The South Korean president, Yoon Suk Yeol, could put citizens in “great danger” if he is not suspended, the head of the ruling party said on Friday, increasing the likelihood that parliament will vote to impeach Yoon over Tuesday’s failed martial law declaration.

“[If] President Yoon continues to hold the office of the presidency, there is a significant risk that extreme actions similar to the martial law declaration could be repeated, which could put the Republic of Korea and its citizens in great danger,” the head of the People Power party, Han Dong-hoon, told an emergency party leadership meeting.

Yoon shocked the country and his own party on Tuesday when he announced he was imposing martial law in order to root out “anti-state forces” and overcome obstructionist political opponents.

He reversed course about six hours later after parliament, including some members of his party, voted to oppose the decree.

Han said he had confirmed that Yoon had directed the arrest of key political figures during the brief martial law period.

The main opposition Democratic party has scheduled an impeachment vote for the president on Saturday evening, and the national police have launched an investigation into Yoon after an opposition party and activists filed allegations of insurrection.

On Thursday, the ruling party said it was against impeachment, but Han suggested that stance may be shifting in light of “credible evidence” that Yoon had intended to arrest and detain political leaders at Gwacheon, just south of Seoul.

“I said yesterday that I would try not to pass this impeachment in order to prevent damage to the people and supporters caused by the unprepared chaos, but I believe that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s immediate suspension of office is necessary to protect the Republic of Korea and its people in light of the newly revealed facts,” Han said.

He did not explicitly call for impeachment or respond to reporters when asked for clarification.

“Considering the newly emerging facts, I believe that a swift suspension of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s duties is necessary to safeguard the Republic of Korea and its people,” Han said.

Han said Yoon had not taken any personnel actions against military officials who had “illegally intervened”.

“Furthermore, he does not acknowledge that this illegal martial law is wrong,” he said.

Han was previously regarded as a close associate of Yoon as they spent years working together as prosecutors and he served as Yoon’s first justice minister. But after Han entered party politics and became PPP leader, their ties soured badly.

Han leads a minority faction within the ruling party, and 18 lawmakers in his faction voted with opposition lawmakers to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree.

The PPP was holding an enlarged meeting with rank-and-file lawmakers to discuss Yoon’s impeachment.

Cho Kyoung-tae, a senior ruling party lawmaker who supports Yoon’s impeachment, told reporters that each party lawmaker must decide “whether they want to take the people’s side or become collaborators of martial law forces.”

Others however said they did not want a repeat of the 2016 impeachment of then-president Park Geun-hye, which triggered the implosion of the conservative Grand National party and a victory by liberals in presidential and general elections.

Yoon Sang-hyun, a five-time ruling party lawmaker, said he still opposed impeachment.

“We cannot impeach the president tomorrow and hand over the regime to Lee Jae-Myung’s Democratic party. It is not for the sake of protecting President Yoon Suk Yeol, but for the sake of the Republic of Korea’s system and our children’s future. I cannot participate in the impeachment of the president tomorrow,” Yoon told reporters.

Ahn Gwi-ryeong, a spokesperson for the opposition Democratic party, said she believed the people had already psychologically impeached Yoon.

The Democratic party leader, Lee Jae-myung, said the declaration of martial law was a rebellion waged by the president in order to maintain or extend his power.

“It’s an act of insurrection,” he said. “It’s a pro-military coup.”

Fearing another attempt to declare martial law, opposition lawmakers were rotating through parliament’s plenary session hall to block any such attempt, a Democratic party official said.

“While there may still be a few ruling party members supporting Yoon Suk Yeol, it seems that Han’s statements today are significantly influenced by the gravity of the situation, particularly the mobilisation of intelligence agencies to arrest politicians,” Shin Yul, professor of political science at Myongji University, told Agence France-Presse.

“It appears that Han and the party leaders have concluded there is actually a significant possibility that President Yoon may declare a second martial law.”

With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

A South Korean party spokesperson seen grappling with a rifle-wielding soldier in a video that went viral as a symbol of defiance against martial law has insisted that she was not especially brave.

President Yoon Suk Yeol was forced to abandon his declaration of martial law this week after 190 lawmakers defied a contingent of soldiers in helmets and body armour and voted unanimously to reject it.

Footage of the lawmakers’ aides tussling with the troops to prevent them entering the main hall has become a symbol of public rejection of the attempt to impose military rule.

Images went viral showing Ahn Gwi-ryeong, 35, a former TV anchor who serves as spokesperson for the opposition Democratic party, grappling with a soldier and grabbing hold of his gun. One video was viewed more than 1.2m times on YouTube as of Thursday evening.

“My only thought was that I just needed to stop them. I pushed them away, shook them off, and did everything I could,” she told Reuters.

“A lot of people were fighting against martial law troops so I just thought I also had to stop them.”

As lawmakers were gathered on Tuesday, their aides blocked entrances with furniture, formed human chains and sprayed troops with fire extinguishers. Two and a half hours after the president declared martial law, 190 lawmakers had made their way to the parliament and unanimously voted to block it.

Ahn can be seen shouting at the soldier in the clip: “Let go! Don’t you feel the shame?” After she grabs his rifle, the soldier steps back.

Asked if she knew it would gain that much attention, Ahn said: “There were many people braver than me who stood up to the martial law troops. There were people who even managed to stop armoured vehicles outside. So, I don’t think my actions were particularly special.”

The commander of the martial law troops said on Thursday he had no intention to use firearms against the public. The country’s vice defence minister said no live ammunition was provided to the troops.

South Korean opposition lawmakers plan to vote this weekend to impeach the president.

Ahn said: “I think that the people have already psychologically impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol. Who could trust a president declaring martial law almost like a child playing games or entrust the nation to such leadership?”

South Korea’s opposition parties have initiated impeachment proceedings against the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, after his shock declaration of martial law on Tuesday night that was withdrawn within six hours after united opposition from parliament.

The dramatic events, which saw military troops entering the National Assembly before martial law was repealed, marked the most serious challenge to South Korean democracy since the 1980s. Now, with public opinion firmly behind them, opposition lawmakers are moving swiftly towards an impeachment vote.

A poll shows 73.6% of South Koreans support impeaching Yoon, with 69.5% believing his actions amount to insurrection. Support for his removal crosses all traditional political divides, with majorities favouring impeachment even in some conservative strongholds.

The parliamentary process began when opposition parties filed their motion on 4 December citing constitutional violations. After being reported to the National Assembly in the early hours of Thursday, the vote is expected on Saturday. To pass, the motion requires a two-thirds majority – at least 200 votes in the 300-seat parliament.

The opposition coalition holds 192 seats, meaning they need at least eight ruling conservative People Power party members to break ranks. That party’s leader, Han Dong-hoon, has set his party line against impeachment, though some members have previously shown willingness to break with Yoon on other issues.

If the National Assembly passes the motion, Yoon would be immediately suspended from duties, with the prime minister, Han Duck-soo, serving as acting president while the constitutional court deliberates.

