“They arrived here worried about the Islamists,” is how one source described the mood of Arab foreign ministers who flew into Doha on Saturday evening for urgent talks aimed at averting a collapse into chaos and bloodshed in Damascus.

Within hours, the powerful Islamist group driving the rebels’ rise to power reported they had reached the centre of the Syrian capital.

The leader of Hayat Tahrir-al Shams, Abu Mohammad al-Jowlani, triumphantly announced “the capture of Damascus”. Now he’s using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, rather than his nom de guerre as a sign of his sudden rise to a much greater national role.

He’s certain to play a decisive part in defining Syria’s new order after this sudden stunning end to a half century of repressive rule by the Assad family. But the leader of an organisation proscribed by the UN as well as western governments is not the only pivotal player on Syria’s fast shifting scene.

• Live updates: Syrian rebels capture Damascus, saying Assad has fled
• Watch: BBC reports from inside Damascus
• What just happened in Syria?

“The story is not written yet,” cautions Marie Forestier, senior Syria advisor for the European Institute of Peace. She, and other informed observers who happened to be attending the annual Doha Forum, point out that it was another rebel group, recently named as the Southern Operations room, working with people living in the city, who surged into the capital. The ranks of this force are dominated by fighters from the former Free Syrian Army (FSA), who worked closely with western powers at the start of Syria’s 2011 uprising,

“The game starts now,” is how Ms Forestier describes the start of this momentous new chapter marked by an explosion of celebration in the streets, but also critical questions about what emerges next.

As the Islamist Hayat Tahrir-al Shams (HTS) pushed forward with astonishing speed, facing scant resistance, it sparked a rush by rebel forces in other regions of Syria as well as a surge of armed local groups keen to play a part in their own areas.

“Fighting the Assad regime was the glue that kept this de facto coalition together”, says Thomas Juneau, Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, who is also in Doha.

“Now that Assad has fled, continued unity among the groups that toppled him will be a challenge,” he says.

The groups include an umbrella alliance of Turkish militias known as the Syrian National Army who, like the HTS, dominated a corner of northwest Syria. In the northeast, the mainly Kurdish Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) groups have also gained ground and will be determined to hold on to their gains.

But HTS’s ambitious high-profile leader has seized the spotlight. His rhetoric and record are now under scrutiny by Syrians, as well as in neighbouring capitals, and far beyond. The commander whose militia first emerged as an Al-Qaeda affiliate broke ranks with the jihadist group in 2016 and has been trying to polish his image since then. For years, he’s sent conciliatory messages abroad; now he is reassuring Syria’s many minority communities they have nothing to worry about.

“There is a cautious welcome to his messages,” maintains Ms Forestier. “But we cannot forget the past eight years of his authoritarian rule and his background.” The rule of HTS, both a political and paramilitary organisation, in the conservative province of Idlib was marked by the establishment of a working administration called the Salvation Government, which included limited freedom of religion, but was also marked by repressive measures.

In Syria’s second city of Aleppo, the first urban area seized by HTS in its lightning advance, its fighters have been trying to prove they are fit to rule.

The group has also been sending reassuring messages to countries like Iraq that the war would not spill across their borders. Other neighbours, including Jordan, worry that Islamist successes next door could galvanise disgruntled militant groups within their borders. Turkey, certain to play a key role, has its own worries. It regards the SDF as a terrorist group linked to Turkey’s proscribed PKK Kurdish group and will not hesitate to intervene militarily and politically, as its done for years, if its own interests are threatened.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, had told the Doha Forum on Saturday that it was “inadmissible” that a group he called terrorists, a clear reference to HTS, could take control in Syria.

By the evening, the UN’s Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pederson, told me there was a “new understanding of a new reality.”

Regional foreign ministers, including President Assad’s former staunch allies Iran and Russia, left wrong-footed by this spectacular turn of events, are still calling for efforts to forge an inclusive political process. That’s echoed by Mr Pedersen.

“This dark chapter has left deep scars, but today we look forward with cautious hope to the opening of a new one—one of peace, reconciliation, dignity, and inclusion for all Syrians”, he said after his meetings here in Doha, where halls packed with senior diplomats, scholars, and officials from the world over are buzzing with the latest news from Syria.

Many observers here seem reluctant to draw quick conclusions about what kind of rule will emerge in a country known for its diversity of Christian and Muslim sects.

“I don’t want to go down that line of thinking yet,” said one Western diplomat asked about any concerns regarding a harsh Islamist-dominated order. “We’re just getting started with HTS, who have led a bloodless coup.”

Juneau agrees. “For now, it is good to simply appreciate the truly historical collapse of one of the most brutal regimes of the past decades,” he said.

Residents in Damascus have told of an anxious wait for news on what was happening in Syria’s capital city overnight.

After several hours of reports of rebels getting closer and closer, the forces declared Damascus “free” of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in the early hours of Sunday.

Unverified videos circulating on social media show people cheering in the streets and welcoming the rebel fighters, as well as inmates being freed from the notorious Saydnaya prison.

“No-one slept in Syria last night… no Syrian abroad slept,” Rania Kataf, who runs the Humans of Damascus Facebook page, said.

“The whole community was holding their phones waiting for the final news.

“How do I feel? Overwhelmed.. We all feel like we’ve been under water, literally, for thirteen years, and we all just took a breath.

• Syria’s Assad falls – follow live updates
• BBC in Umayyad Square amid deafening gunfire
• Watch: Presidential palace stormed in Damascus
• Where is Bashar al-Assad?

“And I know that there are so many people who are much older than me who have been through too much.”

She said she had “mixed feelings” since the offensive by rebel groups began, but that she was no longer afraid.

In the past, she said, she had been “scared of sharing an opinion I was so scared of even putting a like, putting a heart on someone from the opposition.”

