Islamist rebels once exiled to a mountainous pocket of the Syrian countryside now roam the streets of central Aleppo, taking pictures below its ancient citadel and tearing down symbols of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

The surprise offensive in which insurgents seized territory across north-western Syria appears to have dramatically shifted the balance of power in Aleppo, the country’s second largest city, and marks the most serious challenge to Assad’s control in years.

On Saturday night, images emerged of fighters pushing deep into Syrian government-controlled territory towards the city of Hama, including Kafr Nabl, a town once seen as symbolic for its opposition to Assad.

Within hours, video showed insurgents in the centre of Hama. Syria’s state news agency, Sana, quoted military sources denying reports of a rebel advance in Hama, adding “our armed forces have a reinforced defensive line”.

Sana said government forces were repelling insurgent advances with the help of Russian aircraft, while opposition networks reported air strikes in the Idlib countryside.

Fighters from the militant Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized much of Aleppo less than a day earlier in a sudden rout of Syrian army forces. A reporter with the opposition television channel Aleppo Today showed uniformed militants in an empty central plaza.

Footage showed people tearing down a statue of Bassel al-Assad, the brother of Syria’s ruler, to the sound of celebratory gunfire. Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said Syrian forces withdrew from several key locations including the civilian airport, closing it as insurgents closed in.

Forces spearheaded by HTS also seized an important military base to the south while taking control of Saraqib, a strategic location on the highway to the capital Damascus.

Turkish-backed Syrian rebels launched their own operation against Kurdish militants and Syrian government forces in an effort to seize a military airport to the east of Aleppo, as swaths of territory rapidly fell under rebel control.

The sweeping offensive appeared to surprise forces loyal to Assad as well as his longtime backers in Moscow and Tehran.

In a late-night phone call with the Emirati president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Assad stressed that Syria “will continue to defend its stability and territorial integrity”. He added that Damascus is capable of beating back the advance “with the help of its allies”.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, is expected in Damascus on Sunday before travelling to Turkey, while Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov discussed the situation in Syria with his Turkish counterpart Hakkan Fidan in a phone call.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the Syrian military continued to battle insurgents in Aleppo, amid reports of both Russian and Syrian airstrikes around the city.

The militants appeared to enter Aleppo with ease, in total contrast to the fierce street battles for control of every block that engulfed the ancient urban centre 12 years ago. “No one expected Aleppo to be taken, which means there were no real defensive lines within the city. Once they got there it seems like it was all open,” said Jerome Drevon of the International Crisis Group.

Drevon pointed to the insurgents’ years-long efforts to formalise and hone their forces, allowing them to overwhelm far less organised Syrian government fighters. “I think the regime didn’t expect such a quick move, the operation started just a few days ago,” he said.

The Syrian military said the overwhelming number of fighters “and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defence lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack.”

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, called the situation in Aleppo “an attack on Syrian sovereignty”, adding: “We are in favour of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area.”

What began in 2011 as a popular uprising calling for Assad’s overthrow later transformed into a bloody civil war, with the battle for control of Aleppo at its heart. Syrian regime forces seized control of the city in 2016, with the aid of Russian air power and Iranian ground forces. As he fought for control of the country, Assad also freed jihadi fighters from the country’s prisons, transforming the uprising against him.

The sudden insurgent victory in Aleppo symbolised a dramatic shift in control of key urban centres in Syria, and an unexpected challenge to its president, who had long been seen as having crushed the uprising.

Assad’s fractured control of the country had appeared secure enough that his former regional foes, notably Saudi Arabia, had begun to re-establish diplomatic relations with Damascus.

Turkish officials, who had also discussed normalising relations with Assad, despite supporting rebel forces, denied any involvement in the Aleppo offensive. “We will not take any action that could cause a wave of migration,” the foreign minister, Fidan, said amid reports from the UN that fighting had internally displaced 14,000 people in days.

The insurgents’ sudden success quickly drew questions about their ability to hold territory, and what an expanded fiefdom led by HTS’s leader known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani could look like. Jolani was designated by the US State Department as a terrorist in 2013 and retains a $10m bounty on his head, but has de facto ruled Idlib province for several years.

