Crowds of protesters erupted with cheers outside South Korea’s parliament early on Wednesday after the country’s president dramatically withdrew a martial law order that had sparked chaotic scenes in Seoul.

In an unexpected late-night TV address President Yoon Suk Yeol had announced he was imposing military rule, saying it was needed to protect the country from “North Korea’s communist forces” and to “eliminate anti-state elements”.

The order created turmoil, drawing thousands of protesters to the gates outside the National Assembly.

Lawmakers – some scaling the parliament’s perimeter walls – evaded police lines to gather and vote down the order, but the army said it would remain until revoked by the president himself.

Then in a sudden reversal in the early hours, Yoon Suk Yeol said martial law would be lifted and troops withdrawn.

• Follow what is happening in South Korea live
• What is martial law and why has it been declared?
• Watch: Moment president declares marital law

“Just a moment ago, there was a demand from the National Assembly to lift the state of emergency, and we have withdrawn the military that was deployed for martial law operations,” Yoon said in a televised address around 4:30 am [1930 GMT Tuesday].

“We will accept the National Assembly’s request and lift the martial law through the Cabinet meeting,” he added.

The U-turn saw jubilation from protesters who had braved freezing temperatures to keep vigil. Members of the crowd shouted “We won!” as one person banged a drum, AFP reported.

Martial law means rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, and can mean the suspension of normal civil rights.

It has not been imposed in South Korea since the country returned to democracy in 1987.

The last time it was used was in 1979, after the assassination of long-term military ruler Park Chung Hee during a coup.

Yoon’s government has been severely weakened since April when the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election.

He has also been mired in several corruption scandals – including one involving the First Lady accepting a Dior bag, and another around stock manipulation.

This week, the opposition proposed slashing budgets for Yoon’s government, which is was not able to veto.

The opposition has also moved to impeach cabinet members and prosecutors, including the head of the government’s audit agency for failing to investigate the First Lady.

When he announced his shock decision to impose military rule, President Yoon initially blamed North Korea, but then hit out at the opposition, accusing them of using their majority to paralyse his government’s agenda.

Yoon’s move also caused consternation abroad. A spokesperson from the US State Department said its alliance with South Korea remained “iron-clad”.

But they added: “We are continuing to watch with grave concern, and we will continue to follow developments on the ground very closely.”

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also said its government was “monitoring the situation closely”.

South Koreans have been describing feelings of worry, shock and confusion after the country’s president plunged the country into political chaos – declaring martial law and hours later revoking the move after a major outcry.

In a televised address on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said military rule was needed to protect the country from North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements – before it was swiftly blocked by MPs.

It has left some South Koreans anxious about the fallout from the political instability, including Seoul resident Ra Ji-soo, who reported hearing helicopters near her home late on Tuesday.

Speaking shortly after the president’s address, she told the BBC it felt like a “coup d’état in Myanmar is happening here in Korea. I’m worried.”

Adding to the sense of events spiralling out of control, she also said a friend in the police force had received an emergency mobilisation order and had rushed to the station.

In the immediate aftermath of Yoon’s announcement, the country’s military declared the suspension of all parliamentary activity.

Footage showed a heavy police presence outside the National Assembly in the Yeongdeungpo District in the South Korean capital, and scuffles breaking out between police and protesters before lawmakers were able to gain access to the building and vote down the measure.

Despite the wording of Yoon’s pronouncement, it quickly became clear within South Korea that his drastic move was in response to a series of political events that have destabilised his leadership.

A South Korean woman, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of speaking out, said she felt Yoon was “attempting to restrict everyone’s freedom and right to express their concerns and judgement towards the government”.

“I am so scared that South Korea will turn into another North Korea,” she added.

Another Seoul resident, Kim Mi-rim, told the BBC she had hurriedly packed an emergency kit, fearing the situation could escalate. She recalled that previous instances of martial law involved arrests and imprisonment.

The BBC also spoke to journalists in Seoul who were coordinating closely, sharing advice on staying safe while it seemed that martial law might remain in effect, bringing all media and publishing activities under strict government control.

Why has South Korea’s president suddenly declared martial law?

Other people feared they could be inadvertently impacted by the repercussions of the political chaos.

“How can someone who say he serves the country be so careless in acting on his whim,” Don Jung Kang, a small business owner who makes accessories told the BBC.

“As a self-employed person I really think there will be a massive damage to my business. Just from his words the currency has crashed… And it will seriously affect importing materials.”

On Tuesday night, the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, the Democratic Party, called on lawmakers and the public to gather outside the National Assembly building – the main parliament – in Seoul.

Protesters chanted “no to martial law” and “strike down dictatorship” as the sounds of sirens from dozens of assembled police patrol cars and riot police buses occasionally rang out.

Clashes between police and protesters were seen on live streams in the early hours of Wednesday, before the president’s U-turn led to scenes of jubilation outside the parliament complex.

Juye Hong, a South Korean university student, said her family and friends had been “frantically texting, trying to make sense of this situation” which felt like “being thrown into a complete nightmare” as the drama unfolded.

She said the lack of clarity made the initial announcement “even more distressing”.

“People are saying there are soldiers across the city and tanks across the major districts,” said Juye.

“My friends and I don’t know if schools will be open tomorrow, how the falling value of the won and rising exchange rates will affect the economy, and if young men might be conscripted.”

South Korea’s president shocked the country on Tuesday night when, out of the blue, he declared martial law in the Asian democracy for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Yoon Suk-yeol’s drastic decision – announced in a late-night TV broadcast – mentioned “anti-state forces” and the threat from North Korea.

But it soon became clear that it not been spurred by external threats but by his own desperate political troubles.

Still, it prompted thousands of people to gather at parliament in protest, while opposition lawmakers rushed there to push through an emergency vote to remove the measure.

Defeated, Yoon emerged a few hours later to accept the parliament’s vote and lift the martial law order.

• Follow what is happening in South Korea live
• What is martial law and why has it been declared?
• Watch: Moment president declares marital law

Yoon has acted like a president under siege, observers say.

In his address on Tuesday night, he recounted the political opposition’s attempts to undermine his government before saying he was declaring martial law to “crush anti-state forces that have been wreaking havoc”.

His decree temporarily put the military in charge – with helmeted troops and police deployed to the National Assembly parliament building where helicopters were seen landing on the roof.

Local media also showed scenes of masked, gun-toting troops entering the building while staffers tried to hold them off with fire extinguishers.

Around 23:00 local time on Tuesday (14:00 GMT), the military issued a decree banning protests and activity by parliament and political groups, and putting the media under government control.

But South Korean politicians immediately called Yoon’s declaration illegal and unconstitutional. The leader of his own party, the conservative People’s Power Party, also called Yoon’s act “the wrong move”.

Meanwhile, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party, called on his MPs to converge on parliament to vote down the declaration.

He also called on ordinary South Koreans to show up at parliament in protest.

“Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country… My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”

Thousands heeded the call, rushing to gather outside the now heavily- guarded parliament. Protesters chanted: “No martial law!” and “strike down dictatorship”.

Local media broadcasting from the site showed some scuffles between protesters and police at the gates. But despite the military presence, tensions did not escalate into violence.

And lawmakers were also able to make their way around the barricades – even climbing fences to make it to the voting chamber.

Shortly after 01:00 on Wednesday, South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, voted down the measure. President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was ruled invalid.

Martial law is temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, when civil authorities are deemed unable to function.

The last time it was declared in South Korea was in 1979, when the country’s then long-term military dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated during a coup.

It has never been invoked since the country became a parliamentary democracy in 1987.

But on Tuesday, Yoon pulled that trigger, saying in a national address he was trying to save South Korea from “anti-state forces”.

Yoon, who has taken a noticeably more hardline stance on North Korea than his predecessors, described the political opposition as North Korea sympathisers – without providing evidence.

Under martial law, extra powers are given to the military and there is often a suspension of civil rights for citizens and rule of law standards and protections.

Despite the military announcing restrictions on political activity and the media – protesters and politicians defied those orders. And there was no sign of the government seizing control of free media – Yonhap, the national broadcaster, and other outlets kept reporting as nomal.

Yoon was voted into office in May 2022 as a hardline conservative, but has been a lame duck president since April when the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election.

His government since then has not been able to pass the bills they wanted and have been reduced instead to vetoing bills passed by the liberal opposition.

He has also seen a fall in approval ratings – hovering around lows of 17% – as he has been mired in several corruption scandals this year – including one involving the First Lady accepting a Dior bag, and another around stock manipulation.

Just last month he was forced to issue an apology on national TV, saying he was setting up an office overseeing the First Lady’s duties. But he rejected a wider investigation, which opposition parties had been calling for.

Then this week, the opposition proposed slashing a major government budget bill – which cannot be vetoed.

At the same time, the opposition also moved to impeach cabinet members and several top prosecutors- including the head of the government’s audit agency – for failing to investigate the First Lady.

Yoon’s declaration caught many off guard and for a period of six hours South Koreans were in a state of confusion as to what the martial law order meant.

But the opposition was able to congregate quickly at parliament and had the numbers to vote down the declaration.

And despite the heavy presence of troops and police in the capital, a takeover by the military has, it seems, not materialised.

Under South Korean law, the government must lift martial law if a majority in parliament demands it in a vote.

The same law also prohibits martial law command from arresting lawmakers.

It’s unclear what happens now and what the consequences will be for Yoon. Some of the protesters gathered outside the assembly on Tuesday night had also been shouting: “Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol”.

But his rash action has certainly stunned the country – which views itself as a thriving, modern democracy that has come far since its dictatorship days.

This is being viewed as the biggest challenge to that democratic society in decades.

Experts contend it may be more damaging to South Korea’s reputation as a democracy than even the 6 January riots in the US.

“Yoon’s declaration of martial law appeared to be both legal overreach and a political miscalculation, unnecessarily risking South Korea’s economy and security,” one expert, Leif-Eric Easley at Ewha University in Seoul said.

“He sounded like a politician under siege, making a desperate move against mounting scandals, institutional obstruction and calls for impeachment, all of which are now likely to intensify.”

As the speaker of parliament said on Wednesday: “We will protect democracy together with the people.”

A war of words between Bangladesh and neighbour India is threatening to spiral out of control following protests and counter-protests over the alleged ill-treatment of Hindu minorities in the country.

Diplomatic relations between the neighbours and once-close allies have been prickly since August, when former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh after a public uprising (she is currently in India).

The latest trigger was the arrest of a Hindu monk last week, which set off protests in India by activists from Hindu organisations and politicians including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On Monday, in an embarrassment for India, dozens of protesters forced their way into the consulate building of Bangladesh in the north-eastern city of Agartala and vandalised it.

Hours later, hundreds of students and activists protested in Dhaka against the storming of the consulate.

The Indian government has distanced itself from the attack, calling it “deeply regrettable”.

“Diplomatic and consular properties should not be targeted under any circumstances,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it was stepping up security for Bangladesh’s diplomatic buildings in the country. Police have arrested seven people in connection with the incident.

But Dhaka is livid.

The Bangladesh foreign ministry described the attack as “heinous” and called on Delhi to undertake a thorough investigation and “to prevent any further acts of violence against the diplomatic missions of Bangladesh”.

“It is very unfortunate and it’s an unacceptable situation… Hindu extremists broke into the premises, pulled down the flag stand and desecrated the [Bangladeshi] flag. Our officers and other staff were extremely scared,” Touhid Hossain, foreign affairs adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh, told the BBC.

Bangladesh officials say the protests in India – some have happened near the countries’ border – have been triggered by disinformation and heated coverage of the issue by several Indian media outlets.

“Unfortunately, Indian media has gone berserk over the issue. They are trying to portray Bangladesh in the darkest possible light. I don’t know why they are doing it and how it will benefit either Bangladesh or India, I fail to understand,” Mr Hossain, the de facto foreign minister, said.

Experts in India, however, say that it is natural that developments in Bangladesh will have ramifications in the neighbouring country.

“Feelings are running high in India. Bangladesh should first address the lawlessness there, particularly the attack on minorities,” Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a former Indian high commissioner to Dhaka, told the BBC.

• Sheikh Hasina poses a Bangladesh conundrum for India
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For India, Bangladesh is not just any neighbouring country. It’s a strategic partner and ally crucial to India’s border security, particularly in the north-eastern states. The two countries also share close cultural and linguistic ties.

Hindus constitute less than 10% of Bangladesh’s 170 million population. Leaders of the community have long spoken of discrimination and hate attacks against them by Islamists and some political parties.

In the aftermath of the chaotic overthrow of Hasina in August, many of her supporters were targeted, including those from religious minorities traditionally seen as backing her.

After weeks of relative calm, the situation has become tense again in the aftermath of the arrest of the Hindu leader, Chinmoy Krishna Das.

He was arrested on charges of sedition, among others, after holding a protest demanding minority rights in Chittagong in October. There, he was accused of raising a saffron flag – the colour is associated with Hinduism – above the Bangladeshi national flag.

Last week, a court in Chittagong denied bail to him, spurring clashes that led to the death of a Muslim lawyer. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the killing and violence.

On Tuesday, the monk’s bail hearing was pushed to 2 January after no lawyer turned up to represent him.

Chinmoy Das was earlier associated with the religious organisation Iskcon. But Hrishikesh Gauranga Das, a senior official of Iskcon in Dhaka, told the BBC that the monk was expelled from the organisation earlier this year on disciplinary grounds.

“Some students complained that Chinmoy Das misbehaved with them. So, we sent letters asking for his cooperation to investigate the matter. But he refused to cooperate”, the official said.

Chinmoy Das is in jail and unavailable for comment but a supporter told the BBC that the allegations were false and arose from “an internal feud between Iskcon leaders in Dhaka and Chittagong”.

The supporter, Swatantra Gauranga Das, also denied that Chinmoy Das had disrespected the Bangladeshi national flag.

The flare-up over the arrest has added to the tense atmosphere in Bangladesh.

Hrishikesh Gauranga Das said that minorities in Bangladesh are “living in fear”.

“They don’t know what will happen. The government is trying [to provide security] but it’s difficult to control most people”, he said.

He said three Iskcon temples suffered minor damages after they were vandalised by miscreants in recent days.

The interim government in Bangladesh says it’s aware of the sensitivities and that it gives equal treatment to all communities.

“We have deployed additional forces to provide security to Iskcon and Hindu temples and where religious minorities live. There may have been some stray incidents but there are no orchestrated attacks on minorities,” said Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus.

But religious tensions are not new to the region and activists on both sides are worried that if inflammatory speeches and protests continue, the situation could spiral out of control.

Hasina’s stay in India has already become a major irritant in bilateral ties and the escalating protests in both countries are likely to deteriorate the atmosphere.

Experts point out that India and Bangladesh are neighbours who need each other and it’s time for the rhetoric to be toned down.

The protests have also impacted ordinary people who travel from Bangladesh to India for business, tourism or for medical treatment.

When Muhammad Inayatullah was crossing into India earlier this week to meet his friends, he saw a demonstration by Hindu activists at the Petrapole border in the Indian state of West Bengal.

“It’s not nice to hear people shouting slogans against your country when you cross the border,” Mr Inayatullah told BBC Bengali.

The mother of the only British-Israeli hostage being held by Hamas has described her increasing fears for her daughter’s life after more than 400 days in captivity.

Emily Damari, 28, was taken by Hamas from her home in southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

“I fear that she’s dead,” her mother Mandy told the BBC in her first television interview. “And if she’s not dead, she’s not getting enough food to eat, she’s not able to wash herself, drink water, she could be ill.”

“She’s suffering from gunshot wounds to her hand and her leg… I worry every day, I worry every second because in the next second, she could be murdered, just because she’s there.”

Mandy Damari, who was born in Surrey, called on the British government to do more to ensure humanitarian supplies go to the hostages while negotiations continue for their release.

She also welcomed US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that there would be “hell to pay” if the hostages were not released before he takes office in January, saying: “It made me a bit more optimistic”.

Hamas gunmen shot Emily and killed her dog when they attacked Kibbutz Kfar Aza almost 14 months ago.

Mandy also hid as Hamas stormed her home and was only saved when one of the bullets jammed the lock of the room she was hiding in.

About 1,200 people were killed that day, while Emily and 250 others were taken back to Gaza as hostages.

The US, Egypt and Qatar have spent months working on a deal to secure the release of the 97 remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza. But the negotiations have stalled, with Hamas and Israel blaming each other for the impasse.

Without directly mentioning Hamas or Gaza, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday: “Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire world, in the Middle East – but it’s all talk, and no action!”

“If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against humanity,” he warned.

Mrs Damari said the post “gave me a bit of hope that maybe someone does really care about what’s going on there”.

“Someone has to do something and take strong action to get them released. And that’s the strongest thing I’ve heard anyone say for a long time.”

She said she hoped Trump would do everything in his power to get her daughter and the other hostages released.

Mrs Damari – who describes her daughter as a Spurs football fan who loves coming to the UK to visit family, go shopping and visit pubs – is disappointed with the British government.

She is currently in the UK meeting political leaders, including the prime minister.

But she described the government’s recent decision to back a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as not doing enough to ensure the release of the hostages. The draft did demand their release, but it was vetoed by the US, which said it did not make that a precondition for a ceasefire.

“I felt really like they were stabbing me in the heart. There was no prerequisite to release the hostages… It was basically signing a death warrant for her [Emily], because if there’s a ceasefire with no release of the hostages, the hostages will stay there forever,” Mrs Damari said.

She now wants them to do more.

“I really need the British government if they are not able to get her released immediately, at least to get her humanitarian aid or a sign of life, and let me know what’s happening with that, because I’m desperate for a sign of life.”

She added: “We talk about humanitarian aid all the time to Gaza, but I don’t hear about humanitarian aid for the hostages who are held in despicable conditions. I’m desperate to get humanitarian aid into her, for someone to see her. It’s a human right to allow to allow people to see what’s happening to her.”

Mrs Damari initially did not speak out publicly about her daughter because she trusted the governments and negotiators to get her released. But now she wants the British public to understand a dual citizen is being held.

“She is the only British hostage being held… and I want people to help me to get her out, to be her voice because she can’t call out for herself. She has no voice.”

More than 44,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a military campaign in response to the 7 October attack, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The French Prime Minister Michel Barnier has said it is “possible” he could survive a no-confidence vote in his minority government.

Opposition parties have tabled the motion to oust the former Brexit negotiator after he used special powers to force through his budget without a vote.

In the interview with French TV channels on Tuesday, Barnier pleaded his case before the public, saying that he remained open to budget talks with opposition parties despite being widely predicted to lose the vote.

He also sought to distance himself from France’s ongoing state of political instability, saying he was not at fault.

The French prime minister also rejected the idea that President Emmanuel Macron should resign to unblock the country’s current crisis, calling him a “guarantee of stability”.

In the interview with the TF1 and France 2 television channels, Barnier said: “It’s not a question of political survival for me.

“I’ve been in this office for three months. I arrived there on 5 September, telling myself that I could leave the next morning,” he added.