Danny Makki, a journalist living in Damascus, described the scenes on Sunday morning in Umayyad Square, which is home to key government agencies, including the Ministry of Defence and the Syrian Armed Forces.

“People were firing guns into the air, people were dancing, taking photos and crying,” he said.

“I spoke to soldiers from the militia. One said he had been preparing for this for a long time.

“He wasn’t taking part in the offensive in Aleppo, but when he saw the rebels arrive on the outskirts of Damascus, that’s when he took up arms.”

He said some of the rebel fighters were using abandoned Syrian army vehicles.

“When I was driving around Damascus, I saw the Syrian army walking in civilian clothes on the road, not knowing where to go.”

Although there are celebrations, he said peoples’ immediate concern was security, and “making sure there is no infighting within the opposition ranks.”

Another Damascus resident, who asked to be anonymous, told the BBC: “For the very first time, there is a true feeling of freedom.”

“What we’re feeling really resembles what we felt during the revolution when it began in 2011. This is the continuation of a dream that had started that year.”

He said that Syrians feel fear and worry about the future, but “today, all the Syrian people will only celebrate.”

Further south, Yazan Al Amari runs a small phone shop in the city of Deraa, where civilian militias affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have already taken control.

He told the BBC that he is travelling with friends to the Syrian capital today to celebrate.

“When we woke up and saw the news, at first we couldn’t comprehend or fully grasp it at all. People were very scared of rumours.

“But when we realised it was actually true, we got in our cars, and now we are on our way to Damascus to celebrate.”

“People felt like they were in a dream,” he said.

“You could see people crying. We were very afraid until today.”

Al Amari says this is the first time in many years that he has been able to talk freely.

“I used to be unable to leave my small town or move freely at all. But now, I can go wherever I want,” he said.

But many people fear the unknowns of the future.

A Syrian man in London told me of fears for his family living on the coastal region of Syria.

“We are Eastern Orthodox Christians, I am afraid my family will be slaughtered,” the man, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

“Everybody is in a panic mode. They are trying to find a way out of the country.”

His family are making preparations to leave Syria, but the borders with Lebanon and Jordan are closed.

“Bags are packed, we are just waiting to see if any of the airports would open a flight to any surrounding country. Or if the land borders would allow any special groups to leave Syria,” he said.

“It is a fact that people are celebrating out of fear,” he said.

“They are celebrating because they are afraid they’ll be slaughtered if they don’t pretend to be excited. On one hand, we are all glad the regime is gone, on the other hand, we don’t know the outcome of the alternative government. After all, this rebel group is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.”

The group which has taken control of large parts of the country, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have said that Christians are safe.

“We just don’t know how true this statement is,” he said.

Bashar al-Assad has “stepped down” as president and “left Syria”, his ally Russia says, hours after rebel forces took control of the capital Damascus.

The Russian foreign ministry gave no further details about Assad’s whereabouts, but it was the first official statement saying he had fled the country.

Assad has not been pictured since he met Iranian foreign minister in Damascus a week ago. That day, he vowed to “crush” the rebels seizing territory with dizzying speed.

Early on Sunday morning, after their fighters entered the city without resistance, the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies declared that “the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled”.

• Syria’s Assad falls – follow live updates
• BBC in Umayyad Square amid deafening gunfire
• Watch: Presidential palace stormed in Damascus

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, also reported that a plane believed to be carrying Assad “left Syria via Damascus international airport before the army security forces left” the facility. Rami Abdul Rahman said he had information that the plane was meant to take off at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The Flightradar24 website did not record a departure around that time, although a Cham Wings Airlines Airbus A320 passenger plane did leave at around 00:56 on Sunday bound for Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The plane landed in Sharjah on time. But a diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates told reporters in Bahrain that he did not know if Assad was in the UAE.

Reuters news agency meanwhile cited two unnamed senior Syrian army officers as saying that Assad had boarded a Syrian Air plane at Damascus airport early on Sunday.

It noted that a Syrian Air Ilyushin Il-76T cargo plane took off from the airport at 03:59 local time (01:59 GMT) with an undisclosed destination.

According to data from Flightradar24, the plane initially flew east away from the capital before turning to the north-west and heading towards the Mediterranean coast, which is a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and is also home to Russian naval and air bases.

After flying over the central city of Homs – which fell to the rebels on Saturday night – at an altitude of 20,000ft (6,095m) the plane made a U-turn and started flying eastwards again while also losing altitude.

The plane’s transponder signal was lost at around 04:39 (02:39 GMT), when it was about 13km (8 miles) west of Homs and flying at an altitude 1,625ft (495m).

Flightradar24 said in a post on X that the aircraft “was old with an older transponder generation, so some data might be bad or missing”, that it was “flying in an area of GPS jamming, so some data might be bad”, and that there was not aware of any airports in the area where the signal was lost.

There have not been any reports of a plane crash in the same area.

It was Russian firepower that had helped keep Bashar al-Assad in power for the last nine years.

But, in a matter of days, the Kremlin’s Syria project has unravelled, with Moscow, apparently, powerless to do anything about it.

In a statement the Russian foreign ministry announced that Assad had left the post of president – and the country (without providing any details about where he’d gone).

It added that Moscow was “following the dramatic events in Syria with extreme concern”.

• Follow updates as rebels capture Damascus
• Syria in maps

The fall of the Assad regime is a blow to Russia’s prestige.

By sending thousands of troops to shore up President Assad in 2015, one of Russia’s key objectives had been to assert itself as a global power. It was Vladimir Putin’s first major challenge to the power and dominance of the West, away from the former Soviet space.

And a successful one, too, so it seemed. In 2017, President Putin visited Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and declared that it was mission accomplished. Despite widespread reports that Russian airstrikes were causing civilian casualties, the Russian defence ministry felt confident enough to fly international media out to Syria to witness the Russian military operation.

On one such trip I remember an officer telling me that Russia was in Syria “for the long haul”.

