One of the biggest questions on people’s minds in Seoul on Wednesday is: what was the president thinking?

In a late-night address that threw South Korea’s parliament into chaos and tested the country’s commitment to democracy, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared that he was imposing martial law.

Less than 24 hours later, his political future is on the brink, with protests on the streets and impeachment proceedings against him under way.

So, what happened?

• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Martial law was last introduced in South Korea in 1979, sparked by the assassination of the then-military ruler in a coup. Today’s South Korea, however, is a far cry from that, and the repressive years that followed.

It is a stable, prosperous democracy – yet Yoon claimed he was introducing military rule to save the country from dark forces. He called the opposition-controlled National Assembly a “den of criminals” that was “attempting to paralyse” the government.

Hours later, he was forced to back down as furious protesters and lawmakers gathered outside the National Assembly – the MPs made it inside and voted down the order.

His shock declaration was, in fact, a bid to get the kind of grip on power that has eluded him since he won the presidency in 2022 by the slimmest margin in South Korea’s history.

And barely a month has passed since then without controversy.

In late 2022, he was criticised for his government’s response to the horrific crowd crush during Halloween, which killed 159 young people in Seoul.

Then there were calls to investigate his wife after she was caught accepting a Dior handbag as a gift – a scandal that is always hovering close to the headlines.

In April this year, his party was defeated in parliamentary elections, leaving him in a lame-duck position. This week alone he has been locked in a political battle with opposition lawmakers over the country’s budget.

Even before he told South Koreans he was suspending their rights, his approval rate was below 20%.

There are some clues in Yoon’s address as to what he was thinking.

What was immediately evident was that he was frustrated with the opposition-controlled parliament. In his Tuesday night address, he called the assembly where they exercise their mandate a “monster that destroys the liberal democratic system”.

The reference to a threat from North Korea and “anti-state forces” suggests he was also hoping to garner support from the kind of right-wing conservatives in South Korea who label liberal politicians “communists”.

But the president misread his country and its politics.

His declaration was a chilling reminder of a period many in South Korea have tried to forget. On television, newsreaders were seen shaking.

In 1980, when pro-democracy activists, many of them students, took to the streets of the city of Gwangju to protest at martial law, the army responded with violence and around 200 people were killed.

While martial law lasted three years – 1979 to 1981 – there had been military rule for decades before, and it continued until 1987. And in those years South Korea was rife with suspicion, when anti-government activists were dubbed Communist spies and arrested or killed.

Yet, during his election campaign Yoon praised authoritarian general Chun Doo-hwan and said he had managed government affairs well – except for his suppression of pro-democracy activists.

He was later forced to apologise and said he “certainly did not defend or praise Chun’s government”.

But it does provide some insight into the president’s view of what constitutes power.

There have been rumours in South Korean political circles for months that Yoon was considering imposing martial law. In September, opposition leaders and party members declared it was a possibility. Most dismissed it as too extreme an option.

But he may well have been driven by something more: the fear of prosecution.

Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female leader, was jailed after being found guilty of abuse of power and corruption. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was investigated over allegations he was involved in stock price manipulation. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption and bribery in 2020.

Another former president, Roh Moo-hyun, took his own life in 2009 while under investigation for allegedly receiving millions in bribes.

In South Korea, prosecutions have almost become a political tool – a threat for the opposition to wield. It may partly explain why President Yoon took such drastic action.

Whatever his motives, Yoon’s career will struggle to recover from this. He is also facing calls to resign, and some local media reported that members of his own People Power Party were discussing expelling him from the party.

South Korea is a stable democracy – but it is a noisy one. And it refused to accept another authoritarian diktat.

President Yoon will now face the judgement of a parliament and a people after they rejected the most serious challenge to the country’s democracy since the 1980s.

An Indian taxi aggregator service has apologised after a customer said she was robbed at gunpoint by one of its drivers near the capital, Delhi.

The 30-year-old woman said she was travelling in a BluSmart taxi with her six-year-old son on Saturday when the driver pulled out a gun.

In her police complaint, she said he forced her to transfer 55,000 rupees ($650; £513) to him through an app before forcing her out of the car. The driver has since been arrested.

On Tuesday, BluSmart said it was “deeply saddened and disturbed” by the incident and had apologised to the woman’s family.

BluSmart is a popular ride-sharing app in the capital and its suburbs. It was founded in 2019 and its fleet is 100% electric vehicles.

The service has many loyal customers who say they prefer these taxis as they are newer and cleaner than those used by other services. Many said they were shocked by the news of the robbery.

The customer said she had taken the BluSmart to travel from a mall in Gurugram, an upscale suburb of Delhi, to her house a few kilometres away.

She alleged that after she transferred the money to him, the driver forced them out of the car and fled the scene with her suitcase, a spokesperson for Gurugram police said.

The driver was arrested a day later after the woman shared the taxi’s registration number. Police said the accused was produced in court and remanded to police custody for further investigation.

In a post on X, BluSmart co-founder Anmol Singh Jaggi said the incident felt “personal”.

“Safety is our foundation,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Jaggi said the company’s “exhaustive documentation process” and swift action from its “Quick Response Team” had ensured the driver was caught within 24 hours of the incident.

“We have stringent onboarding processes, including mandatory background checks, face-to-face interviews, and driving tests,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

BluSmart said its platform had facial recognition to verify driver identities as well as a safety helpline for customers.

The robbed woman’s husband, however, told Indian Express newspaper that “she did not get time to sound an alarm as the driver suddenly pointed the gun” at her.

BluSmart said it was taking steps to strengthen its safety protocols and providing additional training to drivers.

The company added that it was committed to providing the affected family with “all necessary support”.

Police said investigation was on to recover the stolen money and the firearm allegedly used by the accused.

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 Bangladesh, 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.

Nineteen-year-old Hwang was watching the protests in Georgia on Tuesday night’s news when the images on TV suddenly changed – the spotlight was on his country after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol announced martial law.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said the student, who wished to be identified only by his surname.

By Wednesday afternoon, he was among the protesters standing before the National Assembly, still stunned about what had happened the night before.

“It’s important for me to be here to show that we are against what Yoon tried to do,” Hwang said.

In a little less than six hours, Yoon was forced to walk back his shock announcement after lawmakers scrambled to block it.

But those were chaotic hours, sparking protests, fear and uncertainty in the country that had elected him.

On Tuesday night, at 23:00 local time (14:00 GMT) President Yoon, seated in front of blue creaseless curtains, made an unexpected address to the nation.

He said he was imposing martial law to protect the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea. The embattled leader is in a deadlock over a budget bill, dogged by corruption scandals and investigations into his cabinet members.

What followed was a sleepless night for Seoul.

Shortly after Yoon’s announcement, police lined the white metal gates outside the National Assembly building in the heart of Seoul, the building that the country’s tourism authorities have framed as “the symbol of Korean democracy”.

The military then announced that all parliamentary activity was suspended under martial law. But neither that nor the heavy security presence stopped thousands from gathering in front of the assembly in concern and fury.

It is easy to forget that South Korea – now a vibrant democracy – had its last brush with authoritarianism in the not-too-distant past – it only emerged from military rule in 1987. Martial law was last imposed in 1979.

This was “a move I never expected to see in the 21st century in South Korea,” university student Juye Hong told BBC World Service’s OS programme from Seoul.

Soon after Yoon’s shock announcement, the opposition’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, hosted a live stream urging people to assemble at the National Assembly and protest there.

He also asked his fellow lawmakers to make their way to the assembly to vote down the order.

Hundreds of South Koreans responded.

Tensions rose quickly as a sea of dark, puffy winter coats pushed up against lines of police in neon jackets, chanting “no to martial law”.

And as vehicles arrived with military units, crowds blocked them. One woman lay defiantly between the wheels of a vehicle.

In stark contrast, there was a façade of normalcy across the rest of Seoul. Still, confusion enveloped the city.

“The streets look normal, people here are certainly bewildered,” John Nilsson-Wright, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge, told BBC World Service from Seoul.

The policeman he spoke to was “as mystified as I am,” he added.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

It was a sleepless night for some. “At first I was excited at the thought of not going to school today,” 15-year-old Kwon Hoo told the BBC in Seoul on Wednesday. “But then overwhelmingly the sense of fear settled in, that kept me up all night.”

“No words can express how afraid I am that things might turn out like North Korea for our people,” a South Korean who did not want to be named told BBC OS.

Meanwhile, word was spreading that special forces had been deployed to the assembly building. Helicopters were heard overhead as they circled the skies before landing on the parliament’s roof.

Reporters jostled in the crowd outside the gates, clicking away with their cameras.

As concerns grew that the government might restrict the media, journalists in Seoul stayed in touch with one another, exchanging advice on how to stay safe.

Ahn Gwi-ryeong, the 35-year-old spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party found herself facing down soldiers at gunpoint. A video of the moment, where she is tugging at the barrel of a soldier’s rifle, has since gone viral.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything intellectual or rational, I was just like, ‘We have to stop this, if we don’t stop this, there’s nothing else,’’ she told the BBC.

“To be honest, I was a bit scared at first when I first saw the martial law troops. I thought, ‘Is this something that can happen in 21st century Korea, especially in the National Assembly?”

“After such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality,” she added, recalling the previous night. “I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

As Ahn was confronting the soldiers, the clock was ticking for opposition lawmakers, who rushed to get into the assembly to block the order. Once that happened, the president would have to withdraw it.

But first, MPs and their aides had to get inside. Some crawled through the legs of security forces, others shoved and screamed at armed soldiers; many frantically clambered over fences and walls.

Lee Seong-yoon from the Democratic Party told the BBC that he had to scale a 1.5m (4.9ft)-high fence to enter the building, with the police blocking him even after he had shown them identification that proved he was a lawmaker.

Another opposition MP, Hong Keewon, said that protesters helped to hoist him over the wall. He had been asleep when Yoon made the announcement – when his wife woke him, he raced to parliament.

“Democracy is strong here,” Hong said. “The military needs to listen to us, to the constitution, and not to the president.”

Lawmakers who made it into the building huddled together, only slightly calmer than the people outside. Hastily, they barricaded the entrances with whatever they could find: cushioned benches, long tables, sofas.

Some tried to push back soldiers who had made their way into the assembly building.