“This is the first time since 1958 that there is no majority at all. No majority possible between three major groups. I know that this is a fragile and ephemeral situation.”

France has been beset by political uncertainty since Macron called snap elections over the summer which resulted in a hung parliament where no group had an absolute majority.

While a left-wing alliance won most seats, Macron appointed the conservative Barnier in a bid to reinstate stability.

But his government has been consistently undermined because it does not have a majority.

On Monday, Barnier opted to push through controversial reforms to social security by invoking presidential decree after failing to win enough support for the measures.

The budget bill sought to deliver €60bn (£49bn) in tax rises and spending cuts.

But Barnier was forced to cave in to changes demanded by critics due to his lack of a parliamentary majority.

He is now expected to become the shortest-lived prime minister in France’s Fifth Republic, with the left wing bloc in the National Assembly, as well as the far-right, predicted to back the motion against him.

If he does not survive the vote, he will remain in place as caretaker prime minister until Macron announces a new government.

While Macron – who is on a state visit to Saudi Arabia – has reportedly begun considering his pick for the next prime minister, the process could take weeks, as it did in summer.

A man wanted over one of Australia’s most infamous cold cases, dubbed the Easey Street murders, has arrived in Melbourne after being extradited from Italy.

Suzanne Armstrong, 27, and Susan Bartlett, 28, were stabbed to death in their Melbourne house in 1977, in a case which has gripped the nation ever since.

Police said suspect Perry Kouroumblis, 65, only became the focus of their investigation in recent years after DNA testing breakthroughs.

Mr Kouroumblis – who has not been charged and maintains his innocence – was detained in Italy in September. If charged, he is expected to face court later this week, according to local media.

Mr Kouroumblis first came to police attention the week after the murders, when the then 17-year-old said he had found a bloodied knife near the scene in Easey Street, Collingwood, an inner-city suburb.

The bodies of the high school friends were discovered three days after they were last seen alive. Ms Armstrong’s one-year-old son was also found in the home, unharmed in his cot.

Both women had been stabbed more than a dozen times and Ms Armstrong had been sexually assaulted, police say.

The case has long drawn huge interest – becoming the subject of major police appeals, true crime books and a hit podcast. In 2017 Victoria Police offered a A$1m (£511,800, $647,600) reward for information.

Commissioner Shane Patton described the murders as “an absolutely gruesome, horrific, frenzied homicide” when announcing the arrest of Mr Kouroumblis – a dual Greek-Australian citizen – in Rome in September.

“This was a crime that struck at the heart of our community – two women in their own home, where they should have felt their safest,” he said.

Police had issued an Interpol red notice for Mr Kouroumblis on two charges of murder and one of rape, after he left Australia about seven years ago.

But he was not able to be arrested in Greece, where he had been living, as the country’s law requires murder charges to be laid within 20 years of an alleged crime.

At the time of Mr Kouroumblis’s arrest, the women’s families released a statement, saying their lives had been changed “irrevocably” by the murders.

“For two quiet families from country Victoria it has always been impossible to comprehend the needless and violent manner in which Suzanne and Susan died,” the statement read.

Addressing police, they said: “For always giving us hope and never giving up, we simply say, thank you.”

• Listen to Fergal read this article

Every single person in his platoon knew someone who was killed. Yuval Green, 26, knew at least three. He was a reservist, a medic in the paratroops of the Israel Defence Forces, when he heard the first news of the 7 October Hamas attack.

“Israel is a small country. Everyone knows each other,” he says. In several days of violence,1,200 people were killed, and 251 more abducted into Gaza. Ninety-seven hostages remain in Gaza, and around half of them are believed to be alive.

Yuval immediately answered his country’s call to arms. It was a mission to defend Israelis. He recalls the horror of entering devastated Jewish communities near the Gaza border. “You’re seeing… dead bodies on the streets, seeing cars punctured by bullets.”

Back then, there was no doubt about reporting for duty. The country was under attack. The hostages had to be brought home.

Then came the fighting in Gaza itself. Things seen that could not be unseen. Like the night he saw cats eating human remains in the roadway.

“Start to imagine, like an apocalypse. You look to your right, you look to your left, all you see is destroyed buildings, buildings that are damaged by fire, by missiles, everything. That’s Gaza right now.”

One year on, the young man who reported for duty on 7 October is refusing to fight.

Yuval is the co-organiser of a public letter signed by more than 165 – at the latest count – Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reservists, and a smaller number of permanent soldiers, refusing to serve, or threatening to refuse, unless the hostages are returned – something that would require a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

In a country still traumatised by the worst violence in its history, those refusing for reasons of conscience are a minority in a military that includes around 465,000 reservists.

There is another factor in play for some other IDF reservists: exhaustion.

According to Israeli media reports, a growing number are failing to report for duty. The Times of Israel newspaper and several other outlets quoted military sources as saying that there was a drop of between 15% to 25% of troops showing up, mainly due to burnout with the long periods of service required of them.

Even if there is not widespread public support for those refusing to serve because of reasons of conscience, there is evidence that some of the key demands of those who signed the refusal letter are shared by a growing number of Israelis.

A recent opinion poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) indicated that among Jewish Israelis 45% wanted the war to end – with a ceasefire to bring the hostages home – against 43% who wanted the IDF to fight on to destroy Hamas.

Significantly, the IDI poll also suggests that the sense of solidarity which marked the opening days of the war as the country reeled from the trauma of 7 October has been overtaken by the revival of political divisions: only 26% of Israelis believe there is now a sense of togetherness, while 44% say there is not.

At least part of this has to do with a feeling often expressed, especially among those on the left of the political divide, that the war is being prolonged at the behest of far-right parties whose support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to remain in power.

Even the former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, a member of Netanhayu’s Likud Party, dismissed by the prime minister last month, cited the failure to return the hostages as one of the key disagreements with his boss.

“There is and will not be any atonement for abandoning the captives,” he said. “It will be a mark of Cain on the forehead of Israeli society and those leading this mistaken path.”

Netanyahu, who along with Gallant is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, has repeatedly denied this and stressed his commitment to freeing the hostages.

The seeds of Yuval’s refusal lie back in the days soon after the war began. Then the deputy speaker of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Nissim Vaturi, called for the Gaza Strip to be “erased from the face of the Earth”. Prominent rabbi Eliyahu Mali, referring generally to Palestinians in Gaza, said: “If you don’t kill them, they’ll kill you.” The rabbi stressed soldiers should only do what the army orders, and that the state law did not allow for the killing of the civilian population.

But the language – by no means restricted to the two examples above – worried Yuval.

“People were speaking about killing the entire population of Gaza, as if it was some type of an academic idea that makes sense… And with this atmosphere, soldiers are entering Gaza just a month after their friends were butchered, hearing about soldiers dying every day. And soldiers do a lot of things.”

There have been social media posts from soldiers in Gaza abusing prisoners, destroying property, and mocking Palestinians, including numerous examples of soldiers posing with people’s possessions – including womens’ dresses and underwear.

“I was trying to fight that at the time as much as I could,” says Yuval. “There was a lot of dehumanising, a vengeful atmosphere.”

His personal turning point came with an order he could not obey.

“They told us to burn down a house, and I went to my commander and asked him: ‘Why are we doing that?’ And the answers he gave me were just not good enough. I wasn’t willing to burn down a house without reasons that make sense, without knowing that this serves a certain military purpose, or any type of purpose. So I said no and left.”

That was his last day in Gaza.

In response, the IDF told me that its actions were “based on military necessity, and with accordance to international law” and said Hamas “unlawfully embed their military assets in civilian areas”.

Three of the refusers have spoken to the BBC. Two agreed to give their names, while a third requested anonymity because he feared repercussions. All stress that they love their country, but the experience of the war, the failure to reach a hostage deal led to a defining moral choice.

One soldier, who asked to remain anonymous, was at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport when news started coming in about the Hamas attacks. He recalls feeling shock at first. Then a ringing sensation in his ears. “I remember the drive home… The radio’s on and people [are] calling in, saying: ‘My dad was just kidnapped, help me. No-one’s helping me.’ It was truly a living nightmare.”

This was the moment the IDF was made for, he felt. It wasn’t like making house raids in the occupied West Bank or chasing stone-throwing youths. “Probably for the first time I felt like I enlisted in true self-defence.”

But his view transformed as the war progressed. “I guess I no longer felt I could honestly say that this campaign was centered around securing the lives of Israelis.”

He says this was based on what he saw and heard among comrades. “I try to have empathy and say, ‘This is what happens to people who are torn apart by war…’ but it was hard to overlook how wide this discourse was.”

He recalls comrades boasting, even to their commanders, about beating “helpless Palestinians”. And he heard more chilling conversations. “People would pretty calmly talk about cases of abuse or even murder, as if it was a technicality, or with real serenity. That obviously shocked me.”

The soldier also says he witnessed prisoners being blindfolded and not allowed to move “for basically their entire stay… and given amounts of food that were shocking”.

When his first tour of duty ended he vowed not to return.

The IDF referred me to a statement from last May which said any abuse of detainees was strictly prohibited. It also said three meals a day were provided, “of quantity and variety approved by a qualified nutritionist”. It said handcuffing of detainees was only carried out “where the security risk requires it” and “every day an examination is carried out… to make sure that the handcuffs are not too tight”.

The UN has said reports of alleged torture and sexual violence by Israeli guards were “grossly illegal and revolting” and enabled by “absolute impunity”.

Michael Ofer-Ziv, 29, knew two people from his village who were killed on 7 October, among them Shani Louk whose body was paraded through Gaza on the back of a pickup truck in what became one of the most widely shared images of the war. “That was hell,” he says.

Michael was already a committed left-winger who advocated political not military solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, like his comrades, he felt reporting for reserve duty was correct. “I knew that the military action was inevitable… and was justified in a way, but I was very worried about the shape it might take.”

His job was to work as an operations officer in a brigade war room, watching and directing action relayed back from drone cameras in Gaza. At times the physical reality of the war hit home.

“We went to get some paper from somewhere in the main command of the Gaza area,” he remembers. “And at some point we opened the window… and the stench was like a butchery… Like in the market, where it’s not very clean.”

Again it was a remark heard during a discussion among comrades that helped push him towards action. “I think the most horrible sentence that I heard was someone who said to me that the kids that we spared in the last war in Gaza [2014] became the terrorists of October 7, which I bet is true for some cases… but definitely not all of them.”

Such extreme views existed among a minority of soldiers, he says, but the majority were “just indifferent towards the price… what’s called ‘collateral damage’, or Palestinian lives”. He’s also dismayed by statements that Jewish settlements should be built in Gaza after the war – a stated aim of far-right government ministers, and even some members of Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Figures suggest there is a growing body of officers and troops within the IDF who come from what is called a ‘National Religious’ background: these are supporters of far-right Jewish nationalist parties who advocate settlement and annexation of Palestinian lands, and are firmly opposed to Palestinian statehood. According to research from the Israeli Centre for Public Affairs, a non-governmental think tank, the number of such officers graduating from the military academy rose from 2.5% in 1990 to 40% in 2014.

Ten years ago, one of Israel’s leading authorities on the issue, Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, warned about what he called the ‘religification’ of the army. “Within this context, messages about Jewish superiority and demonisation of the enemy are fertile ground for fostering brutality and releasing soldiers from moral constraints.”

The decisive moment for Michael Ofer-Ziv came when the IDF shot three Israeli hostages in Gaza in December 2023. The three men approached the army stripped to the waist, and one held a stick with a white cloth. The IDF said a soldier had felt threatened and opened fire, killing two hostages. A third was wounded but then shot again and killed, when a soldier ignored his commander’s ceasefire order.

“I remember thinking to what level of moral corruption have we got… that this can happen. And I also remember thinking, there is just no way this is the first time [innocent people were shot]… It’s just the first time that we are hearing about it, because they are hostages. If the victims were Palestinians, we just would never hear about it.”

The IDF has said that refusal to serve by reservists is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and Prime Minister Netanyahu insists it is “the most moral army in the world”. For most Israelis, the IDF is the guarantor of their security; it helped found Israel in 1948 and is an expression of the nation – every Israeli citizen over 18 who is Jewish (and also Druze and Circassian minorities) must serve.

The refusers have attracted some hostility. Some prominent politicians, like Miri Regev, a cabinet member and former IDF spokeswoman, have called for action. “Refusers should be arrested and prosecuted,” she has said.

But the government has so far avoided tough action because, according to Yuval Green, “the military realised that it only draws attention to our actions, so they try to let us go quietly.” For those starting their national service and who refuse, sanctions are tougher. Eight conscientious objectors – not part of the reservists group – due to begin their military service at 18 years old have served time in military prison.

The soldiers I spoke with described a mix of anger, disappointment, pain or ‘radio silence’ from their former comrades.

“I strongly oppose them [the refusers],” says Major Sam Lipsky, 31, a reservist who fought in Gaza during the current war but is now based outside the Strip. He accuses the refusers group of being “highly political” and focused on opposing the current government.

“I don’t have to be a Netanyahu fan in order to not appreciate people using the military, an institution we’re all meant to rally behind, as political leverage.”

Maj Lipsky is a supporter of what he views as Israel’s mainstream right – not the far right represented by government figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who has been convicted of inciting racism and supporting terrorism, and finance minister, Belazel Smotrich, who recently called for the population of Gaza to be halved by encouraging “voluntary migration”.

Maj Lipsky acknowledges the civilian suffering in Gaza and does not deny the imagery of dead and maimed women and children.

As we speak at his home in southern Israel, his two young children are sleeping in the next room. “There’s no way to fight the war and to prosecute a military campaign without these images happening,” he says. He then uses an expression heard in the past from Israeli leaders: “You can’t mow the lawn without grass flying up. It is not possible.”

He says the blame belongs to Hamas who went to “randomly slaughter as many Jews as possible, women, children, soldiers”.

The imperative of fighting the war has postponed a deepening struggle over the future character of the Jewish state. It is, in large part, a conflict between the secularist ideals held by people like Michael Ofer-Zif and Yuval Green, and the increasingly powerful religious right represented by the settlements movement, and their champions in Netanyahu’s cabinet, including figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Add to that the lingering, widespread anger over the government’s attempts to dilute the power of the country’s judiciary in 2023 – it led to mass demonstrations in the months before October 7 – and the stage is set for a turbulent politics long after the war ends.

On both sides it is not unusual to hear people talk of a struggle for the soul of Israel.

Maj Lipsky was packing to return to military duty on the evening I met him, sure of his duty and responsibility. No peace until Hamas was defeated.

Among the refusers I spoke with, there was a determination to stand by their principles. Michael Ofer-Ziv may leave Israel, unsure whether he can be happy in the country. “It just looks less and less likely that I will be able to hold the values that I hold, wanting the future that I want for my kids to live here, and that is very scary,” he says.

Yuval Green is training to become a doctor, and hopes that a settlement can be reached between peacemakers among the Israeli and Palestinian people. “I think in this conflict, there are only two sides, not the Israeli side and the Palestinian side. There is the side that supports violence and the side that supports, you know, finding better solutions.” There are many Israelis who would disagree with that analysis, but it won’t stop his mission.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden may not have much in common. But when it comes to their connections to high-profile prosecutions, they have sounded a similar tune – even in the face of outcry from opponents and some in their own parties.

In announcing a “full and unconditional” pardon for Hunter Biden on Sunday night, Joe Biden condemned what he characterised as an unfair prosecution of his son.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” Biden said.

The president’s criticisms of a politicised system of justice echoed those regularly lobbed by Trump – perhaps most conspicuously in the New York City case involving hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. That indictment ultimately led to the former president’s conviction on multiple felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal campaign finance violations.

“What’s going on in New York is an outrage,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump confidante, said of the former president’s hush-money trial. “I think it’s selective prosecution for political purposes.”

The Hunter Biden cases and Trump hush-money case do have notable similarities – ones that have fuelled attacks on the judicial process.

Both were brought to court in 2024, years after the incidents in question. Trump’s payments to Daniels occurred in 2016. The handgun application on which Hunter Biden denied his drug use was from 2018, while his fraudulent tax returns were from 2016 to 2019.

Both cases took sharp twists after it seemed they would not reach trial. It appeared the New York Trump investigation would be dropped when Alvin Bragg was elected to replace Cyrus Vance as Manhattan attorney. A plea deal that would have resulted in Hunter Biden accepting guilt but serving no prison time collapsed at the last minute amid questions from the presiding judge.

Both also involved applications of existing law in novel or unusual circumstances.

The underlying campaign finance crimes in the Trump case were federal, not state, violations that US government attorneys had already chosen not to pursue. Rarely are gun-application cases like Biden’s prosecuted without a connection to more serious misdeeds. And his tax evasion violations were addressed through back-payment and fines – a resolution that typically avoids criminal charges.

In fact, Trump’s legal team drew explicit comparisons between the two cases in a legal filing on Tuesday that cited Hunter Biden’s pardon as reason to dismiss Trump’s New York conviction.

“President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,’” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own [Department of Justice].”

“This case should never have been brought,” they concluded.

There are notable differences between the two cases, of course. Hunter Biden never held public office. And the New York hush-money case was just one of multiple prosecutions of the former president, several of which dealt with much more serious and recent alleged crimes. Trump didn’t distinguish between them, however, claiming all of the investigations of him were politically motivated “witch hunts” designed to damage his electoral prospects.

Differences aside, both Trump and the Bidens raised similar questions about whether politics unduly influenced their cases, even as Democrats insisted that the Trump trial was proper, and Republicans viewed the Hunter gun trial and tax evasion guilty plea as justice served.

According to Kevin McMunigal, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and former assistant US attorney, the claim that politics affects prosecutorial decisions is largely inaccurate. He notes, however, that the public may not appreciate that there is a complicated calculus behind when or whether to charge criminal offences.

“Congress and state legislatures love to pass criminal statutes, and they rarely repeal them because of the politics involved,” he said. “Everyone wants to be tough on crime. You wind up with statute books that are full of crimes, many of which don’t get prosecuted.”

He adds that it is not common knowledge that these statutes are often ignored by prosecutors. “It’s kind of hard for people to get their heads around,” he said.

This lack of understanding could provide reason enough for those on both sides of America’s sharp political divide to perceive a double standard when it comes to the American system of justice – particularly when it involves high-profile cases involving government officials or their families, and especially when it is the politicians themselves who are stoking the fires.

Whether or not the indictments were an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial judgement, both Trump and Hunter Biden were convicted of their crimes.

Due to his pardon, Hunter Biden will face no consequences for that. And as Trump prepares to head back to the White House, it appears increasingly likely that the nature of his high office will protect him from a sentence for his conviction. It has already led to the federal cases against him being dropped.

Public perception of a double-standard for the wealthy and powerful may not be so off base.

American faith in the criminal justice department is being undermined, said John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University and head of its Project on Unity and American Democracy. He adds, however, that claims of selective prosecution amount to a “pebble thrown in a very large lake”, compared to the broader issues at play.

“Justice has never been blind,” he said. “There have been periods of time when it has been more even-handed than others, however.”