However, procedural challenges remain. The court, which currently has only six justices’ positions filled out of nine, requires seven justices to review cases – though it has shown some flexibility in recent months.

For the final judgment, at least six justices must vote in favour of impeachment, though they might be reluctant to begin such a politically sensitive case without a full bench, particularly given the gravity of the decision. Should the court take the case, it has up to six months to rule, though periods when seven justices cannot be present do not count towards this deadline.

South Korea has seen two previous presidential impeachment cases since democratisation: Park Geun-hye was removed from office in 2017 over corruption charges, while Roh Moo-hyun was reinstated in 2004 after the court overturned his impeachment.

Should this first impeachment attempt fail, opposition parties are likely to repeat the process, given that Yoon’s removal had been their goal even before the martial law drama.

If Yoon is ultimately removed or chooses to resign, South Korea would need to hold a presidential election within 60 days.

For Yoon Suk Yeol, it appears, the tables have turned.

In 2017 the then prosecutor general led the legal action to remove then-president Park Geun-hye from office after she was convicted of abuse of power.

Now, in the most bizarre, chaotic, few hours in recent South Korean political history, Yoon himself is facing the music.

It took just hours for Yoon’s position as president to go from precarious to untenable on Tuesday. Two years after he was sworn in after a bitterly divisive election, it is hard to see how Yoon, an arch conservative, can survive Tuesday’s disastrous attempt to impose martial law.

Opposition parties are mustering their forces – which potentially include members of Yoon’s own People Power party – in anticipation of an impeachment vote in the same national assembly that voted to immediately lift martial law around six hours after it was imposed.

While Asia’s fourth-largest economy – and neighbour to a hostile nuclear-armed North Korea – reels from the political turmoil Yoon fomented – it appears that only his resignation will halt attempts to make him the second South Korean president to be forced from office since the country became a democracy less than four decades ago.

While Yoon beat his Democratic party challenger, Lee Jae-myung, in their March 2022 presidential election, the momentum is now with Lee, who led the challenge to martial law in the early hours of Wednesday.

Yoon had attempted to justify the imposition of martial law by referencing the presence in South Korea of “shameless pro-North Korean, anti-state forces” determined to destroy [South Korea’s] democracy, although he did not offer any evidence for his claim.

It is far more likely that other, less fanciful, factors were behind his decision.

Yoon, a controversial figure who is rumoured to have consulted shamanistic healers before deciding not to move into the president’s official Blue House residence, vowed to take a hardline stance against North Korea, ending attempts by his liberal predecessor, Moon Jae-in, to engage with the regime through summits with its leader, Kim Jong-un.

Yoon owed his election victory to support from young male voters who said they had been alienated by the country’s rush to embrace women’s empowerment, despite evidence of South Korea’s poor record on gender equality.

An avowed “anti-feminist”, he pledged to abolish the ministry for gender equality and family, claiming South Korean women did not suffer systemic discrimination. While the ministry remains, the post of minister has been vacant since February.

Born in Seoul in 1960, Yoon is a relative newcomer to politics, having spent 27 years as a prosecutor before running for the presidency. After studying law he went on to become an accomplished public prosecutor and crusader against corruption. In 2019, while South Korea’s prosecutor general, he burnished his credentials as a legal mastermind after indicting a senior aide of the outgoing president, Moon Jae-in, in a fraud and bribery case.

But Yoon’s approval ratings have plummeted since he took office in 2022 over a series of scandals and controversies that triggered calls for his impeachment before the events of Tuesday night.

Protests against his administration have grown in recent weeks, amid anger over his handling of the economy, rising prices and his failure to push policies through the opposition-controlled national assembly. Last week a Gallup Korea poll showed his approval rating had fallen to just 19%.

Allegations surrounding his wife, first lady Kim Keon Hee, have only added to his problems. Kim, whom Yoon married 12 years ago, initially won admirers for embracing her public role, using her status to promote Korean art, culture and fashion, and to oppose South Korea’s now-banned trade in dog meat.

But her love of designer handbags landed her – and her husband – in hot water when, early this year she was accused of accepting a 3m won (£1,675) Dior bag as a gift from a pastor. Anti-graft laws prohibit a public official’s spouse from receiving gifts worth more than 1m won in one sitting, but this must be “in connection with the duties of the public official”. Yoon and his supporters dismissed the claims as part of a political smear campaign.

Together, the opposition parties have 192 seats, just short of controlling the two-thirds of the national assembly’s 300 seats they need to impeach Yoon – a move that would then have to be upheld by at least six of the nine judges on the constitutional court.

But his dramatic move to invoke martial law, reportedly made without the prior knowledge of South Korea’s most important ally the US, managed to turn even members of his own party against him, with the People Power chair describing his actions as “unlawful”. In their pre-dawn vote, 10 of Yoon’s party members joined opposition MPs in rejecting martial law by 190 votes to zero.

While the world was wrongfooted by the turmoil, it was clear some time ago that Yoon was planning something extraordinary, according to Jamie Doucette and Jinsoo Lee, Korea experts at Manchester University.

Writing on the Jacobin website, they cited a warning over Yoon’s behaviour issued in September by the Democratic lawmaker Kim Min-seok, who noted that Yoon had promoted high school classmates and close associates to prominent positions in state administration and the military.

“To many people, this kind of premonition sounded shrill,” Doucette and Lee wrote. “But by early Wednesday, even Korea’s deeply conservative Chosun Ilbo [newspaper] declared that ‘Kim Min-seok was right.’”

Yoon was instrumental in Park Geun-hye’s political demise; now he appears to be the architect of his own downfall.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has ruled out resigning, saying he will stay in power until the end of his term in 2027 and will appoint a new prime minister in the coming days, after the government’s historic collapse plunged France into political turmoil.

“You have given me a democratic mandate of five years and I’ll carry it out fully until its term,” he said in a televised speech to the French people late on Thursday.

Macron, who is facing the worst political crisis of his two terms as president, criticised what he called the “cynicism”, lack of responsibility and “sense of chaos” of opposition politicians who toppled the government in a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, ending the beleaguered minority coalition of the rightwing prime minister, Michel Barnier, after only three months.

Macron said he would not be held responsible for that chaos himself. He said: “I won’t shoulder other people’s irresponsibility,” He would appoint a prime minister “in the coming days” and instruct them to form a government “in the general interest, representing all political forces who can take part”, or who, at least, would undertake not to bring the government down, he said.

Wednesday’s no-confidence vote was supported by an alliance of leftwing parties as well as MPs from Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, far-right National Rally, with a total of 331 lawmakers – a clear majority – voting to topple the government. Macron accused Le Pen’s party of “choosing disorder”.

France, which faces a growing public deficit, risks ending the year without a 2025 budget or a stable government, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a US-style government shutdown.

Macron must now find a prime minister to take on the difficult task of leading a minority government in a deeply divided parliament. It will be France’s fourth prime minister this year.

The Elysée Palace is keen to limit any impression of political chaos as Macron prepares to host world leaders on Saturday – including the US president-elect, Donald Trump – for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the devastating 2019 fire.