By 01:00 local time, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik submitted a resolution requesting martial law to be lifted.

With that, less than two hours after Yoon’s shock declaration, 190 lawmakers who gathered, including some from Yoon’s party, voted unanimously to block it.

After the vote, opposition leader Lee told reporters that this was “a decisive opportunity to break the vicious cycle and return to normal society”.

By 04:30, Yoon was back on TV, in front of the same blue curtains, saying he would withdraw martial law. But this would only be made official, he said, when he could assemble enough of his cabinet to lift the order.

The announcement was met with cheers outside the assembly. In the hours before dawn, more people emerged from the building, from behind the barricades they had haphazardly put together.

With holes in the doors and broken windows, the stately building already bears scars of the night when South Koreans saved their democracy.

Schools, local businesses and banks opened as usual on Wednesday morning – and flights continued to land uninterrupted in South Korea’s buzzing capital.

But public anger – and the political fallout – was not spent.

As the sun rose on Wednesday, thousands gathered to call for Yoon’s resignation. The president is also facing impeachment proceedings.

“We are a strong democracy…But Korean people want to be safe – President Yoon must resign or be impeached,” Yang Bu-nam, a Democratic Party politician, told the BBC.

South Korea’s opposition lawmakers have begun impeachment proceedings against President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed attempt to impose martial law.

The country woke up to an uncertain reality on Wednesday after a night of unprecedented scenes which saw Yoon unexpectedly impose martial law, 190 lawmakers gather to vote it down, and a sudden reversal of the decision around six hours later.

After introducing the impeachment motion, South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party condemned Yoon’s initial martial law declaration as “insurrectionary behaviour”.

Parliament will have to vote on whether to impeach Yoon by Saturday.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

“We can no longer allow democracy to collapse. The lives and safety of the people must be protected,” said Kim Yong-jin, a member of the Democratic party’s central committee.

The Party also said it wants to charge Yoon with “crimes of rebellion”.

It named Minister Kim Yong-hyun and Interior Minister Lee Sang-min as “key participants” of the martial law declaration, saying it also wanted them charged alongside Yoon.

Schools, banks and government offices in Seoul were operating as usual on Wednesday, but protests continued throughout the city demanding the president resign.

“Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol,” some angry citizens chanted as they filled the streets.

South Korea’s largest labour group, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, vowed to go on indefinite strike until the president steps down.

On Wednesday, the country’s defence minister Kim Yong-hyun tendered his resignation and said he would take full responsibility for the martial law. He apologised to the public for spreading confusion and causing distress, the ministry said in a statement.

Yoon’s senior aides, including chief of staff Chung Jin-suk and national security adviser Shin Won-sik, also tendered their resignations.

Whether their resignations will be accepted by Yoon is unclear.

The reversal of the shock order early on Wednesday came after dramatic scenes overnight.

Hundreds of troops stormed the parliament after Yoon declared martial law, as military helicopters circled the site.

Some opposition lawmakers broke barricades and climb fences to get to the voting chamber. Woo Won-Shik, the speaker of the National Assembly, told BBC Korea he rushed to parliament thinking “we must protect democracy” and scaled the fence.

Eventually, 190 lawmakers evaded police lines and forced themselves inside to vote down the order.

Thousands of protesters also arrived at the gates of the National Assembly. One woman was captured on video grabbing a soldier’s gun.

“I was scared at first…but seeing such confrontation, I thought, ‘I can’t stay silent’,” Democratic Party spokeswoman Ahn Gwi-ryeong told the BBC.

Yoon’s second announcement – that he was reversing his earlier order – was met with cheers from protesters outside parliament.

Yoon, who won office by the slimmest margin in Korean history and whose approval ratings have hit a record low, said he declared martial law because he was worried about North Korean communist forces taking power in the country.

The presidential office has defended the initial decision as “strictly within [the country’s] constitutional framework”. It said on Wednesday that the announcement was timed to “minimise damage” to the economy and people’s lives.

South Korea’s allies had expressed alarm at the events, with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell sharing “grave concern”.

The US and Nato chief Mark Rutte welcomed the rescinded order on Wednesday. Rutte said it showed a commitment to the rule of law and affirmed the alliance’s “iron-clad” relationship with South Korea.

Once an impeachment bill is proposed, two-thirds of South Korea’s 300-member National Assembly must vote to impeach – that translates to at least 200 votes. The vote must take place within 72 hours.

Once the impeachment is approved, the president will immediately be suspended from office, while the prime minister becomes acting president.

A trial will then be held before the Constitutional Court, a nine-member council that oversees South Korea’s branches of government.

If six of the court’s members vote to sustain the impeachment, the president will be removed from office.

In 2016, then-President Park Guen-hye was impeached after she was charged with bribery, abusing state power and leaking state secrets.

In 2004, another South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached and suspended for two months. The Constitutional Court later restored him to office.

If Yoon resigns or is impeached, the government will have to hold an election within 60 days for the country to vote for its new leader, who will start a fresh five-year term.

Under South Korea’s constitution, the president has the authority to declare martial law during war, armed conflict, or other national emergencies.

The last time martial law was declared in the country was in 1979, when the country’s long-time military dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated in a coup.

A group of military leaders, led by General Chun Doo-hwan, declared martial law in 1980, banning political activities and arresting dissidents.

Hundreds of people died amid a crackdown on protesters before martial law was lifted in 1981.

Martial law has not been invoked since South Korea became a parliamentary democracy in 1987.

Yoon pulled the trigger on Tuesday, saying he was trying to save the country from “anti-state forces”.

But some analysts have described the move as his bid to thwart political opposition.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election in April this year – his government has not been able to pass the laws it wanted and has been reduced instead to vetoing bills the opposition has proposed.

The president’s approval ratings have hit record lows of 17% this year, as he and his wife Kim Keon-hee have been mired in a spate of scandals.

Police in India say they have reached out for information to Elon Musk’s Starlink after they allegedly found drug smugglers using its satellite internet device to navigate Indian waters and reach the country’s shore.

Starlink claims to provide superfast broadband “almost anywhere on Earth”.

But it does not yet have permission to provide coverage in India or India’s territorial waters.

Last week, the Indian Coast Guard said they found the device on a Myanmar boat they seized near the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

This was the biggest such drug bust by the Coast Guard, authorities said. They reportedly seized 6,000kg (13,227 lb) of methamphetamine from the boat. Police estimated it was worth $4.25bn (£3.35bn).

Police in the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar say they have arrested six Myanmar nationals in the case.

Starlink has been aiming to launch services in India since 2021, but regulatory hurdles have delayed its arrival. The company also faces stiff competition from Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio.

Hargobinder S Dhaliwal, police chief of the Andaman islands, said last week’s incident put authorities on alert because the use of Starlink’s mini device had bypassed legal channels.

The company’s website describes the device as “a compact, portable kit that can easily fit in a backpack”.

The drug smugglers started using Starlink from the time their journey began from Myanmar, Mr Dhaliwal said in a press statement on Monday.

“They directly operated [phones] with satellite, creating a Wi-Fi hotspot,” he added.

Andaman police say they have since written to Starlink, asking for details of the device, including who bought it, when and how it’s been used since its purchase.

They are also investigating the involvement of any local or foreign syndicates in transporting the drug.

The BBC has contacted Starlink for their response.

Chiung Yao, arguably the world’s most popular Chinese language romance novelist, has died in an apparent suicide.

The 86-year-old’s body was found in her home in New Taipei City on Wednesday, local media report. Emergency services said she took her own life, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

Chiung Yao started writing at 18 and published more than 60 novels, many of which were adapted into movies and TV series and remained popular for decades.

She was also a successful screenwriter and producer. One of her most famous works was the TV drama My Fair Princess, which launched the careers of big name stars.

She was born Chen Che in Sichuan, China in 1938. Chiung Yao is her pen name.

A post on her Facebook account on Wednesday read: “Goodbye, my loved ones. I feel lucky that I have met and known you in this life”. It was not immediately clear if the post was published before or after her body was found.

Chiung Yao asked young people “not to give up on life easily” and to confront death only when “you live until 86 or 87”. She asked her followers not to be sad for her.

She has not been active in recent years. However, she made headlines in 2017 after her dispute with her stepchildren over how to care for her then ailing husband came into public view.

Chiung Yao spent part of her childhood in mainland China as her family moved across the country during the Sino-Japanese War.

The family moved to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland.

Chiung Yao’s debut novel Outside The Window, which was inspired by her own love story with her high school teacher, was hugely popular.

Her TV drama My Fair Princess, a Cinderella story set in the 18th century Qing Dynasty, is regarded as one of the most popular Chinese-language drama shows of all time.

It launched the careers of big names in entertainment, including Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing. Fan would go on to become one of the biggest stars in China, until she was fined for tax fraud in 2018.

The show’s main actors, Ruby Lin and Zhao Wei, became household names to Chinese audiences.

Lin has remained active as an actor and producer in Taiwan. However Wei has been silent in recent years after her billionaire friend, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, got into trouble with the authorities in Beijing.

The no-confidence vote facing French Prime Minister Michel Barnier is a high-stakes moment for Marine Le Pen.

It could be her best chance of power yet as head of France’s far-right National Rally.

Before she decided to push for the downfall of Michel Barnier, she said she wasn’t “the master of the clocks” – the one who dictated the agenda.

But that may well be exactly what she becomes, by bringing down Emmanuel Macron’s second government since he beat her to the presidency for a second time in 2022.

As his presidency looks ever weaker, it is Le Pen who appears to have the upper hand.

However, this situation is not without immense risks for her too.

Le Pen has played a waiting game for years as National Rally’s leader. She may be tantalisingly close to power now – but she is having to make big choices.

• Follow live updates as vote takes place
• Why French PM Barnier is set to lose no-confidence vote – and what happens next?
• Months of political instability loom as French government nears collapse

Pushing for a no-confidence vote “comes as a considerable risk because people are now wondering if she’s really acting in the interests of the country or her own, personal interests,” says Prof Armin Steinbach of HEC business school in Paris.

“What is obvious is that it’s not about Barnier… it’s about her trying to overthrow and weaken Macron, obviously for her personal ambitions to herself become the next president,” he told the BBC.

Le Pen has long sought to “normalise” National Rally (RN) in the eyes of the French people, rebranding it six years ago from her father’s old National Front.