But this was about more than just prestige.

In return for military assistance, the Syrian authorities awarded Russia 49-year leases on the air base in Hmeimim and its naval base in Tartus. Russia had secured an important foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean. The bases became hubs for transferring military contractors in and out of Africa.

A key question for Moscow is: what will happen to these Russian bases now?

In its statement, the Russian foreign ministry announced that its bases in Syria had been put “on a state of hight alert”, but claimed there was “no serious threat to them at the current time”.

Assad was Russia’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. The Kremlin had invested heavily in him. It had poured resources – financial, military, political – into keeping him in power. The Russian authorities will struggle to present his toppling as anything but a setback for Moscow.

But in a post on social media, Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, wrote: “What’s happening in Syria is very difficult for everyone, without exception…a tragedy for everyone.

“For Russians our priority is to ensure the security of our citizens, both civilians, including diplomats and their families, and of course servicemen.”

Some 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Volodymyr Zelensky has said in a rare admission of the extent of the nation’s casualties.

In a post on social media, the Ukrainian president said 370,000 injuries had been reported, though this figure included soldiers who had been hurt more than once and some of the injuries were said to be minor.

He also claimed that 198,000 Russian soldiers had been killed and a further 550,000 wounded.

The BBC has not been able to verify either side’s figures.

While both Kyiv and Moscow have regularly published estimates of the other side’s losses, they have been reluctant to detail their own.

The new figure marks a significant increase in Ukrainian deaths since the start of the year.

The last time Zelensky gave an update on Ukraine’s casualties was in February, when he put deaths at 31,000.

The Ukrainian president is thought to have been compelled to make the admission after incoming US President-elect Donald Trump wrote on social media that Ukraine had “ridiculously lost” 400,000 soldiers, while close to 600,000 Russians had been killed or wounded. Trump did not state where these figures were from.

The incoming president, who has long made clear he wants to bring an end to the war, said too many lives had been “needlessly wasted”.

Zelensky’s estimates of Russian losses are similar to those provided by senior Western officials, who estimate Russia has suffered around 800,000 casualties, both killed and injured.

The UK’s defence ministry says Russia suffered 45,680 casualties in November alone – more than during any month since its full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

According to the latest UK Defence Intelligence estimates, an average of 1,523 Russian soldiers are being killed and wounded every day.

On 28 November, it says, Russia lost more than 2,000 men in a single day, the first time this has happened.

Moscow disputes those figures. In a statement, the Kremlin claimed that Ukrainian losses were “many times higher” than Russian ones.

Outside of Russia, the consensus is that Russian casualty figures are far higher than Ukraine’s due to their “meat grinder” tactics.

Recent developments in the war have only added to the number of dead.

Russian forces continue to make incremental advances along the eastern front line, capturing and retaking about 2,350 sq km of territory (907 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s western Kursk region since the start of the year.

Ukrainian forces maintain control over a small amount of Russian territory which was captured during a surprise offensive into Russia in August.

The Russian defence ministry says more than 38,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Kursk alone – a number that cannot be verified.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country’s south and east.

Zelensky mentioned Ukraine’s war dead in a broader post about the prospects for an eventual end to the war.

It follows talks in Paris on Saturday with French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump, who has sought to capitalise on views held by around a quarter of Americans that the US is providing too much support to Ukraine.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day” – but has yet to specify how he intends to do so.

In his post, Zelensky stressed that any peace deal had to be backed by effective international guarantees for his country’s security.

He said he told Macron and Trump that Kyiv needs an “enduring peace” which Moscow would not “destroy in a few years”.

Responding to Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire, the Kremlin said it was open to negotiations, but the conditions for a cessation of hostilities had been set by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.

His demands included Ukraine giving up more of its territory and abandoning ambitions to join Nato, which Kyiv has rejected.

Police have released two new images of a suspect in the hunt for the gunman who killed a health insurance chief executive in New York.

UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson, 50, was shot in the back as he made his way to a conference on Wednesday, in what police believe was a targeted attack.

On Saturday, city mayor Eric Adams said the “net is tightening” around the gunman, who has so far evaded police despite an extensive search and the use of facial recognition technology.

The FBI has offered a $50,000 (£39,000) reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.

The latest images of the man being sought are both taken from a vehicle. In one, he can be seen in the back of a taxi wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a disposable face covering.

In the second, he is seen outside of the car, again wearing a facemask.

The new appeal came as US media reported a backpack thought to belong to the suspect recovered near the scene contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and paper money from the board game Monopoly.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot as he made his was to an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan where he had been scheduled to speak later that day.

Police said the gunman first fled the scene on foot, before riding a bike towards Central Park.

The motive for the killing is still being investigated. Authorities have confirmed the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were written on the bullet casings found close to the victim’s body – language which could be associated with critics of the US’s private health insurance industry.

On Friday, a person familiar with the matter told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that investigators believed the suspect was no longer in New York City and may have boarded a bus to the city of Atlanta in the state of Georgia.

• Listen to Theo read this article

“Jaguar has no desire to be loved by everybody,” said Gerry McGovern as he strode across the stage on a slightly chilly evening in Miami last week. It was a bold statement from Jaguar Land Rover’s creative director, but it summed up the aura around the relaunch of one of the UK’s most famous brands.

On 18 November, a short teaser ad was released that ignited social media. Lasting just 30 seconds, it showed models in bizarre and brightly coloured outfits but did not feature a single car.

The New York Post described it as “the latest example of idiotic and woke corporate virtue signalling”. Elon Musk took a dig on X, asking Jaguar’s official account: “Do you sell cars?”

Then came the actual launch at a Miami art fair. Mr McGovern stood on stage beside two cars, resplendent in “Miami Pink” and “London Blue” shades. Both were examples of Jaguar’s new Type 00 – a concept car that won’t ever go on sale, but is meant to showcase the brand’s plans for the future. Angular, aggressive, with a huge bonnet and more than a hint of Batmobile, the new design also polarised opinions.