Macron said that by restoring Notre Dame and delivering the Olympics and Paralympics, France had shown “we can do great things … we can do the impossible”.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the national assembly and a member of Macron’s centrist party, said France could not be allowed to “drift” for long. “There must not be any political hesitation. We need a leader who can speak to everyone and work to pass a new budget bill.”

As France enters a period of political turmoil, the Elysée said Barnier’s government would deal with current day-to-day issues until a new government was appointed.

No new parliament elections can be called before July 2025, narrowing Macron’s options faced with a deeply divided national assembly.

Amid speculation over who could replace Barnier as prime minister , Macron had lunch with François Bayrou, a close ally and veteran centrist politician. The outgoing defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, denied he was in the running himself.

Socialists, Communists and other figures in the left alliance said a new prime minister must come from the left. Bruno Retailleau, the hardline right interior minister in Barnier’s government, said the new prime minister should come from the right, saying “France is rightwing”.

Since Macron called a sudden and inconclusive snap election in June, the French parliament has been divided between three groups with no absolute majority. A left alliance took the largest number of votes but fell short of an absolute majority; Macron’s centrist grouping suffered losses but is still standing and Le Pen’s National Rally gained seats but was held back from power by tactical voting from the left and centre.

“We are now calling on Macron to go,” said Mathilde Panot, the head of the parliamentary faction of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing party, La France Insoumise, who urged “early presidential elections”.

Le Pen conspicuously did not call for Macron’s immediate resignation, but she said pressure on him would grow.

A poll by Odoxa Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro found 52% of French people thought the no-confidence vote was a “good thing”. Among voters for Le Pen’s National Rally this rose to 72%. “The majority of National Rally voters think that all this is Emmanuel Macron’s fault,” Gaël Sliman, the head of the pollsters told Le Figaro. “But some [National Rally voters], 28%, remain worried about the potential consequences.”

Wednesday’s vote was the country’s first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president. Barnier’s government had the shortest lifespan of any administration of France’s Fifth Republic, which began in 1958.

Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, was appointed by Macron in September after two months of political paralysis this summer.

Barnier’s key task, which proved his downfall, was to vote through a budget for 2025 in which he said he would begin to tackle France’s deficit with €60bn in tax increases and spending cuts. But after weeks of standoff over the budget, Barnier on Monday pushed through a social security financing bill, using article 49.3 of the constitution, which allows a government to force through legislation without a vote in parliament. This sparked the no-confidence vote.

Barnier’s minority coalition had been propped up by Le Pen, who, although outside government, had an unprecedentedly powerful role as Barnier attempted to placate her to avoid her party joining a no-confidence vote. Barnier had negotiated with her directly, tapering the budget to her demands.

But Le Pen pulled rank, saying Barnier’s budget was a danger to the country. She told French TV on Thursday that the voting system should be changed and proportional representation introduced.

If parliament does not pass a budget by 20 December, the government can propose emergency legislation that would roll over spending limits and tax provisions from 2024, pending the arrival of a new government and a new 2025 budget bill.

“France probably won’t have a 2025 budget,” said ING Economics in a note, predicting that the country “is entering a new era of political instability”.

Moody’s, a ratings agency, warned that Barnier’s fall “deepens the country’s political stalemate” and “reduces the probability of a consolidation of public finances”.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has said that he will name a new prime minister “within days” to replace Michel Barnier, who officially resigned on Thursday, a day after opposition lawmakers voted to topple his government.

Here are some of the possible candidates:

Sébastien Lecornu

Sébastien Lecornu defected from the centre-right Les Républicains party and rallied behind Macron’s 2017 presidency, going on to become one of the president’s staunchest allies. He joined Macron’s government alongside Bruno Le Maire, Macron’s long-serving finance minister, and former interior minister Gérald Darmanin who had also both defected from the conservatives.

Lecornu, 38, most recently served as defence minister in Barnier’s outgoing government, overseeing increases in defence spending and France’s support of military aid to Ukraine.

Investigative news website Mediapart and newspaper Libération reported that Lecornu had dined earlier in the year with Macron’s arch-rival, Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally (RN), and they had discussed the war in Ukraine. Lecornu denied the encounter.

François Bayrou

François Bayrou, 73, is a centrist veteran whose Democratic Movement (MoDem) party has been a part of Macron’s ruling alliance since 2017.

Bayrou, a longtime mayor of the south-western town of Pau who has made his rural roots central to his political identity, decided against running a fourth presidential race in 2017, instead rallying behind Macron.

Macron appointed Bayrou as justice minister but he resigned only weeks later amid an investigation into his party’s alleged fraudulent employment of parliamentary assistants.

He was cleared of fraud charges this year.

Bernard Cazeneuve

Bernard Cazeneuve was a senior member of the Socialist Party before he quit in 2022 in anger over the party’s decision to form an electoral pact with the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI).

Cazeneuve, 61, served as prime minister during the final months of socialist François Hollande’s presidency. Before that, he was interior minister, in charge of security during the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Islamist militant assault in Paris on 13 November, 2015.

The choice of Cazeneuve would be designed to encourage Socialist lawmakers to move away from the alliance with LFI, Greens and Communists and to expand a centrist ruling group.

His name had also circulated in the summer as Macron sought a prime minister following an inconclusive snap election that delivered the current fractured parliament. In the end, he was passed over for Barnier.

Xavier Bertrand

Xavier Bertrand, 59, is a centre-right politician who heads the northern de-industrialised region of Hauts de France, where Macron has sought to develop an ecosystem around electric vehicle batteries.

Bertrand served as a minister under the conservative presidencies of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy and took part in the Republicans’ primary contest ahead of the 2022 presidential election.

Bertrand, a former insurance salesman once nicknamed “floc floc” for the sound his rubber-soled shoes made on parliament’s stone floor, was also among the names Macron considered in the summer for the role of prime minister.

François Baroin

Francois Baroin, 59, is a centre-right career politician, whose father was a student friend of the late president Chirac.

He served briefly as finance minister, following a stint as budget minister, at the height of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis in 2011-2012. He was named chairman of Barclays France in 2022.

Baroin has been mayor of Troyes in Champagne since 1995

Islamist insurgents have captured the Syrian city of Hama in a battle to seize a vital location on the road to Damascus, marking the latest challenge to Bashar al-Assad’s control of the country.

Militants led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the city from the east on Thursday after surrounding it during five days of fighting with forces loyal to Assad.

Video circulating online suggested that the insurgents had captured a military airport outside Hama, and released prisoners held in a fearsome state detention facility.

As night fell, militant representatives said they had “fully established control over the city of Hama,” and called on police and militias in the city to defect.

“This victory will be without revenge and merciful,” said the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, in a message to the people of Hama.

The Syrian defence ministry initially denied that insurgents had enteredHama, calling its defensive lines “impregnable”. But as fighting intensified and drew closer to the city centre, the Syrian army said it had withdrawn, redeploying its forces “to preserve the lives of civilians and not to involve the people of Hama city in these battles”.