Jump back a few months to France’s snap parliamentary elections when RN came first with 32% of the vote. Her mission appeared almost complete, even if it could only manage third place in the run-off round.

Now in the dying days of 2024, she is taking a gamble on whether French voters will see her as acting in the national interest in bringing down a weakened government because she objects to its 2025 budget that aims to bring down France’s budget deficit from 6% of national output, or GDP.

Barnier had already agreed to several of her demands on social security – but Le Pen decided it was not enough.

There are real economic risks for France, as well as real political risks for Le Pen in backing a left-sponsored vote of no confidence.

After only three months in the job, Barnier has appealed to MPs to act in France’s greater interest, but Le Pen’s party leader Jordan Bardella has accused him of adopting a “strategy of fear”.

Le Pen’s colleagues are sensing Macron’s potential downfall.

RN adviser Philippe Olivier told Le Monde the president was “a fallen republican monarch, advancing with his shirt open and a rope around his neck up to the next dissolution [of parliament]”.

It was Macron’s surprise decision to call an early parliamentary election in June that has left France in the political deadlock it finds itself now.

Le Pen’s argument is that Barnier didn’t include enough of her demands in his budget, while Barnier said his budget wasn’t “aimed to please” – and he accused her of “trying to get into a kind of bidding war” during their negotiations.

The RN leader could end up plunging France “into the great political and financial unknown”, in the words of Le Figaro deputy editor Vincent Trémolet de Villers.

She won’t want to be labelled as the politician who pushed France into economic turbulence when in her eyes it is Macron who is to blame for France’s economic state.

“It’s a result of seven years of amateurism and a spectacular drift in our public finances,” she has said.

There are plenty of French voters who want Macron gone before his term ends in 2027. Recent polls suggest at least 62% of the electorate think the president should resign if the Barnier government falls.

National Rally would arguably be in line with the broader electorate if it pushed for that, even if Le Pen has not yet done so.

But the RN leader has other issues going on behind the scenes which her critics believe might be influencing her judgement.

On 31 March, a French court will rule in a long-running trial against her and other party figures on allegations of misuse of European Parliament funding.

Prosecutors want her to go to jail and face a five-year ban in public office.

If that were to happen, her hopes of winning the presidency would be dashed.

For Marine Le Pen this moment really could be now or never.

Three times she has run for the top job. If she does get to run a fourth time in the coming months she is in with a strong chance of winning.

Jordan Bardella is already considered more popular than Le Pen both within National Rally and beyond, and if Macron does see out his term, the 29-year-old party chief would be favourite to run in 2027.

No French government has fallen after a no-confidence vote since 1962.

Get this wrong and Le Pen may not be forgiven next time France goes to the ballot box.

More than 300 people have been arrested since mass protests erupted in Georgia six nights ago, and an increasing number of accounts have emerged alleging violent attacks by police.

One man has told the BBC how he was repeatedly kicked in the head, even after he had been knocked unconscious. “When I opened my eyes a third time I couldn’t feel my legs or hands – I couldn’t even move my head,” said Avandtil Kuchava, a 28-year-old businessman.

Demonstrations have continued every night since last Thursday, after ruling party Georgian Dream said it was halting the country’s bid to start talks on joining the EU.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has accused opposition politicians of orchestrating the violence, blaming them for the injuries.

However, the force exercised by police has been described as torture and brutality by Georgia’s human rights ombudsman, and it has drawn condemnation from United Nations rights chief Volker Türk, who said the use of “unnecessary or disproportionate force… is extremely worrying”.

“Don’t blame others,” warned the US embassy in Tbilisi in a pointed message on social media directed at Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream government.

It reminded Georgians that it was the ruling party that had halted the EU process and then lost their strategic partnership with the US two days later.

Georgian Dream has been in power for 12 years and has introduced increasingly authoritarian laws on civil society, freedom of speech and LGBT.

For six nights running, tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets, accusing the government of trying to destroy their path to a European future and take them back into Russia’s sphere of influence.

Riot police in body armour have then sought to push them back with tear gas and water cannon.

Videos of protesters defying the police have gone viral.

One woman brandished a Georgian flag as she braved a stream of water cannon, while another walked headlong into a barricade of police standing behind riot shields.

“You garbage people! I’m tired, so what do you want? Are you afraid of me?” shrieks the young woman defiantly, before she is bundled through the barricade and taken away.

The woman has since been identified as Nana Tomaradze and a judge has fined her the equivalent of £720 (€870).

Her lawyer Lasha Tkesheladze said that in Georgian terms that meant two months’ wages: “She has an 11-year-old son.”

In another video an elderly woman walks along a line of helmeted riot police, berating them for pitting Georgian against Georgian and defending politicians in their palaces.

But the harshness of the police response has drawn comparisons with autocratic states, most notably Russia and Belarus, and the government’s critics say they are operating from a Russian playbook.

Other videos that have gone viral here are far more sinister.

A middle-aged man in an orange jacket is punched and pushed to the ground as he tries to get through a large crowd of stationary riot police.

A young man lying prostrate on the ground is kicked in the head several times as a young woman pleads with them to stop.

Avtandil Kuchava endured a similar ordeal from police in unmarked black clothing and after two days in hospital he is now recovering at home.

“There were four people at the beginning, but after I was knocked out I didn’t know how many were beating me. When I opened my eyes someone’s foot was coming towards my face and I blacked out a second time.

“After I opened my eyes the third time, someone broke my collarbone with his hand. Then I blacked out, and the next time I came round I was being taken to the police station in a car.”

The BBC has approached Georgia’s ministry of internal affairs for comment but has so far not received a response.

The ministry has however said that 113 law enforcement officers have been injured since the protests began and that police have come under attack from “blunt objects, pyrotechnics, and flammable objects”. It says it is “protecting public order” and that “each violation will be followed by an appropriate legal response”.

Avtandil Kuchava says a formal investigation into his case has begun, but he holds out little hope of any result, even though there were plenty of CCTV cameras in front of the Georgian parliament, where it happened.

Although he was attacked early on Saturday, Georgian lawyers say police continue to inflict what they call torture on protesters.

The Legal Aid Network says most of those held on Monday were “brutally beaten”. Public ombudsman Levan Ioseliani has said that because most of the injuries have been to “the face, eye and head area”, that suggests police may have used violent methods as a means of punishment.

One man in his early 20s was hit in the eye by a tear-gas canister on Tuesday and taken to hospital where he was placed in an induced coma.

Georgia’s prime minister has acknowledged there has been violence “on both sides”, but he has singled out opposition parties and non-government organisations for stirring up the protests and blamed members of “violent gangs” for the unrest.

The protesters returned to the main avenue outside parliament again on Tuesday night, demanding a re-run of contested elections which monitoring groups say were marred by a string of violations.

Nikolas, 30, was undeterred by the risk of arrest or injury: “Cases like that cause more anger. It’s impossible for us to step back now.”

Hopes of convincing the constitutional court to annul the 26 October parliamentary elections were dashed on Tuesday when it rejected a lawsuit from Georgia’s pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili, and the four main opposition groups that she has backed.

Meanwhile, further arrests have been reported outside parliament during the sixth night of protests.

Outside a detention centre on the outskirts of Tbilisi where many of the arrested protesters are being held, a group of activists held up posters of badly bruised protesters while one of them chanted “freedom for detainees” through a megaphone.

“We want the international community to understand that this is not only a fight for Georgian people but it’s a fight between Russia and Western values,” said one of the activists, Mari Kapadnadze.

Donald Trump’s nominee for defence secretary says he still has the president-elect’s backing after reports suggested his nomination may be in jeopardy over allegations of misconduct.

Trump is considering replacing Pete Hegseth with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the BBC’s partner CBS News reported, after Hegseth’s nomination came under intense scrutiny.

Since Trump nominated the former Fox News host, questions about Hegseth’s qualifications have been raised – and a historical sexual assault allegation has surfaced.

Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing, and was never arrested or charged.

Speaking to CBS on Wednesday, Hegseth did not address the DeSantis reports directly and said he had earlier spoken with Trump.

“He said ‘keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way,'” Hegseth said.

In a post on X on Wednesday morning, Hegseth accused “the Left” of trying to smear him with “fake” stories.

His nomination is the subject of growing scrutiny by members of his own party – including US senators who have the power to confirm or deny his appointment when are asked to vote on it.

“I think some of these articles are very disturbing,” Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS on Tuesday. “He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is going to be difficult.”

DeSantis, who was elected Florida governor in 2018, did not reply to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Trump declined to say whether DeSantis was under consideration for the post.

DeSantis ran against Trump in the Republican primary, and before dropping out, he was considered by some to be “Trump 2.0” – a Republican who could deliver Trump’s populist agenda without baggage.

The latest speculation – first reported by the Wall Street Journal – comes as Hegseth meets members of Congress this week to discuss the job and drum up support.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Hegseth was an infantry platoon leader in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

In nominating Hegseth, who is also a former Fox News TV host, Trump highlighted the former soldier’s education, and his military experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – our military will be great again, and America will never back down,” Trump wrote.

But even as a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 44-year-old does not have the extensive experience typical for the cabinet position. He also would be the second-youngest person to serve in the office.

In addition, since his nomination, a police report detailing accusations of an alleged sexual assault in 2017 has surfaced.

The woman quoted in the complaint said that Hegseth, then a Fox host, took her phone and blocked the door to a hotel room while at a Republican conference in California.

Hegseth denies any wrongdoing, saying the encounter was consensual.

• Police report details sexual assault allegations against Hegseth
• Hegseth paid accuser to save Fox News job, but denies claim
• Who else has joined Trump’s team so far?

Some of Hegseth’s past comments about how he might change the defence department have also raised eyebrows.

On a recent podcast, Hegseth said the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – the top military leader in the US – should be fired, along with any military leader “involved in any of the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] woke [expletive]”.

He also has argued that women should not serve in combat roles because this practice had not made the military “more effective” or “more lethal”.

There is increasing scepticism about Hegseth’s chances of getting enough votes to be confirmed by the Senate, CBS reports.

At least four Republican senators would be likely to vote against him if they voted today, two sources told the news outlet.

Republicans are expected to have a 53-seat majority in the Senate, which must confirm cabinet-level positions in Trump’s new team. Losing four Republican votes would be enough to sink Hegseth’s nomination, provided Democrats and independents also vote against him.