While the militants in Idlib have attempted to demonstrate their ability to govern, they have also stood accused of crushing dissent while relying heavily on dwindling international aid to meet civilians’ needs. As fighters stormed Aleppo, humanitarians like Sudipta Kumar of Actionaid warned many were suffering in Idlib.

“Thousands of families now face a freezing winter without anywhere to live,” she said.

Sam Heller, an analyst at the Century Foundation, said the insurgents’ ability to hold on to their territorial gains depended on whether Damascus and its allies were able to mount a counter-attack.

“Certainly some areas in the Aleppo countryside could be difficult for HTS and their allies to hold on to if they come under really withering air strikes or artillery fire,” he said. Insurgent rule inside Aleppo itself, he added, could prove far more difficult for Assad and his allies to repel in the long term.

“It’s not clear what kind of capabilities Damascus is now able to bring to bear and mobilise from elsewhere in Syria, also critically how much capacity Russia now has in Syria, given its current involvement in Ukraine which has diverted some of their forces to that front.”

Drevon doubted that Jolani and his allies would be willing to cede power to a conventional governing authority. The militants were more likely to focus on expanding the field of battle for now, he said, adding: “They have been waiting for this battle for a long time.”

The Israeli military has killed a charity worker employed by the World Central Kitchen in Gaza, saying the person targeted in the attack was a Hamas militant involved in the 7 October attacks.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that three employees of World Central Kitchen were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a civilian vehicle in southern Gaza.

The Israeli military did not offer any evidence and Reuters could not independently verify the man’s identity or whether he took part in the attack on Israel last year.

Responding to the attacks, World Central Kitchen released a statement saying it was “heartbroken” to learn of the charity worker’s death, adding that it will be pausing its operations in Gaza.

“Our hearts are with our colleagues and their families in this unimaginable moment,” a statement on X read. The charity claimed it had no knowledge that the victim in the vehicle had links to the attacks on October 7.

Hamas has not responded. Medics in the territory said five people were killed in the strike, which they said targeted a vehicle east of Khan Younis.

At Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, a woman allegedly held up an employee badge bearing the WCK logo, the word “contractor” and the name of one of the men said to have been killed in the strike. A heap of belongings – burnt phones, a watch and stickers with the WCK logo – lay on the hospital floor.

In a later attack in Khan Younis, medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a car near a crowd receiving flour. They said it was a vehicle used by security personnel tasked with overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza.

An Israeli strike in April on a WCK convoy killed seven of its workers, most of them foreigners. The Israeli military said that was a mistake.

The Israeli military rejects allegations that it deliberately targets civilians in its Gaza campaign, accusing Hamas of operating from civilian facilities and using civilians as shields, which the group denies.

Overall, at least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes across the territory overnight and into Saturday, Gaza medics said. Among those, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and Wafa early on Saturday.

News of the attack came after an Israeli aircraft struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon, testing a fragile, days-old ceasefire that halted months of fighting in Lebanon.

Israel said it hit sites used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military said was a violation of its terms.

There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment. Israeli aircraft have struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, citing ceasefire violations, several times since the truce began on Wednesday.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah does not address the war in Gaza, where fighting rages on.

The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the US and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.

The repeated bursts of violence – with no reports of serious casualties – reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that has otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.

Many of the 1.2 million people in Lebanon displaced by the conflict have been returning south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.

The White House has condemned a Hamas-issued propaganda video of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander urging president-elect Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a deal to free remaining hostages in Gaza, calling it “a cruel reminder of Hamas’s terror against citizens of multiple countries, including our own”.

In the video, titled “Soon … Time is running out” and posted on Saturday on the Telegram channel of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, Alexander calls on Trump to use his “influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom”.

Alexander, who has been held by Hamas since 7 October 2023, appears to be under duress as he states that he has been held captive for more than 420 days.

“Please do not make the mistake Biden has been doing,” he says, adding that he does not want to “end up dead like my fellow USA citizen, Hersh”, a reference to American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg Polin, who was killed while being held by Hamas in August.

Alexander’s family authorized the release of the video, which includes footage of the young captive covering his face with his hands and crying.

In a statement, national security council spokesperson Sean Savett said the war in Gaza “would stop tomorrow and the suffering of Gazans would end immediately – and would have ended months ago – if Hamas agreed to release the hostages”.