“Even Gen Z hate the new ‘woke’ Jaguar!” declared the Daily Mail. “Mark my words, Jaguar will go bust,” Reform Party leader Nigel Farage predicted on X. But the former Top Gear presenter James May told the BBC that the fact the ad was being talked about so widely has “got to be a bit of a result for Jaguar, hasn’t it”?

Jaguar’s managing director Rawdon Glover also hit back, insisting the company needed to be “bold and disruptive” in order to get its message across.

But some insiders argue that Jaguar’s problems run deeper than a five-minute frenzy on social media.

Even before the furore over the advert, “the brand was on a steady road to nowhere”, argues Matthias Schmidt, founder of industry intelligence firm Schmidt Automotive Research.

“The traditional Jaguar demographic was slowly being diluted through natural attrition and customers jumping ship to other brands.”

So, the publicity that the ad and the launch have drawn appear to have been welcomed within the business.

As Gerry McGovern drily quipped from the stage: “We’re delighted to have your attention.”

Controversy, he added, had always surrounded British creativity when it was at its best.

Behind all the noise, what is happening at Jaguar is pretty simple. It is being re-launched as an all-electric brand as part of a major restructuring at JLR, instigated by its parent company, the Indian conglomerate Tata.

Jaguar’s current models, including the I-Pace, the E-Pace and the F-Type, are no longer being sold in the UK. Instead, the first of a new generation of cars will hit the road in 2026.

Alongside this transition to battery power comes a move upmarket, with the new models expected to cost upwards of £100,000.

The reasons for doing all this are twofold. Firstly, Jaguar has been struggling to sell enough cars or to make enough money. Secondly, JLR needs to build more electric cars to satisfy regulators, who are working to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel models.

It’s a far cry from the brand’s glory days, when the E-Type placed Jaguar firmly at the heart of swinging-sixties British cool. Steve McQueen owned one. So did Frank Sinatra. Peter Sellers gave one to his wife, Swedish superstar Britt Ekland. George Best, who knew a thing or two about fast cars and a fast lifestyle, had several.

But for decades, the stereotype of a Jaguar buyer has been a well-to-do company boss – almost certainly male, with expensive cufflinks and a set of golf clubs in the boot. Not so long ago he might have been seen smoking a cigar as well.

That might be a little unfair on Jaguar. It has has clearly tried to appeal to female buyers and to families, with offerings such as the F-Pace. Nicknamed the “She-Type”, this was praised by Good Housekeeping magazine after its launch for its seats designed with women in mind.

But Jaguar continues to be perceived by many as a supplier of upmarket exec-mobiles – and this is a segment of the market where competition is fierce.

“They’ve been chasing BMW and Audi sales for years and despite some decent cars have struggled to be profitable,” explains Rachel Burgess, magazine editor at Autocar.

“Now, they’re trying to target the likes of Bentley and Porsche, looking at high net-worth individuals, who would be spending far more on a car than the level at which Jaguars used to be priced.”

The reinvention of Jaguar has been brewing for many years. Tata bought the brand from Ford in 2008, following nearly two decades under American ownership. During that period, Ford invested significant sums and overhauled its manufacturing and quality control processes. But it failed to make the business profitable and, at the height of the global financial crisis, put Jaguar up for sale.

After taking control of both Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata merged the two into JLR: that brought stability and removed immediate doubts over Jaguar’s future.

But while JLR has performed relatively well over the past decade, despite the downturn caused by the Covid pandemic, it is the part of the business that used to be Land Rover that has been driving recent growth.

This has been largely thanks to strong demand for luxury SUVs in markets such as North America and China, as well as in the UK.

In April, the company reported an increase in annual sales across its Range Rover, Defender and Discovery brands of nearly 25%, helping to drive revenues and profits up across the business. Jaguar’s sales did rise as well – by 7%. But that came after five years of steady decline.

In the 2018-19 financial year, Jaguar sold more than 180,000 vehicles. In 2023-24, the figure was 66,866 – a relatively small proportion of JLRs overall sales of 431,737.

By 2021, other pressures were mounting on JLR, not least the introduction of increasingly stringent environmental rules in the UK and the EU. At the time, JLR had only one electric model in its line-up, the I-Pace.

In February 2021, JLR’s chief executive Thierry Bolloré announced a new strategy: a wholesale revamp of its range, with all models to become available in electric form by the end of the decade. But crucially, he said Jaguar would be “re-imagined” as an all-electric brand.

Although Mr Bolloré would leave at the end of the following year, his plan was picked up by his successor, Adrian Mardell – who promised the company would invest £15bn to turn it into reality.

Within JLR, there is widespread recognition that something had to change.

“Jaguar’s performance over the past 10 years has been challenging,” Rawdon Glover admitted in a previous BBC interview. He pointed out that Jaguar had been trying to succeed in a high-volume market, where the bigger players can keep their costs down through economies of scale.

“While our vehicles were highly competent, and critically acclaimed, actually the ability to commercially succeed in that environment was challenging,” he said.

The move upmarket, in theory at least, gives Jaguar the opportunity to sell fewer cars, but with much bigger profit margins.

“I’m fully in agreement that they had to do something,” says Andy Palmer, an industry veteran and former CEO of Aston Martin who has also been a leading executive at Nissan.

“But it’s very brave to be planning to walk away from 85% of your customer base. They are going to have to find new customers to replace them. And acquisition of new customers is always more expensive than retaining existing ones.”

The big question, though, is whether the changes being made are the correct ones.

Arguably, one of the reasons why Jaguar’s rebrand has attracted such attention is because although relatively few people buy the actual cars, the name itself still resonates with cultural significance, thanks to a heritage going back more than seven decades.