Some Washington lawmakers have questioned Hegseth’s credentials for overseeing the complex bureaucracy in the job for which he has been lined up.

“I confess I didn’t know who he was until 20 minutes ago,” said Representative Adam Smith, top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “And he certainly doesn’t seem to have any background whatsoever in (Department of Defence) policy.”

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first presidency, told the BBC that the post of defence secretary should never be a “loyalty appointment”.

“The question is: will he be a yes man to Donald Trump, or will he behave professionally and with courage the way he did when he was in uniform?” Bolton asked.

Hegseth is not Trump’s first controversial appointment before he returns to the White House.

Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who Trump nominated for US attorney general, also faced scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct against him – which he denied – that were the subject of a congressional report.

Gaetz eventually withdrew his nomination in late November, saying that the controversy against him “was unfairly becoming a distraction” from the work of the incoming Trump administration.

• How these new recruits will be vetted
• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• How undocumented migrants feel about deportations
• Can RFK Jr make America healthy again?
• The rise and fall of Matt Gaetz, in eight wild days

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A chaotic night in South Korea produced scenes most thought were consigned to the nation’s history.

One in particular has caught the attention of many: a woman confronting soldiers who were sent to block lawmakers from entering the National Assembly.

Footage of Ahn Gwi-ryeong, 35, a spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party, grabbing the weapon of a soldier during the commotion has been shared widely online.

“I didn’t think… I just knew we had to stop this,” she told the BBC Korean Service.

Ahn made her way to the assembly building as soldiers descended on it, shortly after the president declared martial law across South Korea.

Like many in South Korea’s younger generation, the word “martial law” was foreign to her. It was last declared in 1979.

When Ahn first heard the news, she admitted “a sense of panic took over”.

• Fear, fury and triumph: Six hours that shook South Korea
• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

When martial law is declared, political activities like rallies and demonstrations are banned, strikes and labour actions are prohibited, and media and publishing activities are controlled by the authorities. Violators can be arrested or detained without a warrant.

Shortly after the declaration of martial law, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung called on lawmakers to gather in the National Assembly and hold a vote to annul the declaration.

Arriving at the assembly building just past 23:00 local time, Ahn recalled turning off office lights to avoid detection as helicopters circled overhead.

By the time she reached the main building, soldiers were engaged in a stand-off with officials, aides and citizens.

She said: “When I saw the armed soldiers… I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

Ahn and her colleagues were desperate to prevent the troops from entering the main building, where the vote would be held.

They locked the revolving doors from the inside and piled furniture and other heavy objects in front of the doors.

When the military began advancing, Ahn stepped forward.

“Honestly, I was scared at first,” she said, adding: “But seeing such confrontation, I thought, ‘I can’t stay silent’.”

The assembly passed the resolution calling for the lifting of martial law at around 01:00. All 190 members who were present voted to repeal it.

At 04:26, President Yoon announced he was reversing his decision.

After the chaos subsided, Ahn slept for a short time inside the assembly building.

She continued: “I was actually a little scared to go outside the assembly in the morning because there didn’t seem to be any taxis running, and after such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality.”

During her conversation with the BBC, Ahn was wearing the same black turtleneck and leather jacket she had been wearing in the footage from the night before.

At times, she was overcome with emotion.

“It’s heartbreaking and frustrating that this is happening in 21st century Korea,” she said.

One of the biggest questions on people’s minds in Seoul on Wednesday is: what was the president thinking?

In a late-night address that threw South Korea’s parliament into chaos and tested the country’s commitment to democracy, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared that he was imposing martial law.

Less than 24 hours later, his political future is on the brink, with protests on the streets and impeachment proceedings against him under way.

So, what happened?

• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Martial law was last introduced in South Korea in 1979, sparked by the assassination of the then-military ruler in a coup. Today’s South Korea, however, is a far cry from that, and the repressive years that followed.

It is a stable, prosperous democracy – yet Yoon claimed he was introducing military rule to save the country from dark forces. He called the opposition-controlled National Assembly a “den of criminals” that was “attempting to paralyse” the government.

Hours later, he was forced to back down as furious protesters and lawmakers gathered outside the National Assembly – the MPs made it inside and voted down the order.

His shock declaration was, in fact, a bid to get the kind of grip on power that has eluded him since he won the presidency in 2022 by the slimmest margin in South Korea’s history.

And barely a month has passed since then without controversy.

In late 2022, he was criticised for his government’s response to the horrific crowd crush during Halloween, which killed 159 young people in Seoul.

Then there were calls to investigate his wife after she was caught accepting a Dior handbag as a gift – a scandal that is always hovering close to the headlines.

In April this year, his party was defeated in parliamentary elections, leaving him in a lame-duck position. This week alone he has been locked in a political battle with opposition lawmakers over the country’s budget.

Even before he told South Koreans he was suspending their rights, his approval rate was below 20%.

There are some clues in Yoon’s address as to what he was thinking.

What was immediately evident was that he was frustrated with the opposition-controlled parliament. In his Tuesday night address, he called the assembly where they exercise their mandate a “monster that destroys the liberal democratic system”.

The reference to a threat from North Korea and “anti-state forces” suggests he was also hoping to garner support from the kind of right-wing conservatives in South Korea who label liberal politicians “communists”.

But the president misread his country and its politics.

His declaration was a chilling reminder of a period many in South Korea have tried to forget. On television, newsreaders were seen shaking.

In 1980, when pro-democracy activists, many of them students, took to the streets of the city of Gwangju to protest at martial law, the army responded with violence and around 200 people were killed.

While martial law lasted three years – 1979 to 1981 – there had been military rule for decades before, and it continued until 1987. And in those years South Korea was rife with suspicion, when anti-government activists were dubbed Communist spies and arrested or killed.

Yet, during his election campaign Yoon praised authoritarian general Chun Doo-hwan and said he had managed government affairs well – except for his suppression of pro-democracy activists.

He was later forced to apologise and said he “certainly did not defend or praise Chun’s government”.

But it does provide some insight into the president’s view of what constitutes power.

There have been rumours in South Korean political circles for months that Yoon was considering imposing martial law. In September, opposition leaders and party members declared it was a possibility. Most dismissed it as too extreme an option.

But he may well have been driven by something more: the fear of prosecution.

Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female leader, was jailed after being found guilty of abuse of power and corruption. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was investigated over allegations he was involved in stock price manipulation. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption and bribery in 2020.

Another former president, Roh Moo-hyun, took his own life in 2009 while under investigation for allegedly receiving millions in bribes.

In South Korea, prosecutions have almost become a political tool – a threat for the opposition to wield. It may partly explain why President Yoon took such drastic action.

Whatever his motives, Yoon’s career will struggle to recover from this. He is also facing calls to resign, and some local media reported that members of his own People Power Party were discussing expelling him from the party.

South Korea is a stable democracy – but it is a noisy one. And it refused to accept another authoritarian diktat.

President Yoon will now face the judgement of a parliament and a people after they rejected the most serious challenge to the country’s democracy since the 1980s.

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 had 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.

Now, lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach him over what the country’s main opposition has called his “insurrectionary behaviour”.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

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 normal.

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 alleged 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.

The opposition Democratic Party has moved to impeach Yoon.

Parliament will have to vote by Saturday on whether to do this.

The impeachment process is relatively straightforward in South Korea. To succeed, it would require support from more than two-thirds of the 300-member National Assembly – at least 200 votes.

Once an impeachment is approved, a trial is held before the Constitutional Court – a nine-member council that oversees South Korea’s branches of government.

If six of the court’s members vote to sustain the impeachment, the president is removed from office.

If this happens, it wouldn’t be the first time that a South Korean president has been impeached. In 2016, then-President Park Geun-hye was impeached after being accused of helping a friend commit extortion.

In 2004 another president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached and suspended for two months. The Constitutional Court later restored him to office.

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

Many see this week’s events 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.”

• 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.

A vote of no-confidence in the government headed by Prime Minister Michel Barnier is taking place at the French National Assembly at around 19:00 (18:00 GMT).

If – as expected – the vote goes through, the Barnier government will collapse.

Barnier, the former EU Brexit chief negotiator, was picked by President Emmanuel Macron to be prime minister just 90 days ago.

Macron, who is currently on a state visit to Saudi Arabia, has said he still believes the Barnier government can survive the vote. “The country’s interests are more important than those of the parties,” he said.

But the left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) MPs already said they will cast their ballots against him, making it mathematically impossible for Barnier to remain in place.

On Monday, Barnier used special powers to push his 2025 budget through without parliamentary support.

He did so because he knew he had no chance to get the votes he needed from the opposition.

Barnier’s decision to use special powers to pass the budget angered both the NFP and the RN, both of which tabled no-confidence motions against him.

Barnier, 73, has been governing on borrowed time since the day he became prime minister in early September.

This is because his appointment followed two months of political uncertainty sparked by inconclusive snap parliamentary elections, in which no party won enough seats to govern on its own.

He therefore presided over a polarised National Assembly.

His centrist party needed the support of at least one of the two big factions – the NFP or the National Rally (RN) – to pass legislation.

The NFP, whose own candidate for prime minister was rejected by Macron in the summer, was furious Barnier was appointed and promised to always vote against him. It also deemed Barnier’s budget – which included €60bn (£49bn) in deficit reduction – unacceptable.

So the RN’s goodwill has been necessary for the government to stay in place.

But when it came to the budget, and despite numerous concessions, the RN also said it would not endorse Barnier’s bill.

Barnier therefore had no choice but to invoke special powers to push the budget through.

On Tuesday night, Barnier made a last-ditch attempt on national TV to convince MPs not to vote him down, calling for MPs to vote “beyond their political differences” and for a “common and superior interest”.

However, it is expected that the motion will pass, leading to the collapse of the government. It would be the first time a French government has fallen to a no-confidence vote since 1962.

In that case, Barnier will likely be asked to stay on as caretaker as Macron seeks a new prime minister.

This proved difficult in the summer, when it took him two months to come up with a name that wouldn’t immediately be shot down by one of the large parliamentary factions. The search for the next candidate could again take several weeks.

To fill the vacuum Macron could also appoint an unelected technocrat government – but these are often short-lived as they struggle to be seen as legitimate.