The White House statement continued that a hostage deal was currently “on the table” and that President Joe Biden and the US would “continue to work around the clock to secure the release of our citizens, including through diplomatic efforts and by increasing pressure on Hamas terrorists through sanctions, law enforcement actions, and other measures”.

Last week, Biden said there existed “a critical opportunity to conclude the deal to release the hostages, stop the war, and surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza”.

But the video is directed squarely at the president-elect, who held a picture of Alexander while meeting with his parents, Adi and Yael, in New York on the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack.

At an event in Florida later that day, Trump called the attack “one of the darkest days in all of history” before pivoting to blame then presidential rival and vice-president Kamala Harris and Biden for the “weakness” he said gave Hamas confidence to launch the attack.

Yael Alexander told rallygoers at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv on Saturday that she was “shaken by the video” and had spoken with Netanyahu.

She said the Israeli leader had “strengthened me and assured me that now, after the deal in Lebanon, the conditions are ripe to release you and bring you home”, referring to a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that went into effect on Wednesday.

In the video, Alexander, who grew up in New Jersey and joined the Israeli army after high school, addresses prime minister Netanyahu in Hebrew. “I heard you speaking to the people of Israel on the news, and I am very disappointed. I heard that you will give $5m to whoever brings us back alive. The prime minister is supposed to protect his citizens and soldiers, and you neglected us.”

Alexander continues: “The fear is at its peak, and we are dying a thousand times every day that passes, and no one feels for us. The people of Israel: Do not neglect us. We want to return home with a full mind.”

In a statement released on Saturday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called the video “shocking” and it had provided “definite proof that despite all the rumors there are living hostages, and they are suffering greatly”.

“One year after the first and only deal, it’s clear to everyone: returning the hostages is only possible through a deal. After more than 420 days of continuous abuse, starvation, and darkness, the urgency of bringing home all 101 hostages cannot be overstated,” the statement reads.

Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli prime minister had spoken with Alexander’s family and “really feels the anguish that Edan, the hostages, and their families are going through”.

It added that the prime minister reassured the family that “Israel is working resolutely and in every way possible” to bring about the release of the hostages “who are in the hands of the enemy”.

Separately, the New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, said on X that he joined with the Alexander family “in urging both the Biden administration and incoming Trump administration to do everything possible to quickly facilitate an agreement that brings him home safe”.

Donald Trump has tapped Kashyap “Kash” Patel to be FBI director, nominating a loyalist and “deep state” critic to lead the federal law enforcement agency that the president-elect has long slammed as corrupt.

Patel, 44, has worked as a federal prosecutor and a public defender but rose to prominence in Trump circles after expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. He has called for the FBI leadership to be fired as part of a drive to bring federal law enforcement “to heel.”

If confirmed, Patel would replace Christopher Wray, the FBI director who was appointed by Trump in 2017 after the then-president fired James Comey over the FBI’s Russia collusion probe.

Comey later testified to Congress there was no evidence of any collusion but the FBI had a “basis for investigating” the matter.

Patel had ties to former Republican representative Devin Nunes, who led opposition to the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Muller while serving as chair of the House intelligence committee.

In making his nomination for FBI director, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that Patel “is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.”

“Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI,” Trump added.

Trump noted Patel’s service as chief of staff at the department of defense, deputy director of national intelligence, and senior director for counter-terrorism at the national security council during his first term.

Patel, he said, “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”

“This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border”, he said.

If confirmed by the senate – Gina Haspel, CIA director during Trump’s first term, reportedly threatened to resign in 2020 when Trump sought to install Patel as her deputy – Patel will likely prove a loyal agent of Trump’s desire to reform what the president-elect considers Washington’s bureaucratic overreach.

Patel told the Conservative Political Action Conference in July it was necessary to “identify the people in government that are crippling our constitutional republic”.

Trump has called Patel’s 2023 book “Government Gangsters”, in which he argued for firing of government employees who undermine the president’s agenda, a “blueprint to take back the White House”.

The reforms Patel outlined in the book “to defeat the deep state” include moving the FBI headquarters from Washington to “curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship” and to reduce the general counsel’s office, which he claimed had taken on “prosecutorial decision-making”.

Donald Trump said he had a “productive” meeting with Justin Trudeau after the Canadian prime minister paid a surprise trip to his Mar-a-Lago estate amid fears about Trump’s promised tariffs.