Recent developments, he says, reflect a growing public distrust in political institutions across the board – including Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court.

Trump has capitalised on this distrust in institutions, railing against the government “swamp” and promising the kind of sweeping reforms his supporters believe more established politicians are unable or unwilling to deliver.

When taken in context, Trump’s ongoing complaints of political prosecutions, and Biden’s recent adoption of similar claims, are a reflection of a larger crisis of American faith in government – one that both politicians have taken advantage of when circumstances put them in uncomfortable legal terrain.

Biden’s use of Trumpian rhetoric to explain his exercise of presidential power to protect his son might only help the incoming president find more support to swing the wrecking ball at the institutions that Biden has long served and pledged to protect.

Women training as midwives and nurses in Afghanistan have told the BBC they were ordered not to return to classes in the morning – effectively closing off their last route to further education in the country.

Five separate institutions across Afghanistan have also confirmed to the BBC that the Taliban had instructed them to close until further notice, with videos shared online showing students crying at the news.

The BBC has yet to confirm the order officially with the Taliban government’s health ministry.

However, the closure appears to be in line with the group’s wider policy on female education, which has seen teenage girls unable to access secondary and higher education since August 2021.

The Taliban have repeatedly promised they would be readmitted to school once a number of issues were resolved – including ensuring the curriculum was “Islamic”.

This has yet to happen.

One of the few avenues still open to women seeking education was through the country’s further education colleges, where they could learn to be nurses or midwives.

Midwifery and nursing are also one of the only careers women can pursue under the Taliban government’s restrictions on women – a vital one, as male medics are not allowed to treat women unless a male guardian is present.

Just three months ago, the BBC was given access to one Taliban-run midwife training centre, where more than a dozen women in their 20s were learning how to deliver babies.

The women were happy to have been given the chance to learn.

“My family feels so proud of me,” a trainee called Safia said. “I have left my children at home to come here, but they know I’m serving the country.”

But even then, some of the women expressed fear about whether even this might be stopped eventually.

What will happen to those women – and another estimated 17,000 women on training courses – is unclear.

No formal announcement has been made, although two sources in the Ministry of Health confirmed the ban to BBC Afghan off the record.

In videos sent to the BBC from other training colleges, trainees can be heard weeping.

“Standing here and crying won’t help,” a student tells a group of women in one video. “The Vice and Virtue officials [who enforce Taliban rules] are nearby, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to any of you.”

Other videos shared with the BBC show women quietly protesting as they leave the colleges – singing as they make their way through the hallways.

One Kabul student said she had been told to “wait until further notice”.

“Even though it is the end of our semester, exams have not yet been conducted, and we have not been given permission to take them,” she told the BBC.

Another student revealed they “were only given time to grab our bags and leave the classrooms”.

“They even told us not to stand in the courtyard because the Taliban could arrive at any moment, and something might happen. Everyone was terrified,” she said. “For many of us, attending classes was a small glimmer of hope after long periods of unemployment, depression, and isolation at home.”

What this means for women’s healthcare also now remains to be seen: last year, the United Nations said Afghanistan needed an additional 18,000 midwives to meet the country’s needs.

Afghanistan already has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with a report released last year noting 620 women were dying per 100,000 live births.

In a courtroom in Munich, Nora sat across from the person who had bought her as a slave, abused her and murdered her five-year old daughter.

Nora and Reda were being held captive in Iraq by the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) in 2015, the year after IS began what the UN says was a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi religious minority.

They were “bought” as slaves by IS husband and wife Taha al-Jumailly and Jennifer Wenisch who had travelled to Fallujah from Germany.

In late July, five-year-old Reda got sick and wet the bed.

To punish her, Al-Jumailly took the little girl outside and chained her to a window in 50C degree heat. He and his wife left the child to die of dehydration while her mother, locked up inside, could only watch.

Wenisch became one of the first members of IS to be tried and convicted of a war crime, in 2021. A month later, Al-Jumailly was convicted of genocide.

Nora’s testimony was instrumental in securing their convictions.

“This is possible, it’s been done,” says Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist who is from the same village as Nora and has spent the past 10 years campaigning for this kind of justice.

“What people don’t know about [IS] and like-minded groups is that they don’t care about being killed. But they are so scared of facing women and girls in court,” she says.

“And they will always come back with a different name if we don’t hold them accountable in front of the whole world.”

In 2014, IS took over much of northern Iraq and persecuted religious and ethnic minorities. But they saved a particular brand of cruelty for the Yazidi people whose religion they despised. They killed thousands of Yazidi men, boys over the age of 12 and older women, took thousands more young women and girls captive as sex slaves, and indoctrinated boys to fight as child soldiers.

Of tens of thousands of IS members, fewer than 20 have been convicted of war crimes – in courts in Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands. In Iraq, IS members have been prosecuted for terrorism offences but not war crimes.

The convictions in Europe were secured with the help of a seven-year investigation by the UN investigative body Unitad, which Nadia Murad campaigned to set up. It gathered millions of pieces of evidence.

But the investigation ended in September, when Iraq refused to continue its partnership with the UN. The evidence is now sitting on a server in a building in New York. Murad can’t understand why there is no political will to secure more convictions.

It’s unclear how many IS members have been prosecuted in Iraq, many are being held on anti-terrorism charges but the process is not transparent. The country’s justice minister said last year that about 20,000 people had been charged with terrorism offences were imprisoned, 8,000 of whom had been sentenced to death, it’s not clear how many were IS members.

“It’s devastating to survivors,” Murad says.

Most of Murad’s family were murdered. Like Nora, she was held captive and sold from member to member, raped and gang-raped repeatedly.

No-one came to rescue her; she escaped when her captor left the door unlocked. She walked for hours before knocking on the door of a family who helped smuggle her out of IS territory.

“I felt guilt for surviving while my younger nieces and friends and neighbours were still in there,” she says. “I took my survival as a responsibility to share my story so that people could know what was really happening there, under [IS] control.”

In speaking openly, Murad rejected the shame associated with sexual violence in Iraq. Many of the women she knows tried to shield themselves from stigma by staying quiet. But Murad convinced relatives and friends to give evidence to Unitad.

A big part of her work has been to protect the rights of victims of sexual violence. She created a set of guidelines, the “Murad Code”, to help survivors to control what they want to share when they speak to investigators or journalists.

“Sexual violence and rape is something that stays long after the war is over. It lasts forever and lives in your body, in your mind and in your bones,” she says.

• BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year – Nadia Murad is on this year’s list.

• Meet this year’s 100 Women here.

Without the UN’s help she’s worried about how the Iraqi government will handle victims of genocide. She’s not encouraged by the way in which exhumations of her relatives have been dealt with.

There are up to 200 mass graves of people killed by IS. Sixty-eight were exhumed with the support of the UN mission, 15 of them in Murad’s village alone.

That process is now in the hands of the Iraqi authorities, only around 150 bodies out of thousands have been identified. Six of Murad’s eight brothers were killed by IS, only two of whom have had a proper burial.

“My mom, my nieces, my other four brothers, my cousins are all in a building in Baghdad,” she says. “It’s very painfully slow for many of us who have been waiting for some sort of closure.”

Recently when some victims were identified their next of kin found out on Facebook because the Iraqi authorities didn’t contact them. The former head of Unitad, Christian Ritscher, told the BBC that identifying bodies is a long and difficult process. Though Unitad achieved a lot he believes the investigation ended too soon.

On the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, Murad also has strong words for institutions like the UN that were set up to prevent these crimes.

“These international bodies are failing people over and over again. Give me one example where they have succeeded at preventing war, whether it was in Iraq or Syria, Gaza and Israel, Congo or Ukraine.”

“They were meant to protect the most vulnerable,” she says. “They have been more interested in what is best for their parties and their politics.”

She is worried that the war in Gaza and Lebanon will spread and that remnants of the Islamic State group will take advantage of chaos in the Middle East once again.

“You can’t just defeat an ideology like [IS] with weapons,’ she says. “We know that a lot of them are still out there and they got away with impunity.”

“I feel like I had my day in court by not staying silent, by not taking the blame and the shame and stigma, I feel like I got some sort of justice.

“But for my sisters, my nieces, my friends and my fellow survivors who have not shared their stories publicly, their pain is just so real. And it’s that trauma that I think can only go away with justice.”

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

Thirteen women from the Philippines have been convicted of human trafficking in Cambodia for intending to sell babies they carried through surrogacy.

They were sentenced to four years in prison, but with two years suspended, the Kandal Provincial Court said.

The court said it had strong evidence showing that the women intended on having the babies “to sell to a third person in exchange for money, which is an act of human trafficking”.

The women are not expected to serve any jail time until giving birth, and the court did not say what will happen to the babies when they are born.

Surrogacy is illegal in Cambodia, but agencies continue to offer the service.

This case was unusual because surrogates are normally employed in their own countries, not transported elsewhere.

The women were found when police raided a villa near the capital Phnom Penh on 23 September.

After their arrest, Nicholas Felix Ty, undersecretary in the Philippines Department of Justice, said it was the women themselves who were “victims of human trafficking”.

But Cambodian interior minister Chou Bun Eng rejected the idea and said she considered the women to be responsible.

Four Vietnamese women and a further seven Filipino women were also caught, but were not pregnant so have been deported, Bun Eng said.

A Cambodian woman was jailed for two months and one day for acting as an accomplice by cooking meals for the mothers, the court said.

Developing countries are popular for surrogacy because costs are far lower.

The Cambodian commercial surrogacy industry began to boom in 2016 after the practice was made illegal in neighbouring Thailand.

Although banned later that year by the Cambodian government, it continued to thrive.

The AFP news agency reported couples from China will pay agencies anywhere between $40,000 (£31,600) and $100,000 (£79,000) to arrange for a Cambodian woman to carry their child.

In 2017, an Australian nurse who ran a surrogacy clinic was jailed for 18 months in Cambodia.

The following year, 32 surrogate mothers charged with human trafficking in Cambodia were released on the condition they raised the children themselves.

More than two years after the Supreme Court granted bail and ordered “immediate release” of Mohammed Zubair from prison, the leading Indian fact-checker and journalist is once again back in court.

On Tuesday, the Allahabad high court briefly heard his petition in a fresh case as police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh seek his arrest, accusing him of “endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

The charge is non-bailable and a conviction could mean a minimum of seven years in jail and fine or even life imprisonment.

Zubair, who’s a co-founder of the fact-checking website called AltNews, denies all the accusations against him. “I feel I’m being targeted because of the work I do,” he told the BBC.

Just 20 minutes into Tuesday’s hearing, the judges recused themselves from hearing the case – now the case will have to be taken up by another court in the coming days.

Described by some as “a thorn in the side for the government because he’s single-handedly taking on hate crimes”, Zubair is wanted in connection with a post he put out on X spotlighting hate speech by a controversial Hindu priest.

Shared on 3 October, the post included a video that showed Yati Narsinghanand delivering comments against Prophet Muhammad that many Muslims found hurtful.

The 60-year-old priest is the head of the powerful Dasna Devi temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad town and has been repeatedly in the news for openly calling for violence against Muslims. In 2022, he was arrested for making Islamophobic and misogynistic comments and spent a month in jail.

A day after Zubair’s post pointed out his latest offensive comments, Muslims protested outside the temple. Police said 10 people were arrested for allegedly pelting stones during the protest, PTI reported.

Several Muslim groups lodged police complaints against Narsinghanand and the priest disappeared from public view amid reports that he had been arrested. Police, however, denied that.

A few days later, hundreds of Narsinghanand’s supporters surrounded the local police station, demanding action against Zubair. Police opened a case against the fact-checker after Uditya Tyagi – a politician from India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a close aide of the priest – lodged a complaint.

In the initial complaint, Zubair faced somewhat milder charges – including promoting enmity between different religious groups, defamation and giving false evidence. But last week, police added Section 152 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita – as India’s new legal code is called – to the list of charges, accusing him of “endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”.

This, legal experts say, allows police to arrest Zubair. His lawyer has sought interim bail and also asked the court to throw out the case.

In his defence, Zubair says he was not the only one who had posted Narsinghanand’s remarks and that a number of journalists, politicians and media channels had tweeted the video even before him.

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“Police have registered a case against me based on complaints from the followers of a man who routinely gives hate speeches. And they are going after someone who’s reporting hate speeches, while people giving hate speeches are going free,” he says.

“This is an attempt to gag people trying to hold the government to account,” he adds.

Pratik Sinha, Zubair’s colleague and the other co-founder of AltNews, says the authorities go after Zubair because of the work he does and because it makes an impact.

“It’s a classic case of shooting the messenger. It’s a witch-hunt,” he told the BBC.

“Why are the police invoking more stringent charges against him nearly two months later? It’s not just Narsinghanand and his supporters going after him – this is actually the government going after him.”

The addition of the draconian charge against Zubair has also been criticised by rights organisations and groups representing journalists and media in India who say that Section 152 is a “new version” of the colonial-era sedition law.

Amnesty International India said it was an example of how the law was being used “to harass, intimidate, and persecute human rights defenders, activists, journalists, students, filmmakers, singers, actors and writers for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression”.

The Press Club of India condemned the move and demanded withdrawal of the police case against Zubair.

“All sane minds have been opposing this section as it has potential to silence the free thinkers and media. It can also be imposed against those who are critical of dispensation,” it said in a statement.

Digipub, an association of digital media organisations, condemned the “escalating harassment” of Zubair and described the allegations against him as “unfounded”.

“This is a vindictive and unreasonable over-reach by agencies of the state,” it said.

The government had faced similar criticism in 2022 when Zubair was arrested and spent more than three weeks in jail before the Supreme Court freed him on bail.

Delhi police had arrested him over a 2018 tweet which was a screengrab from a popular 1980s Bollywood film, but they accused him of “insulting Hindu religious beliefs”. Later, police in Uttar Pradesh also registered cases against him, accusing him of other misdemeanours including criminal conspiracy and receiving foreign funds.

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia had accused him of being “selective and politically biased” in his fact-checking and said his tweets “hurt the religious sentiments of a large number of Hindus”.

But many at the time linked his arrest to the controversial Islamophobic comments made by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma. The Hindu newspaper said Zubair was “being made to pay for a tweet that had drawn wide attention to Sharma’s vile remarks” against Prophet Mohammad and described it as an instance of the government’s “intolerance towards fact-checkers who frequently expose its claims”.

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International rights groups and the United Nations had also expressed concern, with a spokesperson for the UN chief Antonio Guterres saying that “journalists should not be jailed for what they write, tweet, and say”.

But critics say that’s exactly what the authorities are using to pick on Zubair and other journalists.

India has been consistently sliding on the Global Press Freedom rankings – it is now placed at 159 out of 180 countries – according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“Journalists critical of the government are routinely subjected to online harassment, intimidation, threats and physical attacks, as well as criminal prosecutions and arbitrary arrests,” the annual RSF report said.

In the past, the Indian government has rejected the report, saying its methodology was “questionable and non-transparent”.

The British band Sports Team have been robbed at gunpoint on the first day of their US tour.

The indie group, who have scored two top 10 albums in the UK, lost their passports, stage equipment and personal belongings in the incident, as a thief looted their tour van in the city of Vallejo, in the Bay area of California.

In footage shared with the BBC, the thief can be seen brandishing a gun at the group’s tour manager as she approached the van.

“Obviously, if someone pulls a gun, you run for cover,” said singer Alex Rice. “But the thing that struck me about it was the resignation. The people around us weren’t very panicked at all. It seemed like a very everyday occurrence.”

The incident happened around 4:45pm UK time (8:45am in California), as the group set off for the opening date of their tour, in nearby Sacramento.

They had stopped at a Starbucks for breakfast when a passerby alerted them to the robbery in progress.

“Somebody opened the door and was like, does anybody have a white Sprinter van? Because you’re being robbed right now,” drummer Al Greenwood told the BBC.

“So we all ran out, shouting. Lauren, our tour manager, was slightly ahead of me, and somebody else ran past us in the opposite direction, and said, ‘Careful, he’s holding something.'”

“I really thought I was about to watch someone get shot, because it took a while for our tour manager to realise,” she added.

“In the video, you can hear me screaming at her to get down.”

The footage was filmed by another band member from inside Starbucks. In it, you can hear staff calmly advising the group to get off the street.

“Guys, get inside. Please stay inside,” says a female voice, as the bandmates duck back inside the entrance.

“It was very discombobulating because they just carried on with their shift,” said Greenwood.

“They started serving drinks straight away,” added Rice.

When they contacted the police, the band say they were advised to “fill out an online form” about the robbery, and that no officers were sent to investigate.

The BBC has contacted the local police department for comment.

According to the group, the thief smashed the passenger window of their tour van, as they took cover inside.

He mainly targeted electronics, including film cameras and laptops they use on stage.

They also lost all of their passports and documents, as well as suitcases containing their clothes, “so we’re going to wearing the same things for the next two weeks”.

Greenwood also lost her journal in the incident.

“I know it sounds ridiculous,” she said, “but that’s almost the worst part”.

Luckily, the group’s instruments were housed in a separate, locked compartment at the back of the van.

The band, who are promoting their forthcoming third album, Boys These Days, remain hopeful they can play the opening show of their tour on Tuesday night.

‘We’re definitely not going to let this put us off,” said Greenwood.

“And ultimately, it really makes you reflect on things to be grateful for, both here and at home.”

The tour will even return to the Bay Area on Saturday night.

“We’re gonna keep playing,” said Rice. “We’ve got nothing against the Bay Area. We think it’s great here – but it’s sad that it’s kind of got to this sort of place with gun violence.”

When I ask Sharon Stone what she would tell her younger self about resilience, her reaction surprises us both.

We have talked through politics, painting and Hollywood, but she suddenly puts her hand over her eyes, pauses for a long time, and then starts crying.

“You’re going to make it,” the 66-year-old Hollywood actress says the message would be.

The actor, humanitarian, author, producer – and, most recently, painter – recounts the moments when a brain haemorrhage nearly ended her life 23 years ago.

“You don’t know it, but you’re going to make it,” she repeats. “I would have it tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.”

“I would have wanted to have known it so many times,” she says.

“When I was on the floor and couldn’t get an ambulance,” she continues. “When I went home [from hospital] and I read in People magazine that we wouldn’t know for 30 days if I was going to live or die.”

An artery had ruptured, causing a bleed on her brain and a stroke. She says she was given a 1% chance of survival and had to relearn basics like walking and talking.

She goes on to list the challenges she has faced since, including financial troubles and a custody battle with her ex-husband Phil Bronstein over their adopted son Roan.

Until my question, Stone explains, she had not fully recognised she had come through it all. “It’s been that long and it’s OK… it’s over… everybody made it to shore,” she says.

Resilience is the theme of this year’s BBC World Service 100 Women season, and she beams as I tell her she is on our list of inspiring and influential women.

Stone was propelled to superstardom by her performance in the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct. It saw her branded a sex symbol, and she has spoken about being typecast as a result.

But she used her fame to raise large sums of money for philanthropic causes, including for research into HIV and Aids.