Positioned on a highway that runs down the western side of Syria towards the capital, Damascus, Hama was the site of mass uprisings against Assad in 2011, and then fierce battles when opposition forces attempted and failed to take control of the city in the ensuing civil war.

Hama is also the site of a notorious 1982 massacre, when forces loyal to former president Hafez al-Assad besieged the town to prevent an uprising led by Sunni Muslim opponents of his rule.

The sweeping offensive led by HTS has resulted in Assad losing control of Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, and swaths of the northwest of the country. The UN’s World Food Programme said the escalation has displaced more than 280,000 people, “adding to years of suffering.”

The surge in violence has led to fears of an aid crisis, with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres speaking of an urgent need for civilian access to immediate humanitarian support, and a parish priest in Aleppo, Father Bahjat Karakach, voicing concerns that the fear of the bombing is giving way to the “danger of hunger” amid soaring food prices.

Guterres urged a UN-facilitated political process to end the bloodshed,
asking “all those with influence to do their part for the long-suffering people” of Syria and noting all parties had an obligation to protect civilians.

On Friday, Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein will meet his Syrian and Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to discuss the situation in Syria, the Iraqi state news agency reported.The move comes days after emergency talks were held in Ankara.

Some Iraqi fighters entered Syria early this week to support Assad, Iraqi and Syrian sources told Reuters. Iraq’s Iran-aligned Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition has mobilised along the border with Syria, saying this was purely preventive in case of spillover into Iraq.

Tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community were fleeing Syria’s third city Homs on Thursday, for fear that Islamist-led rebels would keep up their advance, a war monitor said. Homs lies just 40km (25 miles) south of Hama.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported “the mass exodus of Alawites from Homs neighbourhoods, with tens of thousands heading towards the Syrian coast, fearing the rebel advance”.

Khaled, who lives on the city’s outskirts told Agence France-Presse that “the road leading to [coastal] Tartus province was glowing … due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out”.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Guterres in a phone call that the conflict in Syria had reached “a new phase.” “The Syrian regime, at this stage, must urgently engage with its own people for a comprehensive political solution,” he said.

The sudden losses appear to have unsettled Assad’s longtime backers in Moscow and Tehran, with Russian forces consumed with their invasion of Ukraine and Iran concerned about its forces being targeted by Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory, which have increased in the last year.

Naim Qassem, head of Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon that has fought in support of Assad, pledged to “stand by Syria to thwart the aggression against it.”

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Moscow was “closely monitoring”, events in Syria. “Depending on the assessment of the situation, we will be able to talk about the degree of assistance that is needed by the Syrian authorities to cope with the militants and eliminate this threat,” he said.

Gregory Waters, an analyst of the Syrian army with the Middle East Institute, said a combination of low morale, low pay, corruption and dysfunction within the chain of command had contributed to the sudden rout of government forces from areas they had controlled for years.

The Syrian army, he said, was “completely unprepared”, for the insurgent offensive.

Amid reports of rising desertions from the Syrian army or fighters fleeing their positions, Assad issued a decree raising salaries for military personnel by 50% earlier this week. The Syrian president appeared to be seeking to muster a counter-offensive as the fighting drew closer to the capital.

Military support from Iran and Russia has been limited when compared with previous iterations of the conflict in Syria, said Waters.

“I think it’s hard to see a scenario where forces loyal to the regime in Damascus can regain momentum,” he said. “Even if the Russians and Iranian or Iranian-backed forces get more involved, they’re still limited by their own wars. It feels unlikely to reach the level of support we’ve seen previously.”

Eight years ago, indiscriminate Russian airstrikes helped the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, drive rebels from Aleppo – a crucial turning point in the country’s civil war, which has largely been in a state of stalemate since 2020.

Over the weekend a stunning rebel offensive seized Aleppo again – and the Assad regime now faces its greatest threat in years. Here’s what you need to know.

What’s happened in Aleppo?

The new offensive in Syria began on Wednesday when rebel groups claimed to have swiftly seized control of a military base and 15 villages held by government forces in north-western Aleppo province. The rebels, led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), cut off the main highway from Damascus to Aleppo. Assad’s ally Russia launched airstrikes in response.

By Friday night, HTS fighters had progressed from their base in the countryside to the outskirts of Aleppo, and on Sunday they appeared to have complete control of the city. The Syrian military was rushing reinforcements and equipment to Hama province amid fierce fighting as the rebels attempted to push south towards the regional capital there. Meanwhile, Syrian and Russian airstrikes have been pummeling opposition controlled areas.

What is the history of Syria’s civil war?

In 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations – part of the Arab spring – were crushed by Assad’s forces. The resulting unrest led to an armed uprising that eventually morphed into a fractured civil war with many rebel factions, backed by regional players with competing agendas, and the initial demands for a new, pluralistic settlement largely eclipsed by extremist jihadist organisations including an al-Qaida affiliate and Islamic State.

Whatever the agenda of those rebel groups and however ruthless some of them may be, many more civilians flee government-held territory for opposition areas than the other way around.

The war has killed about half a million people, and almost 7m more have fled the country as refugees. Those who remain are enduring a lasting state of economic crisis. While the rebels once appeared to pose a serious threat to Assad’s rule, he has gradually regained control of about 70% of the country with crucial support from Russia and Iran.

The rebels have been confined to parts of Syria’s north and north-west, where they hold on with the protection of bordering Turkey. The war has never completely stopped, but it has largely been in stalemate since Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brokered a ceasefire in the north-western Idlib region in 2020.

Why has the conflict restarted?

HTS appears to have been preparing for this operation for some time, with reports of major military exercises for several weeks in the autumn and predictions of a major offensive. Experts say HTS’s forces are significantly more professional than they were at the time of the ceasefire, with a new military college established and full control of local governance in its strongholds.

The other critical factor in the new advance is the wider geopolitical situation and a sense that Assad’s allies are distracted or weakened. Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy that has previously been a crucial element in Assad’s forces, has been decimated by Israel’s operations in Lebanon. While Russia remains a big player and Putin will not countenance defeat in the region, Moscow’s forces are undeniably bogged down in Ukraine.

Israel has dramatically escalated airstrikes against Iranian forces on the ground in Syria and has also hit weapons depots in Aleppo. Donald Trump launched airstrikes against Syrian military sites during his first term as US president alongside a broader policy of pressure on Iran. Dareen Khalifa, a Syria expert at Crisis Group, told the FT that all of this presented a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for the rebels.

The offensive may also have been motivated by recent Russian and Syrian airstrikes against rebel areas, which could have been intended as a precursor to a wider military campaign. And there was a limited window of opportunity for the operation. Haid Haid, an analyst, said: “If the rebel forces waited too long, the regime would have been able to reinforce their frontlines as Hezbollah forces are no longer busy with the war in Lebanon.” Notably, the offensive began on the same day that the truce in Lebanon came into effect.

Who are Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham?

The founder of HTS, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, was once a participant in the Iraqi insurgency against the US as a member of the group that eventually became Islamic State. In its former incarnation as Jabhat al-Nusra or the Al-Nusra front, HTS later declared allegiance to al-Qaida. It eventually publicly broke those ties in 2016 and rebranded as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.