Trudeau became the first G7 leader to meet with Trump before his second term amid widespread fears in Canada and many other parts of the world that Trump’s trade policy will cause widespread economic chaos.

But Trump also seemed to double down on the threat, which he has frequently linked to trying to encourage other countries to combat drug smuggling into the US.

“I just had a very productive meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, where we discussed many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address, like the Fentanyl and Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Deals that do not jeopardize American Workers, and the massive Trade Deficit the US has with Canada,” Trump said in a statement posted to Truth Social, his social media platform.

Trudeau and a handful of top advisers flew to Florida amid expectations that Trump will impose a 25% surcharge on Canadian products that could have a devastating impact on Canadian energy, auto and manufacturing exports.

The meeting over dinner between Trudeau and Trump, their wives, US cabinet nominees and Canadian officials, lasted over three hours and was described by a senior Canadian official to the Toronto Star as a positive, wide-ranging discussion.

Trump added: “I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our Citizens become victims to the scourge of this Drug Epidemic, caused mainly by the Drug Cartels, and Fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship! Prime Minister Trudeau has made a commitment to work with us to end this terrible devastation of U.S. Families.”

Leaving a Florida hotel in West Palm Beach on Saturday, Trudeau said: “It was an excellent conversation.”

The face-to-face meeting came at Trudeau’s suggestion, according to the Canadian official, and had not been disclosed to the Ottawa press corps, which only found out about Trudeau’s trip when flight-tracking software detected the prime minister’s plane was in the air.

The two leaders discussed trade; border security; fentanyl; defense matters, including Nato; and Ukraine, along with China, energy issues and pipelines, including those that feed Canadian oil and gas into the US.

Over a dinner that reportedly included a dish called “Mary Trump’s Meat Loaf”, the pair also discussed next year’s G7 meeting, which Trudeau will host in Kananaskis, Alberta – seven years after Trump abruptly left the 2018 G7 at Charlevoix, Quebec, amid a US-Canadian dispute over American steel and aluminum tariffs.

The Pennsylvania senator-elect Dave McCormick posted a photo to the social media platform X late Friday showing Trudeau sitting beside Trump. Others in the picture included Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary; Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the pick for interior secretary; and the US representative Mike Waltz of Florida, the pick for national security adviser.

Canadian officials included the public safety minister, Dominic LeBlanc, responsible for border security, and Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford. Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman, and Trudeau’s deputy chief of staff, Brian Clow, were also at the dinner.

LeBlanc said Canada was prepared to beef up border security, with more money for technology, drones and more Mounties and border guards on the 49th parallel.

Earlier on Friday, Trudeau told reporters that he looked forward to having “lots of great conversations” with Trump and that the two would “work together to meet some of the concerns and respond to some of the issues”.

Trudeau also said that it was “important to understand is that Donald Trump, when he makes statements like that, he plans on carrying them out. There’s no question about it.

“Our responsibility is to point out that in this way, he would actually not just be harming Canadians, who work so well with the United States, he would actually be raising prices for American citizens as well, and hurting American industry and businesses.”

But some observers were less than impressed.

“The symbolism of Trudeau going down to Palm Beach on bended knee to say ‘Please don’t’ is very, very powerful,” Fen Hampson, professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, told Bloomberg.

“The stakes are enormously high and Trudeau has to deliver on this,” Hampson said. “Otherwise, it’s going to be seen by Canadians as a failed mission, because we all know why he’s going down there and it’s not to baste the turkey for Trump.”

The scramble to diffuse Trump’s tariff threats has also pre-occupied the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, in recent days.

On Thursday, Sheinbaum said she had had a “very kind” phone conversation with Trump in which they discussed immigration and fentanyl. She said the conversation meant there “will not be a potential tariff war” between the US and Mexico.

But the two leaders differed on Trump’s claim in a post on Truth Social that Sheinbaum had “agreed to stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border”.

The Mexican president later said she had not. “Each person has their own way of communicating, but I can assure you, I guarantee you, that we never – additionally, we would be incapable of doing so – proposed that we would close the border in the north [of Mexico], or in the south of the United States. It has never been our idea and, of course, we are not in agreement with that.”

Sheinbaum said the pair had not discussed tariffs but their conversation reassured her that no tit-for-tat tariff battle would be necessary.