“I’m really proud that I took this idea that was made up in this movie – that I was really sexy – and used it to fight a disease where people were getting punished for their sexuality, because I was getting punished for mine,” she says.

Stone’s work on HIV and Aids earned her the 2013 Nobel Peace Summit Award – an accolade given by Nobel Peace Laureates that recognises cultural and entertainment figures who have contributed to social justice and peace.

Last year she was honoured as Global Citizen of the Year by the United Nations Correspondents Association.

After Basic Instinct, Stone went on to win a Golden Globe and receive an Oscar nomination for best actress in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino.

I am interviewing her in Turin in Italy, after the city’s film museum honoured her with a Stella della Mole Award for her lifetime’s achievement in film.

As well as her charity work, Stone has also been outspoken on politics, including her opposition to US President-elect Donald Trump. She posted a picture of herself in a “Mrs President” top on election day in support of Kamala Harris.

“I see the world a little bit differently than a lot of my country. That doesn’t mean I’m not a patriot,” she says.

But she says she will “respect the office of the president… because that is what a democracy does”.

Now, however, she has begun a new chapter as a successful painter, exhibiting and selling her art around the world.

Her new focus on painting began during the pandemic. She works in a studio next to her home in Los Angeles.

Her artworks are bold and impressionistic, and – in her own words – “very large”. This, she explains, is partly because she was inspired by an aunt who painted murals on the walls of her house – and partly because she can’t see well enough to paint small.

She says she doesn’t envisage what the final creation will look like as she paints. “I’m just in it so deeply,” she says. “It’s so immersive. It’s just wonderful.”

We also talk about online dating – because yes, Hollywood icon and superstar Sharon Stone has been using dating apps, like so many other people trying to find love. She was even temporarily blocked from Bumble after other users thought her profile was fake.

But websites “don’t give you the thing that dating’s all about, which is chemistry”, she says. “You have to sniff that out for yourself like a truffle pig,” she adds, laughing that “you can’t smell through the pages”.

Stone says the brain haemorrhage left her “a very different person”, changing even the foods she enjoyed and was allergic to.

The film industry too, has changed. In the past, Stone says, “women were playing the fantasy of men” – who, she notes, wrote, directed, produced, edited and distributed the films.

She says she wasn’t convinced by the actions of some of the characters she played. But now, she says: “I think we’re getting to a place where women are just playing how a women would actually behave in the circumstance.”

I ask Stone what resilience means to her.

“We can choose to bitch and moan or we can choose joy – I think you have to just keep choosing joy,” she says. “Stay present. You fell down. Get up. Someone pushed you down. Now they want to help you up. Let them.”

As the interview comes to a close, the team re-touch her make up. She drinks some water. And then she stands up, hugs me and thanks me for my question about her younger self, which she says was “really poignant”. Then she hugs me again and leaves.

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

Filippo Turetta, the 22-year-old Italian student who admitted to stabbing to death his ex-girlfriend Giulia Cecchettin last year, has been sentenced to life in jail.

The murder case gripped Italy and sparked a heated debate on the issue of violence against women.

Speaking to reporters after the sentence was read out in a Venice court, Giulia’s father Gino Cecchettin said: “Nobody is giving me Giulia back so I am neither more relieved nor more sad than I was yesterday or than I will be tomorrow.”

He added that the battle against gender violence was one “we’ll have to fight together as a society… we look ahead and hope another dad won’t find himself at my place”.

Over the last year a huge amount of detail about the killing has emerged, forming a picture of an increasingly anguished young woman harassed by her possessive ex-boyfriend who refused to accept the end of their relationship.

The case, which captivated Italians, has thrust the concepts of femicide, patriarchy and male violence into the headlines.

On 11 November 2023 Mr Turetta picked up his fellow university student and ex-girlfriend Ms Cecchettin, a 22-year-old biomedical engineering student from the Venice province, to take her shopping for an outfit for her upcoming graduation.

Later that evening, he stabbed her more than 70 times, and left the student’s body at the bottom of a ditch, wrapped in plastic bags.

Then, he disappeared. For a week, Italians followed the search for the couple with bated breath. The discovery of Ms Cecchettin’s body on 18 November was met with an unprecedented outpouring of grief. The next day, Mr Turetta was arrested in Germany. He readily admitted to killing Ms Cecchettin and was extradited to Italy.

To raise awareness of the signs of controlling relationships, Ms Cecchettin’s family recently shared a list she wrote a few months before her death, titled “15 reasons I had to break up with him”.

In it, Ms Cecchettin said Mr Turetta insisted she had a “duty” to help him study, complained if she sent him fewer emoji hearts than usual, didn’t want her to go out with friends and needed her to text him all the time.

“They were the typical signs of possessiveness,” Giulia’s father Gino told the BBC. “He would deny her her own space, or demand to always be included. He always needed to know everything she said to her friends or even her therapist.”

“We realised later that she thought she was the cause of his pain, that she felt responsible for it,” he said.

In an 80-page statement written from jail in childlike handwriting, Mr Turetta said since Ms Cecchettin broke up with him he spent every day hoping to get back with her. “I didn’t feel like I could accept any other outcome,” he wrote.

In his police interrogation Mr Turetta confirmed that, on the night he killed her, Ms Cecchettin had just told him he was too dependent and needy.

“I shouted that it wasn’t fair, that I needed her,” Mr Turetta said, adding that he killed her after getting “very angry” when she tried to get out of the car.

“I was selfish and it’s only now I realise it,” he wrote. “I didn’t think about how incredibly unfair that was to her and to the promising and wonderful life she had ahead of her.”

Mr Turetta’s lawyer Giovanni Caruso has argued that his client should be spared an “inhuman and degrading” life sentence and pushed back against allegations that the killing had been premeditated.

“He is not Pablo Escobar,” Mr Caruso said – a line of defence Giulia’s father told the BBC made him feel “violated all over again”.

Stories of femicide routinely top the news agenda in Italy, but Giulia Cecchettin’s story attracted an unusual amount of attention from the start. The week-long search for the young couple gripped people; the revelation that Ms Cecchettin had been killed just days before her graduation moved them. More than 10,000 attended her funeral.

But it was the tearful and furious interview given by Giulia’s sister Elena, in which she said that Filippo Turetta was not a “monster” but “the healthy son of a patriarchal society” which sparked a heated debate on male violence and gender roles in modern Italy.

Elena’s words reverberated. Suddenly, the patriarchy – a concept thought by many as arcane or irrelevant – was discussed widely.

“If you’re a man you’re part of a system that teaches you that you are worth more than women,” Mr Cecchettin told the BBC.

“It means that if you’re in a relationship everything needs to go through you… and so a patriarch can’t be told: ‘I don’t love you anymore’, because it goes against his sense of ownership.”

In November, at the launch of a foundation established by Gino Cecchettin in memory of Giulia, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara argued that the patriarchy no longer existed in Italy and said the rise in sexual violence was instead “linked to the marginalisation and perversion that stems from illegal immigration”.

The comments sparked outrage. “Giulia was killed by a respectable, white Italian man,” Elena Cecchettin hit back. “My father has done something to prevent violence. What is the government doing?”

Since his daughter’s death, Gino Cecchettin has thrown himself headfirst into a battle to teach teenagers how to handle emotions and relationships, touring schools to tell pupils his daughter’s story.

He also hopes that sharing Giulia’s own voice and words could help others – like one voice message she sent friends in which she sounds both exasperated by Mr Turetta’s insistence and riddled with guilt about his suicidal thoughts. “I wish I could disappear,” she says. “But I’m worried he could hurt himself.”

Elisa Ercoli of Differenza Donna, a charity that fights gender-based violence, told the BBC the messages had a tangible impact, with her organisation getting a high number of calls from parents who recognised similar behaviours in their daughters. “We think bruises are the problem but underhand psychological violence is the issue in many situations,” she said.

A government department has also said that the national anti-violence helpline experienced a surge in calls after Ms Cecchettin’s murder, and that the number of calls is now 57% higher than last year.

But NGOs and opposition politicians are all demanding that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government take concrete steps to prevent and punish violence against women, such as “affectivity lessons” in schools.

“What the Cecchettin family is doing is a grain of sand compared to what the government would have the power to achieve,” said Francesca Ghio, a leftwing councillor in Genoa who recently publicly revealed she was raped when she was 12 – she said the decision to speak out was inspired by the “strength” of the Cecchettin family.

“They are turning their pain into love and action. We can’t just stand by.”

In late November, as the 10-week trial approached its end, Mr Cecchettin said he felt calm.

Remembering his “perfect daughter” who is now a household name, Mr Cecchettin said he thought there would be a “before” and an “after” Giulia’s murder.

But while Italy has gained a symbol, his loss is incalculable. “I realised I can’t rewind life and time,” he said, “and I realised that nobody can ever give me Giulia back.”

Forty years ago, an Indian city became the site of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.

On the night of 2 December, 1984, a poisonous gas leaked from Union Carbide India’s pesticide plant in Bhopal, enveloping the central Indian city in a deadly fog which killed thousands and poisoned about half-a-million people.

According to government estimates, around 3,500 people died within days of the gas leak and more than 15,000 in the years since. But activists say that the death toll is much higher, and that victims continue to suffer from the side-effects of being poisoned.

In 2010, an Indian court convicted seven former managers at the plant, handing down minor fines and brief prison sentences. But many victims and campaigners say that justice has still not been served, given the magnitude of the tragedy.

Union Carbide was a US company which Dow Chemicals bought in 1999.

Migrants stranded for more than three years on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia have been brought to the UK.

The Sri Lankan Tamils are permitted to remain in the country for six months, with financial support from the Foreign Office, according to documents seen by the BBC.

Their journey to the UK marks the end of years of complex legal battles waged over thousands of miles over their fate, but their long-term future remains uncertain.

Most of the group of around 60 migrants have been living in a makeshift camp on Diego Garcia – the site of a strategic UK-US military base – since October 2021, when they became the first people ever to file asylum claims there.

On Monday, a government spokesperson described the move as a “one-off, due to the exceptional nature of these cases and in the interests of their welfare”.

“This government inherited a deeply troubling situation that remained unresolved under the last administration for years,” the spokesperson said.

Tessa Gregory of UK law firm Leigh Day, which represents some of the migrants, said it was the “only sensible solution to end the humanitarian crisis” on the island.

“This vulnerable group which includes 16 children have spent 38 months detained in the most squalid of conditions on Crown land… we hope our clients will now be able to seek safe haven and begin to rebuild their lives,” she said.

The BBC gained unprecedented access earlier this year to Diego Garcia and the migrant camp there, where the Tamils were housed in groups in military tents, some of which had leaks and rats nesting inside.

During their time on the island, there were multiple hunger strikes and numerous incidents of self-harm and suicide attempts in response to the conditions, after which some people were transferred to Rwanda for medical treatment.

There were also allegations of sexual assaults and harassment within the camp.

Migrants have told the BBC it was like living in “hell”.

Those in Rwanda have also been brought to the UK, arriving on a flight on Tuesday morning.

One told the BBC: “I hope to turn a new page. I hope my health will improve and I will transform into a new person.”

Two men with criminal convictions and another under investigation remain on the island, the BBC understands.

The Tamils’ arrival in the UK comes amid uncertainty over the future of the territory.

The UK announced in October that it was ceding control of the Chagos Islands, of which Diego Garcia is part, to Mauritius. But the new Mauritian prime minister has said he has reservations over the deal, which was struck by his predecessor and has still to be signed, and has asked for an independent review.

The deal is facing opposition from some politicians in the UK and allies of US President-elect Donald Trump.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has played down the criticism, describing it as a “good deal” for both Mauritius and the UK, and saying it addresses US concerns about the future of the Diego Garcia base.

In recent years, the territory has been costing the UK tens of millions of pounds, with the bulk of this categorised under “migrant costs”.

Communications obtained by the BBC between Foreign Office officials in July warned that “the costs are increasing and the latest forecast is that these will be £50m per annum” if they were to remain there.

In letters sent to the Tamils on Friday from the Home Office, they were told they were being granted temporary entry clearance to the UK “outside of the Immigration Rules” to allow them to consider their “long-term options”.

It stressed that the offer did not “constitute permanent settlement in the UK or recognition of refugee status by the UK government”, and said the group would not be permitted to work.

The government says the Chagos Islands, known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot), are “constitutionally distinct” from the UK, with the unusual status leading to the long legal dispute.

Most of the Tamils have been awaiting final decisions on claims for international protection – which the United Nations says is akin to refugee status – or appealing against rejections.

In total, eight have been granted international protection, meaning they cannot be returned to Sri Lanka, the BBC understands.

Successive governments have previously said that bringing the Tamils to the UK would risk creating a “backdoor migration route”.

But the government said on Monday that arrangements had been made to ensure this did not happen, citing a deal to send future arrivals to St Helena – another UK territory some 5,000 miles away.

“Once a sovereignty agreement with Mauritius is fully in place they would then take responsibility for any future migrants,” the spokesperson said.

Anna Wintour walks into our interview with her trademark dark glasses firmly on.

I’m meeting the woman who has been editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine since 1988 at VOGUE: Inventing the Runway, the show dreamt up by Wintour about the history of the catwalk.

Our rendezvous is in a large underground space and we’re surrounded by three vast screens. It’s fairly dark inside but the sunglasses remain in place during our conversation.

I tentatively ask what they’re for. Are they a shield or for something more prosaic, short-sightedness perhaps?

“They help me see and they help me not see,” Wintour tells me, somewhat enigmatically. “They help me be seen and not be seen. They are a prop, I would say”.

The Lightroom in London uses digital projection and audio technology in a high-walled space to generate an immersive experience for visitors.

It has previously hosted a blockbuster David Hockney show and Tom Hanks’s exhibition on the history of space travel.

Now the exhibition space gives audiences a front-row seat at some of the most spectacular fashion shows in history, tapping into Vogue’s archive and contributor network.

Wintour admits that “for someone who goes to so many shows, you get a little, not jaded, but you get used to the experience”.

Since most visitors to the exhibition will not have had the chance to attend such events, she says they were keen to make sure it felt as though they were actually there.

As the reigning queen of the fashion world, Wintour has had a real front-row seat for decades – often on a delicate gold chair, the kind of furniture that is ubiquitous at the high end catwalk viewings where her invitation is always a dead cert.

In the blurb to the exhibition, Wintour writes that she has “probably spent a year of my life waiting for fashion shows, which are famously tardy, to begin”.

She tells me the American designer Marc Jacobs once held a runway show that was an hour and a half late, but “we all yelled at him so much after that, the next season, he not only started the show on time, he actually started five minutes early”.

The Italian designer Gianni Versace, though, was “always on time”,

“It didn’t matter who wasn’t there, it could have been the Pope, he didn’t care”.

That would have suited Wintour, who is “horribly punctual, usually early”.

She arrives early for our interview. Fortunately, I’d been warned it was a character trait and we were ready.

The Vogue show offers audiences a series of vibrant chapters, narrated by Cate Blanchett, which tell the story of fashion and the runway.

“It’s quite nostalgic to sit in the space and look at the incredible changes that have happened in fashion,” Wintour tells me.

We’re treated to a series of the magazine’s front covers from the early days, black and white footage of the first catwalk shows and images of the couture salons of the early twentieth century.

Fashion then was “very elitist – you had to be invited and it was a very tight little world,” says Wintour.

Contrast that with the debut show by the musician and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton in 2023. A pop-culture event, it was held on the Pont Neuf in Paris, with the likes of Beyonce, Rihanna and of course Wintour in attendance, and got one billion views online.

The democratisation of fashion means, as Wintour puts it, “now everyone can come to the party, which is as it should be”.

The exhibition also takes us back to 2017 when Karl Lagerfeld devised a space-station inspired runway set, complete with a rocket blasting off as models stood beside it decked in Chanel. Wintour told me it was “extraordinary… and you couldn’t wait to see what he was going to come up with next”.

Lagerfeld had form. Ten years earlier for Fendi, he had broken new ground, using the Great Wall of China as a catwalk, his models parading along the stone. Fashion designers of his stature clearly don’t do things by halves.

To insiders, Wintour has been one of the most significant players in fashion for the best part of 40 years – a maker of careers, an advocate for the power of fashion to meld with the A-list of entertainment.

She’s the driving force behind the annual Met Gala in New York, which sees the worlds of fashion and fame collide and go viral in a spectacle of outrageous outfits and celebrity appearances on the first Monday of every May.

Those not on the inside are more likely to wonder just how closely Wintour resembles Miranda Priestly, the fictional tyrannical magazine boss from the film The Devil Wears Prada, whose portrayal by Meryl Streep is seared into the memories of fans.

“Is there some reason that my coffee isn’t here? Has she died or something?” Priestly inquires dismissively about her assistant.

“Details of your incompetence do not interest me,” she later tells her.

On Wintour’s trip to London, she leant in to the comparison, attending the gala performance of the new musical version of the film. There, she told the BBC that it was “for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly”.

When we spoke, I wanted to know if she finds the public persona of Anna Wintour – the sharp, bobbed hair, the meticulous outfits, the glasses – a role she feels she has to perform.

“I don’t really think about it,” she says. “What I’m really interested in is the creative aspect of my job.”

Wintour tells me she only brought one or two suitcases with her to London and she won’t be drawn on whether she dresses down when she’s at home in the US. “It’s really about respect in how you present yourself.”

More than one person has told me that nobody ever says ‘no’ to Wintour. Donatella Versace says the same in the recent Disney documentary, In Vogue: The 90s.

Wintour demures. “That is absolutely untrue. They often say no, but that’s a good thing. No is a wonderful word”.

Do you think people are frightened of you, I ask her. “I hope not,” she replies.

Under her leadership, through talent, force of personality and an eye for what sells, Wintour has tried to future proof Vogue, turning it into a global brand. She is also global content advisor for Conde Nast, the magazine’s publisher.

In the modern era, when influencers can take photos of fashion moments and pump them out immediately, Wintour has successfully positioned Vogue as an arbiter of taste and style.

Fashion and advertising are entwined in Vogue’s content but Wintour doesn’t accept my premise that fashion journalism can be sycophantic.

“That’s simply not true and it’s sometimes, I think, frustrating to us that work in fashion, that there is an outside perception fashion is frivolous and superficial.

“In fact, it’s a huge business. We give employment to millions of people around the world.”

I take that answer to mean that Wintour, the daughter of a former editor of the Evening Standard newspaper, sees herself more as a fashion ambassador than a journalist.

But of course she is also a journalist, arguably one of the most famous journalistic faces on the planet – and one that has no obvious successor.

I ask her, at 75, how much longer she plans to stay in her role.

“I have no plans to leave my job,” she says, adding: “Currently.”

VOGUE: Inventing the Runway is at Lightroom, London until April 2025.

Abdulkafi, an English teacher from Aleppo, saw his father for the first time in years on Monday, days after rebels launched a major offensive and took control of the northern Syrian city from government forces.

“He is 85, an old man. He never dreamed he would see me again before he died,” said Abdulkafi, who lives in opposition territory. Until the offensive he had been unable to cross into regime-held Aleppo.