In its early days, under founder Sir William Lyons, Jaguar was truly innovative, and it knew how to grab attention. In 1948, it launched the XK120, an elegant two-seater sports car with swooping lines and a powerful six-cylinder engine. As the name implied, it had a top speed of 120mph, making it the world’s fastest production car at the time.

In a country still recovering from the ravages of World War Two, this was a revelation. Jaguar had originally planned to build just 200, but demand was so high, it ended up making more than 12,000.

Victories in motorsport put Jaguar’s name in lights, especially at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans – but the company continued to produce striking machines off track as well.

A number of these have stood the test of time, not least the Mark II and its successor, the S-Type. First produced in 1959, this was a luxury saloon that happened to have plenty of bad-boy appeal.

Arguably Jaguar’s greatest moment, however, came with the launch of the E-Type in 1961, which came with 150mph performance, and movie-star cachet. It was the car to be seen in and gave the Jaguar badge a lustre that lasted for decades.

But nostalgia alone will not sell cars. Jaguar has been harking back to former glories for a long time.

“I would certainly say they’ve been trading off nostalgia for decades,” says Matthias Schmidt.

Prior to the relaunch, he says Jaguar has been “like a luxury hotel that doesn’t feel the need to refurbish its brand”. He adds: “The failure to look over one’s shoulders and see what the competition is doing can be fatal.”

This week’s relaunch seems designed to get the brand out of a comfortable rut and attempt to make it edgy again, while retaining at least some of its past cachet. Or, as Gerry McGovern put it from the Miami stage, “recapture the essence of Jaguar’s original creative conviction”.

Under normal circumstances, the debut of a new car might gain a certain amount of attention in motoring magazines and websites, but it would rarely, if ever, get onto the front pages.

The company has not said who was behind the teaser ad that went viral – generating more than three million views on YouTube – but JLR has been working with Accenture’s creative marketing arm, Accenture Song, for three years.

Accenture has not commented.

Branding experts have mixed views about the campaign.

“What we had was a really bold advertising campaign, that has now been followed through seamlessly with a concept car that completely matches the campaign,” says Mark Beaumont, founder of branding agency Dinosaur.

“It is potentially a masterclass in advertising awareness”.

But Tim Parker, strategy director at Conran Design thinks it is a risky strategy. “They have indeed copied nothing that has come before in the brand’s rich heritage, but at what cost?

“Few brands ever succeed by alienating their traditional customer base over the longer term,” he continues. “If the goal is to build relevance in a crowded luxury EV market, then differentiation makes sense – but only if the underlying strategy is coherent.”

What we have not seen yet, however, or at least in any detail, is an actual road-going car. The concept is just that – an idea.

Jaguar is in the process of developing three new models, the first of which is unlikely to go on sale until late 2026. All we have been told is that it will be powerful, with more than 575hp, and have a range of more than 430 miles.

It has begun road-testing, and a handful of leaked photos show a large boxy machine that is both similar to the concept – and very different.

For any car company, trying to negotiate the transition to electric vehicles without alienating any of its customers is going to be challenging. And for a brand like Jaguar, with the scent of petrol and the sound of six and 12 cylinder engines built into its DNA, it likely to be even harder.

But among all of this is another question that hasn’t yet been asked. That is, does that DNA even matter any more – and how useful really is it when it comes to selling cars today?

Andy Palmer puts it more bluntly: Jaguar, he thinks, may well be disposable.

“I think it’s a very fair question to ask – does JLR actually need the Jaguar brand? Does the world need the Jaguar brand?”

We won’t find out the answer until 2026. In the meantime, we know what Jaguar’s plan is. Now it has to deliver.

Ghana’s Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has accepted defeat in Saturday’s election and congratulated the opposition candidate, former President John Mahama, on his victory.

“The people have voted for change,” said Bawumia.

The elections come amid the country’s worst economic crisis in a generation, which saw the cost of basic goods shoot up, while young people struggled to get jobs and the country was unable to repay its debts.

Despite Bawumia’s concession, no official results have been declared.

The Electoral Commission (EC) said results had been delayed because supporters of the two main parties were impeding the process and it had asked the police to clear the collation centres.

Mahama’s supporters have taken to the streets around the country to celebrate, cheering, waving flags, blowing horns and spinning motorbikes.

“I’m so excited for this victory,” Salifu Abdul-Fatawu told the BBC in the central city of Kumasi.

He said he hoped it would mean that he and his sibling would get jobs, while the price of food and fuel would come down.

Even NPP supporter Nana accepted that “my party is NPP, but whatever they did was not good.

“The system was so bad in an election year and so most people were not happy.”

• Who is John Mahama?
• Ghana becomes record fifth African country to see opposition victory this year

Bawumia said he was basing his statement on internal tallies from the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

He said these showed Mahama had won “decisively”, while the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) had also won the parliamentary election.

Mahama confirmed that Bawumia had called to congratulate him on his “emphatic victory”.

The NDC earlier said that its internal results showed Mahama had won 56% of the vote against 41% for Bawumia.

The vice-president said he was accepting defeat before the official announcement of the results “to avoid further tension and preserve the peace of our country”.

The US embassy in the capital, Accra, has congratulated Ghana on “a successful election”.

President Nana Akufo-Addo is stepping down after reaching the official limit of two terms in office.

Mahama, 65, previously led Ghana from 2012 until 2017, when he was replaced by Akufo-Addo. Mahama also lost the 2020 election so this victory represents a stunning comeback.

Since the return of multi-party politics to Ghana in 1992, the NDC and the NPP have alternated in power.

No party has ever won more than two consecutive terms in power – a trend that looks set to continue.

Mahama’s previous time in office was marred by an ailing economy, frequent power-cuts and corruption scandals.

However, Ghanaians hope it will be different this time round.

During the campaign, Mahama promised to transform Ghana into a “24-hour economy”.