Trump also expanded on his economic message on tariffs to other global leaders on Saturday, threatening Brics countries – an acronym that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – with 100% tariffs if they acted on discussions to drop the dollar as their reserve currency.

“The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said the US would require “a commitment” from Brics nations – a geopolitical alliance that now also includes Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates – “that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs”.

Ireland has bucked the European trend of elections going against incumbent governments, with two of the parties in its ruling coalition in pole position to lead the next parliament.

An exit poll showed an appetite for change, with 60% backing opposition parties. But the prospect of an alternative left-leaning government still looks unlikely to materialise.

The poll showed leftwing, nationalist Sinn Féin slightly ahead, with 21.1% of first-preference votes, followed by the two main parties in the outgoing coalition, centre-right Fine Gael at 21% and centre-right Fianna Fáil at 19.5%.

But with both those parties ruling out a partnership with Sinn Féin, they remain favourites to form the next government. They are expected to get between 30 and 40 seats each, which, with a third party, could make the 87 seats needed for a majority.

The deputy leader of the Social Democrats, Cian O’Callaghan, said early tallies suggested it would emerge as the fourth biggest party, with more than eight seats. Making an early pitch for a role in a coalition, he said: “This is our best election in our nine years. After the results are all in, we will talk to all parties. We talked to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael last time, and we will again this time round.”

Arriving at the main count centre in Dublin, Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, was met with a chaotic media scrum.

Flanked by the party’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, she declared her intention to try to create a government, saying the result had given Sinn Féin the same legitimacy as the two established parties.

“Two-party politics is now gone,” she said. “It’s been consigned to the dustbin of history. That, in itself, is very significant. The question now arises for us: what do we do with that? And we are clear that we want to change people’s lives. I believe another five years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is bad news for society.”

The biggest upset is expected to be the wipeout of the Green party, which, with 12 seats, had been the third partner in the outgoing coalition.

By Saturday evening, they looked to have lost nearly all their seats, with leader Roderic O’Gorman also in danger.

Migration, an inflammatory issue in many recent elections in Europe, failed to fire up the electorate, with an exit poll showing it was the top priority for just 6% of voters, despite violent clashes over asylum seekers in the last year. Housing and homelessness was the the top issue, followed by the cost of living, health and the economy.

Counting of votes in the 43 constituencies began at 9am on Saturday but with Ireland’s proportional representation system final results may not be known until Sunday night or Monday.

The Green party’s former leader, Eamon Ryan, said he had been “sharing commiserations” with colleagues but “holding heads high”.

He told RTÉ: “Change is difficult. Sometimes, when you’re driving change, it upsets things. … I think in a general election people were voting for government and maybe we were caught in that squeeze. People who wanted to retain the current government have voted Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and not us.”

The tallies suggest potential trouble for Fianna Fáil in Wicklow, where the party’s only candidate in the constituency – the health minister, Stephen Donnelly – is in danger of losing his seat.

Jack Chambers, the departing Fianna Fáil finance minister, said the national result was “too close to call” but said the exit poll showed the public did not want the “volatility” that had spread in other countries on the back of the rise of the far right.

Gary Murphy, a professor of politics at Dublin City University, told RTÉ:“I think there is a problem that Irish politics has faced since the fragmentation and the economic crash in 2011 – that now we’re not sure who’s going to be in government.”

Fine Gael’s director of elections, Olwyn Enright, said the exit poll had been a “positive” prediction for the party, but that she had been “surprised” with survey results that put Sinn Féin’s McDonald as the preferred taoiseach against the incumbent, Simon Harris, who had a difficult final campaign week. In the poll, 34% said they would like McDonald to be taoiseach against 27% for Harris.

The inconclusive results mean that all eyes will now turn to the search for coalition partners. Government formation talks could take weeks – with, possibly, no new government until January.

Elsewhere, the election threw up surprises. In Dublin Central, Gerry Hutch, a gangland figure released from bail recently in Spain to run for election, looked to be in contention for the last of four seats.

Social Democrat Gary Gannon, a certainty for the third seat behind Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe and McDonald, said “austerity from the financial crash” had destroyed some communities, which felt a “real sense of loss and pain over housing and poverty” that the current government had failed to fix in the last five years.

As the postmortem into the election began, Bríd Smith of the socialist party People Before Profit–Solidarity blamed Sinn Féin for not setting out a narrative of change stronger and earlier.