A video of the encounter, seen by the BBC, shows the two men embracing and sobbing with emotion.

Abdulkafi is one of several people inside Aleppo who have spoken to the BBC since the city was captured by the armed rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allies from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

They described being treated with respect by HTS fighters and increased supplies of electricity and water – but also spoke of their fears at war returning to Aleppo and distrust that the former al-Qaeda-linked group’s professed moderation would last.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the recent fighting, according to the UN.

Many interviewees requested anonymity for their own safety. Some details of individual accounts could not be verified due to the difficulty of reporting independently from Syria.

Many people in Aleppo are scared of renewed fighting, the locals the BBC spoke to said. Air strikes by the Syrian government and allied Russian forces have already killed dozens, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group.

One man told the BBC his main worry was the bombardment that he feared could hit the city at any point. He said he had stopped his family from even going to the corner shop.

“We’re living in complete apprehension,” he said. He added that the air strikes that have hit the city over the past few days reminded him of earlier periods in the war.

Aleppo, most of which had been captured by rebels in the early years of the Syrian civil war, was retaken by Syrian government forces backed by Russia in 2016 after a gruelling siege.

Since then, the city has mostly avoided direct warfare. The Syrian government claims credit for what it says is the ongoing reconstruction of the city, which until the war was Syria’s commercial hub.

But NGOs and independent journalists accuse the government of widespread human rights abuses there, including torture and killings of civilians and non-existent democratic rights.

Abdulkafi and his father’s reunion was joyful – but Abdulkafi said some of his relatives were afraid to be seen with him for fear of retribution were regime forces to retake the city once again.

“Nineteen Eighty-Four is applied in Aleppo. Assad’s image is on every building, streets, on every corner. He is controlling their minds,” he said, referring to the George Orwell novel about totalitarianism.

HTS was set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda. It has since split from the group and claims to have moderated its ideology. Human rights groups accuse HTS of arbitrarily detaining and mistreating critical journalists and civilians, claims the group denies.

Some in Aleppo remain fearful. One woman said people were “confused and scared” following the rebel takeover. She said she hadn’t left her house at first, but later went for walks and drives with her family after hearing that civilians were not being harassed by the rebels.

“Everywhere was relatively calm. But everyone looked scared and anxious, you could sense it in their faces and their reactions. No-one looked comfortable.

“People are scared, because we don’t trust anyone or what their reaction might be to what’s happening now.

“We feel let down by everyone. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

One man, Mohammad, told the BBC on Sunday that he had seen some armed men on the streets while he had been out buying food. Many other people had been stocking up on supplies, he said.

“When I went out the militiamen asked me if I was going to leave the city, they said to me ‘don’t worry it is safe for you’,” he said.

“One of the men from the militia asked why my sister, who I was with, did not have her head covered. But they didn’t tell her to cover it – they just asked why.

“We are grateful that these armed groups have taken over. They are better than the government.

“There is a lot of fear, fear that the city will run out of food, but our biggest fear is of the Russia and Syrian government bombardment.”

George Meneshian, a Greek-Armenian political analyst who is in contact with Armenians in Aleppo, said Christians in the city had not experienced any problems since the HTS takeover.

“On the first day, an HTS fighter knocked on the door of an Armenian neighbour and assured them that they would definitely not harm them,” he told the BBC, adding that his sources were afraid to directly speak to the media due to fear of retribution.

“They said they would respect them and allow them to do whatever they want, as Christians and as Armenians.”

Mr Meneshian said Christians were suspicious of HTS promises, saying minority groups in Syria had previously been persecuted by jihadist groups which at first said they would not harm non-Muslims. He said many had grown used to Assad’s rule, which was authoritarian but at least did not actively persecute Armenians.

“There are precedents for Islamist militias initially not harming anyone, but afterwards committing crimes against minorities. Hopefully this will not be the case.”

Abdulkafi, who lives in the HTS-controlled city of Al-Dana in Idlib, said that minorities had nothing to fear from the group, which he stressed he disagreed with.

“They are showing much more flexibility, because the highest achievement that HTS can get is acceptance from the world. This doesn’t mean that I like them.”

The latest exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah is testing the limits of last week’s already fragile ceasefire deal.

Hours after Hezbollah fired two mortar shells at an Israeli military outpost on Monday, Israel carried out its largest series of air strikes since the truce came into effect.

Nine people were killed in two villages in southern Lebanon.

“Yesterday was the most dangerous moment for the cessation of hostilities,” said one seasoned observer in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it targeted Hezbollah fighters, rocket launchers and infrastructure. However, in a statement it added, that: “The State of Israel remains obligated to the fulfilment of the conditions of the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.”

Both sides have accused each other of violating the truce brokered by the US and France in recent days.

Under its terms, Israel is prohibited from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon while Lebanon must prevent armed groups, including Hezbollah, from launching attacks on Israel.

The Israeli army did not report any casualties from the mortar attack on its position in the sensitive Shebaa Farms area – along the border of Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

However, soon afterwards, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a “strong” response.

There were also fiery comments from the Defence Minister, Israel Katz: “If the ceasefire collapses, there will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon,” he said on Tuesday.

“We will enforce the agreement with maximum response and zero tolerance; If until now we have separated Lebanon and Hezbollah – it will not be anymore”.

Hezbollah said its mortar attack – the first operation which it had announced since the ceasefire came into effect last Wednesday – was a “warning” in response to repeated violations by Israel.

It launched the missiles after Israel fired artillery shells and conducted at least four air strikes that killed two people, Lebanese media reported: a person on a motorbike and a member of the Lebanese security forces.

In a statement Hezbollah this was a defensive move “given that appeals to the relevant authorities to stop these (Israeli) violations have proven futile,” an apparent reference to an international committee meant to monitor the truce.

“This is an affirmation that the party remains strong and ready for any developments,” says Kassem Kassir, a Lebanese political writer specialising in Islamist movements.

“The key lies in activating the work of the international committee, ensuring the deployment of the Lebanese army, the withdrawal [of Israeli forces] from occupied Lebanese territories, and halting Israeli violations.”

Paula Yaacoubian, an independent member of Lebanon’s parliament, said Hezbollah probably fired the missiles to send a message.

“I think it can be just to tell Israel ‘we’re still here, and we can still fire’, so that Israel stops [its attacks],” she told the BBC. “It’s becoming embarrassing to Hezbollah to get all these violations and not even respond with anything.”

• She fled Israeli bombing four times. It still found her
• Families return to destruction in southern Lebanon
• Lebanon ceasefire under strain after Israeli strikes and Hezbollah mortar fire

Ms Yaacoubian said the question of whether the war will resume “is in the hands of Israel, not Hezbollah.”

“I think Hezbollah needs to gather its forces together, to see where the region is heading,” she added.

Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who represented his country in truce talks, said at least 54 ceasefire breaches by Israel had been recorded. He said these included air strikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanese airspace.

He urged the monitoring commission to “urgently” ensure that Israel adhere to the deal.

Israel says its strikes are a response to Hezbollah violations allowed under the terms of the agreement. Its foreign minister, Gideon Saar, has accused Hezbollah of taking the prohibited step of moving weapons south of the Litani River.

Much now depends on the international committee which is meant to verify claims of ceasefire breaches and facilitate communication between the parties.

It will be co-chaired by a US army general, Jasper Jeffers, who arrived in Beirut last week, and Amos Hochstein, the senior advisor to President Joe Biden who was a key player in negotiating the truce.

The committee also includes representatives from France, the Israeli and Lebanese militaries, and the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (Unifil).

It is still getting organized, but the BBC understands the aim is to have all the members in place later this week so that it can hold its first meeting.

On Monday, Biden administration officials focused on the success of the truce.

“Largely speaking… the ceasefire is holding,” said White House national security spokesman, John Kirby.

“We went from hundreds of rocket attacks to basically zero by Hezbollah and dozens of air strikes by Israel to one or two a day. So there’s been a dramatic reduction in the violence.”

He summed up: “There’s a lot of work to do.”

Ghana is heading for its ninth general election since multiparty politics resumed in 1992.

In that time, there have been three peaceful transfers of power, with the two main parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) – holding the presidency for a total of 16 years each.

Here, in charts, are the big issues this time round as the NPP goes for an unprecedented third successive term in power.

Ghanaians were hit particularly hard in the pocket by the global bout of inflation, beginning in early 2022, that saw prices rise in the country at their fastest rate for more than two decades.

The annual rate of increase reached a peak of 54.1% in December 2022. It has since come down, but this is just an average and prices of some staples have continued to go up sharply.

Eggs and tomatoes, for instance were more than twice as expensive in February 2024 as they were 12 months earlier. Other Ghanaian favourites have also shot up with wages not keeping pace.

Although the popular national dish – Ga kenkey (fermented maize dumplings) with fish – has not seen such a big jump, the balls of kenkey are now smaller.

As a result, more people have been pushed into poverty and living standards have suffered, the World Bank says.

In 2022, Ghana defaulted on its debt repayments and was forced into lengthy negotiations with international lenders to try and restructure the loans, which are still on-going.

Local lenders were forced into taking lower repayments.

The government also went to the International Monetary Fund to get help with a bailout programme.

President Nana Akufo-Addo admitted the country was in “crisis” but blamed outside forces. The opposition and some economists said it was down to economic mismanagement by the government.

The amount of money that Ghana owes its creditors has steadily risen for the last two decades, but there was a sharp uptick in 2019, and by 2022 the government needed more than 70% of its income just to service the debt.

The country’s economic difficulties have been accompanied by a steadily rising unemployment rate.

Going back two decades, one in 20 Ghanaians able to work were unemployed – that figure now stands at one in seven.

With more than half the population – some 24 million people – under the age of 35, young people have been particularly hard-hit.

For 15-to-24-year-olds the unemployment rate is twice the overall figure, with nearly 30% without a job.

The views of younger voters could have a big impact on the outcome of the election.

As Africa’s largest – and the world’s 10th biggest – producer of the precious metal, gold plays a big role in the economy.

Gold mining has become a major talking-point in the months leading up to the election, with complaints about the damage that small-scale and illegal mining is doing to the environment.

But with the global gold price more than doubling in the last decade, the attraction of getting involved in the business is obvious.

Gold is a big foreign-exchange earner for Ghana – in 2023, exports amounted to $5.2bn (£4.1bn).

Along with gold, the country has resources of oil, gas, diamonds, bauxite and lithium among other things.

It is also a big player in the global cocoa market, being the world’s second largest supplier of the vital ingredient of chocolate.

These resources have transformed the economy over the past three decades and enabled the country to become much richer, with extreme poverty dropping by half in that time, World Bank experts have said.

The average annual income per person has gone through a dramatic shift since 2005, with the standard of living showing a marked increase up to 2017.

Since then, however, it has barely risen, except for a spike in 2021.

At election time, politicians have to contend with the fact that voters tend not to take the long-term view but generally base their choice on whether things are improving in the short term.

The last three decades have seen a series of closely fought and peaceful elections.

As a result Ghana has often been held up as an example of an open democracy that has turned its back on instability and its own history of coups in a region where they are still an issue.

In some cases, elections hinged on just tens of thousands of votes and despite occasional legal challenges, the results have generally been accepted by the losers.

We expect to find out the results of this year’s race within three days of the 7 December election.

• EXPLAINER: What’s at stake in Ghana’s elections?
• PROFILE: Who is John Mahama?
• PROFILE: Who is Mahamudu Bawumia?
• IN BRIEF: Ghana – a basic guide

A deal that could see the Parthenon Sculptures returned to Greece is “close”, a former adviser to the country’s government has told the BBC.

Prof Irene Stamatoudi said it “seems negotiations have gone forward” over relocating the antiquities – also known as the Elgin Marbles – which were taken from Athens more than 200 years ago and are displayed in the British Museum.

It came as Sir Keir Starmer and his Greek counterpart met for talks in Downing Street on Tuesday – though it is unclear whether the Elgin Marbles were discussed.

An official account of the meeting released by No 10 made no mention of it, though Greek’s public broadcaster ERT claimed it had been raised in the talks.

A Downing Street spokesperson refused to be drawn over whether or not it had been discussed, saying only: “Understandably, the Greek Prime Minister would have raised many issues but… their discussion focused on areas of shared cooperation.”

The meeting came amid reports that talks over a deal which would see the statues moved to Athens have recently progressed.

The status of the sculptures has been a source of diplomatic tension between the UK and Greece for decades.

Greece says they were stolen, but the British Museum rejects that and says they were legally obtained. Talks between Greece and the museum have been going on since 2021.

Prof Stamatoudi, who advised the Greek culture minister during previous Elgin Marbles negotiations, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she believes “a deal is close” but was unsure if it was “close enough”.

She said the Greek government has proposed a “cultural, strategic partnership” which would involve other antiquities being sent to the British Museum to fill the gallery which would be left vacant by any return.

Negotiations over what could be sent to the British Museum are “secret”, Prof Stamatoudi said, adding that while she is not personally involved in this round of talks, she believes it would involve “antiquities that attract public attention”.

Prof Statamoudi said securing the return is something “all Greeks are passionate about” as the antiquities are widely considered to be part of the country’s “cultural heritage”.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has made securing the return of the Elgin Marbles a political priority.

The issue caused a diplomatic spat last year when then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a planned meeting with Mitsotakis after he indicated he would use it to raise the issue.

The previous government said the sculptures should remain in the museum. In opposition, Labour’s view was they wouldn’t stand in the way of a loan arrangement between the British Museum and Athens if one was arranged.

Government sources in Athens have told Greek media Mitsotakis wants to “pick up the thread” with Starmer following a meeting between the pair in November 2023.

Earlier this week, Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said Mitsotakis would raise the issue again with Starmer but that it was more of a matter for the British Museum than the government.

He also denied a Sky News report that three private meetings had taken place between senior Greek officials and members of the British Museum board of directors.

Asked if they discussed the potential return of the marbles, Starmer’s official spokesman said: “The government’s position is that we have no plans to change the law that would permit a permanent move, and that the case of decisions relating to the care and management and sculptures are a matter for the trustees for the British Museum, which is operationally independent of the government.”

Downing Street also said the government had not been asked to consider any return proposal by the British Museum.

Starmer is thought to be more open to the statues being relocated than his predecessor, providing a deal can be struck between the Greek government and the British Museum.

The Elgin Marbles were crafted in the 5th century BC and were originally displayed in the Parthenon in Athens. They are considered among the most prized antiquities from the Ancient Greek period.

They were removed by British aristocrat Lord Elgin while Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire and were badly damaged en route to London, where they have been displayed since.

A law called the 1963 British Museum Act prevents the removal of objects from the British Museum’s collection.

The trustees of the British Museum are exploring the possibility of a special loan arrangement with Greece.

But the Greek government has previously said it will not agree to a loan as this would acknowledge the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures.

Yasmin – not her real name – came from Iran to study for a master’s degree at a new university in the UK, but she was “shocked” to find many of her fellow students had limited English, and only one or two were British.

“How is it possible to continue this coursework without understanding a British accent or English properly?” she tells BBC File on 4.

Most students paid other people to do their coursework, she explains, and some would pay people to register their attendance at lectures for them.

Yasmin’s experience reflects a growing concern. The University and College Union (UCU) says some institutions are overlooking language skills to receive high fees from overseas students, and one professor tells us 70% of his recent master’s students had inadequate English.

Universities UK – which represents 141 institutions – rejects the claims and says there are strict language requirements for students coming from abroad.

Jo Grady from the UCU, which represents 120,000 lecturers and university staff, says it is an open secret that students who lack English skills find ways to come to the UK to study.

“When we speak to members we hear about the tricks that are pulled in order to have people pass the relevant language test and get on to courses,” she says.

About seven out of 10 students studying on master’s courses in England are now from overseas, far higher than on other types of higher education course, says Rose Stephenson from the Higher Education Policy Institute, an independent think tank.

In England, university tuition fees for undergraduate domestic students are capped at £9,250, rising to £9,535 per year in 2025-26. Each of the other UK nations set their own fees. But fees for overseas students studying in England have no upper limit.

• Tuition fees: How much does university cost in the UK?

“You can charge a foreign student as much as they’re willing to pay,” says Ms Stephenson.

Post-graduate fees are not capped either, so a master’s degree at an elite university could cost £50,000.

Because undergraduate tuition fees for domestic students in England have not kept up with inflation, there has been a real-terms cut in university funding, says Ms Stephenson – with international students, in effect, subsidising the below-cost fees of home students.

One whistleblower who worked at an education provider that prepares international students for university, told us agents would target families abroad who had the money to pay.

The whistleblower – who has previously also spoken to the Sunday Times – said: “We knew that those universities are increasingly desperate and would go along with our plans without much scrutiny into how those students were being found.

“No independent party is looking at the grades or the examinations. It’s the Wild West, in a way.”

The whistleblower worked for Study Group, one of dozens of providers feeding the UK university system, and taking fees from students in the process.

Based in the UK, Study Group is a registered provider which says it works for more than 50 universities with a network of 3,500 agents in 99 countries.

Study Group strongly disputes the whistleblower’s claims, saying overseas students earn their places on merit. It adds that any decision to admit a student on to a course is taken by the university, not Study Group, and rejects the claim that entry criteria are waived for any reason.

It says courses it runs are robustly “scrutinised by partner universities”.

Yasmin paid £16,000 for her course in international finance at a university in southern England. She later found out that of the 100 students on most of her modules, “maybe 80 or 90 of them bought assignments” from so-called “essay mills” based overseas. In England it is a criminal offence to complete work for a student which they can pass off as their own.

When Yasmin told her tutor what was happening, he took no action. Yasmin says she now feels her master’s degree has been “devalued”.

A Russell Group university professor, who has taught at several universities and wants to remain anonymous, echoes Yasmin’s concerns. He tells File on 4 that 70% of his students at master’s degree level over the past five years did not have sufficient English language skills to be on the course.

“There have certainly been occasions when very simple questions have not been able to be understood by students who I am teaching,” he says.

The professor told us he has had to adapt his teaching technique, and says students even use translation apps in class. But he insists fault does not lie with international students themselves, who are mostly trying their best, and says the situation varies from subject to subject.

They pass, he says, because courses are often assessed through assignments, rather than exams. Some students use essay mills and pay for others to write their work or, increasingly, use artificial intelligence (AI). Both methods, he says, can defeat current anti-plagiarism software.

UCU’s Jo Grady says it is hardly surprising some students with poor English skills feel they need help from other people, or even use AI to do their work, as an “act of desperation”.

She says her members tell their managers that enrolling students without good English “is a bad idea… they will struggle, and we will also struggle to teach them”. However, she says “university managers and leaders pursue it regardless, because of the money and income it will bring in”.

Some universities are in financial crisis, says Ms Grady, and have become dependent on high-fee paying overseas students who “pay eye-watering sums of money”.

“Institutions are chasing money. They’re not necessarily chasing the best candidates. And it’s a corruption of what higher education should be.”

Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, rejects the suggestion some overseas students are being allowed on courses with poor English language skills as a way of boosting income.

