the foreseeable future won’t be half as good.”

Mr Evans’ partner Suzanne Thomas said she remembered making conversation with Mr San Diego, describing him as “genuinely a nice chap”.

She added: “I know that his main residence was in Mold at the time, I think that’s what he said.

“It was as if he’d found his place, if you like. I think he fell in love with it really.”

She did, however, admit to having suspicions when Mr San Diego’s solicitor did not ask for planning checks or other usual requests involved in a house purchase.

Ms Thomas said he had made friends in the area, though, adding: “Just this morning I spoke to a lady, quite by chance.

“I said what had happened to our property and she said ‘I know him, Danny Webb’.

“She said she’d been to the pub with him, her husband had gone climbing with him. They’d spent quite a bit of time with him over the last few months.

“He was clearly socialising and enjoying the environment.”

When the FBI finally got their man he was found living at the end of a long, narrow track which forms part of the footpath on a steep, thickly-forested hill leading towards the popular Cadair Ifan Goch viewing point and the stunning views it offers across the Carneddau mountains of Eryri.

Llidiart y Coed benefits from the same breathtaking scenery.

Large swathes of the Conwy river are clearly visible below, snaking its way to the sea a few miles to the north, while the icy face of Carnedd Llewelyn glistens in the distance beyond.

Only the low-level hum of traffic rising from the A470 reminds you just how close you are to modern life.

Llidiart y Coed was once just a small, two-storey Welsh cottage. But a large, single-storey flat roof extension, glazed over with a late November frost, now provides the main living area.

Details of how the man known locally as Danny Webb lived in this Welsh idyll will, perhaps, emerge in the days to come. There are suggestions he was a keen mountain biker and a wetsuit hanging just inside a door indicates a man who enjoyed the great outdoors.

But after 20 years on the run, Daniel Andreas San Diego’s next home, presumably in a prison cell, will be very different.

Why did the FBI want Daniel San Diego?

The FBI has accused Mr San Diego of being “an animal rights extremist” involved in a series of bombings in San Francisco.

The first bombing happened in August 2003, outside the Chiron Life Science Center in Emeryville, California.

A second bomb was found at the site by authorities but exploded before it could be defused.

The agency said that raised the possibility the device was planted specifically to target first responders.

Less than a month later, in September 2003, a nail bomb exploded outside a nutritional products corporation based in Pleasanton, California.

He became the first “domestic terrorist” to be added to the agency’s most wanted terrorist list, created by then-President George W Bush in October 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Who is on the FBI’s most wanted list?

Mr San Diego appeared on the list alongside Osama Bin Laden, who is believed to have ordered the 9/11 attacks, and was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.

Michael J Heimbach, the FBI’s assistant director of the counter-terrorism division, said the suspect had committed “domestic acts of terror planned out and possibly intended to take lives”.

According to reports, the agency’s last sighting of him was in 2003 when FBI agents were close in downtown San Francisco.

“He parked his car, got out of his vehicle and started walking down the street and, if I’m not mistaken, he went into a Bart [train] station and that was the last time we’ve seen him,” FBI agent David Johnson said in 2013.

Romania orders election recount after TikTok bias claims

Nick Thorpe

Central Europe correspondent

A recount of the votes cast in Sunday’s first round of presidential elections in Romania has been ordered by the country’s top court following allegations that social media platform TikTok gave “preferential treatment” to the surprise winner, Calin Georgescu.

The Constitutional Court also rejected claims filed by two of the losing candidates who accused Georgescu of illegal campaign financing.

Georgescu, a radical with no party of his own, campaigned mainly on TikTok.

The platform has categorically denied it favoured the far-right, pro-Russia candidate.

Georgescu won 23% of the vote, with 19% for the runner up, Elena Lasconi, of the opposition Save Romania Union.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the governing Social Democrats came third.

The Central Election Bureau must now decide how to carry out the recount, with what personnel, and by what deadline.

A full recount is unprecedented in Romanian post-Communist history.

As things stand, Georgescu is due to face Lasconi in a run-off on 8 December.

“Extremism is fought by voting, not backstage games,” Lasconi said.

“I call on the Central Election Bureau to handle the vote recount wisely. The law must be the same for all, not interpreted differently for some.”

TikTok also faced accusations that it did not respect electoral rules by Romania’s top security body, the Supreme Council of National Defence.

Outgoing President Klaus Iohannis, who convened the council, said the platform “did not mark him as a political candidate”.

But TikTok has vehemently denies the allegations.

“It is categorically false to claim his account was treated differently to any other candidate,” it said in a statement.

“When Romanian authorities contacted us to flag a number of videos that lacked identifiers… we took action on those videos within 24 hours.”

Georgescu, himself, has pushed back against criticism that he used the social media platform illegally to gain an electoral advantage.

The 62-year-old has more than 330,000 followers – up from 30,000 just over a fortnight ago – and more than 4m likes.

“The budget of this campaign was zero… I had a very small team – a maximum of 10 people, no more. But we had millions of people behind [us],” he told the BBC.

“I’m not different – the Romanian people are different. Romanian people need freedom. Real democracy means spirituality. God. Our land. Our property. Our soul. Our family.”

He added that state institutions were trying to deny the people’s choice.

Anti-Georgescu protesters have already taken to the streets in Bucharest and several provincial cities, while Georgescu has appealed to his supporters to “stay home with friends and family” and not respond to provocations.

Romania’s Telecoms regulator Ancom has called for TikTok to be suspended pending an investigation by prosecutors into suspicions of manipulation of the electoral process.

Romania’s National Audiovisual Council has also asked the European Commission to investigate the way TikTok, which bans formal political advertising, was used in the election.

Romania will hold a parliamentary election this weekend, with the far-right parties AUR and SOS Romania hoping for a surge in popularity in the wake of the presidential vote.

The parties of the governing coalition, Social Democrats and National Liberals, are in disarray – humiliated by the failure of their candidates in the presidential election.

Across Romania, and in the large Romanian diaspora abroad, there’s a mood of elation, despair, or simply confusion.

A fatal car crash in India sparks concerns over Google Maps

Cherylann Mollan & Syed Moziz Imam

BBC News and BBC Hindi

Can a navigation app be held responsible if a user gets into an accident?

That is the question being asked in India after three men died when their car veered off an unfinished bridge and fell on to a riverbed in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Police are still investigating the incident, which took place on Sunday, but they believe that Google Maps led the group to take that route.

A part of the bridge had reportedly collapsed earlier this year because of floods and while locals knew this and avoided the bridge, the three men were not aware of this and were from outside the area. There were no barricades or sign boards indicating that the bridge was unfinished.

Authorities have named four engineers from the state’s road department and an unnamed official from Google Maps in a police complaint on charges of culpable homicide.

A spokesperson from Google told BBC Hindi that it was co-operating with the investigation.

The tragic accident has spotlighted India’s poor road infrastructure and sparked a debate on whether navigation apps like Google Maps share responsibility for such incidents.

Some blame the app for not providing accurate information while others argue that it is a larger failure on the part of the government for not cordoning off the place.

Google Maps is the most popular navigation app in India and has become synonymous with GPS (Global Positioning System), a satellite-based radio navigation system.

It also powers the services of many ride-sharing, e-commerce and food delivery platforms. The app reportedly has around 60 million active users and witnesses around 50 million searches in a day.