In Tamale, NDC supporter Gajia One told the BBC: “We handed over to them [NPP] and thought they could manage the country well, but they have failed, and we take over again.”

“John Mahama is the right man to rule this country. We are fed up.”

• PROFILE: Who is Mahamudu Bawumia?
• ON THE GROUND: What an accountant-turned-mechanic says about the election
• CHARTS: What’s on the minds of voters?
• IN BRIEF: Ghana – a basic guide

It’s morning in a makeshift camp on the remote British island of Diego Garcia, and Shanthi’s husband has just awoken to find their young children staring through a security fence.

As the children watch an officer and guard dog patrol the secretive island, home to a strategic UK-US military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, they make a stark remark: “Even the dogs have more freedom than us.”

“When I heard that I felt heartbroken,” he says.

It was a scene that captured their family’s predicament – they were stranded on a mysterious military fortress by accident, yet had a son and daughter, aged five and nine, to raise.

In an effort to find normality in the tiny camp they were housed in under constant surveillance, the family found ways to entertain themselves, to study, grow food and celebrate special occasions.

Shanthi, not her real name, says they had paid $5,000 (£3,900) in savings and given all of her gold jewellery to smugglers for an ambitious journey to Canada, more than 12,000 km away, with dozens of other Sri Lankan Tamils.

They all said they were fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka and India, some because of links with the former Tamil Tiger rebels who were defeated in the civil war that ended in 2009.

The fishing boat they were in leaked in rough seas, prompting their rescue by the Royal Navy who took them in October 2021 to Diego Garcia – and they were placed in the fenced-off migrant camp. Shanthi remembers her son asking if they had arrived in Canada.

Her young children received no formal education on the island for the first six months there so, as a trained teacher, Shanthi began giving English lessons to the children in the camp.

“We started with the basics – the alphabet, nouns, verbs, present continuous,” she says.

Shanthi’s husband later built a writing desk out of wooden pallets so the children could do homework in the tent.

The children soon began to complain of boredom in the evenings so Shanthi – who had trained in Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance – began giving dance lessons, too, playing music downloaded from her phone.

Three years after the family first arrived in the camp, they were finally sent to the UK this week in what the government described as a “one off” case in the interests of their welfare.

“It’s like an open prison – we were not allowed to go outside, we were just living in a fence and in a tent,” Shanthi, aged in her early 30s, says in an interview on the outskirts of London.

“Every day our life was the same.”

It was like living “in a cage,” she adds.

While guards watched and military jets occasionally roared overhead, Shanthi and the other Tamils approached British forces on the island with a letter asking to be sent to a safe country. It marked the first time that asylum claims had ever been filed in the territory.

This sparked a lengthy legal battle 6,000 miles away in the UK, and while that took its course, Shanthi and the others stuck there, took matters into her own hands.

While the Tamils were not allowed to cook their own food, the camp was full of coconut trees, and Shanthi and others used the husks to line planters in which they grew their own vegetables – chilli, garlic and cucumber.

“They would sometimes give us red chilis so we dried them in the sun and collected the seeds and then grew them. In the salad sometimes we’d get cucumber so we collected the seeds and kept them in the sunlight and after they dried they would grow,” she says.

Every day, they would make sambol – a popular Sri Lankan side dish – by mashing the coconut and chilli.

They struggled to eat the American food served to them from the base, and would put the vegetables in hot water with garlic and chilli to try to make curries.

With limited access to clothing, particularly for the 16 children in the camp, Shanthi and other women stitched dresses from bed sheets. Come Christmas time, they turned paper napkins into flowers, and cut moon and star shapes out of food containers to decorate a tree.

Relations with the guards that watched over them were often tense, but at Diwali, Shanthi says an “officer with a good heart brought us a biryani”. On another occasion, a guard brought a cake for her son, who had been counting down the days to his birthday.

But as time went on, Shanthi says, the feelings of helplessness grew.

Life in the camp was to exist in a bubble – news of major wars breaking out in Ukraine and the Middle East trickled through from the guards watching over the migrants, but they were kept away from the base and consumed by their own lives.

Access to the island, part of the Chagos Archipelago, is heavily restricted. It has officially had no resident population since the early 1970s when the UK evicted all the people living there so it could develop the strategic base.

“From day one until we left, every day we were living with rats,” Shanthi says. “Sometimes the rats would bite our children – their legs, fingers and hands. They stole our food. At nights sometimes they would crawl over our blankets and our heads.”

Giant coconut crabs and tropical fire ants would also crawl into the camp.

During storms, rain water would pour in through holes in the tents, which had previously been used for Covid patients in the pandemic.

When United Nations investigators visited the camp late last year, the children told them they dreamed of going for a picnic, riding a bike or eating an ice cream.

At one point earlier this year, a medical official described the camp as being in “complete crisis”, with mass self-harming and incidents of attempted suicide.

“My daughter was watching everything that happened. She’d say ‘mum they’ve cut themselves. Should I cut myself?’ So I’d say ‘no, no. You can’t do anything. I’ll protect you. Come and listen to some music, come and take some paper and just draw,'” she recalls through tears.

Both she and her husband sob as they talk about the two times their daughter self-harmed.

“Both times I felt really bad and couldn’t process it. When she did this, she told me she did it because she hoped if she died her parents and her brother would go to a safe third country,” Shanthi says.

There were also cases and allegations of sexual assault and harassment within the camp by other migrants, including against children.

“Over three years we suffered so much. I don’t know how we survived,” Shanthi says.

Throughout the Tamils’ time on the island, British authorities acknowledged that it was not a suitable place for them, and said they were looking for long-term solutions. The government said the group’s wellbeing and safety was the “top priority”.

Shanthi says the happiest moment in the camp came recently when officials announced that they would be brought to the UK, where they would be given the right to remain for six months. Shanthi says no one in the camp slept that night.