She says universities carry out strict checks on those they enrol – including minimum language levels, as set by the UK government.

“Students will need to be able to afford the fee to study in the UK, but beyond that it’s a question of taking students who apply, and applying a merit-based criteria,” she says. “It is absolutely central that this is a system that people trust.”

Ms Stern says international students are attracted by the quality of the UK’s universities and says it would be “unwise” to rely on international income to fund domestic education and research, because overseas student numbers could be affected by geopolitics or shifts in exchange rates.

Meanwhile, international student numbers are falling. Data on UK student visa applications from the first half of this year shows there has been a 16% decline in applications, resulting in a loss of income for some institutions. This drop is, in part, being attributed to changes in UK student visa rules preventing most postgraduate students from bringing dependents.

It is contributing to the worst financial crisis for universities since fees were first introduced. Last month, the government regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), estimated that by 2025-26, 72% of universities could be spending more money than they have coming in, and warned that “rapid and decisive action is necessary”.

The Department for Education told the BBC a reliance on overseas students has been identified as a risk, and many universities will have to change their business models, adding that the government is committed to managing migration carefully.

A man trying to recover a Bitcoin hard drive in a landfill site which he says is now worth about £600m is “seeking to bribe the council”, it has been claimed in court.

Newport council has asked a High Court judge to strike out a claim by James Howells, who is attempting to sue the local authority to gain access to the site or get £495m in compensation.

Council barrister James Goudie KC said Mr Howells’ offer to donate 10% of the Bitcoin to the local community was encouraging the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a share of the action”.

Dean Armstrong KC, for Mr Howells, said the “bribery” remark was “an unfortunate and pointless phrase” and said his client had a right to access the site to retrieve his Bitcoin.

Following the hearing in Cardiff, Judge Keyser KC said he would reserve his decision until a later date.

Mr Howells wants access to the Docksway landfill site, where he claims a digital wallet was mistakenly dumped by his former partner.

The hearing was to determine whether the case should go to a full trial.

Mr Howells has argued that his former partner erroneously dumped the hard drive containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013.

He was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies and successfully created, or “mined”, the Bitcoin when it was worth a small fraction of its current value.

After Mr Howells launched legal proceedings, the council applied for a High Court hearing to ask a judge to dismiss the claim before going to trial.

Mr Goudie said there was “no duty” on the council to excavate its landfill site at the request of Mr Howells.

The council argued that the law stated that property deposited at landfill sites belonged to the local authority, and that its environmental permits forbade it from disrupting the area in pursuit of the hard drive.

He said the council was “bound by the law” and it was “not obliged to mediate” a claim that it believed was detrimental to the public interest.

“Bitcoin enthusiasts are not above the law,” Mr Goudie added.

Mr Goudie also said that the time that had passed since the hard drive was thrown into the landfill meant any claims should no longer be considered.

In asking the judge to allow the case to go to a full trial, Mr Howells’ legal team said there were arguments around the ownership of the hard drive which needed to be developed.

Mr Howells’ barrister also argued that the search for the hard drive would not be “a needle in a haystack case”.

He said that “considerable expertise” was involved in planning the excavation, rendering the “haystack much, much smaller”.

Mr Armstrong said the court must be “very, very wary of causing a grave injustice to Mr Howells” by refusing to allow the case to go to a full trial.

“We seek, plainly and candidly, a declaration of rights over the ownership of the Bitcoin,” Mr Armstrong said.

US actor Colman Domingo has won the top acting prize at the 2024 Gotham Awards, as the Oscars race continues to heat up.

The star won best actor for his performance in Sing Sing, a powerful film about an educational performing arts programme in a New York prison.

There was a surprise but welcome winner in the top category, best feature, which went to A Different Man, a thought-provoking movie about a man who has a disfiguring facial condition and drastically changes his appearance.

The Gothams are one of the few film awards ceremonies to have merged their gendered acting categories, and all of this year’s winners were men.

• How to watch this year’s awards-tipped films

The Gotham Awards, held in New York, celebrate independent films. The event is not as big or influential as some others in awards season, but they can indicate early support for certain films in the race.

The next big milestone in the awards calendar will be the announcement of the Golden Globe nominations on Monday (9 December). A string of US critics groups and film organisations will also announce their winners in the coming days.

The Oscars race is considered to be wide open this year, with several strong contenders but no clear frontrunner to win best picture as things stand.

Sing Sing tells the real-life story of a man, known as Divine G, who has been imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, and finds purpose by acting in a theatre group.

The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2023, but its release was delayed until this summer to give it some distance from Rustin, another film starring Domingo which was in contention for awards last year.

Accepting his Gotham prize, Domingo said: “I’m just very grateful for this, to be seen in this way, to do the work that my heart desires, and my soul desires, making work that I truly believe can make a difference in this world.”

He thanked the films director, writer and producer “for inviting me to bring my whole self, to help tell the story of these men that I care so deeply about”.

“They found art to be the parachute that can save them, and they poured themselves into it, and it poured back into them.”

Domingo’s previous acting credits include One Night in Miami, If Beale Street Could Talk, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and The Color Purple.

His co-star Clarence Maclin, a former real-life inmate of Sing Sing prison who portrays a version of himself in the film, was named best supporting actor.

The top prize was won by A Different Man, a superb and original film about an aspiring actor who has neurofibromatosis, a disfiguring facial condition.

He undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance, but then begins to grapple with a loss of identity, and is perturbed after meeting a man with a similar condition who is happy and fulfilled within his own body.

A Different Man held off competition from films including Anora and Babygirl, both of which could feature prominently in the Oscars race.

Director Aaron Schimberg said he was shocked to collect the award “considering the other nominees”.

Other attendees at the Gothams included Hollywood stars Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain, Adrian Brody, Pamela Anderson, Zoe Kravitz and Saoirse Ronan.

Elsewhere, filmmaker RaMell Ross won the best director gong for the accomplished Nickel Boys, while the star of the film Brandon Wilson received the prize for best breakthrough performer.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys follows the powerful friendship between two men navigating a brutal reform school together in Florida.

Nickel Boys has attracted attention for its unusual shooting style. Ross opted to tell the story entirely from the characters’ own point of view, which means viewers experience events through the eyes of the protagonists.

It has struggled to stay in the awards conversation in recent weeks despite its innovative style, but its Gotham win could give it a welcome boost of momentum.

There was also recognition for the terrific His Three Daughters, about three women who gather to care for their dying father, which won best screenplay.

Best feature

• Anora
• Babygirl
• Challengers
• WINNER: A Different Man
• Nickel Boys

Outstanding lead performance

• Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
• Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
• WINNER: Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
• Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
• Nicole Kidman, Babygirl
• Keith Kupferer, Ghostlight
• Mikey Madison, Anora
• Demi Moore, The Substance
• Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun
• Justice Smith, I Saw the TV Glow

Outstanding supporting performance

• Yura Borisov, Anora
• Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
• Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson
• Brigette Lundy-Paine, I Saw the TV Glow
• Natasha Lyonne, His Three Daughters
• WINNER: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing
• Katy O’Brian, Love Lies Bleeding
• Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
• Adam Pearson, A Different Man
• Brian Tyree Henry, The Fire Inside

Best director

• Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light
• Sean Baker, Anora
• Guan Hu, Black Dog
• Jane Schoenbrun, I Saw the TV Glow
• WINNER: RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

Best international feature

• WINNER: All We Imagine as Light
• Green Border
• Hard Truths
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
• Vermiglio

Best documentary feature

• Dahomey
• Intercepted
• WINNER: No Other Land
• Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
• Sugarcane
• Union

Best screenplay

• Between the Temples
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Femme
• WINNER: His Three Daughters
• Janet Planet

Breakthrough director

• Shuchi Talati, Girls Will Be Girls
• India Donaldson, Good One
• Alessandra Lacorazza, In the Summers
• WINNER: Vera Drew, The People’s Joker
• Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown

Breakthrough performer

• Lily Collias, Good One
• Ryan Destiny, The Fire Inside
• Maisy Stella, My Old Ass
• Izaac Wang, Dìdi
• WINNER: Brandon Wilson, Nickel Boys

The ceremony also saw tributes made to stars including director Denis Villeneuve and actors Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya and Angelina Jolie.

British actor Josh O’Connor presented the spotlight award to Zendaya, after the pair starred in Challengers together.

O’Connor likened Zendaya to stars including the late Dame Maggie Smith, using “authenticity as a superpower”, having “seamlessly” navigated her way from being a child star.

Zendaya described the award as “quite the honour”, before praising her film crew: “My character is only an amalgamation of the beautiful ideas of the amazing creative people around me,” she said.

“I have to say, I love what I do, so much,” she added, “so incredibly grateful I get to this for a living.”

The Dune star later presented the director tribute award to filmmaker Villeneuve, who said he is most proud that over 12 years in the industry he has been able to “protect my flame” and not compromise his independent freedom and creativity.

Meanwhile, Dune star Oscar Isaac presented Chalamet and director James Mangold with the visionary award for their Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown.

Chalamet, sporting a moustache, said: “Getting to study and immerse myself in the world of Bob Dylan has been the greatest education a young artist can receive.”

Jolie, who most recently played late opera star Maria Callas in her final days in 1970s Paris, also received the performer tribute during the ceremony.

“I grew up with a mother who kept books inside the oven because there were more books in our house than shelves in the apartment we had,” Jolie said on stage.

The US actress said early influences “nurture and shape us as artists”, noting the importance of art “taught in our schools, and so concerning that many of those programmes are being reduced”.

A US woman has pleaded guilty to drink-driving charges over an incident in which she killed a newlywed bride who was travelling in a golf cart on her wedding night.

Jamie Lee Komoroski was sentenced to 25 years in prison over the crash in South Carolina last year that killed Samantha Miller while she was still wearing her wedding dress.

The victim’s husband, Aric Hutchinson, was among three others who were hurt, along with two of his family members who were also in the vehicle.

He wept as he told the court his new wife had “wanted the night to never end”, Associated Press reported.

The collision occurred in the city of Folly Beach in April 2023 as the newlyweds were being taken back to their accommodation just hours after their ceremony.

Komoroski was accused by prosecutors of drinking at several bars and then driving at 65mph (104km/h) in a 25 mph zone. Her car hit the golf cart carrying the couple, driven by Mr Hutchinson’s brother-in-law.

A blood test showed that she was three times over the drinking limit, according to a report released by state officials after the crash. She had earlier refused to provide officers with breath samples, a police incident report said.

At Charleston County Courthouse on Monday, Komoroski admitted charges including felony DUI resulting in death. She received multiple sentences that will run at the same time.

Addressing the court before being sentenced, she spoke of her regret and said she took full responsibility.

Mr Hutchinson, who sustained a brain injury and broken bones in the crash, also spoke. Although he has said he has no memory of the incident itself, he was able to recount his final conversation with his wife.

“On the golf cart, she told me she didn’t want the night to end and I kissed her on the forehead and then the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital,” he said.

After the sentencing, he said he felt “the punishment fit the crime”, according to CBS News affiliate WCSC.

“I do think she’s sorry,” Mr Hutchinson said. “However, that doesn’t change the fact that Sam’s not here, my wife’s not here, the family we planned, all of our injuries. So that’ll take some time for sure.”

Replicas of a sword featured in the Harry Potter film franchise have been recalled in Japan for violating the country’s strict weapons law.

The full-sized replicas of Godric Gryffindor’s sword – which measure 86cm (34 inches) and are affixed to a wooden display plaque – were sold by Warner Bros. Studio Japan LLC from May 2023 to late April of this year.

But it was only in November that authorities told the company those pieces were sharp enough to be categorised as an actual sword.

More than 350 replicas of Godric Gryffindor’s sword were sold, reports add, with each one going for 30,000 yen ($200; £158).

The sword was sold at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo: The Making of Harry Potter, which opened in 2023 in Tokyo. It is billed as the first such studio tour in Asia and the largest indoor Harry Potter attraction in the world.

Warner Bros. Studios Japan LLC has published a recall notice for the sword on its site, citing “a distribution issue in Japan” and requesting people who bought it to get in contact for “necessary action including logistics and refund”.

The company did not respond immediately to the BBC’s request for comment.

Under Japan’s strict weapons law, carrying knives over 6cm (2 inches) is banned, with violators facing up to two years in prison. Replicas that are sharp enough to be classified as swords under the Firearms and Swords control law must be registered with authorities – unless the swords are meant for training or decoration and cannot be sharpened.

Japan has very low levels of violence, though crimes involving weapons do occasionally take place.

Last year, a 78-year-old man was arrested in Yokohama after attacking his neighbour with a ceremonial samurai sword during an dispute. In 2017, a samurai sword was found along with other knives in a Tokyo shrine after an attack that left three people dead.

South Korea’s president shocked the country on Tuesday night when, out of the blue, he declared martial law in the Asian democracy for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Yoon Suk-yeol’s drastic decision – announced in a late-night TV broadcast – mentioned “anti-state forces” and the threat from North Korea.

But it soon became clear that it not been spurred by external threats but by his own desperate political troubles.

Still, it prompted thousands of people to gather at parliament in protest, while opposition lawmakers rushed there to push through an emergency vote to remove the measure.

Defeated, Yoon emerged a few hours later to accept the parliament’s vote and lift the martial law order.

• Follow what is happening in South Korea live
• What is martial law and why has it been declared?
• Watch: Moment president declares marital law

Yoon has acted like a president under siege, observers say.

In his address on Tuesday night, he recounted the political opposition’s attempts to undermine his government before saying he was declaring martial law to “crush anti-state forces that have been wreaking havoc”.

His decree temporarily put the military in charge – with helmeted troops and police deployed to the National Assembly parliament building where helicopters were seen landing on the roof.

Local media also showed scenes of masked, gun-toting troops entering the building while staffers tried to hold them off with fire extinguishers.

Around 23:00 local time on Tuesday (14:00 GMT), the military issued a decree banning protests and activity by parliament and political groups, and putting the media under government control.

But South Korean politicians immediately called Yoon’s declaration illegal and unconstitutional. The leader of his own party, the conservative People’s Power Party, also called Yoon’s act “the wrong move”.

Meanwhile, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party, called on his MPs to converge on parliament to vote down the declaration.

He also called on ordinary South Koreans to show up at parliament in protest.

“Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country… My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”

Thousands heeded the call, rushing to gather outside the now heavily- guarded parliament. Protesters chanted: “No martial law!” and “strike down dictatorship”.

Local media broadcasting from the site showed some scuffles between protesters and police at the gates. But despite the military presence, tensions did not escalate into violence.

And lawmakers were also able to make their way around the barricades – even climbing fences to make it to the voting chamber.

Shortly after 01:00 on Wednesday, South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, voted down the measure. President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was ruled invalid.

Martial law is temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, when civil authorities are deemed unable to function.

The last time it was declared in South Korea was in 1979, when the country’s then long-term military dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated during a coup.

It has never been invoked since the country became a parliamentary democracy in 1987.

But on Tuesday, Yoon pulled that trigger, saying in a national address he was trying to save South Korea from “anti-state forces”.

Yoon, who has taken a noticeably more hardline stance on North Korea than his predecessors, described the political opposition as North Korea sympathisers – without providing evidence.

Under martial law, extra powers are given to the military and there is often a suspension of civil rights for citizens and rule of law standards and protections.

Despite the military announcing restrictions on political activity and the media – protesters and politicians defied those orders. And there was no sign of the government seizing control of free media – Yonhap, the national broadcaster, and other outlets kept reporting as nomal.

Yoon was voted into office in May 2022 as a hardline conservative, but has been a lame duck president since April when the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election.

His government since then has not been able to pass the bills they wanted and have been reduced instead to vetoing bills passed by the liberal opposition.

He has also seen a fall in approval ratings – hovering around lows of 17% – as he has been mired in several corruption scandals this year – including one involving the First Lady accepting a Dior bag, and another around stock manipulation.

Just last month he was forced to issue an apology on national TV, saying he was setting up an office overseeing the First Lady’s duties. But he rejected a wider investigation, which opposition parties had been calling for.

Then this week, the opposition proposed slashing a major government budget bill – which cannot be vetoed.

At the same time, the opposition also moved to impeach cabinet members and several top prosecutors- including the head of the government’s audit agency – for failing to investigate the First Lady.

Yoon’s declaration caught many off guard and for a period of six hours South Koreans were in a state of confusion as to what the martial law order meant.

But the opposition was able to congregate quickly at parliament and had the numbers to vote down the declaration.

And despite the heavy presence of troops and police in the capital, a takeover by the military has, it seems, not materialised.

Under South Korean law, the government must lift martial law if a majority in parliament demands it in a vote.

The same law also prohibits martial law command from arresting lawmakers.

It’s unclear what happens now and what the consequences will be for Yoon. Some of the protesters gathered outside the assembly on Tuesday night had also been shouting: “Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol”.

But his rash action has certainly stunned the country – which views itself as a thriving, modern democracy that has come far since its dictatorship days.

This is being viewed as the biggest challenge to that democratic society in decades.

Experts contend it may be more damaging to South Korea’s reputation as a democracy than even the 6 January riots in the US.

“Yoon’s declaration of martial law appeared to be both legal overreach and a political miscalculation, unnecessarily risking South Korea’s economy and security,” one expert, Leif-Eric Easley at Ewha University in Seoul said.

“He sounded like a politician under siege, making a desperate move against mounting scandals, institutional obstruction and calls for impeachment, all of which are now likely to intensify.”

As the speaker of parliament said on Wednesday: “We will protect democracy together with the people.”

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Every single person in his platoon knew someone who was killed. Yuval Green, 26, knew at least three. He was a reservist, a medic in the paratroops of the Israel Defence Forces, when he heard the first news of the 7 October Hamas attack.

“Israel is a small country. Everyone knows each other,” he says. In several days of violence,1,200 people were killed, and 251 more abducted into Gaza. Ninety-seven hostages remain in Gaza, and around half of them are believed to be alive.

Yuval immediately answered his country’s call to arms. It was a mission to defend Israelis. He recalls the horror of entering devastated Jewish communities near the Gaza border. “You’re seeing… dead bodies on the streets, seeing cars punctured by bullets.”

Back then, there was no doubt about reporting for duty. The country was under attack. The hostages had to be brought home.

Then came the fighting in Gaza itself. Things seen that could not be unseen. Like the night he saw cats eating human remains in the roadway.

“Start to imagine, like an apocalypse. You look to your right, you look to your left, all you see is destroyed buildings, buildings that are damaged by fire, by missiles, everything. That’s Gaza right now.”

One year on, the young man who reported for duty on 7 October is refusing to fight.

Yuval is the co-organiser of a public letter signed by more than 165 – at the latest count – Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reservists, and a smaller number of permanent soldiers, refusing to serve, or threatening to refuse, unless the hostages are returned – something that would require a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

In a country still traumatised by the worst violence in its history, those refusing for reasons of conscience are a minority in a military that includes around 465,000 reservists.

There is another factor in play for some other IDF reservists: exhaustion.