But the app has frequently come under scrutiny for providing incorrect directions, sometimes leading to fatal accidents.

In 2021, a man from Maharashtra state drowned after he drove his car into a dam, allegedly while following directions on the app.

Last year, two young doctors in Kerala state died after they drove their car into a river. Police said that they had been following a route shown by the app and cautioned people against relying on it too much when roads were flooded.

But how does Google Maps learn about changes on a road?

GPS signals from users’ apps track traffic changes along routes – an increase signals congestion, while a decrease suggests a road is less used. The app also receives updates from governments and users about traffic jams or closures.

Complaints related to high traffic, or the ones notified by authorities are given priority, as Google does not have the manpower to deal with the millions of complaints streaming in daily, says Ashish Nair, the founder of mapping platform Potter Maps and a former Google Maps employee.

“A map operator then uses satellite imagery, Google Street View and government notifications to confirm the change and update the map.”

According to Mr Nair, navigating apps cannot be held responsible for mishaps as their terms of services make it clear that users must apply their own judgement on the road and that the information provided by the app might differ from actual conditions.

Besides, it is simply very difficult for a platform like Google, which manages maps across the world, to keep across every change that happens on a road, he adds.

Unlike other countries, India also does not have a robust system for reporting such issues on time.

“Data remains a big challenge in India. There is no system for infrastructural changes to be logged into a web interface, which can then be used by apps like Google Maps. Countries like Singapore have such a system,” Mr Nair says.

He adds that India’s vast population and fast-paced development make it even more challenging to get accurate, real-time data. “In other words, bad maps are here to stay until governments become more proactive about collecting and sharing data.”

Lawyers are divided on whether GPS apps can be held legally responsible for road accidents.

Advocate Saima Khan says that since India’s Information Technology (IT) Act gives digital platforms like Google Maps the status of an ‘intermediary’ (a platform that merely disseminates information provided by a third party) it is protected against liability.

But she adds that if it can be proven that the platform did not rectify its data despite being given correct, timely information, then it might be held liable for negligence.

Putin threatens Kyiv decision-makers after striking energy grid

Paul Adams & Thomas Mackintosh

BBC News in Uman, Ukraine, and London

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to attack decision-making centres in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with the country’s new ballistic missile, Oreshnik.

Putin was speaking hours after Russia launched a “comprehensive” strike on Ukraine’s energy grid overnight, in what he called a response to “continued attacks” using US-supplied Atacms missiles on Russian soil.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that any “Russian blackmail” would be met with a “tough response”.

Ukraine used Atacms and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russian territory last week for the first time since the full-scale invasion of February 2022, following approval by the Western suppliers, the US, the UK and France.

The overnight Russian strike unfolded over several hours with waves of drones and missiles flying across the length and breadth of Ukraine – the second attack of its kind this month.

There were no fatalities, but it left more than one million people in Ukraine without power.

Zelensky said cluster munitions had been used against civilian and energy infrastructure.

“Cluster warheads [are] a particularly dangerous type of Russian weaponry used against civilians,” he said, adding that they “significantly complicated” the work of rescuers and repair crews.

Putin said the Russia attack involving 90 missiles and 100 drones also included the “Oreshnik” – a new ballistic missile which, according to Putin, cannot be intercepted.

US officials believe Russia is likely only to have a small number of the experimental Oreshnik missiles and would need time to produce more of them.

Responding in his nightly address, Zelensky said Putin “has no interest in ending this war” and sought to “prevent others from ending this war”.

“[His] escalation now is a form of pressure aimed at eventually forcing the president of the United States to accept Russia’s terms.”

The Russian leader also said Moscow would not allow Ukraine to get nuclear weapons, and if it ever did, would use “all means of destruction at Russia’s disposal”, according to Russia’s state-run news agency RIA.

This is thought to be a reference to reports in the New York Times newspaper last week that unnamed Western officials had suggested giving Ukraine nuclear weapons before US President Joe Biden leaves office in January.

Zelensky has also repeatedly complained that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, by which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons inherited from the USSR, had left the country without the necessary security.

The Russian attacks caused explosions in several cities, including Odesa, Kharkiv and Lutsk.

Kyiv was also the target of attacks, but Ukrainian authorities say all missiles targeting the capital were intercepted. Kyiv’s military administration said the attack lasted almost nine-and-a-half hours.

At least 12 areas across Ukraine, including three western regions, were hit and Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said emergency power outages had been introduced.

Elsewhere, the head of the Rivne administration Oleksandr Koval said electricity supplies had been cut to more than 280,000 people in the western region. In the Lviv region, as many as 523,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, according to regional head Maksym Kozytsky. In Kherson, authorities said they could be left without electricity for days.

Ukrainian authorities have responded by implementing pre-emptive emergency power cuts in order to minimise damaging overloads to the country’s grid.

Temperatures are dropping and the country has already experienced its first snowfalls, but the full force of Ukraine’s famously harsh winter has not yet been felt.

Ukrainian officials fear another concerted Russian attempt to deplete the power grid as winter arrives.

They have been warning for some time that Russia has been stockpiling cruise and ballistic missiles in order to launch coordinated and country-wide attacks on Ukraine’s energy system.

  • A week of massive changes in Ukraine war – and why they all matter
  • What we know about Russia’s Oreshnik missile

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said its thermal energy plants suffered “significant damage”, resulting in blackouts.

Thursday’s attack was the eleventh “major attack” the country’s energy system had faced since March, DTEK said.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its plants have been attacked more than 190 times.

DTEK added that the European Commission and the US had given them up to €107m (£89m) of equipment aid to restore power.

Having already endured two-and-a-half bitter winters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are bracing themselves for another.

More on this story

Sweden asks China to co-operate over severed cables

Christy Cooney

BBC News

Sweden has formally asked China to co-operate with an investigation into damage to two cables in the Baltic Sea after a Chinese ship was linked to the incidents.

The cables – one linking Sweden to Lithuania, the other linking Finland to Germany – were damaged in Swedish territorial waters in the Baltic Sea on 17 and 18 November.

A Chinese ship, the Yi Peng Three, is believed to have been in the area at the time and has since been anchored in international waters off Denmark.

China has denied any involvement in sabotage.

The Yi Peng Three left the Russian port of Ust-Luga, west of St Petersburg, on 15 November.

Early on 17 November, the Arelion cable between the Swedish island of Gotland and Lithuania was damaged.

The following day, the C-Lion 1 cable between the Finnish capital Helsinki and the German port of Rostock was severed.

Data from ship tracking websites suggest the Yi Peng Three sailed over the cables at around the time that each was cut.

According to the Wall Street Journal, investigators suspect the ship deliberately damaged the cables by dropping and dragging its anchor along the seabed for more than 160km (100 miles).

The ship has been in the Kattegat strait – a passage between Sweden and Denmark that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – since 19 November and is being monitored by the Danish navy.

On Thursday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a press conference that his government had “sent a formal request to China to co-operate with Swedish authorities in order to create clarity on what has happened”.

“We think it’s extremely important to find out exactly what happened and, of course, we expect also China to comply with the request we have sent,” he said.

He also reiterated an earlier request for the ship to move back into Swedish waters so the ship could be searched as part of the investigation, though added that he was not making an “accusation” of any sort.

The period since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has seen heightened tension in the Baltic Sea and a number of incidents involving damage to undersea infrastructure.