New elections are not an option as under the French constitution they cannot be called within a year of the previous polls, which took place last July.

As president, Macron is elected in presidential elections every five years.

But several sides are calling for Macron – who is due to remain in post until 2027 – to resign.

But on Tuesday he made it clear he had no intention of doing this, saying that he would “honour [the trust of the French people]… until the very last second of my term to serve the country.”

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.

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Presenter Gregg Wallace is a national figure, who has been in people’s living rooms several times a week for 20 years.

His programmes, most prominently MasterChef, are made by independent production companies.

But his name and face are associated with the BBC, and, as allegations continue to emerge, the corporation is under fire.

It’s the last thing it needs, so soon after other high profile scandals including the disgraced BBC News presenter Huw Edwards.

The BBC has questions to answer about the allegations over what it knew about Wallace’s behaviour on and off set, and – if it was alerted to these types of allegations – what it did about them.

BBC News has been made aware of two occasions when complaints were made. One, by the radio host Aasmah Mir, related to Celebrity MasterChef in 2017.

She says she complained to the production company behind the show and later spoke to the BBC’s Kate Phillips who was then controller for entertainment commissioning. I understand Phillips was later assured that the issue had been addressed.

Another complaint, just a year afterwards, concerned Impossible Celebrities, made by a different production company.

In a letter from 2018 seen by BBC News, Phillips wrote that she had spoken to Wallace for 90 minutes to make clear what the BBC expected of him. She also confirmed in the letter that many aspects of his behaviour were unacceptable and unprofessional.

Six years on, the emerging allegations about Wallace’s conduct raise questions about whether executives – at the production company Banijay and the BBC – reacted appropriately.

But BBC News has not been told whether the BBC executives involved in Wallace’s shows were made aware of any complaints about him after 2018 and the conversation between him and Phillips. If they weren’t, there is some plausible deniability that they thought the issues raised had been sorted.

Then again, that defence may only go so far. There are wider questions about how much a TV executive should probe, if they are aware that rumours have begun to swirl.

Popbitch, the weekly celebrity newsletter that makes its way into the inboxes of most media executives, had run stories involving allegations about Wallace’s language and behaviour in the past, for example. When does the odd gossipy claim about talent misbehaviour become an issue bosses should take a look at?

Should more questions have been asked by the BBC after 2018?

Some have made the point that these types of scandals involving high profile TV presenters only seem to emerge when the media shines a light on them.

It’s only then, it is argued, that executives take action and launch an investigation. The claim is that before journalists get involved, the executives are more concerned with protecting the star, the show and their bottom line.

In light of Huw Edwards, the BBC launched a workplace review into preventing abuses of power. At the time, the BBC chair Samir Shah said there “continues to be a sense that powerful people ‘get away with it’.”

But for me, how the Wallace claims may have been handled isn’t entirely comparable to the Edwards scandal.

Huw Edwards was employed directly by the BBC, Wallace is contracted by production companies that make his shows and sell them to the BBC.

To put this in context, 326 independent companies made programmes for the BBC in the year 2023/4, accounting for 55% of the BBC’s TV hours.

I have picked up some frustration on the corporate side of the BBC that the corporation is taking criticism for a programme that it doesn’t make.

A BBC insider told me it essentially bought a product from a third party and is now being held to account for the actions of staff in a different organisation.

My assessment is that if there were complaints – or claims of bad behaviour on set – the first port of call would have been the production company.

But that defence – that the BBC is at arm’s length on this one – only goes so far. Audiences don’t make that distinction. In the end, they associate Wallace with the BBC, not a production company.

The damage rests at the BBC’s door.

• ‘Groping’ and ‘touching’: Fresh claims against Gregg Wallace
• BBC pulls MasterChef Christmas specials
• Wallace’s response to MasterChef claims was misogynistic, says No 10

The workplace review will aim to look at how to ensure that junior people with less power feel able to speak up, when a presenter is behaving badly. The director general Tim Davie has already said he’d like to ban the word “talent” for the BBC’s stars, to help end the hierarchies that can be a part of programme making when powerful, highly paid people with audience recognition are involved.

But, understandably, the review won’t have oversight of the independent sector. These are independent companies responsible for their own codes.

It would however be useful for the review to lay out what BBC processes are triggered when rumours begin to emerge about a particular star and what the BBC expects from its executives and indeed the production companies it buys programmes from.

Philippa Childs, the head of union Bectu, told Radio 4 on Wednesday “the time has come for the whole industry to come together and accept that there does need to be some independent scrutiny of how broadcasters [and] production companies work, to try and address this endemic problem”.

The Wallace story may be a wake-up call for the production sector. For years, we’ve heard about junior staff feeling unable to speak truth to power in these sorts of scenarios.

Now, some women are refusing to stay silent. If the sector doesn’t get its house in order, it could be career limiting not just for high profile names but for executives as well.

At the heart of this latest story is a star accused of misbehaviour and splashed across the media daily. The presumption of innocence doesn’t always sit well with journalistic endeavours, but it should.

Gregg Wallace denies the allegations being made against him. The media doesn’t always play fair when it scents a scalp. But he is entitled to a fair and due process.

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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.

A monument in honour of the late leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been unveiled in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The statue of Prigozhin and his right-hand man Dmitru Utkin, who both died in a plane crash last year, was erected in the capital Bangui.

The statue shows Prigozhin in bullet-proof clothing holding a walkie-talkie next to his colleague who holds an AK-47 rifle.

Fighters from the Wagner Group have been in CAR since 2018, when they were invited by President Faustin-Archange Touadéra to help tackle rebel groups.

The group’s subsidiaries went on win contracts to operate gold and diamond mines.

They are also operating in several other African countries but their most significant presence is in CAR.

A statement by the CAR national police said the monument was “part of the bilateral relationship” between CAR and Russia.

The ceremony to unveil the statues was attended by Defence Minister Rameau Claude Bireau and top military officials.

• Why Wagner is winning hearts in the Central African Republic
• Wagner in Africa: How the Russian mercenary group has rebranded

Prigozhin and Utkin died alongside others on 23 August 2023, after their private jet came down north-west of Moscow, killing all those on board.

It came two months after their aborted mutiny in Russia. The Kremlin denied speculation it was to blame for the crash.

The Wagner Group has since been renamed Corps Africa, although it continues to operate under the Wagner name in CAR.

President Touadéra has defended their continued presence in the country.

“It was said that 80% of the territory was occupied by armed groups. Today, thanks to this co-operation, these figures are completely reversed,” he told the BBC in an interview last December.

Even before the inauguration of the Prigozhin statue, Russia’s role in the country was already immortalised by a statue in Bangui, of Russian troops shielding a woman and her children.

CAR has one of the world’s poorest populations despite being rich in diamonds, gold, oil and uranium.

It has been almost continuously unstable since independence from France in 1960.

Violence has subsided in recent years, although fighting does still occasionally erupt between rebels and the Wagner-backed national army.

Critics say President Toudera’s government is supported by the Russian mercenaries and other groups in exchange for exploiting the country’s resources.

Prigozhin founded Wagner in 2014, initially working mostly in the Middle East and Africa before being deployed to Ukraine at the start of 2022.

• Why Russia’s Africa propaganda warrior was sent home
• A year after mutiny, Kremlin controls Wagner remnants
• Putin offers African countries Russia’s ‘total support’

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.

Debbie Nelson, Eminem’s mother, whose difficult relationship with her son was reflected in much of his earlier music, has died at the age of 69.

The rapper’s representative, Dennis Dennehy, confirmed his mother’s death to US media.

The cause of death has yet to be confirmed but Nelson was known to have lung cancer.

Eminem is yet to comment publicly on his mother’s death.

The fraught relationship with his mother was most starkly laid bare on one of his biggest hits, Cleanin’ Out My Closet.

In the 2002 song, Eminem furiously accuses her of drug abuse and neglect.

“Witnessin’ your mama poppin’ prescription pills in the kitchen” he says, before later adding “keep telling yourself that you was a mom”.

Nelson sued her son for defamation in 1999 over another of his hits, My Name Is, but later said it was her lawyer’s idea and settled out of court for $25,000 (£19,000).

The rapper, who battled his own problems with prescription drugs, connected his own experiences of addiction with his mother’s, stating “that’s why I’m on what I’m on ’cause I’m my mom” on the 2009 track My Mom.

In 2008, Nelson wrote a memoir titled My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem, in which she said she was “heartbroken” over her son’s claims about her.

However, the toxicity in their relationship appeared to simmer down over the years.

In his 2013 track Headlights, the rapper showed remorse for some of his earlier lyrics.

“I’m sorry, Mama, for Cleanin’ Out My Closet,” he rapped. “At the time I was angry. Rightfully? Maybe so. Never meant to take it that far, though.”

They appear to have remained mostly estranged for the rest of her life, but when Eminem was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, she publicly congratulated him.

“Marshall, I want to say, I could not let this day go by without congratulating you,” she said in a video that was later deleted.

“I love you very much. I knew you’d get there. It’s been a long ride. I’m very, very proud of you.”

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 Bangladesh, 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.

After years of ignoring pleas to sign up to child protection schemes, the controversial messaging app Telegram has agreed to work with an internationally recognised body to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is used by major online services to help them detect and remove CSAM, and prevent its spread.

Telegram had repeatedly refused to engage with it or any similar scheme.

But, four months after its founder Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris for Telegram’s alleged failure to moderate extreme content, the platform has announced a U-turn.

The IWF has described Telegram’s decision as “transformational” but warned it was the first step in a “much longer journey” for the app.

“By joining the IWF, Telegram can begin deploying our world-leading tools to help make sure this material cannot be shared on the service,” said Derek Ray-Hill, Interim CEO at the IWF.

Telegram is used by around 950 million people worldwide and has previously positioned itself as an app focussed on its users’ privacy rather than the policy norms prioritised by other global social media companies.

But reporting from the BBC and other news organisations highlighted criminals using the app to advertise drugs as well as offer cybercrime and fraud services and, most recently, CSAM.

It led one expert to brand it “the dark web in your pocket.”

In August, its billionaire owner was detained at an airport north of Paris.

Mr Durov is accused of a failure to co-operate with law enforcement over drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud.

French judges have barred the 40-year-old from leaving France pending further investigations.