Upon arriving in the UK, Shanthi says she was struck by “the cold” – and it felt like waking from a coma. She had forgotten how to download apps, send WhatsApp messages or pay in shops.

Her children talk of starting school, making friends and riding a double-decker bus.

But the family’s long-term future remains uncertain. They have now filed asylum claims in the UK in hopes of remaining. If unsuccessful, they will likely be returned to Sri Lanka.

The UK agreed earlier this year to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move. Under the deal, which has still to be signed, Diego Garcia would continue to operate as a UK-US military base but Mauritius would take responsibility for any future migrant arrivals.

Shanthi brought a shell with her from Diego Garcia to remember her time there. One day, she plans put it on a chain and wear it around her neck.

Ghana’s Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has conceded defeat in Saturday’s elections, congratulating opposition leader and former President John Mahama on his victory. Early results suggest this could be one of the heaviest defeats in decades for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which had been in power since 2016.

Voters were angered by a combination of the rising cost of living, a series of high-profile scandals and a major debt crisis that prevented the government from delivering on key promises. As a result, the NPP may have dropped below 45% of the presidential vote for the first time since 1996.

Ghana’s vote brings to an end a remarkable 12 months in African politics, which have seen five transfers of power – more than ever before. This “annus horribilis” for governments has now also brought opposition victories in Botswana, Mauritius, Senegal and the self-declared republic of Somaliland.

Even beyond these results, almost every election held in the region this year under reasonably democratic conditions, has seen the governing party lose a significant number of seats.

This trend has been driven by a combination of factors:

• the economic downturn
• growing public intolerance of corruption
• and the emergence of increasingly assertive and well-co-ordinated opposition parties.

The trend is likely to continue into 2025, and will cause trouble for leaders such as Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera, whose country goes to the polls in September.

One of the most striking aspect of the elections that have taken place in 2024 is that many have resulted in landslide defeats for governments that have previously appeared to have a strong grip on power – including in countries that have never before experienced a change at the top.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) that had ruled the country since independence in 1966 was crushed in October’s general elections.

As well as losing power, the BDP went from holding 38 seats in the 69-strong parliament to almost being wiped out.

After winning only four seats, the BDP is now one of the smallest parties in parliament, and faces an uphill battle to remain politically relevant.

There was also a landslide defeat for the governing party in Mauritius in November, where the Alliance Lepep coalition, headed by Pravind Jagnauth of the Militant Socialist Movement, won only 27% of the vote and was reduced to just two seats in parliament.

With its rival Alliance du Changement sweeping 60 of the 66 seats available, Mauritius has experienced one of the most complete political transformations imaginable.

Senegal and the self-declared republic of Somaliland also saw opposition victories.

In the case of Senegal, the political turnaround was just as striking as in Botswana, albeit in a different way.

Just weeks ahead of the election, the main opposition leaders Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko were languishing in jail as the government of President Macky Sall abused its power in a desperate bid to avert defeat.

After growing domestic and international pressure led to Faye and Sonko being released, Faye went on to win the presidency in the first round of voting, with the government’s candidate winning only 36% of the vote.

Even in cases where governments have not lost, their reputation and political control have been severely dented.

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) retained power but only after a bruising campaign that saw it fall below 50% of the vote in a national election for the first time since the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

This forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to enter into a coalition government, giving up 12 cabinet posts to other parties, including powerful positions such as home affairs.

The recent elections in Namibia told a similar story. Although the ruling party retained power, the opposition has rejected the results and claims the poll was badly manipulated after it was marred by logistical problems and irregularities.

Even with the flaws, the government suffered in the parliamentary election, recording its worst-ever performance, losing 12 of its 63 seats and only just holding on to its parliamentary majority.

As a result, a region that is known more for governments that manage to hold on to power for decades has seen 12 months of vibrant, intensely contested, multiparty politics.

The only exceptions to this have been countries where elections were seen as neither free nor fair, such as Chad and Rwanda, or in which governments were accused by opposition and rights groups of resorting to a combination of rigging and repression to avert defeat, as in Mozambique.

Three trends have combined to make it a particularly difficult year to be in power.

In Botswana, Mauritius and Senegal, growing citizen concern about corruption and the abuse of power eroded government credibility.

Opposition leaders were then able to play on popular anger at nepotism, economic mismanagement and the failure of leaders to uphold the rule of law to expand their support base.

Especially in Mauritius and Senegal, the party in power also undermined its claim to be a government committed to respecting political rights and civil liberties – a dangerous misstep in countries where the vast majority of citizens are committed to democracy, and which have previously seen opposition victories.

The perception that governments were mishandling the economy was particularly important because many people experienced a tough year financially.

High food and fuel prices have increased the cost of living for millions of citizens, increasing their frustration with the status quo.

In addition to underpinning some of the government defeats this year, economic anger was the main driving force that triggered the youth-led protests in Kenya that rocked President William Ruto’s government in July and August.

This is not an African phenomenon, of course, but a global one.

Popular discontent over inflation played a role in the defeat of Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party in the UK and the victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the United States.

What was perhaps more distinctive about the transfers of power in Africa this year was the way that opposition parties learned from the past.

In some cases, such as Mauritius, this meant developing new ways to try and protect the vote by ensuring every stage of the electoral process was carefully watched.

In others, it meant forging new coalitions to present the electorate with a united front.

In Botswana, for example, three opposition parties and a number of independent candidates came together under the banner of the Umbrella for Democratic Change to comprehensively out-mobilise the BDP.

A similar set of trends is likely to make life particularly difficult for leaders that have to go to the polls next year, such as Malawi’s President Chakwera, who is also struggling to overcome rising public anger at the state of the economy.

With the defeat of the NPP in Ghana, Africa has seen five transfers of power in 12 months. The previous record was four opposition victories, which occurred some time ago in 2000.

That so many governments are being given an electoral bloody nose against a backdrop of global democratic decline that has seen a rise in authoritarianism in some regions is particularly striking.