In September 2022, a series of explosions blew holes in the two Nord Stream gas pipelines between western Europe and Russia, and in October 2023 damage was done to an undersea telecoms cable between Estonia and Sweden.

Speaking last week, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said of the latest incident that “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”, though he did not specify who he believed was responsible.

Russia has rejected suggestions it could have been involved as “absurd” and “laughable”.

Death threats and division: A political feud takes a dramatic turn

Jonathan Head

Southeast Asia correspondent

When a sitting vice-president says she has hired assassins to kill the president, and dreams of cutting off his head, you might think that country was in serious trouble.

But then this is the Philippines, where politics and melodrama go hand in hand.

“I have talked to a person,” Vice-president Sara Duterte said on her Facebook page last weekend. “I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [President Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke. I said, do not stop until you kill them, and then he said yes.”

Last month she told reporters her relationship with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos had become toxic, and she dreamed of cutting off his head.

She also threatened to dig up the body of the president’s father from the Heroes’ Cemetery in Manila and dump the ashes in the sea.

Behind all this drama is a once powerful political alliance which has spectacularly unravelled.

A marriage of convenience

The decision by the Marcos and Duterte clans to join forces in the 2022 presidential election was a marriage of convenience. Both candidates were the offspring of presidents – Sara Duterte’s father Rodrigo was the incumbent then – and had strong support in different regions of the Philippines. Both had populist appeal.

However, having both run for president risked dividing their supporters and losing to a third candidate.

So she agreed that Marcos would go for president, while she went for vice-president – the two posts are elected separately – but that they would form one team on the campaign trail.

The assumption was that the younger Duterte would then be in prime position to contest the next presidential election in 2028.

It proved a very effective strategy. The UniTeam, as they branded themselves, won by a landslide.

However, as any of her predecessors could have told Duterte, the vice-presidency is largely ceremonial, and has few powers.

The Dutertes had wanted the influential defence portfolio; President Marcos instead gave her Education, an early sign he was wary of letting his vice-president build up her power base.

He also made an abrupt turn away from the politics of his predecessor.

He ordered the Philippines navy and coastguard to stand up to China in disputed areas of the South China Sea. This was a marked contrast to President Rodrigo Duterte who had refused to challenge China’s dominant presence there, and even declared that he loved Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Marcos also toned down President Duterte’s infamous war on drugs, in which thousands of suspected drug dealers were gunned down.

He has hinted at the possibility of rejoining the International Criminal Court, which has issued an indictment for crimes against humanity against Rodrigo Duterte. The former president has also found himself in front of the Philippines Senate being grilled about the extrajudicial killings that happened during his presidency.

Relations between the two camps soured further when Marcos’s allies in the lower house launched an investigation into Sara Duterte’s use of the confidential funds she was allocated when she got the job.

In July, the vice-president resigned as education secretary, and her language became increasingly inflammatory.

The ‘alpha’ VP

Sara Duterte is no stranger to controversy. Thirteen years ago, when she was mayor of Davao City, she was filmed repeatedly punching a court official.

She comes from the same political mould as her outspoken father, both of them known for tough talking. He called the Pope a “son of a whore” and boasted of having killed people.

He describes her as the “alpha” character of the family who always gets her way; she says he is hard to love. Like her father she likes riding big motorbikes.

Her latest threats to her one-time ally President Marcos, though, may prove to be one verbal indiscretion too far.

Marcos has responded by calling Duterte’s comments “reckless” and “troubling”. The Philippines National Bureau of Investigation – its equivalent of the American FBI – has summoned the vice-president to explain her threats on Friday.

She has now walked them back, denying they were real. “This is a plan without flesh,” she explained, accusing Marcos of being a liar who was leading the country to hell.

Perhaps it was inevitable that two such powerful families would become rivals in the maelstrom of Filipino politics, which is still largely about personalities, big families and regions.

Political loyalties are fluid; senators and members of congress constantly shift their party allegiances. Power inevitably concentrates around the president, with his authority to dispense government funds. Former presidents are routinely investigated for corruption or abuses of power once they leave office.

President Marcos wants to rehabilitate the reputation of his family, after his father’s shameful ejection by a popular uprising in 1986, and will be keen to influence the choice of his successor in 2028. The Dutertes have their own dynastic ambitions.

For now Sara Duterte is still vice-president. She could be removed through impeachment by the Senate, but that would be a risky move for President Marcos.

She enjoys strong popular support in the south, and among the millions of overseas Filipino workers, and getting sufficient support in the Senate for impeachment could be difficult.

Mid-term elections are due in May next year, in which the entire lower house and half of the 24 senatorial seats will be contested. They will be seen as a test of the strength for each of the rival camps.

Duterte’s explosive break with the president is an opportunity for her to back her own candidates, and present herself as an alternative to a government which has lost popularity over the lacklustre performance of the economy.

That could give her a better launching pad for the 2028 presidential race than staying shackled to the Marcos administration.

But after her incendiary comments of the past few weeks, Filipinos must be wondering: what will she say next?

Australia approves social media ban on under-16s

Hannah Ritchie

BBC News, Sydney

Australia will ban children under 16 from using social media, after its parliament approved the world’s strictest laws.

The ban, which will not take effect for at least 12 months, could see tech companies fined up to A$50m ($32.5m; £25.7m) if they don’t comply.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the legislation is needed to protect young people from the “harms” of social media, something many parent groups have echoed.

But critics say questions over how the ban will work – and its impact on privacy and social connection – have been left unanswered.

This is not the first attempt globally to restrict children’s social media use, but the minimum age of 16 is the highest set by any country. Unlike other attempts, it also does not include exemptions for existing users or those with parental consent.

Having passed the Senate by 34 votes to 19 late on Thursday, the bill returned to the House of Representatives where it passed early on Friday.

“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs,” Albanese told reporters afterwards.

The legislation does not specify which platforms will be banned. Those decisions will be made later by Australia’s communications minister, who will seek advice from the eSafety Commissioner – an internet regulator that will enforce the rules.

However the minister, Michelle Rowland, has said the ban will include Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X. Gaming and messaging platforms are exempt, as are sites that can be accessed without an account, meaning YouTube, for instance, is likely to be spared.

The government says will it rely on some form of age-verification technology to implement the restrictions, and options will be tested in the coming months. The onus will be on the social media platforms to add these processes themselves.

However digital researchers have warned there are no guarantees the unspecified technology – which could rely on biometrics or identity information – will work. Critics have also sought assurances that privacy will be protected.

They have also warned that restrictions could easily be circumvented through tools like a VPN – which can disguise a user’s location and make them appear to be logging on from another country.

Children who find ways to flout the rules will not face penalties, however.

Polling on the reforms, though limited, suggests it is supported by a majority of Australian parents and caregivers.

“For too long parents have had this impossible choice between giving in and getting their child an addictive device or seeing their child isolated and feeling left out,” Amy Friedlander, who was among those lobbying for the ban, recently told the BBC.

“We’ve been trapped in a norm that no one wants to be a part of.”

But many experts say the ban is “too blunt an instrument” to effectively address the risks associated with social media use, and have warned it could end up pushing children into less regulated corners of the internet.

During a short consultation period before the bill passed, Google and Snap criticised the legislation for not providing more detail, and Meta said the bill would be “ineffective” and not meet its stated aim of making kids safer.