The company maintains that his arrest is unfair, and that he should not be held liable for what users do on the platform.

Nonetheless, Telegram has since announced a series of changes to the way it operates, including:

• Announcing IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate its rules will be handed over to police in response to valid legal requests
• Disabling features like “people nearby” which it admitted had issues with bots and scammers
• Publishing regular transparency reports about how much content is taken down – a standard industry practice it had previously refused to comply with

Mr Durov has also vowed to “turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise”.

The partnership with the IWF appears to be the latest step in that process.

The IWF is one of a few organisations in the world that is legally able to search for child sexual content to get it taken down.

Its ever-evolving list of known abuse content is used by websites to detect and block matches to stop it spreading.

Telegram says that before becoming a member of IWF it removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of abuse material each month using its own systems. The IWF membership will strengthen its mechanisms, the company said.

The app is marketed as a fully end-to-end encrypted messaging service – meaning only the sender and recipient of a message can read it – like WhatsApp and Signal.

But in fact the majority of communication is done with standard encryption, raising questions about how secure from hacking and interception it is.

Mr Durov, who was born in Russia and now lives in Dubai, has citizenship in Russia, France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St Kitts and Nevis.

Telegram is particularly popular in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet Union states as well as Iran.

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 demurs. “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.

Officials in Pennsylvania are searching underground for a woman who is believed to have fallen into a 30-ft (9m) deep sinkhole that may have opened up below her feet as she was searching for her lost cat.

Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was reported missing by family members after she went out to search for the cat on Monday night.

Officials who arrived first to the scene nearly fell into the same hole, which they say is connected to an abandoned coal mine.

Microphones and cameras have been lowered into the hole, but Mrs Pollard has yet to be found. Officials say their cameras spotted what appeared to be a shoe.

Mrs Pollard’s car was found parked behind a restaurant in the town of Marguerite, 40 miles (65km) east of Pittsburgh, early Tuesday morning.

Her five-year-old granddaughter was inside the car, officials said, adding that the girl was cold but not hurt.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Stephen Limani told reporters that the hole is about the size of a city manhole cover.

• What are sinkholes and what causes them?

“It was about the size of manhole cover but the pocket underneath is significantly larger, and trying to send cameras down there, we determined it’s roughly about 30ft before you see a lot of debris,” Mr Limani said.

Officials believe that the sinkhole opened up as Mrs Pollard was standing on top of it while looking for her cat named Pepper. They hope that she is sheltering in an underground “void”.

“The sinkhole, it appears that it was most likely created during the time, unfortunately, that Mrs Pollard was walking around,” Mr Limani said.

“We don’t see any evidence of any time where that hole would have been there prior to deciding to walk around and look for her cat.”

More than 100 people were assisting in the rescue on Wednesday, he added. Mining experts from the state government are also on the scene, and officials have dug an additional hole in order to be able to access the site, which they fear is unstable.

Temperatures, which have been below freezing the last several days, are much warmer inside the hole than they are at the surface. Authorities have also not detected any dangerous gases that are sometimes found in abandoned mines.

Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Company Chief John Bacha told reporters that the shoe likely found does not appear to date back to when the mine was still operational.

“It’s a modern shoe – not something you’d find in a coal mine in Marguerite in 1940,” he said, according to NBC News.

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 had 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.

Now, lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach him over what the country’s main opposition has called his “insurrectionary behaviour”.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

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 normal.

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 alleged 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.

The opposition Democratic Party has moved to impeach Yoon.

Parliament will have to vote by Saturday on whether to do this.

The impeachment process is relatively straightforward in South Korea. To succeed, it would require support from more than two-thirds of the 300-member National Assembly – at least 200 votes.

Once an impeachment is approved, a trial is held before the Constitutional Court – a nine-member council that oversees South Korea’s branches of government.

If six of the court’s members vote to sustain the impeachment, the president is removed from office.

If this happens, it wouldn’t be the first time that a South Korean president has been impeached. In 2016, then-President Park Geun-hye was impeached after being accused of helping a friend commit extortion.

In 2004 another president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached and suspended for two months. The Constitutional Court later restored him to office.

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

Many see this week’s events 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.”

A chaotic night in South Korea produced scenes most thought were consigned to the nation’s history.

One in particular has caught the attention of many: a woman confronting soldiers who were sent to block lawmakers from entering the National Assembly.

Footage of Ahn Gwi-ryeong, 35, a spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party, grabbing the weapon of a soldier during the commotion has been shared widely online.

“I didn’t think… I just knew we had to stop this,” she told the BBC Korean Service.

Ahn made her way to the assembly building as soldiers descended on it, shortly after the president declared martial law across South Korea.

Like many in South Korea’s younger generation, the word “martial law” was foreign to her. It was last declared in 1979.

When Ahn first heard the news, she admitted “a sense of panic took over”.

• Fear, fury and triumph: Six hours that shook South Korea
• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

When martial law is declared, political activities like rallies and demonstrations are banned, strikes and labour actions are prohibited, and media and publishing activities are controlled by the authorities. Violators can be arrested or detained without a warrant.

Shortly after the declaration of martial law, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung called on lawmakers to gather in the National Assembly and hold a vote to annul the declaration.

Arriving at the assembly building just past 23:00 local time, Ahn recalled turning off office lights to avoid detection as helicopters circled overhead.

By the time she reached the main building, soldiers were engaged in a stand-off with officials, aides and citizens.

She said: “When I saw the armed soldiers… I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

Ahn and her colleagues were desperate to prevent the troops from entering the main building, where the vote would be held.

They locked the revolving doors from the inside and piled furniture and other heavy objects in front of the doors.

When the military began advancing, Ahn stepped forward.

“Honestly, I was scared at first,” she said, adding: “But seeing such confrontation, I thought, ‘I can’t stay silent’.”

The assembly passed the resolution calling for the lifting of martial law at around 01:00. All 190 members who were present voted to repeal it.

At 04:26, President Yoon announced he was reversing his decision.

After the chaos subsided, Ahn slept for a short time inside the assembly building.

She continued: “I was actually a little scared to go outside the assembly in the morning because there didn’t seem to be any taxis running, and after such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality.”

During her conversation with the BBC, Ahn was wearing the same black turtleneck and leather jacket she had been wearing in the footage from the night before.

At times, she was overcome with emotion.

“It’s heartbreaking and frustrating that this is happening in 21st century Korea,” she said.

The head of US insurance company UnitedHealthcare has been gunned down in New York City.

Chief executive Brian Thompson was fatally shot in the chest just before 07:00 EST (midday GMT) on Wednesday outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where he had been scheduled to speak at an investor conference later in the day.

The 50-year-old was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, officials said.

A suspect fled the scene and remains at large, the New York Police Department said.

Thompson appeared to be targeted in the attack, with the suspect waiting for him outside wearing a ski mask and cream jacket, police said.

Investigators said they have video footage of the shooting, but they did not know the suspect’s motive. Nothing was taken from the victim, they added.

Thompson was named chief executive of UnitedHealthcare in April 2021. He earned $10.2m (£8m) in the role last year.

He started at the health insurance provider in 2004, and has held multiple leadership roles, including CEO of the company’s government programmes division.

UnitedHealthcare is the largest private insurer in the US.

Its parent company, UnitedHealth Group, quickly cancelled its investor conference after the shooting, according to US media.

“We’re dealing with a very serious medical situation,” UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said at the event.

The BBC has contacted UnitedHealthcare for comment.

In a statement, a Hilton Hotel spokesperson said the company was “deeply saddened by this morning’s events in the area and our thoughts are with all affected by the tragedy”.

South Korea’s opposition lawmakers have begun impeachment proceedings against President Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed attempt to impose martial law.

The country woke up to an uncertain reality on Wednesday after a night of unprecedented scenes which saw Yoon unexpectedly impose martial law, 190 lawmakers gather to vote it down, and a sudden reversal of the decision around six hours later.

After introducing the impeachment motion, South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party condemned Yoon’s initial martial law declaration as “insurrectionary behaviour”.

Parliament will have to vote on whether to impeach Yoon by Saturday.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

“We can no longer allow democracy to collapse. The lives and safety of the people must be protected,” said Kim Yong-jin, a member of the Democratic party’s central committee.

The Party also said it wants to charge Yoon with “crimes of rebellion”.

It named Minister Kim Yong-hyun and Interior Minister Lee Sang-min as “key participants” of the martial law declaration, saying it also wanted them charged alongside Yoon.

Schools, banks and government offices in Seoul were operating as usual on Wednesday, but protests continued throughout the city demanding the president resign.

“Arrest Yoon Suk-yeol,” some angry citizens chanted as they filled the streets.

South Korea’s largest labour group, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, vowed to go on indefinite strike until the president steps down.

On Wednesday, the country’s defence minister Kim Yong-hyun tendered his resignation and said he would take full responsibility for the martial law. He apologised to the public for spreading confusion and causing distress, the ministry said in a statement.

Yoon’s senior aides, including chief of staff Chung Jin-suk and national security adviser Shin Won-sik, also tendered their resignations.

Whether their resignations will be accepted by Yoon is unclear.

The reversal of the shock order early on Wednesday came after dramatic scenes overnight.

Hundreds of troops stormed the parliament after Yoon declared martial law, as military helicopters circled the site.

Some opposition lawmakers broke barricades and climb fences to get to the voting chamber. Woo Won-Shik, the speaker of the National Assembly, told BBC Korea he rushed to parliament thinking “we must protect democracy” and scaled the fence.

Eventually, 190 lawmakers evaded police lines and forced themselves inside to vote down the order.

Thousands of protesters also arrived at the gates of the National Assembly. One woman was captured on video grabbing a soldier’s gun.

“I was scared at first…but seeing such confrontation, I thought, ‘I can’t stay silent’,” Democratic Party spokeswoman Ahn Gwi-ryeong told the BBC.

Yoon’s second announcement – that he was reversing his earlier order – was met with cheers from protesters outside parliament.

Yoon, who won office by the slimmest margin in Korean history and whose approval ratings have hit a record low, said he declared martial law because he was worried about North Korean communist forces taking power in the country.

The presidential office has defended the initial decision as “strictly within [the country’s] constitutional framework”. It said on Wednesday that the announcement was timed to “minimise damage” to the economy and people’s lives.