HTS is now the most powerful rebel faction in Syria and controls Idlib, where about 4 million people live, with command of an estimated 30,000 troops.

While it is designated as a terrorist group by the US, Turkish intervention has been aimed at constraining its operations and it is not thought to have global ambitions. There are nonetheless serious human rights concerns in the area it controls, including executions for those accused of affiliation with rival groups and over allegations of blasphemy and adultery.

How will Assad respond?

While HTS’s advance has taken place at remarkable speed, there are good reasons to think that the Assad regime and its allies will fight back – even given the constraints imposed in other military spheres. Ibrahim al-Assil, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, said: “The actual battle hasn’t started yet. Assad might be applying an old strategy that worked for him before: withdraw, regroup, fortify and counterattack. A key test for the rebels’ evolution will be to know when to stop.”

With regime forces consolidating in Hama and Russian airstrikes likely to intensify, HTS’s strength will be severely tested in the days and weeks ahead – and negotiations between Turkey and Russia are likely to prove as important to the eventual outcome.

Many experts fear that Assad will turn to chemical weapons, just as he did to devastating effect in the darkest days of the civil war. If so, whatever successes the rebels manage to consolidate could come at a horrifying cost.

Amnesty International’s Israel branch has distanced itself from the rights group’s allegation that Israel was committing “genocide” in Gaza, but said “serious crimes” were potentially taking place that needed investigation.

The local branch, which operates as a separate charity from the international organisation, said in a statement: “While the Israeli section of Amnesty International does not accept the accusation that Israel is committing genocide, based on the information available to us, we are concerned that serious crimes are being committed in Gaza, that must be investigated.”

The 296-page report, examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.

While its publication was largely welcomed by Palestinians and humanitarian groups, it was met with fury in Israel. “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies,” Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The United States said it disagreed with the conclusions of the report. “We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

Multiple attempts to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the war in Gaza, now raging for 14 months, have failed, although mediator Qatar said on Thursday it would resume its role, raising tentative hopes that progress could be made in fresh negotiations.

Egypt, another major mediator, has put forward a proposal involving a temporary ceasefire lasting 45-60 days, with a staged hostage release and prisoner swap. A Hamas delegation met with Egyptian negotiators in Cairo earlier this week, and Israel is considering sending its own delegation in the next few days – the most movement on talks since the last round collapsed in August.

The Egyptian proposal also suggests that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority take control of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel seized in May, and a substantial increase in the supply of aid. An average of 50 trucks entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel in November, UN data shows. Aid agencies say at least 500 are needed to meet the population’s needs amid a dire humanitarian crisis and the approach of winter.

In Gaza, at least 39 people were killed by Israeli fire in the preceding 24 hours, according to medics, including at least 20 who died when an overnight airstrike set alight cooking gas canisters and tents tents housing displaced families in what Israel has dubbed a “humanitarian zone”. Israel said the strike targeted senior Hamas operatives, whom it did not identify.

Other Israeli strikes reported on Thursday hit Gaza City, where medics said an airstrike destroyed a house where an extended family had taken shelter and damaged two nearby homes, killing at least three people.

Residents searched for loved ones and belongings among the charred wreckage in Mawasi, a coastal area in the south of the strip, where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to seek shelter.

At a funeral for those killed in Mawasi in nearby Khan Younis, Abu Anas Mustafa told Reuters that the Amnesty report was “a victory for Palestinian diplomacy”, although he said it “came late”.

“It is the 430th day of the war today, and Israel has been carrying out massacres and a genocide from the first 10 days of the war,” he said.

The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.

The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.

The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.

The White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.

According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.

Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.

These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April.

The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.

The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.

The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.

The White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.

According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.

Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.

These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April.

• Western countries including the US heavily criticised the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, over the war in Ukraine on Thursday at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Malta. The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in his speech: “My message to the Russian delegation is the following: We are not taken in by your lies. We know what you’re doing. You’re trying to rebuild the Russian empire and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way.”

• The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, told the meeting that his country was continuing to fight for its right to exist. “And the Russian war criminal at this table must know: Ukraine will win this right and justice will prevail.” Sikorksi, Sybiha and others left the room for Lavrov’s speech, as often happens at international meetings, and Lavrov was absent when the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, delivered his speech where he called Lavrov “very adept at drowning listeners in a tsunami of misinformation”.

• Lavrov accused Nato and the EU of politicising the OSCE and making it irrelevant. He said the west was behind a “reincarnation of the cold war, only now with a much greater risk of a transition to a hot one”, according to Russia’s state-controlled RIA Novosti agency. Separately in a Tucker Carlson interview, Lavrov said he hoped the west took “seriously” Moscow’s use of a ballistic missile in Ukraine, and that the US and its allies “must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call strategic defeat of Russia”.

• Vladimir Putin has had to scrap the requirement for foreign buyers of Russian gas to pay only through Gazprombank after it was put under US sanctions last month. Gazprombank had already been punished with sanctions by other countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The US Treasury said Gazprombank was being used as “a conduit for Russia to purchase military material for its war effort against Ukraine” as well as to pay soldiers. Under a decree signed by the Russian president on Thursday, foreign buyers will now be able to use other banks to pay for Russian gas.

• Putin on Thursday appointed Alexander Khinshtein acting governor of southern Kursk region, saying “crisis management” was needed in the area, which has been partly occupied by Ukrainian forces since their lightning large-scale incursion in August. The Kremlin website said the region’s current governor, Alexei Smirmnov, had resigned.

• The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, discussed on Thursday improving Kyiv’s position in its war with Russia and ensuring it enters any future negotiations from a position of strength, a White House spokesperson said.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said the UN and Red Cross are not doing enough to bring back Ukrainians held captive by Russia. “Do we currently receive much assistance from organisations such as the UN or the International Committee of the Red Cross in protecting and securing the return of Ukrainian prisoners held in Russia? In fact, we do not,” Zelenskyy said at a human rights conference in Kyiv. “We all see, in particular, how weak the world’s response is to what Russia is doing to Ukrainian prisoners.” The mayor of the southern Ukrainian town of Dniprorudne, Yevgen Matveyev, died in Russian captivity after he was taken prisoner in March 2022, officials confirmed this week. In October, Kyiv said Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna had also died in Russian detention. Thousands of children in Moscow-held areas of eastern Ukraine have been forcibly taken into Russia, in what Kyiv says is a war crime. The international criminal court has a warrant out against Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the children’s deportation from Ukraine.

• A Russian man went on trial in Finland on Thursday charged with war crimes after being accused of fighting in a far-right paramilitary unit in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The Finnish prosecutor has demanded life imprisonment for Yan Petrovsky, also known as Voislav Torden, who denies all the charges. He was in Rusich, a group that fought with separatists against Ukraine in Luhansk, the prosecutor’s office alleged. Rusich fighters ambushed a group of Ukrainian soldiers by raising a Ukrainian flag, killing 22 and seriously wounding four, it is alleged. Prosecutors argue the deception, allegations of executions and mutilation of captives, and degrading treatment of a body amount to war crimes. One soldier had the Rusich symbol slashed on his cheek while he was still alive, according to the charges.