In its submission, TikTok said the government’s definition of a social media platform was so “broad and unclear” that “almost every online service could fall within [it]”.

X questioned the “lawfulness” of the bill – saying it may not be compatible with international regulations and human rights treaties which Australia has signed.

Some youth advocates also accused the government of not fully understanding the role social media plays in their lives, and locking them out of the debate.

“We understand we are vulnerable to the risks and negative impacts of social media… but we need to be involved in developing solutions,” wrote the eSafety Youth Council, which advises the regulator.

Albanese has acknowledged the debate is complex but steadfastly defended the bill.

“We don’t argue that its implementation will be perfect, just like the alcohol ban for [children] under 18 doesn’t mean that someone under 18 never has access – but we know that it’s the right thing to do,” he said on Friday.

Last year, France introduced legislation to block social media access for children under 15 without parental consent, though research indicates almost half of users were able to avoid the ban using a VPN.

A law in the US state of Utah – which was similar to Australia’s – was overturned by a federal judge who found it unconstitutional.

Australia’s laws are being watched with great interest by global leaders.

Norway has recently pledged to follow in the country’s footsteps, and last week the UK’s technology secretary said a similar ban was “on the table” – though he later added “not… at the moment”.

Gregg Wallace ‘fascinated by my sex life and made lesbian jokes’

Noor Nanji

Culture reporter@NoorNanji
Felicity Baker

Culture reporterFelicity_Baker

Television host Gregg Wallace has been accused of making “lesbian jokes constantly” by a woman who worked on a travel show with him.

The woman, who we are calling Anna, said he was “fascinated” by the fact she dated women and asked her the “logistics” of how it worked. She is one of a number of workers across a range of shows who came to BBC News with claims about the TV presenter.

On Thursday, MasterChef’s production company said Wallace is to step away from presenting the show while allegations of historical misconduct are investigated.

Wallace’s lawyers say it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature. Masterchef’s production company Banijay UK has launched an investigation and said Wallace is co-operating.

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Other allegations the BBC has heard are that Wallace talked about spanking and threesomes in front of crew.

In a video posted on Instagram on Thursday evening, Wallace said: “I would like to thank all the people getting in touch, reaching out and showing their support.

“It’s good of you – thank you very much.”

Anna worked on Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends in 2019. She told us that Wallace regularly talked about sex, and about domination and spanking.

“[It] was highly inappropriate,” she said.

She says he also constantly made comments about her sexual orientation, including when he met her partner.

“I date women and Gregg Wallace was fascinated by that,” she said.

She added that he asked her if she was “sure” she didn’t want to date men.

‘I refused to work with him again’

Another woman, who we are calling Georgina, worked on the BBC’s Eat Well For Less TV show with Wallace in 2019.

She says he would constantly say inappropriate things to her, such as making comments that his wife was only two years older than her.

“It made me uncomfortable,” she said. “What am I meant to say in response to that?”

On another occasion, she says she had to go to Wallace’s car to sort out his parking ticket for him.

She asked him if that was OK, to which he allegedly responded: “You can come to my car, but can you handle the fact everyone will think you just got off with a celebrity?”

Both Georgina, and her colleague, who we’re calling Lisa, also say he came out of a bathroom topless in front of them once during a shoot and asked them to take his coffee order.

“[Wallace’s] behaviour isn’t acceptable,” Lisa said.

“To not only continue to put women in these scenarios but to continue publicly platforming him is a disgrace to our industry standards.”

Georgina said she refused to work on a show with him afterwards.

‘He said he was giving me a fashion show’

Another young female worker, who the BBC is calling Amanda, highlighted two experiences with Wallace while filming the Channel 5 show, Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends, in 2019.

The first, she said, was when they were travelling together by car. She said he took out his phone and showed her photos of a woman in her underwear.

A second time, she said they had just finished filming in Italy and she took him back to his hotel room.

She said he started showing them his outfits for the next day, and then took off his top and said “let me give you a fashion show”.

A male colleague was initially in the room, but she said he then left, leaving her alone with Wallace.

She said she still remembers the Millwall tattoo on his chest and that she found the hotel room experience very uncomfortable.

“It’s weird to be alone in a room with a topless stranger.”

BBC News, which is editorially independent from the wider organisation, started investigating Wallace in the summer, after becoming aware of allegations. The claims we have heard are from 13 people, across five shows, from 2005 to 2022.

One of them was the broadcaster Kirsty Wark, a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011, who said he told “sexualised” jokes during filming.

On Tuesday, we sent a letter to Wallace’s representatives setting out allegations we have heard.

Two days later, it was announced that Wallace is to step away from presenting MasterChef pending an investigation.

Since then, more people have come forward with allegations about the presenter.

Writing on Instagram on Thursday, singer Sir Rod Stewart described Wallace as an “ill-mannered bully”, and said the presenter “humiliated” his wife when she was on MasterChef in 2021.

BBC News has asked Wallace’s representatives for a comment on Sir Rod’s post.

Other claims made to BBC News include:

  • A female worker on MasterChef in 2019, who said Wallace talked about his sex life and asked her if her new boyfriend had a nice bottom
  • A female worker on the BBC Good Food Show in 2010, who said Wallace stared at her chest
  • A female worker on Eat Well For Less in 2019, who said Wallace told her he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans
  • A male worker on MasterChef in 2005-06, who said Wallace regularly said sexually explicit things on set. He said Wallace once said a dish tasted like his aunt’s vagina, and on another occasion, asked a female runner if she put her finger up her boyfriend’s bottom
  • A male worker who worked on Big Weekends and other travel shows between 2019 and 2022, who says Wallace talked about threesomes with prostitutes and said he “loves spanking” multiple times a day

One of Britain’s biggest trade unions says it was aware of allegations about Wallace’s behaviour.

“I’d like to say I’m surprised by these reports, but… I guess my reaction is it was a matter of when, not if these stories started to emerge,” Philippa Childs, head of Bectu, told BBC News.

She said it was difficult for freelancers to be able to make complaints because of the precarious nature of the industry.

“They’re always concerned about where their next job is coming from or indeed are they going to be able to establish themselves in the industry,” she said.

“So there is quite a tendency not to report, to feel that it’s not safe to report, to feel that even if they do report, the production company or the broadcaster are not going to take them seriously and are not going to take action because of the power that people on screen might hold.”

Powerful people ‘get away with it’

The allegations come at a difficult time for the BBC.

In October, the BBC announced details of a review into preventing abuses of power, in the wake of revelations about Huw Edwards, formerly its most senior news presenter, who committed offences involving child abuse images.

In November, BBC chairman Samir Shah said in a speech that there “continues to be a sense that powerful people ‘get away with it’.”

One MasterChef worker we spoke to, who we’re calling Claire, thinks that how the industry responds to allegations is at the root of the problem.

“We should be getting better at dealing with this, we should be getting better at shutting things down, and not allowing celebrity or fame or power to embolden people to think they can act like that, and treat people really poorly.”

Announcing its investigation on Thursday, Banijay UK, which produces MasterChef, said in a statement: “This week the BBC received complaints from individuals in relation to historical allegations of misconduct while working with presenter Gregg Wallace on one of our shows.”

Wallace, 60, is “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process”, it added.

Banijay’s statement concluded by encouraging anyone who wanted to raise any issues or concerns to come forward.