According to Israeli media reports, a growing number are failing to report for duty. The Times of Israel newspaper and several other outlets quoted military sources as saying that there was a drop of between 15% to 25% of troops showing up, mainly due to burnout with the long periods of service required of them.

Even if there is not widespread public support for those refusing to serve because of reasons of conscience, there is evidence that some of the key demands of those who signed the refusal letter are shared by a growing number of Israelis.

A recent opinion poll by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) indicated that among Jewish Israelis 45% wanted the war to end – with a ceasefire to bring the hostages home – against 43% who wanted the IDF to fight on to destroy Hamas.

Significantly, the IDI poll also suggests that the sense of solidarity which marked the opening days of the war as the country reeled from the trauma of 7 October has been overtaken by the revival of political divisions: only 26% of Israelis believe there is now a sense of togetherness, while 44% say there is not.

At least part of this has to do with a feeling often expressed, especially among those on the left of the political divide, that the war is being prolonged at the behest of far-right parties whose support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to remain in power.

Even the former Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, a member of Netanhayu’s Likud Party, dismissed by the prime minister last month, cited the failure to return the hostages as one of the key disagreements with his boss.

“There is and will not be any atonement for abandoning the captives,” he said. “It will be a mark of Cain on the forehead of Israeli society and those leading this mistaken path.”

Netanyahu, who along with Gallant is facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, has repeatedly denied this and stressed his commitment to freeing the hostages.

The seeds of Yuval’s refusal lie back in the days soon after the war began. Then the deputy speaker of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Nissim Vaturi, called for the Gaza Strip to be “erased from the face of the Earth”. Prominent rabbi Eliyahu Mali, referring generally to Palestinians in Gaza, said: “If you don’t kill them, they’ll kill you.” The rabbi stressed soldiers should only do what the army orders, and that the state law did not allow for the killing of the civilian population.

But the language – by no means restricted to the two examples above – worried Yuval.

“People were speaking about killing the entire population of Gaza, as if it was some type of an academic idea that makes sense… And with this atmosphere, soldiers are entering Gaza just a month after their friends were butchered, hearing about soldiers dying every day. And soldiers do a lot of things.”

There have been social media posts from soldiers in Gaza abusing prisoners, destroying property, and mocking Palestinians, including numerous examples of soldiers posing with people’s possessions – including womens’ dresses and underwear.

“I was trying to fight that at the time as much as I could,” says Yuval. “There was a lot of dehumanising, a vengeful atmosphere.”

His personal turning point came with an order he could not obey.

“They told us to burn down a house, and I went to my commander and asked him: ‘Why are we doing that?’ And the answers he gave me were just not good enough. I wasn’t willing to burn down a house without reasons that make sense, without knowing that this serves a certain military purpose, or any type of purpose. So I said no and left.”

That was his last day in Gaza.

In response, the IDF told me that its actions were “based on military necessity, and with accordance to international law” and said Hamas “unlawfully embed their military assets in civilian areas”.

Three of the refusers have spoken to the BBC. Two agreed to give their names, while a third requested anonymity because he feared repercussions. All stress that they love their country, but the experience of the war, the failure to reach a hostage deal led to a defining moral choice.

One soldier, who asked to remain anonymous, was at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport when news started coming in about the Hamas attacks. He recalls feeling shock at first. Then a ringing sensation in his ears. “I remember the drive home… The radio’s on and people [are] calling in, saying: ‘My dad was just kidnapped, help me. No-one’s helping me.’ It was truly a living nightmare.”

This was the moment the IDF was made for, he felt. It wasn’t like making house raids in the occupied West Bank or chasing stone-throwing youths. “Probably for the first time I felt like I enlisted in true self-defence.”

But his view transformed as the war progressed. “I guess I no longer felt I could honestly say that this campaign was centered around securing the lives of Israelis.”

He says this was based on what he saw and heard among comrades. “I try to have empathy and say, ‘This is what happens to people who are torn apart by war…’ but it was hard to overlook how wide this discourse was.”

He recalls comrades boasting, even to their commanders, about beating “helpless Palestinians”. And he heard more chilling conversations. “People would pretty calmly talk about cases of abuse or even murder, as if it was a technicality, or with real serenity. That obviously shocked me.”

The soldier also says he witnessed prisoners being blindfolded and not allowed to move “for basically their entire stay… and given amounts of food that were shocking”.

When his first tour of duty ended he vowed not to return.

The IDF referred me to a statement from last May which said any abuse of detainees was strictly prohibited. It also said three meals a day were provided, “of quantity and variety approved by a qualified nutritionist”. It said handcuffing of detainees was only carried out “where the security risk requires it” and “every day an examination is carried out… to make sure that the handcuffs are not too tight”.

The UN has said reports of alleged torture and sexual violence by Israeli guards were “grossly illegal and revolting” and enabled by “absolute impunity”.

Michael Ofer-Ziv, 29, knew two people from his village who were killed on 7 October, among them Shani Louk whose body was paraded through Gaza on the back of a pickup truck in what became one of the most widely shared images of the war. “That was hell,” he says.

Michael was already a committed left-winger who advocated political not military solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But, like his comrades, he felt reporting for reserve duty was correct. “I knew that the military action was inevitable… and was justified in a way, but I was very worried about the shape it might take.”

His job was to work as an operations officer in a brigade war room, watching and directing action relayed back from drone cameras in Gaza. At times the physical reality of the war hit home.

“We went to get some paper from somewhere in the main command of the Gaza area,” he remembers. “And at some point we opened the window… and the stench was like a butchery… Like in the market, where it’s not very clean.”

Again it was a remark heard during a discussion among comrades that helped push him towards action. “I think the most horrible sentence that I heard was someone who said to me that the kids that we spared in the last war in Gaza [2014] became the terrorists of October 7, which I bet is true for some cases… but definitely not all of them.”

Such extreme views existed among a minority of soldiers, he says, but the majority were “just indifferent towards the price… what’s called ‘collateral damage’, or Palestinian lives”. He’s also dismayed by statements that Jewish settlements should be built in Gaza after the war – a stated aim of far-right government ministers, and even some members of Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Figures suggest there is a growing body of officers and troops within the IDF who come from what is called a ‘National Religious’ background: these are supporters of far-right Jewish nationalist parties who advocate settlement and annexation of Palestinian lands, and are firmly opposed to Palestinian statehood. According to research from the Israeli Centre for Public Affairs, a non-governmental think tank, the number of such officers graduating from the military academy rose from 2.5% in 1990 to 40% in 2014.

Ten years ago, one of Israel’s leading authorities on the issue, Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, warned about what he called the ‘religification’ of the army. “Within this context, messages about Jewish superiority and demonisation of the enemy are fertile ground for fostering brutality and releasing soldiers from moral constraints.”

The decisive moment for Michael Ofer-Ziv came when the IDF shot three Israeli hostages in Gaza in December 2023. The three men approached the army stripped to the waist, and one held a stick with a white cloth. The IDF said a soldier had felt threatened and opened fire, killing two hostages. A third was wounded but then shot again and killed, when a soldier ignored his commander’s ceasefire order.

“I remember thinking to what level of moral corruption have we got… that this can happen. And I also remember thinking, there is just no way this is the first time [innocent people were shot]… It’s just the first time that we are hearing about it, because they are hostages. If the victims were Palestinians, we just would never hear about it.”

The IDF has said that refusal to serve by reservists is dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and Prime Minister Netanyahu insists it is “the most moral army in the world”. For most Israelis, the IDF is the guarantor of their security; it helped found Israel in 1948 and is an expression of the nation – every Israeli citizen over 18 who is Jewish (and also Druze and Circassian minorities) must serve.

The refusers have attracted some hostility. Some prominent politicians, like Miri Regev, a cabinet member and former IDF spokeswoman, have called for action. “Refusers should be arrested and prosecuted,” she has said.

But the government has so far avoided tough action because, according to Yuval Green, “the military realised that it only draws attention to our actions, so they try to let us go quietly.” For those starting their national service and who refuse, sanctions are tougher. Eight conscientious objectors – not part of the reservists group – due to begin their military service at 18 years old have served time in military prison.

The soldiers I spoke with described a mix of anger, disappointment, pain or ‘radio silence’ from their former comrades.

“I strongly oppose them [the refusers],” says Major Sam Lipsky, 31, a reservist who fought in Gaza during the current war but is now based outside the Strip. He accuses the refusers group of being “highly political” and focused on opposing the current government.

“I don’t have to be a Netanyahu fan in order to not appreciate people using the military, an institution we’re all meant to rally behind, as political leverage.”

Maj Lipsky is a supporter of what he views as Israel’s mainstream right – not the far right represented by government figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister who has been convicted of inciting racism and supporting terrorism, and finance minister, Belazel Smotrich, who recently called for the population of Gaza to be halved by encouraging “voluntary migration”.

Maj Lipsky acknowledges the civilian suffering in Gaza and does not deny the imagery of dead and maimed women and children.

As we speak at his home in southern Israel, his two young children are sleeping in the next room. “There’s no way to fight the war and to prosecute a military campaign without these images happening,” he says. He then uses an expression heard in the past from Israeli leaders: “You can’t mow the lawn without grass flying up. It is not possible.”

He says the blame belongs to Hamas who went to “randomly slaughter as many Jews as possible, women, children, soldiers”.

The imperative of fighting the war has postponed a deepening struggle over the future character of the Jewish state. It is, in large part, a conflict between the secularist ideals held by people like Michael Ofer-Zif and Yuval Green, and the increasingly powerful religious right represented by the settlements movement, and their champions in Netanyahu’s cabinet, including figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Add to that the lingering, widespread anger over the government’s attempts to dilute the power of the country’s judiciary in 2023 – it led to mass demonstrations in the months before October 7 – and the stage is set for a turbulent politics long after the war ends.

On both sides it is not unusual to hear people talk of a struggle for the soul of Israel.

Maj Lipsky was packing to return to military duty on the evening I met him, sure of his duty and responsibility. No peace until Hamas was defeated.

Among the refusers I spoke with, there was a determination to stand by their principles. Michael Ofer-Ziv may leave Israel, unsure whether he can be happy in the country. “It just looks less and less likely that I will be able to hold the values that I hold, wanting the future that I want for my kids to live here, and that is very scary,” he says.

Yuval Green is training to become a doctor, and hopes that a settlement can be reached between peacemakers among the Israeli and Palestinian people. “I think in this conflict, there are only two sides, not the Israeli side and the Palestinian side. There is the side that supports violence and the side that supports, you know, finding better solutions.” There are many Israelis who would disagree with that analysis, but it won’t stop his mission.

When I ask Sharon Stone what she would tell her younger self about resilience, her reaction surprises us both.

We have talked through politics, painting and Hollywood, but she suddenly puts her hand over her eyes, pauses for a long time, and then starts crying.

“You’re going to make it,” the 66-year-old Hollywood actress says the message would be.

The actor, humanitarian, author, producer – and, most recently, painter – recounts the moments when a brain haemorrhage nearly ended her life 23 years ago.

“You don’t know it, but you’re going to make it,” she repeats. “I would have it tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.”

“I would have wanted to have known it so many times,” she says.

“When I was on the floor and couldn’t get an ambulance,” she continues. “When I went home [from hospital] and I read in People magazine that we wouldn’t know for 30 days if I was going to live or die.”

An artery had ruptured, causing a bleed on her brain and a stroke. She says she was given a 1% chance of survival and had to relearn basics like walking and talking.

She goes on to list the challenges she has faced since, including financial troubles and a custody battle with her ex-husband Phil Bronstein over their adopted son Roan.

Until my question, Stone explains, she had not fully recognised she had come through it all. “It’s been that long and it’s OK… it’s over… everybody made it to shore,” she says.

Resilience is the theme of this year’s BBC World Service 100 Women season, and she beams as I tell her she is on our list of inspiring and influential women.

Stone was propelled to superstardom by her performance in the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct. It saw her branded a sex symbol, and she has spoken about being typecast as a result.

But she used her fame to raise large sums of money for philanthropic causes, including for research into HIV and Aids.

“I’m really proud that I took this idea that was made up in this movie – that I was really sexy – and used it to fight a disease where people were getting punished for their sexuality, because I was getting punished for mine,” she says.

Stone’s work on HIV and Aids earned her the 2013 Nobel Peace Summit Award – an accolade given by Nobel Peace Laureates that recognises cultural and entertainment figures who have contributed to social justice and peace.

Last year she was honoured as Global Citizen of the Year by the United Nations Correspondents Association.

After Basic Instinct, Stone went on to win a Golden Globe and receive an Oscar nomination for best actress in Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino.

I am interviewing her in Turin in Italy, after the city’s film museum honoured her with a Stella della Mole Award for her lifetime’s achievement in film.

As well as her charity work, Stone has also been outspoken on politics, including her opposition to US President-elect Donald Trump. She posted a picture of herself in a “Mrs President” top on election day in support of Kamala Harris.

“I see the world a little bit differently than a lot of my country. That doesn’t mean I’m not a patriot,” she says.

But she says she will “respect the office of the president… because that is what a democracy does”.

Now, however, she has begun a new chapter as a successful painter, exhibiting and selling her art around the world.

Her new focus on painting began during the pandemic. She works in a studio next to her home in Los Angeles.

Her artworks are bold and impressionistic, and – in her own words – “very large”. This, she explains, is partly because she was inspired by an aunt who painted murals on the walls of her house – and partly because she can’t see well enough to paint small.

She says she doesn’t envisage what the final creation will look like as she paints. “I’m just in it so deeply,” she says. “It’s so immersive. It’s just wonderful.”

We also talk about online dating – because yes, Hollywood icon and superstar Sharon Stone has been using dating apps, like so many other people trying to find love. She was even temporarily blocked from Bumble after other users thought her profile was fake.

But websites “don’t give you the thing that dating’s all about, which is chemistry”, she says. “You have to sniff that out for yourself like a truffle pig,” she adds, laughing that “you can’t smell through the pages”.

Stone says the brain haemorrhage left her “a very different person”, changing even the foods she enjoyed and was allergic to.

The film industry too, has changed. In the past, Stone says, “women were playing the fantasy of men” – who, she notes, wrote, directed, produced, edited and distributed the films.

She says she wasn’t convinced by the actions of some of the characters she played. But now, she says: “I think we’re getting to a place where women are just playing how a women would actually behave in the circumstance.”

I ask Stone what resilience means to her.

“We can choose to bitch and moan or we can choose joy – I think you have to just keep choosing joy,” she says. “Stay present. You fell down. Get up. Someone pushed you down. Now they want to help you up. Let them.”

As the interview comes to a close, the team re-touch her make up. She drinks some water. And then she stands up, hugs me and thanks me for my question about her younger self, which she says was “really poignant”. Then she hugs me again and leaves.

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

A war of words between Bangladesh and neighbour India is threatening to spiral out of control following protests and counter-protests over the alleged ill-treatment of Hindu minorities in the country.

Diplomatic relations between the neighbours and once-close allies have been prickly since August, when former prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh after a public uprising (she is currently in India).

The latest trigger was the arrest of a Hindu monk last week, which set off protests in India by activists from Hindu organisations and politicians including members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On Monday, in an embarrassment for India, dozens of protesters forced their way into the consulate building of Bangladesh in the north-eastern city of Agartala and vandalised it.

Hours later, hundreds of students and activists protested in Dhaka against the storming of the consulate.

The Indian government has distanced itself from the attack, calling it “deeply regrettable”.

“Diplomatic and consular properties should not be targeted under any circumstances,” India’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it was stepping up security for Bangladesh’s diplomatic buildings in the country. Police have arrested seven people in connection with the incident.

But Dhaka is livid.

The Bangladesh foreign ministry described the attack as “heinous” and called on Delhi to undertake a thorough investigation and “to prevent any further acts of violence against the diplomatic missions of Bangladesh”.

“It is very unfortunate and it’s an unacceptable situation… Hindu extremists broke into the premises, pulled down the flag stand and desecrated the [Bangladeshi] flag. Our officers and other staff were extremely scared,” Touhid Hossain, foreign affairs adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh, told the BBC.

Bangladesh officials say the protests in India – some have happened near the countries’ border – have been triggered by disinformation and heated coverage of the issue by several Indian media outlets.

“Unfortunately, Indian media has gone berserk over the issue. They are trying to portray Bangladesh in the darkest possible light. I don’t know why they are doing it and how it will benefit either Bangladesh or India, I fail to understand,” Mr Hossain, the de facto foreign minister, said.

Experts in India, however, say that it is natural that developments in Bangladesh will have ramifications in the neighbouring country.

“Feelings are running high in India. Bangladesh should first address the lawlessness there, particularly the attack on minorities,” Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, a former Indian high commissioner to Dhaka, told the BBC.

• Sheikh Hasina poses a Bangladesh conundrum for India
• Bangladesh leader’s ‘megaphone diplomacy’ irks India

For India, Bangladesh is not just any neighbouring country. It’s a strategic partner and ally crucial to India’s border security, particularly in the north-eastern states. The two countries also share close cultural and linguistic ties.

Hindus constitute less than 10% of Bangladesh’s 170 million population. Leaders of the community have long spoken of discrimination and hate attacks against them by Islamists and some political parties.

In the aftermath of the chaotic overthrow of Hasina in August, many of her supporters were targeted, including those from religious minorities traditionally seen as backing her.

After weeks of relative calm, the situation has become tense again in the aftermath of the arrest of the Hindu leader, Chinmoy Krishna Das.

He was arrested on charges of sedition, among others, after holding a protest demanding minority rights in Chittagong in October. There, he was accused of raising a saffron flag – the colour is associated with Hinduism – above the Bangladeshi national flag.

Last week, a court in Chittagong denied bail to him, spurring clashes that led to the death of a Muslim lawyer. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the killing and violence.

On Tuesday, the monk’s bail hearing was pushed to 2 January after no lawyer turned up to represent him.

Chinmoy Das was earlier associated with the religious organisation Iskcon. But Hrishikesh Gauranga Das, a senior official of Iskcon in Dhaka, told the BBC that the monk was expelled from the organisation earlier this year on disciplinary grounds.

“Some students complained that Chinmoy Das misbehaved with them. So, we sent letters asking for his cooperation to investigate the matter. But he refused to cooperate”, the official said.

Chinmoy Das is in jail and unavailable for comment but a supporter told the BBC that the allegations were false and arose from “an internal feud between Iskcon leaders in Dhaka and Chittagong”.

The supporter, Swatantra Gauranga Das, also denied that Chinmoy Das had disrespected the Bangladeshi national flag.

The flare-up over the arrest has added to the tense atmosphere in Bangladesh.

Hrishikesh Gauranga Das said that minorities in Bangladesh are “living in fear”.

“They don’t know what will happen. The government is trying [to provide security] but it’s difficult to control most people”, he said.

He said three Iskcon temples suffered minor damages after they were vandalised by miscreants in recent days.

The interim government in Bangladesh says it’s aware of the sensitivities and that it gives equal treatment to all communities.