• Canada on Thursday announced a ban on 324 models of assault weapons, granting an amnesty for their collection, with the aim of shipping them to Ukraine. An estimated 14,500 guns already in circulation may be turned in under an amnesty in place until October 2025 that would provide owners with compensation. The Canadian defence minister, Bill Blair, said: “Every bit of assistance that we can offer to the Ukrainians is one step towards their victory.”

In the aftermath of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, while Thompson’s colleagues grieve and politicians decry his murder, some online discussion has shown little sympathy for Thompson or the industry he represented.

Instead, social media has been in engulfed in expressions of anger at many Americans’ dire experiences at the hands of health insurance companies and outrage at the large profits that they generate.

That belies the shock also generated by the brutality of Thompson’s death. The killing appeared premeditated and calculated.

A gunman dressed in black waited for Thompson outside the midtown Manhattan Hilton where he was scheduled to speak at an investor’s meeting, approached him from behind with a handgun fitted with a silencer, and shot and killed the executive, according to police.

He fled on an ebike into Central Park. A manhunt is ongoing. The motive is unknown.

Andrew Witty, CEO of the parent company, UnitedHealth Group, called the attack “a terrible tragedy” in a message sent to company employees and shared with the Guardian.

“Our hearts are with his family, especially his mom, his wife Paulie, his brother and his two boys, who lost a father today,” Witty said.

Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic US Senator from Minnesota, described the killing as “a horrifying and shocking act of violence”.

But in contrast, one commenter on CNN’s Instagram post about Thompson’s death wrote: “Can’t find the room to care over my daughter’s $60,000 cancer treatment. Thoughts and prayers.”

Another said: “An innocent victim was gunned down in cold blood. Have a heart regardless of your health insurance.”

Vacillating between the condemnation of violence and dark humor, celebratory memes and outright violent rhetoric, comments on social media highlight the deep and often unpleasant connection Americans have with their own health system.

An expert in political violence told the Guardian he sees this as part of the US’s growing acceptance of violence as a way to settle civil disputes.

“Now the norms of violence are spreading into the commercial sector,” said Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago’s project on security and threats. “That’s what I saw when I saw this.”

Although the motive for the killing is unknown, it has not stopped rampant speculation that there was an obvious candidate – Thompson’s work in corporate health insurance. That speculation was only furthered by the discovery of shell casings scrawled with the words “deny”, “depose” and “defend” in permanent marker.

“What I think we’re really experiencing as a country is the erosion against norms,” said Pape, with the little sympathy among the “body politic” expressed in social media as one more example. “That means, basically, seeing violence as the more normal tool, or acceptable tool, to resolve what should be straightforward civil disputes resolved in nonviolent ways.”

Thompson’s killing also laid bare the threat that healthcare executives face in a season of American violence – from insurers to pharma to hospitals.

“It doesn’t seem paranoid to worry that someone who’s had services denied that they may believe are important might be in an emotionally unstable state and could take some action,” Michael Sherman, former chief medical officer at Point32Health, told Stat, a health industry publication. “The most likely targets would be the chief medical officer … or the CEO.”

Comments online did not single out Thompson, a 50-year-old licensed accountant who reportedly kept a low profile. Instead, they were targeted at an industry often seen as a despised fact of life in America. Comments laced “jokes” with the sting of denial, delay, debt and impenetrable bureaucracy, all ubiquitous and reviled experiences for the throngs of Americans who are now or have been insured through a private company.

Another comment: “Does he have a history of shootings? Denied coverage.”

Ranked by size, UnitedHealth Group is one of the biggest companies in the world. Measured by its market capitalization of $539bn it tops household names such as Mastercard and ExxonMobil. The company is one of the biggest private insurers in the nation, providing health coverage to more than 50 million Americans spanning employer insurance all the way to the elderly through Medicare Advantage.

Thompson ran the insurance division of the company as a reportedly longtime employee who kept a low profile. With an enormous footprint, it is also the subject of near constant scrutiny.

Thompson himself was part of an investigation into insider trading at the company. Early this year, after the Department of Justice began an inquiry into monopolistic practices, executives at United sold $101m in stocks, including Thompson, who sold $15m, before the public became aware of the investigation, according to Crain’s New York Business. Witty was hauled in for congressional testimony over a cyber-attack in February that caused severe disruptions across the healthcare industry. UnitedHealthcare has been criticized as denying care to vulnerable patients.

While security executives for leading Fortune 500 companies gathered on Wednesday, others marveled in public that Thompson was unaccompanied on his way to the annual investor conference.

Michael Julian, CEO of MPS Security & Protection, told Axios that he “was shocked the guy didn’t have a protective detail”, implying that a head of an American healthcare giant would be an obvious target for the potentially aggrieved.

“Whether this technically will fit the pigeonhole of political violence or not, it obviously will be an important issue,” said Pape, whose recent study showed a dramatic increase in instances of violent threats against both Democrats and Republicans since about 2017, the beginning of the first Trump term.

“But it also misses the bigger picture of what’s been happening in our country.”

Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was nominating podcaster and former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks to be his White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar, continuing a pattern of rewarding big donors with political power.

Sacks, a venture capitalist and Silicon Valley insider, hosted big spenders at his San Francisco mansion in June to support the Trump campaign, with tickets ranging up to $300,000 a head. The event reportedly raked in more than $12m.

A host of the popular podcast All-In, Sacks shares the mic with Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg in weekly episodes that focus on “all things economic, tech, political, social and poker”.

He has also been closely linked with Elon Musk and helped to back his bid to acquire Twitter, the social media platform renamed X. The two tech titans reportedly joined together to push the president-elect to name JD Vance as his running mate.

Trump clearly heeded the advice. And now he has welcomed Sacks into the federal government to offer guidance and leadership to bolster the crypto industry and artificial intelligence, “two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness”, according to Trump’s post.

Along with this new position as an advisor, Trump has tapped Sacks to head his council of advisors for science and technology, an independent committee of experts historically charged with helping presidents make important decisions and developing evidence-based recommendations on policy.

Their work affects a range of specialized areas, from energy and the environment to public health and national security.

The committee is currently co-chaired by three esteemed scientists, including Dr Arati Prabhakar, an engineer and applied physicist and former director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Sacks will take on a specific set of priorities, according to Trump’s post, which did not delve into if science will play a part.

“He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship,” Trump continued. “He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US.”

The Sacks announcement came among a slew of posts shared in the evening on Thursday as Trump named other allies of his to the incoming administration.

David Perdue, a former Senator and long-time Maga loyalist who faced federal scrutiny over his stock trading while in office, was named as the ambassador to China – a key diplomatic role as Trump stokes trade tensions.

Rodney S Scott, the former chief of the US Border Patrol and a border-wall advocate, was picked for US Customs and Border Protection commissioner. Caleb Vitello, who currently serves as assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs was selected as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Former Border Patrol agent Brandon Judd was named ambassador to Chile. Ice special agent Tony Salisbury was chosen for deputy homeland security adviser.