A BBC spokesman said: “We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them.”

A spokesman for Channel 5, which airs Big Weekends, said: “We take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously.

“We have asked the production company to look into these historical claims. The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in our productions is very important to us and we want all of our productions to be safe and secure places for people to work.”

Production company Rumpus, which produces Big Weekends, said: “We do not tolerate inappropriate behaviour on our productions.

“Our comprehensive duty of care processes were in place during production of these series and any matters raised would have been investigated in accordance with these.”

Paris’s Gothic jewel Notre-Dame to reopen five years after fire

Hugh Schofield

BBC News, Paris

The world gets a first look inside a resplendent new Notre-Dame on Friday, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron conducts a televised tour to mark the cathedral’s imminent re-opening.

Five-and-a-half years after the devastating fire of 2019, Paris’s Gothic jewel has been rescued, renovated and refurbished – offering visitors what promises to be a breathtaking visual treat.

The president – accompanied by his wife Brigitte and Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich – are kicking off a programme of ceremonies that culminates with an official “entry” into the cathedral on 7 December and the first Catholic Mass the next day.

After being shown highlights of the building’s €700m (£582m) renovation – including the massive roof timbers that replace the medieval frame consumed in the fire – he will give a speech of thanks to around 1,300 craftsmen and women gathered in the nave.

Notre-Dame’s re-vamped interior has been kept a closely-guarded secret – with only a few images released over the years marking the progress of the renovation work.

But people who have been inside recently say the experience is awe-inspiring, the cathedral lifted by a new clarity and brightness that mark a sharp contrast with the pervading gloom of before.

“The word that will best capture the day is ‘splendour’,” said an insider of the Elysée closely involved with the restoration.

“People will discover the splendour of the cut stone, [which is] of an immaculate whiteness such as has not been seen in the cathedral maybe for centuries.”

On the evening of 15 April 2019, viewers around the world watched aghast as live pictures were broadcast of orange flames spreading along the roof of the cathedral, and then – at the peak of the conflagration – of the 19th Century spire crashing to the ground.

The cathedral – whose structure was already a cause for concern before the inferno – was undergoing external renovation at the time. Among the theories for the cause of the fire are a cigarette left by a workman, or an electrical fault.

Some 600 firefighters battled the flames for 15 hours.

At one point, it was feared that the eight bells in the north tower were at risk of falling, which would have brought the tower itself down, and possibly much of the cathedral walls.

In the end the structure was saved.

What was destroyed were the spire, the wooden roof beams (known as the “forest”), and the stone vaulting over the centre of the transept and part of the nave.

There was also much damage from falling wood and masonry, and from water from firehoses.

Thankfully what was saved made a much longer list – including all the stained-glass windows, most of the statuary and artwork, and the holy relic known as the Crown of Thorns. The organ – the second biggest in France – was badly affected by dust and smoke, but reparable.

Cathedral clergy also celebrated certain “miraculés” – miraculous survivors.

These include the 14th Century statue in the choir known as the Virgin of the Pillar, which narrowly avoided being crushed by falling masonry.

Sixteen massive copper statues of the Apostles and Evangelists, which surrounded the spire, were brought down for renovation just four days before the fire.

After inspecting the devastation the next day, Macron made what to many at the time seemed a rash promise: to have Notre-Dame re-opened for visitors within five years.

A public body to manage the work was created by law, and an appeal for funds brought an immediate response. In all €846m were raised, much from big sponsors but also from hundreds of thousands of small donors.

Responsibility for the task was given to Jean-Louis Georgelin, a no-nonsense army general who shared Macron’s impatience with committees and the “heritage” establishment.

“They’re used to dealing with frigates. This is an aircraft-carrier,” he said.

Georgelin is given universal credit for the project’s undoubted success, but he died in an accident in the Pyrenees in August 2023 and was replaced by Philippe Jost.

An estimated 2,000 masons, carpenters, restorers, roofers, foundry-workers, art experts, sculptors and engineers worked on the project – providing a huge boost for French arts and crafts.

Many trades – such as stone-carving – have seen a big increase in apprenticeships as a result of the publicity.

“[The Notre Dame project] has been the equivalent of a World Fair, in the way it has been a showcase for our craftsmanship. It is a superb shop-window internationally,” said Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, whose association promotes traditional building skills.

The first task of the project was to make the site safe, and then to dismantle the massive tangle of metal scaffolding that had previously surrounded the spire but melted in the fire and fused with the stonework.

Early on a decision had to be made about the nature of renovation: whether to faithfully recreate the medieval building and the 19th Century neo-Gothic changes wrought by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, or to use the opportunity to mark the building with a modern imprint.

An appeal for new designs produced unusual ideas, including a glass roof, a green “eco-roof”, a massive flame instead of a spire, and a spire topped by a vertical laser shooting into the firmament.

In the face of opposition from experts and the public, all were abandoned and the reconstruction is essentially true to the original – though with some concessions to modern materials and safety requirements. The roof timbers, for example, are now protected with sprinklers and partitioning.

The only remaining point of contention is over Macron’s desire for a modern design for stained-glass windows in six side-chapels. Artists have submitted entries for a competition, but there is stiff opposition from many in the French arts world.

Macron has tried to make the renovation of Notre-Dame a theme and a symbol.

He has closely involved himself with the project, and visited the cathedral several times.

At a moment when his political fortunes are at an all-time low – following bruising parliamentary elections in July – the re-opening is a much-needed boost for morale.

Some said he was stealing the limelight by organising Friday’s ceremony – officially to mark the end of the project – a week ahead of the formal re-opening. It means that the first, long-awaited images of the interior will also inevitably focus on him.

In answer Elysée officials point out that the cathedral – like all French religious buildings under a law of 1905 – belongs to the state, with the Catholic Church its “assigned user”; and that without Macron’s rapid mobilisation, the work would never have been completed so quickly.

“Five years ago everyone thought the president’s promise would be hard to keep,” said the Elysée insider.

“Today we have the proof not only that it was possible – but that it was at heart what everyone ardently wanted.

“What people will see [in the new Notre Dame] is the splendour and the strength of collective will-power – .”

Missing hiker found alive after more than five weeks in wilderness

Jessica Murphy

BBC News

A hiker who was lost in the backwoods of British Columbia for more than five weeks has been found alive.

Sam Benastick, 20, was reported missing on 19 October after he failed to return from a 10-day fishing and hiking trip in Redfern-Keily Park in the northern Rocky Mountains.

Authorities had called off search and rescue efforts for the avid hiker in late October. Temperatures in the region had at times dropped to around -20C (-4F).

Mr Benastick was found on Tuesday by two people headed to the Redfern Lake trail for work, who recognised him as the missing hiker as he walked towards them.

Given all the time he was missing, a different outcome had been feared, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl Madonna Saunderson told the BBC on Wednesday.

“We’re very grateful. The family is thrilled,” she said, adding that he had simply gotten lost.

Mr Benastick told police that he stayed in his car for a couple of days and then walked to a creek where he camped for 10 to15 days. At the time he went missing, he was equipped with a tarp, a backpack and some camping supplies.

He then moved down the valley and built a camp and shelter in a dried-out creek bed. Winter conditions ramped up, with some snowfall.

Eventually, Mr Benastick made his way to the area where he flagged down his rescuers.