“We have deployed additional forces to provide security to Iskcon and Hindu temples and where religious minorities live. There may have been some stray incidents but there are no orchestrated attacks on minorities,” said Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus.

But religious tensions are not new to the region and activists on both sides are worried that if inflammatory speeches and protests continue, the situation could spiral out of control.

Hasina’s stay in India has already become a major irritant in bilateral ties and the escalating protests in both countries are likely to deteriorate the atmosphere.

Experts point out that India and Bangladesh are neighbours who need each other and it’s time for the rhetoric to be toned down.

The protests have also impacted ordinary people who travel from Bangladesh to India for business, tourism or for medical treatment.

When Muhammad Inayatullah was crossing into India earlier this week to meet his friends, he saw a demonstration by Hindu activists at the Petrapole border in the Indian state of West Bengal.

“It’s not nice to hear people shouting slogans against your country when you cross the border,” Mr Inayatullah told BBC Bengali.

South Koreans have been describing feelings of worry, shock and confusion after the country’s president plunged the country into political chaos – declaring martial law and hours later revoking the move after a major outcry.

In a televised address on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said military rule was needed to protect the country from North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements – before it was swiftly blocked by MPs.

It has left some South Koreans anxious about the fallout from the political instability, including Seoul resident Ra Ji-soo, who reported hearing helicopters near her home late on Tuesday.

Speaking shortly after the president’s address, she told the BBC it felt like a “coup d’état in Myanmar is happening here in Korea. I’m worried.”

Adding to the sense of events spiralling out of control, she also said a friend in the police force had received an emergency mobilisation order and had rushed to the station.

In the immediate aftermath of Yoon’s announcement, the country’s military declared the suspension of all parliamentary activity.

Footage showed a heavy police presence outside the National Assembly in the Yeongdeungpo District in the South Korean capital, and scuffles breaking out between police and protesters before lawmakers were able to gain access to the building and vote down the measure.

Despite the wording of Yoon’s pronouncement, it quickly became clear within South Korea that his drastic move was in response to a series of political events that have destabilised his leadership.

A South Korean woman, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of speaking out, said she felt Yoon was “attempting to restrict everyone’s freedom and right to express their concerns and judgement towards the government”.

“I am so scared that South Korea will turn into another North Korea,” she added.

Another Seoul resident, Kim Mi-rim, told the BBC she had hurriedly packed an emergency kit, fearing the situation could escalate. She recalled that previous instances of martial law involved arrests and imprisonment.

The BBC also spoke to journalists in Seoul who were coordinating closely, sharing advice on staying safe while it seemed that martial law might remain in effect, bringing all media and publishing activities under strict government control.

Why has South Korea’s president suddenly declared martial law?

Other people feared they could be inadvertently impacted by the repercussions of the political chaos.

“How can someone who say he serves the country be so careless in acting on his whim,” Don Jung Kang, a small business owner who makes accessories told the BBC.

“As a self-employed person I really think there will be a massive damage to my business. Just from his words the currency has crashed… And it will seriously affect importing materials.”

On Tuesday night, the leader of South Korea’s main opposition party, the Democratic Party, called on lawmakers and the public to gather outside the National Assembly building – the main parliament – in Seoul.

Protesters chanted “no to martial law” and “strike down dictatorship” as the sounds of sirens from dozens of assembled police patrol cars and riot police buses occasionally rang out.

Clashes between police and protesters were seen on live streams in the early hours of Wednesday, before the president’s U-turn led to scenes of jubilation outside the parliament complex.

Juye Hong, a South Korean university student, said her family and friends had been “frantically texting, trying to make sense of this situation” which felt like “being thrown into a complete nightmare” as the drama unfolded.

She said the lack of clarity made the initial announcement “even more distressing”.

“People are saying there are soldiers across the city and tanks across the major districts,” said Juye.

“My friends and I don’t know if schools will be open tomorrow, how the falling value of the won and rising exchange rates will affect the economy, and if young men might be conscripted.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration has withdrawn his name from consideration.

Chad Chronister, who currently serves as the sheriff in Hillsborough County, Florida, said there was “more work to be done” for those living in the county that contains the city of Tampa.

“Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration,” he wrote in a statement posted on X.

“I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County,” he added.

Chronister has spent more than three decades working in law local enforcement, but he has no experience in the types of international operations overseen by the DEA.

DEA agents told the New York Times that they were surprised when the sheriff was announced as Trump’s pick, and that they had never heard of him.

The DEA is responsible for enforcing drug laws and regulations for controlled substances. It operates 91 foreign offices in 68 countries.

In announcing his withdrawal, Chronister described Trump’s nomination as “the honour of a lifetime”.

Trump tapped Chronister to lead the administration only three days ago, writing in a Truth Social post that the Florida sheriff would help secure the border and reduce the trafficking of illegal drugs.

Conservative supporters of Trump had come out against Chronister, pointing to his enforcement of pandemic-era rules meant to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

In March 2020, he arrested the pastor of a Florida mega church for holding religious services in violation of lockdown rules.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie said he had “disqualified” himself for the role after arresting the pastor. On Fox News, Texas Congressman Chip Roy called Chronister an “authoritarian” and conservative commentator Liz Wheeler called him a “Covid tyrant”.

Some of Trump’s allies also took issue with a video from 2023 in which the sheriff boasted about the “rich diversity” of his community, and said that his office refused to collaborate with federal immigration authorities.

He said in the video that his department “does not engage in federal immigration enforcement activities,” according to the Associated Press news agency.

“We do not target individuals based on their immigration status,” Chronister said. “That’s the authority of federal agencies.”

Trump has vowed to carry out a strict crackdown on illegal immigration, and has criticised local police jurisdictions that do not comply with federal immigration orders. These communities are sometimes known as “sanctuary cities”.

Chronister also has a colourful family background. His son served a prison sentence for his role in a knife fight and later wrote a rap song about it titled “Slash Yo Face”.

His wife is the daughter of a Trump donor and the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers NFL team.

His father-in-law, Edward J DeBartolo Jr, received a presidential pardon from Trump in 2020 that wiped clear his 1998 felony bribery conviction.

Chronister is the second Trump nominee to withdraw from consideration for a role in the president-elect’s second administration.

Also from Florida, former Congressman Matt Gaetz announced he would withdraw his name from attorney general consideration – the top law enforcement officer in the US.

His nomination came as lawmakers debated whether to release an investigatory report on sexual misconduct and illicit drug use allegations made against him. Gaetz repeatedly denied the claims.

The Florida lawmaker cited the controversy surrounding his nomination “unfairly becoming a distraction” as the reason behind his withdrawal.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden may not have much in common. But when it comes to their connections to high-profile prosecutions, they have sounded a similar tune – even in the face of outcry from opponents and some in their own parties.

In announcing a “full and unconditional” pardon for Hunter Biden on Sunday night, Joe Biden condemned what he characterised as an unfair prosecution of his son.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” Biden said.

The president’s criticisms of a politicised system of justice echoed those regularly lobbed by Trump – perhaps most conspicuously in the New York City case involving hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. That indictment ultimately led to the former president’s conviction on multiple felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal campaign finance violations.

“What’s going on in New York is an outrage,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump confidante, said of the former president’s hush-money trial. “I think it’s selective prosecution for political purposes.”

The Hunter Biden cases and Trump hush-money case do have notable similarities – ones that have fuelled attacks on the judicial process.

Both were brought to court in 2024, years after the incidents in question. Trump’s payments to Daniels occurred in 2016. The handgun application on which Hunter Biden denied his drug use was from 2018, while his fraudulent tax returns were from 2016 to 2019.

Both cases took sharp twists after it seemed they would not reach trial. It appeared the New York Trump investigation would be dropped when Alvin Bragg was elected to replace Cyrus Vance as Manhattan attorney. A plea deal that would have resulted in Hunter Biden accepting guilt but serving no prison time collapsed at the last minute amid questions from the presiding judge.

Both also involved applications of existing law in novel or unusual circumstances.

The underlying campaign finance crimes in the Trump case were federal, not state, violations that US government attorneys had already chosen not to pursue. Rarely are gun-application cases like Biden’s prosecuted without a connection to more serious misdeeds. And his tax evasion violations were addressed through back-payment and fines – a resolution that typically avoids criminal charges.

In fact, Trump’s legal team drew explicit comparisons between the two cases in a legal filing on Tuesday that cited Hunter Biden’s pardon as reason to dismiss Trump’s New York conviction.

“President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,’” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own [Department of Justice].”

“This case should never have been brought,” they concluded.

There are notable differences between the two cases, of course. Hunter Biden never held public office. And the New York hush-money case was just one of multiple prosecutions of the former president, several of which dealt with much more serious and recent alleged crimes. Trump didn’t distinguish between them, however, claiming all of the investigations of him were politically motivated “witch hunts” designed to damage his electoral prospects.

Differences aside, both Trump and the Bidens raised similar questions about whether politics unduly influenced their cases, even as Democrats insisted that the Trump trial was proper, and Republicans viewed the Hunter gun trial and tax evasion guilty plea as justice served.

According to Kevin McMunigal, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and former assistant US attorney, the claim that politics affects prosecutorial decisions is largely inaccurate. He notes, however, that the public may not appreciate that there is a complicated calculus behind when or whether to charge criminal offences.

“Congress and state legislatures love to pass criminal statutes, and they rarely repeal them because of the politics involved,” he said. “Everyone wants to be tough on crime. You wind up with statute books that are full of crimes, many of which don’t get prosecuted.”

He adds that it is not common knowledge that these statutes are often ignored by prosecutors. “It’s kind of hard for people to get their heads around,” he said.

This lack of understanding could provide reason enough for those on both sides of America’s sharp political divide to perceive a double standard when it comes to the American system of justice – particularly when it involves high-profile cases involving government officials or their families, and especially when it is the politicians themselves who are stoking the fires.

Whether or not the indictments were an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial judgement, both Trump and Hunter Biden were convicted of their crimes.

Due to his pardon, Hunter Biden will face no consequences for that. And as Trump prepares to head back to the White House, it appears increasingly likely that the nature of his high office will protect him from a sentence for his conviction. It has already led to the federal cases against him being dropped.

Public perception of a double-standard for the wealthy and powerful may not be so off base.

American faith in the criminal justice department is being undermined, said John Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University and head of its Project on Unity and American Democracy. He adds, however, that claims of selective prosecution amount to a “pebble thrown in a very large lake”, compared to the broader issues at play.

“Justice has never been blind,” he said. “There have been periods of time when it has been more even-handed than others, however.”

Recent developments, he says, reflect a growing public distrust in political institutions across the board – including Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court.

Trump has capitalised on this distrust in institutions, railing against the government “swamp” and promising the kind of sweeping reforms his supporters believe more established politicians are unable or unwilling to deliver.

When taken in context, Trump’s ongoing complaints of political prosecutions, and Biden’s recent adoption of similar claims, are a reflection of a larger crisis of American faith in government – one that both politicians have taken advantage of when circumstances put them in uncomfortable legal terrain.

Biden’s use of Trumpian rhetoric to explain his exercise of presidential power to protect his son might only help the incoming president find more support to swing the wrecking ball at the institutions that Biden has long served and pledged to protect.

Crowds of protesters erupted with cheers outside South Korea’s parliament early on Wednesday after the country’s president dramatically withdrew a martial law order that had sparked chaotic scenes in Seoul.

In an unexpected late-night TV address President Yoon Suk Yeol had announced he was imposing military rule, saying it was needed to protect the country from “North Korea’s communist forces” and to “eliminate anti-state elements”.

The order created turmoil, drawing thousands of protesters to the gates outside the National Assembly.

Lawmakers – some scaling the parliament’s perimeter walls – evaded police lines to gather and vote down the order, but the army said it would remain until revoked by the president himself.

Then in a sudden reversal in the early hours, Yoon Suk Yeol said martial law would be lifted and troops withdrawn.

• Follow what is happening in South Korea live
• What is martial law and why has it been declared?
• Watch: Moment president declares marital law

“Just a moment ago, there was a demand from the National Assembly to lift the state of emergency, and we have withdrawn the military that was deployed for martial law operations,” Yoon said in a televised address around 4:30 am [1930 GMT Tuesday].

“We will accept the National Assembly’s request and lift the martial law through the Cabinet meeting,” he added.

The U-turn saw jubilation from protesters who had braved freezing temperatures to keep vigil. Members of the crowd shouted “We won!” as one person banged a drum, AFP reported.

Martial law means rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, and can mean the suspension of normal civil rights.

It has not been imposed in South Korea since the country returned to democracy in 1987.

The last time it was used was in 1979, after the assassination of long-term military ruler Park Chung Hee during a coup.

Yoon’s government has been severely weakened since April when the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election.

He has also been mired in several corruption scandals – including one involving the First Lady accepting a Dior bag, and another around stock manipulation.

This week, the opposition proposed slashing budgets for Yoon’s government, which is was not able to veto.

The opposition has also moved to impeach cabinet members and prosecutors, including the head of the government’s audit agency for failing to investigate the First Lady.

When he announced his shock decision to impose military rule, President Yoon initially blamed North Korea, but then hit out at the opposition, accusing them of using their majority to paralyse his government’s agenda.

Yoon’s move also caused consternation abroad. A spokesperson from the US State Department said its alliance with South Korea remained “iron-clad”.

But they added: “We are continuing to watch with grave concern, and we will continue to follow developments on the ground very closely.”

A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also said its government was “monitoring the situation closely”.

Vietnamese property tycoon Truong My Lan has lost her appeal against her death sentence for masterminding the world’s biggest bank fraud.

The 68-year-old is now in a race for her life because the law in Vietnam states that if she can pay back 75% of what she took, her sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

In April the trial court found that Truong My Lan had secretly controlled Saigon Commercial Bank, the country’s fifth biggest lender, and taken out loans and cash over more than 10 years through a web of shell companies, amounting to a total of $44bn (£34.5bn).

Of that prosecutors say $27bn was misappropriated, and $12bn was judged to have been embezzled, the most serious financial crime for which she was sentenced to death.

It was a rare and shocking verdict – she is one of very few women in Vietnam to be sentenced to death for a white collar crime.

On Tuesday, the court said there was no basis to reduce Truong My Lan’s death sentence. However, she could still avoid execution if she returns $9bn, three-quarters of the $12bn she embezzled. It’s not her final appeal and she can still petition the president for amnesty.

During her trial Truong My Lan was sometimes defiant, but in the recent hearings for her appeal against the sentence she was more contrite.

She said she was embarrassed to have been such a drain on the state, and that her only thought was to pay back what she had taken.

Born into a Sino-Vietnamese family in Ho Chi Minh City, Truong My Lan started as a market stall vendor, selling cosmetics with her mother. She began buying land and property after the Communist Party introduced economic reform in 1986. By the 1990s, she owned a large portfolio of hotels and restaurants.

When she was convicted and sentenced in April, she was the chairwoman of a prominent real estate firm, Van Thinh Phat Group. It was a dramatic moment in the “Blazing Furnaces” anti-corruption campaign led by then-Communist Party Secretary-General, Nguyen Phu Trong.

All of the remaining 85 defendants were convicted. Four were sentenced to life in jail, while the rest -including Truong My Lan’s husband and niece – were given prison terms ranging from 20 years to three years suspended.

The State Bank of Vietnam is believed to have spent many billions of dollars recapitalising Saigon Commercial Bank to prevent a wider banking panic. The prosecutors argued that her crimes were “huge and without precedent” and did not justify leniency.

Truong My Lan’s lawyers said she was working as fast as she could to find the $9bn needed. But cashing in her assets has proven difficult.

Some are luxury properties in Ho Chi Minh City which could, in theory, be sold quite quickly. Others are in the form of shares or stakes in other businesses or property projects.

In all the state has identified more than a thousand different assets linked to the fraud. These have been frozen by the authorities for now. The BBC understands the tycoon has also reached out to friends to raise loans for her to help reach the target.

Her lawyers have argued for leniency from the judges on financial grounds. They said that while she is under sentence of death it would be hard for her to negotiate the best price for selling her assets and investments, and so harder for her to raise $9bn.

She could do much better if under a life sentence instead, they say.

“The total value of her holdings actually exceeds the required compensation amount,” lawyer Nguyen Huy Thiep told the BBC before her appeal was rejected.

“However, these require time and effort to sell, as many of the assets are real estate and take time to liquidate. Truong My Lan hopes the court can create the most favourable conditions for her to continue making compensation.”

Few had expected the judges to be moved by these arguments. She is now, in effect, in a race with the executioner to raise the funds she needs.

Vietnam treats the death penalty as a state secret. The government does not publish how many people are on death row, though human rights groups say there are more than 1,000 and that Vietnam is one of the world’s biggest executioners.

Typically there are long delays, often many years before sentences are carried out, although prisoners are given very little notice.

If Truong My Lan can recover the $9bn before that happens, her life will most likely be spared.

A man trying to recover a Bitcoin hard drive in a landfill site which he says is now worth about £600m is “seeking to bribe the council”, it has been claimed in court.

Newport council has asked a High Court judge to strike out a claim by James Howells, who is attempting to sue the local authority to gain access to the site or get £495m in compensation.

Council barrister James Goudie KC said Mr Howells’ offer to donate 10% of the Bitcoin to the local community was encouraging the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a share of the action”.

Dean Armstrong KC, for Mr Howells, said the “bribery” remark was “an unfortunate and pointless phrase” and said his client had a right to access the site to retrieve his Bitcoin.

Following the hearing in Cardiff, Judge Keyser KC said he would reserve his decision until a later date.

Mr Howells wants access to the Docksway landfill site, where he claims a digital wallet was mistakenly dumped by his former partner.

The hearing was to determine whether the case should go to a full trial.

Mr Howells has argued that his former partner erroneously dumped the hard drive containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013.

He was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies and successfully created, or “mined”, the Bitcoin when it was worth a small fraction of its current value.

After Mr Howells launched legal proceedings, the council applied for a High Court hearing to ask a judge to dismiss the claim before going to trial.

Mr Goudie said there was “no duty” on the council to excavate its landfill site at the request of Mr Howells.

The council argued that the law stated that property deposited at landfill sites belonged to the local authority, and that its environmental permits forbade it from disrupting the area in pursuit of the hard drive.

He said the council was “bound by the law” and it was “not obliged to mediate” a claim that it believed was detrimental to the public interest.

“Bitcoin enthusiasts are not above the law,” Mr Goudie added.

Mr Goudie also said that the time that had passed since the hard drive was thrown into the landfill meant any claims should no longer be considered.

In asking the judge to allow the case to go to a full trial, Mr Howells’ legal team said there were arguments around the ownership of the hard drive which needed to be developed.

Mr Howells’ barrister also argued that the search for the hard drive would not be “a needle in a haystack case”.

He said that “considerable expertise” was involved in planning the excavation, rendering the “haystack much, much smaller”.

Mr Armstrong said the court must be “very, very wary of causing a grave injustice to Mr Howells” by refusing to allow the case to go to a full trial.

“We seek, plainly and candidly, a declaration of rights over the ownership of the Bitcoin,” Mr Armstrong said.