Paraguay has expelled a Chinese envoy for allegedly interfering in its domestic affairs and urging the South American nation to break off ties with Taiwan.

In a curt statement on Thursday, Paraguay’s foreign ministry said it had revoked the visa of Xu Wei, a senior Chinese envoy to Latin America who was in Paraguay for an annual Unesco meeting, declaring him persona non grata “over interference in internal affairs”. The Chinese diplomat was given 24 hours to leave the country.

The day before, Xu skipped the Unesco session and instead turned up at congress in the capital of Asunción, where he caused a diplomatic stir by calling on Paraguay to ditch Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island of 23 million people that China claims as its territory.

Paraguay is the only nation in South America and one of just 12 worldwide that recognizes Taiwan as a country. The Paraguayan government has stayed firm in its commitment – even as Beijing ramps up its lobbying of foreign counterparts to stop recognizing the island.

In recent years, four countries in Latin America – Honduras, Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador – have cut ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, whose one-China principle forces countries to choose between having full diplomatic relations with China or Taiwan.

From the halls of the futuristic congress building in Asunción that Taiwan helped fund, Xu stressed Beijing’s interest in establishing relations with Paraguay, but said the onus was on officials in Paraguay to make the first move.

“It is either China or Taiwan,” he said. “I recommend that the government of Paraguay make a correct decision as soon as possible.”

Addressing lawmakers, Xu dangled the prospect of expanded trade with Beijing among “thousands of other advantages”. Some members of the Paraguayan congress, citing farmers’ struggles to export soybeans and beef to China, have argued that the nation stands to benefit from a diplomatic flip in the long run.

China’s trade with South America has grown exponentially in recent years, reaching nearly $500bn as of 2023, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

On Wednesday, the Taiwanese embassy in Paraguay lashed out at China on the social media platform X, calling Xu an “infiltrator” who seeks “to undermine the firm friendship between Paraguay and Taiwan” that dates back to 1957.

Paraguay has expelled a Chinese envoy for allegedly interfering in its domestic affairs and urging the South American nation to break off ties with Taiwan.

In a curt statement on Thursday, Paraguay’s foreign ministry said it had revoked the visa of Xu Wei, a senior Chinese envoy to Latin America who was in Paraguay for an annual Unesco meeting, declaring him persona non grata “over interference in internal affairs”. The Chinese diplomat was given 24 hours to leave the country.

The day before, Xu skipped the Unesco session and instead turned up at congress in the capital of Asunción, where he caused a diplomatic stir by calling on Paraguay to ditch Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island of 23 million people that China claims as its territory.

Paraguay is the only nation in South America and one of just 12 worldwide that recognizes Taiwan as a country. The Paraguayan government has stayed firm in its commitment – even as Beijing ramps up its lobbying of foreign counterparts to stop recognizing the island.

In recent years, four countries in Latin America – Honduras, Panama, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador – have cut ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, whose one-China principle forces countries to choose between having full diplomatic relations with China or Taiwan.

From the halls of the futuristic congress building in Asunción that Taiwan helped fund, Xu stressed Beijing’s interest in establishing relations with Paraguay, but said the onus was on officials in Paraguay to make the first move.

“It is either China or Taiwan,” he said. “I recommend that the government of Paraguay make a correct decision as soon as possible.”

Addressing lawmakers, Xu dangled the prospect of expanded trade with Beijing among “thousands of other advantages”. Some members of the Paraguayan congress, citing farmers’ struggles to export soybeans and beef to China, have argued that the nation stands to benefit from a diplomatic flip in the long run.

China’s trade with South America has grown exponentially in recent years, reaching nearly $500bn as of 2023, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

On Wednesday, the Taiwanese embassy in Paraguay lashed out at China on the social media platform X, calling Xu an “infiltrator” who seeks “to undermine the firm friendship between Paraguay and Taiwan” that dates back to 1957.

Nearly 100 former US diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings on Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence for her alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad]” and other concerns.

In an open letter, the officials blasted Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii, for her lack of experience in the field of intelligence, embracing conspiracy theories regarding the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and “aligning herself with Russian and Syrian officials” after an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.

The letter was signed by the former deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, the former Nato deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller, the former national security adviser Anthony Lake, as well as a number of other former ambassadors, intelligence and military officers, and other high-ranking members of the national security apparatus.

It was addressed to the current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and to the incoming majority leader John Thune, a Republican.

In the letter, the officials called on the Senate to “fully exercise its constitutional advice and consent role … including through appropriate vetting, hearings, and regular order”. It called for Senate committees to consider “all information available” in closed sessions to review Gabbard’s qualifications to manage “the protection of our intelligence sources and methods”.

Gabbard and her supporters have denounced similar attacks as a smear campaign, saying that her record of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented by her political enemies.

In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).

“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”

But many in Washington’s tightly knit foreign policy and intelligence community see Gabbard as dangerous. The concerns listed in the open letter included Gabbard’s public doubts of Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in spite of “US intelligence reports and overwhelming public reporting” corroborating the attacks.

They also noted her online posts after the Russian invasion “insinuating that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons and that Ukraine’s engagement with Nato posed a threat to Russian sovereignty”.

Her public sympathy for Putin and Assad, the letter said, “raises questions about her judgement and fitness”.

“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence’,” and who use classified government information as a “partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy”, Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, told ABC News in response to the letter.

Activists have told the Guardian that staffers from both parties had expressed concern during a 2018 hearing with a Syrian ex-military whistleblower that Gabbard could leak details of the person’s identity. A person with knowledge of high-level intelligence discussions said that there were concerns over Gabbard’s other contacts in the region as well.

Anthony Albanese has condemned a suspicious fire at a Melbourne synagogue as a “deliberate, unlawful attack”, saying antisemitism has no place in Australia.

A large blaze engulfed the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea in Melbourne’s south-east on Friday morning, and is being treated as a deliberately lit fire.

About 60 firefighters and 17 trucks were called to the synagogue at about 4.10am.

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, visited the scene on Friday afternoon, saying she was “disgusted” by the attack as she pledged $100,000 for rebuilding work at the synagogue.

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In a statement, the prime minister said he “unequivocally” condemned the attack.

“I have zero tolerance for antisemitism. It has absolutely no place in Australia. This violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage,” Albanese said.

“This attack has risked lives and is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community.”

He said counter-terror police were involved in the investigation.

“There are two persons of interest who were there and [were] witnessed … using accelerant and then spreading it with a broom, clearly designed to maximise the damage that could occur,” he said.

Allan was joined by members of Victoria’s Jewish community as she spoke at the synagogue on Friday. She said she stood with the community on “one of their darkest days”.

Allan condemned the “hateful” and “violent” act.

“What else is an attack on a synagogue other than an act of antisemitism?” she said.

Asked if the incident was domestic terrorism, Allan said police were not ruling anything out.

Peter Dutton said the “shocking” attack was predictable amid a rise in antisemitism in Australia.