“Those are very difficult conditions for really anyone to survive in, especially [with] limited supplies and equipment and food,” Prince George Search and Rescue search manager Adam Hawkins told the BBC.

“Even someone with quite a bit of experience would find that challenging.”

Multiple rescue teams, the Canadian Rangers, the RCMP, and family and friends, had all conducted a ground and air search over “a pretty huge amount of terrain”, Mr Hawkins said.

The rugged, remote region was hours from any towns, and featured low-lying hills, steep alpine cliffsides, and “even glaciated terrain”, he said.

Little is known about Mr Benastick’s condition or how he survived in the backwoods. He is currently in hospital.

Local inn owner Mike Reid, who got to know Mr Benastick’s family while they stayed at his establishment during search efforts, told broadcaster CBC that the hiker had cut his sleeping bag and wrapped it around his legs to stay warm.

He said he was told the young man nearly collapsed as he was placed into the ambulance and was in “rough shape”.

Before he was found, Mr Benastick’s last known location was at a trailhead in the region of Redfern Lake – the park’s largest lake – where he was seen using his red dirt bike, according to the RCMP.

Mr Hawkins , the search manager, said he is “intensely curious” to learn more about the area where Mr Benastick was found and what he was doing while missing to help inform future search and rescue operations.

K-Pop group NewJeans split from agency in mistreatment row

Ruth Comerford

BBC News

Chart-topping K-pop group NewJeans have said they are leaving their agency after accusing it of “mistreatment” and “manipulation”.

The five-member girl band announced their departure from Ador, a subsidiary of powerhouse label Hybe, in a late-night press conference held on Thursday.

Ador however has said its contract with NewJeans still stands, as the agency has not violated any terms.

This dispute is the latest development in a long-running conflict between former NewJeans producer Min Hee-Jin and Hybe’s chairman Bang Si-hyuk, which has made headlines in South Korea.

  • K-pop star gives tearful testimony on harassment
  • NewJeans face uncertainty after failed ultimatum

One of the group’s members, Hanni, has alleged that she suffered workplace harassment while working with the label.

“This is not the type of work ethic we respect and not one we want to be a part of, and to continue working under a company with no intention of protecting NewJeans would only do us harm,” Hanni said.

She added the group had faced “mistreatment, not just towards us but also including our staff”, and said the group had experienced “deliberate miscommunications and manipulation in multiple areas”.

Ador maintains that its contract with NewJeans remains valid as it has not violated its duty and has asked the group to “continue their activities” with the agency.

“A unilateral claim that trust has been broken does not constitute valid grounds for termination of a contract,” Ador said in the statement after the group’s announcement.

“We regret that the press conference on the termination of the contract took place without sufficient consideration, and even before we gave our response to the demand letter,” the agency said.

NewJeans said they would like to work with Min, the group’s former mastermind who left Ador in August following accusations that she had planned to split from Hybe, taking NewJeans with her.

This would have made NewJeans and Ador independent of Hybe. Min has denied the accusations against her.

She has previously accused Hybe of launching another girl group, Illit, that was copying NewJeans’ music and appearance.

On 13 November, NewJeans filed a legal notice to Ador demanding the company resolve breaches of their exclusive contracts within 14 days.

They said that failure to meet their demands would result in the termination of their contracts.

The group has asked for an apology for a comment allegedly made by an executive at Belift Lab, another subsidiary of Hybe, and accused the company of workplace bullying. They have also asked for the immediate reinstatement of Min.

They added that they would fulfil their contractual obligations, but at the conference warned their fans they might not be able to use the band’s name after the contract terminates.

Prior to the NewJeans’ announcement, the band were committed to a seven-year contract, which runs out in 2029.

The contract includes a clause specifying that parties can unilaterally terminate the contract if the other has violated its duty. However, the matter is likely to go to court as both sides do not agree. In such a scenario, a judge would decide if the contract can be terminated and if one side owes the other any damages.

In October, the K-pop news site Koreaboo estimated that the members would have to pay about 300bn South Korean Won (about £170m) to terminate the contract early.

But group singer Haerin said it made “no sense” that the group would be liable to pay a contract breach fee.

“We never broke any rules,” Haerin said. “We did nothing but try our best – they are the ones at fault. Hybe and Ador are the ones responsible.”

Ador said it had not “violated” the terms of the contract, adding that it “respectfully requests that the group continue its collaboration with Ador on upcoming activities”.

“Despite multiple requests for meetings with the artists, our efforts have not been successful. We hope the members will now be willing to engage in an open and candid discussion,” it said, referring to NewJeans.

The group has been embroiled in a year-long controversy with audits and emotional accusations making South Korean headlines.

In October, a member of the group, Hanni, 20, testified at the Labour Committee of South Korea’s National Assembly at a hearing about workplace harassment.

She alleged that entertainment agency Hybe had deliberately undermined her band, and accused senior managers of deliberately ignoring her.

Following several incidents, she said: “I came to the realisation that this wasn’t just a feeling. I was honestly convinced that the company hated us.”

Hybe shares were trading around 3% lower in Friday morning trading in Seoul.

NewJeans made its debut in 2022 and is among Hybe’s most successful K-pop groups, along with BTS.

With slick pop hits including Super Shy and OMG, NewJeans were the eighth biggest-selling act in the world last year, and were nominated for best group at this year’s MTV Awards.

Formed by Ador in 2022, its five members – Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein – range in age from 16 to 20.

MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace steps aside after allegations

Noor Nanji and Felicity Baker

BBC News

Gregg Wallace is to step away from presenting MasterChef while allegations of historical misconduct are investigated, the show’s production company has said.

It comes after BBC News sent a letter to Wallace’s representatives on Tuesday setting out allegations of inappropriate sexual comments by 13 people who worked with him across a range of shows over a 17-year period.

Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, who was a Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2011, said he told “sexualised” jokes during filming.

Wallace’s lawyers say it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature. Masterchef’s production company Banijay UK has launched an investigation and said Wallace is co-operating.

In a video posted Instagram on Thursday evening, Wallace said: “I would like to thank all the people getting in touch, reaching out and showing their support.

“It’s good of you – thank you very much.”

Kirsty Wark: Gregg Wallace used sexualised language and ‘people were uncomfortable’

Wark, who is best known for hosting BBC Newsnight, told BBC News that on two occasions, during early morning filming, Wallace told stories and jokes of a “sexualised nature” in front of contestants and crew.

She said she feels strongly that the comments were “really, really in the wrong place”.

The presenter described her overall experience on the show as “joyous”, adding that the team and crew were “fantastic”. But she said: “The fly in the ointment, on occasion, was Gregg Wallace.”

She added: “I think people were uncomfortable. We were essentially a captive audience. People looked embarrassed and just got on with their work.

“I was actually more angry than anything else, because I thought it was so inappropriate. And in a sense what I thought was it was about power more than anything else, that he felt he could.”

Other allegations we’ve heard include Wallace talking openly about his sex life, taking his top off in front of a female worker saying he wanted to “give her a fashion show”, and telling a junior female colleague he wasn’t wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans.

BBC News has also heard from a former MasterChef worker who says he showed her topless pictures of himself and asked for massages, and a former worker on Channel 5’s Gregg Wallace’s Big Weekends, who says he was fascinated by the fact she dated women and asked for the logistics of how it worked.