South Korea’s allies had expressed alarm at the events, with US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell sharing “grave concern”.

The US and Nato chief Mark Rutte welcomed the rescinded order on Wednesday. Rutte said it showed a commitment to the rule of law and affirmed the alliance’s “iron-clad” relationship with South Korea.

Once an impeachment bill is proposed, two-thirds of South Korea’s 300-member National Assembly must vote to impeach – that translates to at least 200 votes. The vote must take place within 72 hours.

Once the impeachment is approved, the president will immediately be suspended from office, while the prime minister becomes acting president.

A trial will then be held before the Constitutional Court, a nine-member council that oversees South Korea’s branches of government.

If six of the court’s members vote to sustain the impeachment, the president will be removed from office.

In 2016, then-President Park Guen-hye was impeached after she was charged with bribery, abusing state power and leaking state secrets.

In 2004, another South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached and suspended for two months. The Constitutional Court later restored him to office.

If Yoon resigns or is impeached, the government will have to hold an election within 60 days for the country to vote for its new leader, who will start a fresh five-year term.

Under South Korea’s constitution, the president has the authority to declare martial law during war, armed conflict, or other national emergencies.

The last time martial law was declared in the country was in 1979, when the country’s long-time military dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated in a coup.

A group of military leaders, led by General Chun Doo-hwan, declared martial law in 1980, banning political activities and arresting dissidents.

Hundreds of people died amid a crackdown on protesters before martial law was lifted in 1981.

Martial law has not been invoked since South Korea became a parliamentary democracy in 1987.

Yoon pulled the trigger on Tuesday, saying he was trying to save the country from “anti-state forces”.

But some analysts have described the move as his bid to thwart political opposition.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election in April this year – his government has not been able to pass the laws it wanted and has been reduced instead to vetoing bills the opposition has proposed.

The president’s approval ratings have hit record lows of 17% this year, as he and his wife Kim Keon-hee have been mired in a spate of scandals.

Donald Trump’s nominee for defence secretary says he still has the president-elect’s backing after reports suggested his nomination may be in jeopardy over allegations of misconduct.

Trump is considering replacing Pete Hegseth with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the BBC’s partner CBS News reported, after Hegseth’s nomination came under intense scrutiny.

Since Trump nominated the former Fox News host, questions about Hegseth’s qualifications have been raised – and a historical sexual assault allegation has surfaced.

Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing, and was never arrested or charged.

Speaking to CBS on Wednesday, Hegseth did not address the DeSantis reports directly and said he had earlier spoken with Trump.

“He said ‘keep going, keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way,'” Hegseth said.

In a post on X on Wednesday morning, Hegseth accused “the Left” of trying to smear him with “fake” stories.

His nomination is the subject of growing scrutiny by members of his own party – including US senators who have the power to confirm or deny his appointment when are asked to vote on it.

“I think some of these articles are very disturbing,” Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS on Tuesday. “He obviously has a chance to defend himself here, but some of this stuff is going to be difficult.”

DeSantis, who was elected Florida governor in 2018, did not reply to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Trump declined to say whether DeSantis was under consideration for the post.

DeSantis ran against Trump in the Republican primary, and before dropping out, he was considered by some to be “Trump 2.0” – a Republican who could deliver Trump’s populist agenda without baggage.

The latest speculation – first reported by the Wall Street Journal – comes as Hegseth meets members of Congress this week to discuss the job and drum up support.

A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Hegseth was an infantry platoon leader in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

In nominating Hegseth, who is also a former Fox News TV host, Trump highlighted the former soldier’s education, and his military experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – our military will be great again, and America will never back down,” Trump wrote.

But even as a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 44-year-old does not have the extensive experience typical for the cabinet position. He also would be the second-youngest person to serve in the office.

In addition, since his nomination, a police report detailing accusations of an alleged sexual assault in 2017 has surfaced.

The woman quoted in the complaint said that Hegseth, then a Fox host, took her phone and blocked the door to a hotel room while at a Republican conference in California.

Hegseth denies any wrongdoing, saying the encounter was consensual.

• Police report details sexual assault allegations against Hegseth
• Hegseth paid accuser to save Fox News job, but denies claim
• Who else has joined Trump’s team so far?

Some of Hegseth’s past comments about how he might change the defence department have also raised eyebrows.

On a recent podcast, Hegseth said the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – the top military leader in the US – should be fired, along with any military leader “involved in any of the DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] woke [expletive]”.

He also has argued that women should not serve in combat roles because this practice had not made the military “more effective” or “more lethal”.

There is increasing scepticism about Hegseth’s chances of getting enough votes to be confirmed by the Senate, CBS reports.

At least four Republican senators would be likely to vote against him if they voted today, two sources told the news outlet.

Republicans are expected to have a 53-seat majority in the Senate, which must confirm cabinet-level positions in Trump’s new team. Losing four Republican votes would be enough to sink Hegseth’s nomination, provided Democrats and independents also vote against him.

Some Washington lawmakers have questioned Hegseth’s credentials for overseeing the complex bureaucracy in the job for which he has been lined up.

“I confess I didn’t know who he was until 20 minutes ago,” said Representative Adam Smith, top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “And he certainly doesn’t seem to have any background whatsoever in (Department of Defence) policy.”

John Bolton, who served as national security adviser during Trump’s first presidency, told the BBC that the post of defence secretary should never be a “loyalty appointment”.

“The question is: will he be a yes man to Donald Trump, or will he behave professionally and with courage the way he did when he was in uniform?” Bolton asked.

Hegseth is not Trump’s first controversial appointment before he returns to the White House.

Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who Trump nominated for US attorney general, also faced scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct against him – which he denied – that were the subject of a congressional report.

Gaetz eventually withdrew his nomination in late November, saying that the controversy against him “was unfairly becoming a distraction” from the work of the incoming Trump administration.

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• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• How undocumented migrants feel about deportations
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• The rise and fall of Matt Gaetz, in eight wild days

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

One of the biggest questions on people’s minds in Seoul on Wednesday is: what was the president thinking?

In a late-night address that threw South Korea’s parliament into chaos and tested the country’s commitment to democracy, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared that he was imposing martial law.

Less than 24 hours later, his political future is on the brink, with protests on the streets and impeachment proceedings against him under way.

So, what happened?

• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Martial law was last introduced in South Korea in 1979, sparked by the assassination of the then-military ruler in a coup. Today’s South Korea, however, is a far cry from that, and the repressive years that followed.

It is a stable, prosperous democracy – yet Yoon claimed he was introducing military rule to save the country from dark forces. He called the opposition-controlled National Assembly a “den of criminals” that was “attempting to paralyse” the government.

Hours later, he was forced to back down as furious protesters and lawmakers gathered outside the National Assembly – the MPs made it inside and voted down the order.

His shock declaration was, in fact, a bid to get the kind of grip on power that has eluded him since he won the presidency in 2022 by the slimmest margin in South Korea’s history.

And barely a month has passed since then without controversy.

In late 2022, he was criticised for his government’s response to the horrific crowd crush during Halloween, which killed 159 young people in Seoul.

Then there were calls to investigate his wife after she was caught accepting a Dior handbag as a gift – a scandal that is always hovering close to the headlines.

In April this year, his party was defeated in parliamentary elections, leaving him in a lame-duck position. This week alone he has been locked in a political battle with opposition lawmakers over the country’s budget.

Even before he told South Koreans he was suspending their rights, his approval rate was below 20%.

There are some clues in Yoon’s address as to what he was thinking.

What was immediately evident was that he was frustrated with the opposition-controlled parliament. In his Tuesday night address, he called the assembly where they exercise their mandate a “monster that destroys the liberal democratic system”.

The reference to a threat from North Korea and “anti-state forces” suggests he was also hoping to garner support from the kind of right-wing conservatives in South Korea who label liberal politicians “communists”.

But the president misread his country and its politics.

His declaration was a chilling reminder of a period many in South Korea have tried to forget. On television, newsreaders were seen shaking.

In 1980, when pro-democracy activists, many of them students, took to the streets of the city of Gwangju to protest at martial law, the army responded with violence and around 200 people were killed.

While martial law lasted three years – 1979 to 1981 – there had been military rule for decades before, and it continued until 1987. And in those years South Korea was rife with suspicion, when anti-government activists were dubbed Communist spies and arrested or killed.

Yet, during his election campaign Yoon praised authoritarian general Chun Doo-hwan and said he had managed government affairs well – except for his suppression of pro-democracy activists.

He was later forced to apologise and said he “certainly did not defend or praise Chun’s government”.

But it does provide some insight into the president’s view of what constitutes power.

There have been rumours in South Korean political circles for months that Yoon was considering imposing martial law. In September, opposition leaders and party members declared it was a possibility. Most dismissed it as too extreme an option.

But he may well have been driven by something more: the fear of prosecution.

Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female leader, was jailed after being found guilty of abuse of power and corruption. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was investigated over allegations he was involved in stock price manipulation. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption and bribery in 2020.

Another former president, Roh Moo-hyun, took his own life in 2009 while under investigation for allegedly receiving millions in bribes.

In South Korea, prosecutions have almost become a political tool – a threat for the opposition to wield. It may partly explain why President Yoon took such drastic action.

Whatever his motives, Yoon’s career will struggle to recover from this. He is also facing calls to resign, and some local media reported that members of his own People Power Party were discussing expelling him from the party.

South Korea is a stable democracy – but it is a noisy one. And it refused to accept another authoritarian diktat.

President Yoon will now face the judgement of a parliament and a people after they rejected the most serious challenge to the country’s democracy since the 1980s.

Nineteen-year-old Hwang was watching the protests in Georgia on Tuesday night’s news when the images on TV suddenly changed – the spotlight was on his country after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol announced martial law.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said the student, who wished to be identified only by his surname.

By Wednesday afternoon, he was among the protesters standing before the National Assembly, still stunned about what had happened the night before.

“It’s important for me to be here to show that we are against what Yoon tried to do,” Hwang said.

In a little less than six hours, Yoon was forced to walk back his shock announcement after lawmakers scrambled to block it.

But those were chaotic hours, sparking protests, fear and uncertainty in the country that had elected him.

On Tuesday night, at 23:00 local time (14:00 GMT) President Yoon, seated in front of blue creaseless curtains, made an unexpected address to the nation.