Another small party, the conservative republican party Aontú, said the country needed alternatives. Its leader, Peadar Tóibín, told RTÉ that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, two parties that emerged from the ashes of the civil war in the 1920s, were “becoming one party in many ways” and impossible to distinguish from each other.

Victoria police have carried out one of the “more bizarre welfare checks” after a deadly tiger snake slithered up a driver’s leg as she was travelling at 80km/h on a major freeway.

Police said they were called to Monash Freeway near the Toorak Rd exit in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs on Saturday morning after receiving reports of a barefoot woman trying to flag down passing traffic.

The woman told police she had been driving on the freeway when she felt something on her foot and looked down to find a snake “slithering up her leg”.

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It was later identified as a tiger snake, one of the world’s most venomous snakes, that had curled up under the steering wheel of the car.

Police said that “remarkably” the woman was able to fend off the snake and weave through traffic before pulling over in the slip lane and leaping out of her car to safety.

Paramedics were called to make sure the woman – who police said was in a state of shock – had not been bitten.

A spokesperson for Ambulance Victoria said they couldn’t find any puncture marks or other signs the woman, aged in her 40s, had been bitten.

She was taken to the Alfred hospital in a stable condition for further observation at about 11.30am, the ambulance spokesperson said.

Police said they called snake catcher Tim Nanninga from Melbourne Snake Control to wrangle the snake safely and get it out of the car.

“Passing motorists were left in bewilderment as the massive snake was safely removed from the vehicle,” a police spokesperson said.

“And so ended one of the more bizarre welfare checks you’ll ever hear about.”

Nanninga said he didn’t know how the woman managed to pull over safely.

“I do feel sorry for the lady that was driving – it would have been absolutely terrifying,” he said.

He said he received six to 12 requests a year to remove snakes from cars but this was the first time he had been called to a freeway.

“There were about a million people filming,” he said. “I’m just not used to doing it in front of such a big audience, to be honest.”

Nanninga said the woman had travelled from south-west Victoria, which is where the snake is believed to have got into her car and then under the dashboard.

He said the snake was taken to a reptile vet and checked for parasites. He was given the all clear to release it in a local catchment area, which he said was a “safe place right away from people and pets”.

Tiger snakes can be found across much of Victoria, including in highly populated areas.

The Victorian environment department has identified them as one of the most venomous snakes in the world, and says all tiger snakes should be regarded as “highly dangerous” to humans.

• A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged, according to officials. Zelenskyy said a rescue operation was under way. Tsarychanka is about 50km (30 miles) north of Dnipro, the region’s capital.

• Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton has said Zelenskyy is “playing a very sophisticated game” in calling for Ukrainian-controlled territories to come under the “Nato umbrella”. But he added that the Ukrainian president had made “quite a major concession” in stating he was prepared to see a ceasefire and then negotiate the return of Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine over the long term. Zelenskyy earlier suggested that Ukrainian territory under his control should be taken under the Nato umbrella to try to stop the “hot stage” of the war with Russia. He told Sky News that such a proposal has “never been considered” by Ukraine because it has never “officially” been offered.

• Ukraine came under attack from 10 Russian drones, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions, the air force said on Saturday. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defences.

• Eleven Ukrainian drones had been shot down by Russia’s air defences, its defence ministry said. The mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s south-west, said drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight to Saturday. No casualties were reported.

• Ukraine has asked Latin American parliamentarians and diplomats to assist in its defence in the war with Russia. Representatives of Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica came to Kyiv for a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• Police in North Macedonia arrested a Macedonian national suspected of intending to join the Russian army and fight in Ukraine, according to the country’s interior ministry. It is the first case of a Macedonian national facing the specific charge. The man, identified only as JK, faces a minimum three-year sentence if convicted. The ministry said the suspect had been in online contact with a person who had introduced himself as tasked by the Russian army to recruit soldiers for a compensation of €3,000 ($3,175). The suspect flew to Moscow in October and on returning to North Macedonia a week later was interrogated at Skopje airport.

• A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged, according to officials. Zelenskyy said a rescue operation was under way. Tsarychanka is about 50km (30 miles) north of Dnipro, the region’s capital.

• Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton has said Zelenskyy is “playing a very sophisticated game” in calling for Ukrainian-controlled territories to come under the “Nato umbrella”. But he added that the Ukrainian president had made “quite a major concession” in stating he was prepared to see a ceasefire and then negotiate the return of Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine over the long term. Zelenskyy earlier suggested that Ukrainian territory under his control should be taken under the Nato umbrella to try to stop the “hot stage” of the war with Russia. He told Sky News that such a proposal has “never been considered” by Ukraine because it has never “officially” been offered.

• Ukraine came under attack from 10 Russian drones, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions, the air force said on Saturday. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defences.

• Eleven Ukrainian drones had been shot down by Russia’s air defences, its defence ministry said. The mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s south-west, said drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight to Saturday. No casualties were reported.

• Ukraine has asked Latin American parliamentarians and diplomats to assist in its defence in the war with Russia. Representatives of Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica came to Kyiv for a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• Police in North Macedonia arrested a Macedonian national suspected of intending to join the Russian army and fight in Ukraine, according to the country’s interior ministry. It is the first case of a Macedonian national facing the specific charge. The man, identified only as JK, faces a minimum three-year sentence if convicted. The ministry said the suspect had been in online contact with a person who had introduced himself as tasked by the Russian army to recruit soldiers for a compensation of €3,000 ($3,175). The suspect flew to Moscow in October and on returning to North Macedonia a week later was interrogated at Skopje airport.

The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, has called the country’s government illegitimate and said she would not leave office when her term ends next month, defying the prime minister as he accused pro-EU opposition forces of plotting revolution.

The South Caucasus country was thrown into crisis on Thursday when the prime minister of the Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze, said it was halting EU accession talks for the next four years over what it called “blackmail” of Georgia by the bloc, abruptly reversing a long-standing national goal.

EU membership is overwhelmingly popular in Georgia, which has the aim of joining the bloc enshrined in its constitution, and the sudden freezing of accession talks has triggered large protests in the mountainous country of 3.7 million people.

In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.

Zourabichvili and other government critics said a 26 October election, in which Georgian Dream won almost 54% of the vote, was rigged, and that the parliament it elected is illegitimate.

“There is no legitimate parliament and, therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.

Earlier, Kobakhidze accused opponents of the halt to EU accession of plotting a revolution, along the lines of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which ousted a pro-Russian president.

“Some people want a repeat of that scenario in Georgia. But there will be no Maidan in Georgia,” Kobakhidze said.

The country’s interior ministry said on Saturday it had detained 107 people in the capital, Tbilisi, overnight during a protest in which demonstrators built barricades along the central Rustaveli Avenue and hurled fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and teargas to disperse them.

Georgia’s domestic intelligence agency, the state security service, said “specific political parties” were attempting to “overthrow the government by force”.

Many thousands of protesters were gathering late on Saturday in Tbilisi, building barricades outside parliament where there was a large presence of riot police. Local media reported protests in towns and cities throughout the country.

Hundreds of employees at Georgia’s foreign, defence, justice and education ministries, and at the central bank, have signed open letters condemning the decision to freeze EU accession talks.

Major businesses, including the London-listed banks TBC Bank and Bank of Georgia stated their support for EU accession, while Georgia’s most senior diplomats in Italy and the Netherlands resigned in protest on Saturday, local media reported.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, a star of Georgia’s national football team, spoke out in favour of the protesters.

“My country hurts, my people hurt – it’s painful and emotional to watch the videos that are circulating, stop the violence and aggression! Georgia deserves Europe today more than ever!” Kvaratskhelia wrote on Facebook on Saturday.

Standing outside the parliament building in the capital, where the flags of the EU and Georgia hang side by side, protester Tina Kupreishvili said she wanted Georgia to uphold its constitutional commitment to joining the EU.

“The people of Georgia are trying to protect their constitution, trying to protect their country and the state, and they are trying to tell our government that rule of law means everything,” she told Reuters.

The halt to EU accession caps months of deteriorating relations between Georgian Dream, which has faced allegations of authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies, and the west.

The party is dominated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire ex-prime minister who adopted increasingly anti-western positions in the run-up to the October election.

Both the ruling party and Georgia’s electoral commission say the poll was free and fair. Western countries have called for an investigation into alleged violations.