Another female worker on MasterChef in 2019 says Wallace talked about his sex life; a female worker on the BBC Good Food Show in 2010 says Wallace stared at her chest; and a male worker on MasterChef in 2005-06 says Wallace regularly said sexually explicit things on set.

Wallace declined an interview request from BBC News.

‘Unacceptable and unprofessional’

Writing on Instagram on Thursday, singer Sir Rod Stewart described Wallace as an “ill-mannered bully”, and said the presenter “humiliated” his wife when she was on Masterchef in 2021.

BBC News has asked Wallace’s representatives for comment on Sir Rod’s post.

We have also found that Wallace was warned by the BBC after a complaint was raised about him in 2018 about the show Impossible Celebrities.

Two of the women who complained say Wallace talked openly about his sex life to staff on the show, making them feel uncomfortable.

One said his sexual jokes were “disgusting”, adding that he would talk about how often he was having sex, and how he was a good lover.

After they complained, Wallace apologised and they were offered counselling.

A formal HR investigation took place and, in the outcome letter, which we have seen, the BBC concluded that “many aspects of [Wallace’s] behaviour were both unacceptable and unprofessional”.

In a subsequent letter, which we have also seen, a BBC executive said she had held a 90-minute meeting with Wallace to make clear “how seriously the BBC takes this matter”. She also reassured the workers that action would be taken “to prevent a similar reoccurrence and to safeguard others in the future”.

But further incidents have since emerged.

BBC News, which is editorially independent from the wider organisation, started investigating Wallace in the summer, after becoming aware of allegations. The claims we have heard are across five shows, from 2005 to 2022.

Some workers have spoken of more positive experiences with Wallace.

One former worker on Inside the Factory told us he made a lot of “dad jokes” but it never went beyond that.

A former MasterChef worker said nothing during her time there was concerning. Another said she didn’t feel there was any malice to his comments, although she understood why some people may have felt uncomfortable.

Immediate external review

Gregg Wallace seen after stepping side from MasterChef

Announcing its investigation on Thursday, Banijay UK said in a statement: “This week the BBC received complaints from individuals in relation to historical allegations of misconduct while working with presenter Gregg Wallace on one of our shows.”

Wallace, 60, is “committed to fully co-operating throughout the process”, it added.

“Whilst these complainants have not raised the allegations directly with our show producers or parent company Banijay UK, we feel that it is appropriate to conduct an immediate, external review to fully and impartially investigate,” Banijay’s statement continued.

“While this review is under way, Gregg Wallace will be stepping away from his role on MasterChef and is committed to fully co-operating throughout the process.

“Banijay UK’s duty of care to staff is always a priority and our expectations regarding behaviour are made clear to both cast and crew on all productions, with multiple ways of raising concerns, including anonymously, clearly promoted on set.

“Whilst these are historical allegations, incidences brought to our attention where these expectations are not met, are thoroughly investigated and addressed appropriately.”

Banijay’s statement concluded by encouraging anyone who wanted to raise any issues or concerns to come forward.

A BBC spokesman said: “We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them.

“We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated.

“Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them.”

A spokesman for Channel 5, which airs Big Weekends, said: “We take any allegations of this nature extremely seriously.

“We have asked the production company to look into these historical claims. The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in our productions is very important to us and we want all of our productions to be safe and secure places for people to work.”

Production company Rumpus, which produces Big Weekends, said: “We do not tolerate inappropriate behaviour on our productions.

“Our comprehensive duty of care processes were in place during production of these series and any matters raised would have been investigated in accordance with these.”

Episodes of MasterChef: The Professionals featuring Wallace that have already been recorded will transmit as planned, with the next episode due to air on Thursday evening.

Wallace has presented the popular BBC One cooking show alongside John Torode since 2005, as well as its spin-offs Celebrity MasterChef and MasterChef: The Professionals.

Wallace was the original presenter of the BBC show Saturday Kitchen in 2002 and has also featured on Eat Well For Less, Inside The Factory, Turn Back Time, Harvest and Supermarket Secrets.

He took part in Strictly Come Dancing in 2014, and was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022 for his services to food and charity.

  • Published

New Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim celebrated victory on his Old Trafford debut thanks to a thrilling 3-2 Europa League triumph against Bodo/Glimt – but admitted to a sense of anxiety as his players try to understand his demands.

The scream of relief the 39-year-old let out as Rasmus Hojlund scored the first of his two goals to level the contest at half-time underlined the strain Amorim is under.

The Portuguese has moved clubs – a third of the way through the season – with a determination to implement a wing-back formation United have no recent history of using. And this at a point in the campaign when fixture congestion is at its greatest.

Amorim had two full training sessions with his entire squad before his first game at Ipswich on Sunday, and two more in the build-up to this European success.

He has already revealed his only was round the situation is to push those who don’t start matches through full training sessions the day after. And Amorim is not sure how it will work.

“I get anxious because I don’t know what will happen,” he told TNT Sports. “We don’t control anything at the moment.

“I don’t know the players and we have not worked a lot together.

“We go to the game excited, but at the same time you are nervous because you don’t know how the game will go.”

‘We controlled more, but we should kill the game’

Although the lengthy injury list that blighted Erik ten Hag’s last weeks at Old Trafford is starting to ease, the lingering issues created by lengthy absences continues.

In his first game for 18 months, Tyrell Malacia lasted just 45 minutes in the left wing-back role that places huge physical demands on the player picked to fill it.

Luke Shaw made a second substitute appearance, coming on for Lisandro Martinez, who was playing his first game since getting injured before this month’s international break.

And Mason Mount started his first game since August after being blighted by injuries since he joined United from Chelsea at the start of last season.

It was a relief for Amorim, therefore, that his team came out on top, having profited from Alejandro Garnacho’s 48-second opener, then recovering – courtesy of Rasmus Hojlund’s double – after falling behind to two first-half goals in seven minutes

“We improved different things since the last game,” he said. “We controlled more of the tempo, pushed the team a bit higher (up the pitch) and created more chances.”

Amorim’s complaint was that “we should kill the game before the end”, as he lamented two wasted opportunities for Garnacho and another that substitute Marcus Rashford flashed across goal, all in the second half.

“I like the way the players tried to play our game,” he added.

“Sometimes we won the ball and have had problems in the past giving the ball away too much – the mindset is keeping the ball.

“They are really trying and I think we deserved the win.”

Hojlund ‘did a great job’ but ‘has to improve’

Amorim stresses his use of wing-backs is not revolutionary but there is no doubt his formation depends a lot on the performance of the man selected in the number nine role.

Whoever it is, he is expected to keep the opposition defence occupied and protect the ball long enough for support to arrive.

Amorim said after the Ipswich game that Marcus Rashford was not suited to the job. Hojlund’s performance against Bodo/Glimt was more encouraging, even if his manager told TNT the Dane was “dead” through tiredness at the end.

Addressing his overall display in the main press conference 20 minutes later, Amorim offered praise for the £72m signing from Atalanta, but also added a few demands.

“He has to improve more because sometimes he gives too many touches when he holds the ball, but he is very important when we are in a low block because he is the guy who connects in the transitions,” said Amorim.

“For the goals he was aggressive in the box. He is a quality player, scores the most difficult goals and did a great job today.”

The games come thick and fast for Amorim – United’s longest gap between fixtures to the end of the year is four days.