He said he was imposing martial law to protect the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea. The embattled leader is in a deadlock over a budget bill, dogged by corruption scandals and investigations into his cabinet members.

What followed was a sleepless night for Seoul.

Shortly after Yoon’s announcement, police lined the white metal gates outside the National Assembly building in the heart of Seoul, the building that the country’s tourism authorities have framed as “the symbol of Korean democracy”.

The military then announced that all parliamentary activity was suspended under martial law. But neither that nor the heavy security presence stopped thousands from gathering in front of the assembly in concern and fury.

It is easy to forget that South Korea – now a vibrant democracy – had its last brush with authoritarianism in the not-too-distant past – it only emerged from military rule in 1987. Martial law was last imposed in 1979.

This was “a move I never expected to see in the 21st century in South Korea,” university student Juye Hong told BBC World Service’s OS programme from Seoul.

Soon after Yoon’s shock announcement, the opposition’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, hosted a live stream urging people to assemble at the National Assembly and protest there.

He also asked his fellow lawmakers to make their way to the assembly to vote down the order.

Hundreds of South Koreans responded.

Tensions rose quickly as a sea of dark, puffy winter coats pushed up against lines of police in neon jackets, chanting “no to martial law”.

And as vehicles arrived with military units, crowds blocked them. One woman lay defiantly between the wheels of a vehicle.

In stark contrast, there was a façade of normalcy across the rest of Seoul. Still, confusion enveloped the city.

“The streets look normal, people here are certainly bewildered,” John Nilsson-Wright, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge, told BBC World Service from Seoul.

The policeman he spoke to was “as mystified as I am,” he added.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

It was a sleepless night for some. “At first I was excited at the thought of not going to school today,” 15-year-old Kwon Hoo told the BBC in Seoul on Wednesday. “But then overwhelmingly the sense of fear settled in, that kept me up all night.”

“No words can express how afraid I am that things might turn out like North Korea for our people,” a South Korean who did not want to be named told BBC OS.

Meanwhile, word was spreading that special forces had been deployed to the assembly building. Helicopters were heard overhead as they circled the skies before landing on the parliament’s roof.

Reporters jostled in the crowd outside the gates, clicking away with their cameras.

As concerns grew that the government might restrict the media, journalists in Seoul stayed in touch with one another, exchanging advice on how to stay safe.

Ahn Gwi-ryeong, the 35-year-old spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party found herself facing down soldiers at gunpoint. A video of the moment, where she is tugging at the barrel of a soldier’s rifle, has since gone viral.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything intellectual or rational, I was just like, ‘We have to stop this, if we don’t stop this, there’s nothing else,’’ she told the BBC.

“To be honest, I was a bit scared at first when I first saw the martial law troops. I thought, ‘Is this something that can happen in 21st century Korea, especially in the National Assembly?”

“After such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality,” she added, recalling the previous night. “I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

As Ahn was confronting the soldiers, the clock was ticking for opposition lawmakers, who rushed to get into the assembly to block the order. Once that happened, the president would have to withdraw it.

But first, MPs and their aides had to get inside. Some crawled through the legs of security forces, others shoved and screamed at armed soldiers; many frantically clambered over fences and walls.

Lee Seong-yoon from the Democratic Party told the BBC that he had to scale a 1.5m (4.9ft)-high fence to enter the building, with the police blocking him even after he had shown them identification that proved he was a lawmaker.

Another opposition MP, Hong Keewon, said that protesters helped to hoist him over the wall. He had been asleep when Yoon made the announcement – when his wife woke him, he raced to parliament.

“Democracy is strong here,” Hong said. “The military needs to listen to us, to the constitution, and not to the president.”

Lawmakers who made it into the building huddled together, only slightly calmer than the people outside. Hastily, they barricaded the entrances with whatever they could find: cushioned benches, long tables, sofas.

Some tried to push back soldiers who had made their way into the assembly building.

By 01:00 local time, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik submitted a resolution requesting martial law to be lifted.

With that, less than two hours after Yoon’s shock declaration, 190 lawmakers who gathered, including some from Yoon’s party, voted unanimously to block it.

After the vote, opposition leader Lee told reporters that this was “a decisive opportunity to break the vicious cycle and return to normal society”.

By 04:30, Yoon was back on TV, in front of the same blue curtains, saying he would withdraw martial law. But this would only be made official, he said, when he could assemble enough of his cabinet to lift the order.

The announcement was met with cheers outside the assembly. In the hours before dawn, more people emerged from the building, from behind the barricades they had haphazardly put together.

With holes in the doors and broken windows, the stately building already bears scars of the night when South Koreans saved their democracy.

Schools, local businesses and banks opened as usual on Wednesday morning – and flights continued to land uninterrupted in South Korea’s buzzing capital.

But public anger – and the political fallout – was not spent.

As the sun rose on Wednesday, thousands gathered to call for Yoon’s resignation. The president is also facing impeachment proceedings.

“We are a strong democracy…But Korean people want to be safe – President Yoon must resign or be impeached,” Yang Bu-nam, a Democratic Party politician, told the BBC.

Police in India say they have reached out for information to Elon Musk’s Starlink after they allegedly found drug smugglers using its satellite internet device to navigate Indian waters and reach the country’s shore.

Starlink claims to provide superfast broadband “almost anywhere on Earth”.

But it does not yet have permission to provide coverage in India or India’s territorial waters.

Last week, the Indian Coast Guard said they found the device on a Myanmar boat they seized near the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

This was the biggest such drug bust by the Coast Guard, authorities said. They reportedly seized 6,000kg (13,227 lb) of methamphetamine from the boat. Police estimated it was worth $4.25bn (£3.35bn).

Police in the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar say they have arrested six Myanmar nationals in the case.

Starlink has been aiming to launch services in India since 2021, but regulatory hurdles have delayed its arrival. The company also faces stiff competition from Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio.

Hargobinder S Dhaliwal, police chief of the Andaman islands, said last week’s incident put authorities on alert because the use of Starlink’s mini device had bypassed legal channels.

The company’s website describes the device as “a compact, portable kit that can easily fit in a backpack”.

The drug smugglers started using Starlink from the time their journey began from Myanmar, Mr Dhaliwal said in a press statement on Monday.

“They directly operated [phones] with satellite, creating a Wi-Fi hotspot,” he added.

Andaman police say they have since written to Starlink, asking for details of the device, including who bought it, when and how it’s been used since its purchase.

They are also investigating the involvement of any local or foreign syndicates in transporting the drug.

The BBC has contacted Starlink for their response.

Chiung Yao, arguably the world’s most popular Chinese language romance novelist, has died in an apparent suicide.

The 86-year-old’s body was found in her home in New Taipei City on Wednesday, local media report. Emergency services said she took her own life, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

Chiung Yao started writing at 18 and published more than 60 novels, many of which were adapted into movies and TV series and remained popular for decades.

She was also a successful screenwriter and producer. One of her most famous works was the TV drama My Fair Princess, which launched the careers of big name stars.

She was born Chen Che in Sichuan, China in 1938. Chiung Yao is her pen name.

A post on her Facebook account on Wednesday read: “Goodbye, my loved ones. I feel lucky that I have met and known you in this life”. It was not immediately clear if the post was published before or after her body was found.

Chiung Yao asked young people “not to give up on life easily” and to confront death only when “you live until 86 or 87”. She asked her followers not to be sad for her.

She has not been active in recent years. However, she made headlines in 2017 after her dispute with her stepchildren over how to care for her then ailing husband came into public view.

Chiung Yao spent part of her childhood in mainland China as her family moved across the country during the Sino-Japanese War.

The family moved to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland.

Chiung Yao’s debut novel Outside The Window, which was inspired by her own love story with her high school teacher, was hugely popular.

Her TV drama My Fair Princess, a Cinderella story set in the 18th century Qing Dynasty, is regarded as one of the most popular Chinese-language drama shows of all time.

It launched the careers of big names in entertainment, including Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing. Fan would go on to become one of the biggest stars in China, until she was fined for tax fraud in 2018.

The show’s main actors, Ruby Lin and Zhao Wei, became household names to Chinese audiences.

Lin has remained active as an actor and producer in Taiwan. However Wei has been silent in recent years after her billionaire friend, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, got into trouble with the authorities in Beijing.

Officials in Pennsylvania are searching underground for a woman who is believed to have fallen into a 30-ft (9m) deep sinkhole that may have opened up below her feet as she was searching for her lost cat.

Elizabeth Pollard, 64, was reported missing by family members after she went out to search for the cat on Monday night.

Officials who arrived first to the scene nearly fell into the same hole, which they say is connected to an abandoned coal mine.

Microphones and cameras have been lowered into the hole, but Mrs Pollard has yet to be found. Officials say their cameras spotted what appeared to be a shoe.

Mrs Pollard’s car was found parked behind a restaurant in the town of Marguerite, 40 miles (65km) east of Pittsburgh, early Tuesday morning.

Her five-year-old granddaughter was inside the car, officials said, adding that the girl was cold but not hurt.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Stephen Limani told reporters that the hole is about the size of a city manhole cover.

• What are sinkholes and what causes them?

“It was about the size of manhole cover but the pocket underneath is significantly larger, and trying to send cameras down there, we determined it’s roughly about 30ft before you see a lot of debris,” Mr Limani said.

Officials believe that the sinkhole opened up as Mrs Pollard was standing on top of it while looking for her cat named Pepper. They hope that she is sheltering in an underground “void”.

“The sinkhole, it appears that it was most likely created during the time, unfortunately, that Mrs Pollard was walking around,” Mr Limani said.

“We don’t see any evidence of any time where that hole would have been there prior to deciding to walk around and look for her cat.”

More than 100 people were assisting in the rescue on Wednesday, he added. Mining experts from the state government are also on the scene, and officials have dug an additional hole in order to be able to access the site, which they fear is unstable.

Temperatures, which have been below freezing the last several days, are much warmer inside the hole than they are at the surface. Authorities have also not detected any dangerous gases that are sometimes found in abandoned mines.

Pleasant Valley Volunteer Fire Company Chief John Bacha told reporters that the shoe likely found does not appear to date back to when the mine was still operational.

“It’s a modern shoe – not something you’d find in a coal mine in Marguerite in 1940,” he said, according to NBC News.