“To see the firebombing of a synagogue, a place of worship, is something that is not welcome and has no place in our country whatsoever,” he told reporters.

Rabbi Gabi Kaltmann said “two thugs” broke the synagogue’s windows, threw fuel on the floor and set it alight as people were preparing to pray early Friday morning.

“It’s outrageous,” he told reporters at the scene.

“Tonight is the sabbath, we must all go and find a sense of calmness, camaraderie and community by gathering for the sabbath tonight and praying together as one community.”

Det Insp Chris Murray, from the arson and explosive squad, confirmed a witness who had entered the synagogue for morning prayers had seen two masked individuals inside. He said the police had yet to identify the accelerant that was used.

Murray said one witness suffered a hand injury.

He said police wanted to assure the community they were treating the incident “absolutely seriously” as he stressed patrols in the area would be ramped up.

“I’m here … to give that reassurance to the community that we will do everything we can to bring these individuals before the courts,” he told reporters outside the synagogue.

He said the motive behind the attack was unclear.

Murray said he believed the incident was captured on CCTV, but footage had not been obtained. Police are urging anyone with CCTV and dashcam footage in the area, from 3am onwards on Friday, to contact Crime Stoppers.

“We’re looking for vehicles, we’re looking for those two individuals. We want some starting points,” he said.

Fire Rescue Victoria’s assistant chief fire officer, Brayden Sinnamon, said the building was “fully involved” in the fire and crews used breathing apparatus.

Police said the synagogue had sustained significant damage.

The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, said “every available resource” would be deployed to find “these criminals who tried to tear a community apart”.

“We stand with the Adass Israel congregation who are heartbroken,” she said in a statement.

“We stand with the entire Jewish community who have every right to go to shule, pray openly, and be proud of who they are – without fearing personal consequences. And we stand against antisemitism, now and for ever.”

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s president, Daniel Aghion, said it was a “tragic day”.

“We have been warning about the risk of this since last year 7 October,” he said.

“There is absolutely no way that any rational person can justify what has happened here today.”

The Jewish Community Council of Victoria’s chief executive, Naomi Levin, said the incident was “not just a crime against a place of worship, but an affront to the values of tolerance”.

Synagogue board member Benjamin Klein told Channel 9 he was “shocked” by the incident.

“[We] didn’t think it would happen here in Melbourne to us. We’re a quiet community, we have our heads down, we don’t bother anybody, we wish everybody well,” he said.

The federal education minister, Jason Clare, said it was “pretty clear” the fire had been started on purpose.

“This is a deliberate act of violence, an attack on a place of worship, and let’s call it out,” he told 7 News’ Sunrise program.

The Liberal frontbencher Sussan Ley said the incident was “very, very concerning”, adding: “It makes me feel quite sick to the stomach.”

A man who “leapt on” a polar bear to protect his wife in a northern First Nations community in Canada is expected to fully recover from the severe injuries he sustained in the attack.

But experts caution that changing environmental conditions will lead to a shift in where and when polar bears are spotted, increasing the risk of surprise encounters.

The couple, who live in Fort Severn First Nation, found a polar bear in their driveway early on Tuesday morning.

The bear lunged at the woman, who “slipped to [the] ground as her husband leapt on to the animal to prevent its attack”, the Nishnawbe Aski police service said in a news release.

As the man tried to fight off the bear, he sustained serious injuries to his arms and legs. A neighbour heard the struggle and ran over, shooting the bear several times.

Police responded to reports of gunshots and, after searching the area eventually found the bear dead in a wooded area.

Fort Severn is a Swampy Cree First Nation on the southern shores of Hudson Bay, the northernmost community in Ontario, and a place where polar bears are often spotted.

Despite the estimated 17,000 polar bears living in Canada, attacks are rare and fatal encounters even more so.

But for communities like Fort Severn which overlap with polar bear habitats, the state of nearby sea ice in the coming years will play a critical role in polar bears’ prospects – and interactions with humans.

“Each bear sort of comes with its own individual personality and its own body condition,” said Andrew Derocher, a professor of biology at the University of Alberta. Interactions with humans “depend so much on the individual bear, the annual conditions and also the location”, he said. “But as a general rule, polar bears will become more unpredictable as environmental conditions change.”

Well-fed polar bears in good condition are rarely a problem for humans, said Derocher, but a bear stranded on land in poor condition is a “recipe for conflict” and human injuries or fatalities.

While bears in the western Hudson Bay population had better-than-expected ice coverage over the summer, sufficient ice hasn’t yet formed for the critical winter hunting season. The freeze is expected soon – meaning some bears are still roaming the land, burning valuable fat stores as they search for food. Polar bears use roughly 1kg (2.2lb) of their stored fat each day they are on land and not feeding.

“Once those reserves are depleted, the bears shift their behaviour and a lot of their natural caution and avoidance of humans is lost as they seek food,” said Derocher.

Two of Afghanistan’s national sporting heroes have called on the Taliban to reverse a decision to bar women from education and medicine, as cricket’s international community grapples with how to best address human rights concerns in the country.

Afghanistan’s women’s cricket team fled following the takeover in 2021 and no longer competes internationally, but the country’s men’s cricket team continues to play and triggered mass celebrations following historic victories over England at last year’s 50-over World Cup and Australia in the T20 version this year.

The team’s captain Rashid Khan posted on social media on Thursday that women had a “right” to education and must be allowed to train as doctors and nurses.

“It is essential for our sisters and mothers to have access to care provided by medical professionals who truly understand their needs,” he said. “Providing education to all is not just a societal responsibility but a moral obligation deeply rooted in our faith and values.”

The Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, issued an order on Monday to forbid women from attending institutions offering medical education. It closed one of the last remaining loopholes to navigate the regime’s ban on education for older girls and women.

All-rounder Mohammad Nabi also posted on Thursday to condemn the move.

“This decision does not only harm the future of these girls, but it also harms the whole country and nation,” he said. “Afghanistan also needs educated women besides educated men. Please reverse this decision and let our girls get an education.”

Australia’s defeat to Afghanistan at the T20 World Cup in June was one of the rare meetings between the two teams, after Cricket Australia elected to stop playing bilateral series due to the Taliban’s treatment of women.

Outgoing ICC chair Greg Barclay accused CA of hypocrisy this week, and backed his organisation’s stance of continuing to allow the men’s Afghanistan to compete.

“If you really want to make a political statement, don’t play them in a World Cup. Sure, it might cost you a semi-final place, but principles are principles. It’s not about having half a principle,” he said.

“It would be easy to kick Afghanistan out, but their board haven’t done anything wrong. They’re just working under a decree and a series of laws that says this is what you have to do. I don’t think it would make a jot of difference to the ruling party there to kick them out.”

CA chair Mike Baird defended Australia’s approach, and highlighted the county’s ongoing support for Afghanistan women’s cricketers who fled as refugees.

“We’re very proud of the position we’ve taken,” he said. “We’ve drawn a line, we’ve taken a position and we’re proudly standing up where we think we should.”

Baird also confirmed Afghan women’s cricketers in Australia will be formally celebrated by CA in an event in January.