Should the club progress in the Carabao Cup, there will not be a bigger gap between games before the end of January.

But Amorim does give the impression he is enjoying himself, with United fans already creating a song for him and offering a warm reception on his way out of the tunnel and an enthusiastic one as he went back in and the game had been won.

“It was special because I came from Portugal and half of the stadium doesn’t know me,” he said.

“I have done nothing for this club yet but the way they support me from the beginning made me feel I am not alone now, that I am one of them. I hope not to disappoint them.”

  • Published
  • 440 Comments

Lando Norris says Max Verstappen “should start doing comedy” after the Dutchman suggested he could have won the world title in Norris’ McLaren.

The Red Bull driver’s remarks are based on his belief that the McLaren was the faster car for much of the season.

“He can say whatever he wants. Of course I completely disagree, as I would,” Norris said. “He’s good, but yeah. It’s not true.

“I know what Max is capable of doing and I like his confidence but I can say whatever. Not possible.”

Verstappen said after last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, where he won the title, that he would have wrapped it up sooner if he were driving for McLaren, and that it would have been “pretty much the same” in a Ferrari.

Norris said that he had “maybe made too many mistakes” this year.

And he acknowledged that the McLaren had been faster for more than half the season.

But he pointed out that Verstappen had built a huge lead when the Red Bull was dominating early on, when Verstappen won four of the first five races at a time when the McLaren was considerably slower than the Red Bull.

“For the majority of the season we’ve had a better car than Red Bull but when I’ve been winning he was second, third, when he was winning, I was fifth, sixth,” Norris said.

“I don’t think we could have or deserved to win the title as a driver, but I’m confident that for the first time in my career we will go into a year with the thought of challenging for the title. We didn’t expect it this year.”

In the first five races of the year, the Red Bull was on average 0.45 seconds a lap faster than the McLaren in qualifying. And over the first half of the season, it was 0.23secs faster.

McLaren have turned the tables in the second half of the season, in which their car has qualified on average 0.124secs faster than the Red Bull.

However, Verstappen’s average qualifying position over the year is 2.5 compared to Norris’ 3.7.

Norris has also had to compete with team-mate Oscar Piastri, who has taken two wins to Norris’ three, while Verstappen has dominated the other Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez.

“He has to do all of his work on his own, which is hats off to him,” Norris said. “He doesn’t have someone who is pushing him. He doesn’t have someone who’s trying other things with the car.

“The data’s not as valuable when you don’t have someone who’s performing at the same level.

“There’s a lot of things that Max can do that are phenomenal. Driving at the level he does consistently without a team-mate that can push him in any way certainly makes his life harder.

“But at the same time there’s no pressure. He doesn’t have to deal with trying to beat anyone in his own team. That comes with some comfort.”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who is third in the championship heading into the final two races of the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi also questioned Verstappen’s claim.

Leclerc acknowledged that Verstappen is a “very special driver”, adding: “What makes him special is also the confidence that he has”.

But he added: “However, I think it’s very difficult to say something like that not knowing actually what the car is like,” he added.

“He’s an incredible driver, no doubt. Whether he would have made it or not [in the 2024 Ferrari], I don’t know how the Red Bull is, how the McLaren is, and he doesn’t know how the Ferrari is.

“So, it’s maybe a bit of a stretch to say something like that.”

McLaren lead Ferrari by 24 points in the constructors’ championship with 103 points still available. Red Bull are third, 53 points off the lead.

McLaren are gunning for their first constructors’ title since 1998, and Ferrari a first since 2008.

  • Published

World number two and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for a banned substance.

The 23-year-old reigning French Open champion tested positive for a heart medication, trimetazidine (TMZ), in an out-of-competition sample in August 2024, when she was world number one.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted that it was caused by contamination of the regulated non-prescription medication melatonin, manufactured and sold in Poland, which Swiatek took for jet lag and sleep issues.

Swiatek’s level of fault was therefore considered to be at the lowest end of the range for ‘No Significant Fault or Negligence’.

“In the last two-and-a-half months I was subject to strict ITIA proceedings, which confirmed my innocence,” she said on Instagram.

“The only positive doping test in my career, showing unbelievably low level of a banned substance I’ve never heard about before, put everything I’ve worked so hard for my entire life into question.

“Both me and my team had to deal with tremendous stress and anxiety. Now everything has been carefully explained, and with a clean slate I can go back to what I love most.”

Swiatek was provisionally suspended from 12 September before successfully appealing, missing three tournaments.

The Polish player appealed the provisional suspension on 22 September, notifying an independent tribunal that the source of the positive test had been identified as a contaminated medicine manufactured in her home country.

After testing confirmed Swiatek’s account, the ITIA offered her a one-month suspension which she accepted on Wednesday.

Because her provisional suspension was lifted on 4 October, Swiatek’s period of ineligibility will end on 4 December 2024.

The Pole was also forced to forfeit the prize money from her run to the Cincinnati Open semi-finals, the tournament that directly followed the test.

“I admit this situation hit me hard because all my life I strived to have a career that could be an example for generations to come,” added Swiatek.

“I have a sense this situation could undermine the image I’ve been building for years, which is why I hope you will understand I had no control over it and could do nothing to prevent this unfortunate turn of events.

“Without my supporters I am not sure I would have been able to find the strength to carry on and keep fighting. Now I have fought the toughest battle in my life, and I hope you will stay with me and keep supporting me.”

In addition to her fourth French Open, Swiatek won titles in Doha, Indian Wells, Madrid and Rome in 2024.

She missed the Korea Open (16-22 September), China Open (25 September – 6 October) and Wuhan Open (7-13 October – she was suspended during the entry deadline).

The ITIA did not disclose her provisional suspension because the player successfully appealed within 10 days of the notice.

ITIA chief executive Karen Moorhouse said: “Once the source of the TMZ had been established, it became clear that this was a highly unusual instance of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated medicine.

“However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medication in one country cannot of itself be sufficient to avoid any level of fault. Taking into account the nature of the medication, and all the circumstances, it does place that fault at the lowest end of the scale.”

Swiatek’s suspension comes after men’s world number one Jannik Sinner tested positive for clostebol in March.

Although the ITIA accepted there was “no fault or negligence” attached to the 23-year-old Italian, the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has launched an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) acknowledged the ITIA decision in a statement and offered its “full support” to Swiatek during a “difficult time”.

“Iga has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to fair play and upholding the principles of clean sport, and this unfortunate incident highlights the challenges athletes face in navigating the use of medications and supplements,” added the WTA.

“The WTA remains steadfast in our support for a clean sport and the rigorous processes that protect the integrity of competition.

“We also emphasise that athletes must take every precaution to verify the safety and compliance of all products they use, as even unintentional exposure to prohibited substances can have significant consequences.”

‘Similarities between Swiatek and Sinner’ – analysis

Just like Sinner, Swiatek fell foul of a medication which can be bought over the counter in her home country.

And the similarities do not end there, as both successfully challenged the mandatory provisional suspension which comes with this type of violation.

This was helped enormously by the fact both could swiftly identify the source of the positive test, which in Swiatek’s case was confirmed by a Wada-accredited laboratory in Utah.

In her social media post, she spoke about being able to return to what she loves most with a “clean slate.”

But Swiatek also admitted she has a sense this could undermine the image she has been trying to build for years – sentiments echoed by Sinner earlier in the year.