The EU had already said Georgia’s application was stalled owing to laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ+ rights that it has described as draconian and pro-Russian.

Meanwhile, Georgian Dream has started to build ties with neighbouring Russia, from which Georgia gained independence in 1991.

The two countries have no diplomatic ties since a brief war over a Moscow-backed rebel region in 2008 but restored direct flights in 2023, while Moscow lifted visa restrictions on Georgian nationals earlier this year.

American lawmakers are on edge after a wave of hoax bomb threats targeted figures across the political spectrum and prompted the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives to demand that Congress take action to provide “maximum protection”.

Over Thanksgiving nearly the entire Connecticut congressional delegation of Democrats faced bomb threats that apparently were signed “Maga” – shorthand for Donald Trump’s “Make America great again” political movement.

Those threats followed a spate of similar threats that targeted incoming Republican Trump administration appointees and their offices. Figures were also “swatted” by hoax calls to police with the apparent aim of triggering an armed police response to a target.

“It is imperative that Congress provide maximum protection for all members and their families moving forward,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement.

Jeffries added: “America is a democracy. Threats of violence against elected officials are unacceptable, unconscionable and have no place in a civilized society. All perpetrators of political violence directed at any party must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

According to Jeffries’ office, the incidents “ranged from detailed threats of a pipe bomb placed in mailboxes to swatting.” All were signed with “Maga” at the conclusion of the message, Jeffries’ statement said.

The US Capitol police declined to offer details about the threats to news website Axios in order to “minimize the risk of copy-cats”.

Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating the pre-Thanksgiving wave of threats against Trump’s incoming administration.

Among those targeted were New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick to serve as the next ambassador to the United Nations; Oregon congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer, whom Trump wants to lead the Department of Labor; and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, who has been tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.

Bomb threats and swatting attempts also married the run-up to November’s presidential election with politicians, election officials and election offices being subject to the threats.

The election played out against a background of warnings of civil unrest if the contest had been tight or disputed. However, Donald Trump’s clear victory over the vice-president, Kamala Harris, largely defused any prospect of protest or violence.

Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Sveçla, said on Saturday that police had arrested eight people after an explosion hit a canal that sends water to its two main power plants, an incident Pristina labelled a “terrorist act” by neighbouring Serbia.

Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, denied what he said were “baseless accusations” about Belgrade’s involvement in the incident, which occurred about 7pm (6pm GMT) on Friday.

“Somehow we managed to fix the damage, arrest the suspects and confiscate a huge arsenal of weapons,” Sveçla said during a livestreamed press conference.

Police commander Gazmend Hoxha said those arrested “are suspected of inciting, organising and even executing these recent terrorist acts and in particular the one in the canal of Iber Lepenc”.

Hoxha said an initial investigation had shown that between 15 and 20 kilos of explosives were used in the attack.

Police raided 10 locations, confiscating more than 200 military uniforms, six shoulder-fired rocket launchers, long weapons, pistols and ammunition, he added.

Police said most of the people arrested belong to local Serb organisation Civilna Zaštita (Civil Protection), which the government in Kosovo has declared as a terrorist organisation.

Reuters was unable to contact the group.

The explosion has increased tensions between the two Balkan countries. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 almost a decade after a guerrilla uprising against its rule, but Serbia has not recognised Kosovo as an independent state.

Relations remain especially frayed in the north of the country where the blast occurred, and where the Serb minority refuses to recognise Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital.

Kosovo’s security council, which held emergency talks early on Saturday, said it had activated armed forces to prevent similar attacks.

Security was already heightened after two recent attacks where hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbians live.

“The security council has approved additional measures to strengthen security around critical facilities and services such as bridges, transformer stations, antennas, lakes, canals,” the council said in a statement on Saturday.

Nato, which has maintained a peacekeeping force in Kosovo since 1999, condemned the attack in a statement on Saturday. Its personnel have provided security to the canal and the surrounding area since the blast, it said.

A Reuters reporter visited the site on Saturday, where silt had poured through a hole in the canal’s concrete wall. Workers had installed a series of large tubes to bypass the leak.

Power supplies appeared to be largely intact, but drinking water supply was disrupted to some areas.

Economy minister Artane Rizvanolli said Kosovo was coordinating with Albania’s power company to provide more electricity. She said water will be trucked to affected areas.