It suggests that Africa has much higher levels of democratic resilience than is often recognised, notwithstanding the number of entrenched authoritarian regimes that continue to exist.

Civil society groups, opposition parties and citizens themselves have mobilised in large numbers to demand accountability, and punish governments that have failed both economically and democratically.

International governments, organisations, and activists looking for new ways to defend democracy around the world should pay more attention to a region that is often assumed to be an inhospitable environment for multiparty politics, yet has seen more examples of democratic bounce-back than other regions of the world.

• Opposition wins Ghana presidential election, vice-president says
• John Mahama: The former president set to lead Ghana once more
• From freedom fighter to Namibia’s first female president
• Why voters fall out of love with liberation movements
• Children shot dead after joining pot-banging protests in Mozambique

Last month, Rishabh Pant became the most expensive player in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) as he was signed by Lucknow SuperGiants for 27 crore rupees (£2.54m) at the mega auction in Saudi Arabia.

But it was the news of Prithvi Shaw – Pant’s Delhi Capitals teammate – going unsold that grabbed more attention.

Among those seated in the auction in positions to make bids were Sourav Ganguly and Ricky Ponting, who had been closely associated with Shaw in his years with Capitals, as also Rahul Dravid, who was coach when India won the under-19 World Cup under Shaw in 2018.

Their disinterest was telling. Shaw found no takers.

Ironically, just nine months earlier, before the start of the 2024 IPL season, it was Pant whose career looked in jeopardy.

A horrific car crash in December 2022 had left him with multiple life-threatening injuries. But showing iron will, great determination and self-discipline, Pant fought his way back from what seemed a dead-end to his career.

Pant faced the challenges of IPL 2024 head-on and excelled, earning a rapid recall to international cricket. He was part of the T20 World Cup-winning squad. Dominating the domestic season, he impressed in the domestic Duleep Trophy, paving the way for a sensational return to Test cricket. Against Bangladesh, he lit up the field with a scorching century.

Shaw, meanwhile, under pressure after a couple of poor IPL seasons, has lurched from one crisis to another.

His indifferent form in IPL 2024 saw him lose his place in the playing XI mid-season. A spate of low scores in the current domestic season saw him lose his place in the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team too. And an outright rejection in the IPL mega auction has brought his career to the precipice of a premature end.

It’s been a mighty tumble for the 25-year-old, who not too long ago, was touted as the ‘next big thing’ in Indian cricket.

Shaw hit the headlines in November 2013 as a 14-year-old when he smashed 546 runs for Rizvi Springfield in the Harris Shield, a prestigious school cricket tournament. It was the highest score in the world in minor cricket then.

Sachin Tendulkar, India’s most celebrated cricketer, had retired only a week earlier, and Shaw earned an instant comparison with the maestro.

Tendulkar’s spectacular rise to eminence following his world record 664-runs partnership with Vinod Kambli in a school game way back in 1987, had inspired quite a few batting prodigies, especially from Mumbai. Shaw was one of them.

A short and stocky opening batsman, Shaw did not have the technical virtuosity Tendulkar had even as a teenager. But he had a gift of timing, and took the attack to the bowlers with such panache that selectors were instantly enamoured.

He was fast-tracked into first-class cricket, like Tendulkar, scoring a century on debut in the domestic Ranji and Duleep Trophy, which hardened comparisons between the two.

In late 2018, he got a Test call-up against the West Indies. Shaw hit 134 off just 154 deliveries, studded with rifle-shot drives, cuts and pulls. He was barely 19. Only Tendulkar among Indians had scored his maiden Test century at a younger age.

Touted as a worthy successor to Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, Shaw had the world at his feet. But he’s been on a slippery slope since.

Six years after his sensational debut he played in only four more Tests. Add six ODIs and a solitary T20i, it still makes for a dismal aggregate of international appearances for a batsman whose precocity had promised a long, dazzling career.

An unfortunate foot injury, which saw him being sent back from the tour of Australia in 2020 was the start of Shaw’s problems. Later that year, he tested positive for a banned substance and was lucky to get away with a light sentence. Thereafter his batting form started declining steadily, touching excellence agonisingly infrequently to impress selectors.

Meanwhile stories of Shaw getting embroiled in wild parties and brawls started to spread. By the middle of IPL 2024, he was on notice, as it were. After the IPL 2025 mega auction, his career seems engulfed in uncertainty.

Injury, illness, and poor form can derail even the best, but those close to Shaw reveal that misfortune has played only a minor role in his precarious downfall.

Ricky Ponting, who as Delhi Capitals coach worked closely with Shaw, says: “There’s only so much [advice] you can give and only so many times you can try [to sort him out] .”

Former India batsman Praveen Amre, who was assistant coach with Delhi Capitals was more direct. “Prithvi’s inability to handle IPL fame and money has been his undoing. I’ve talked to him several times, giving him the example of Vinod Kambli who frittered away his career for the lack of discipline,’’ Amre told a national daily.

The IPL has revolutionised young players’ lives, offering a platform for talent and livelihood. Yet, the challenges of early success, instant fame,and rapid wealth remain pressing. Rahul Dravid, drawing on his experience as U-19 and India A coach, has emphasised the need for stronger junior-level mentoring to keep players on track. Shaw’s struggles underscore the importance of his insight.

What the future holds for Shaw time will tell.

At 25, he still has age on his side. But Indian cricket is overflowing with talent, and competition for places is intense. The path from here is all uphill.

“Some of the greatest sports stories are comeback stories, If Prithvi Shaw has decent people around him who care about his long term success, they’d sit him down, tell him to get off social media & train his absolute backside off in getting super fit. It’ll get him back into the correct path where past success can return. Too talented to throw it all away,” Former England captain Kevin Pietersen posted on X.

The message to Shaw is clear. Redemption lies in his own hands.

The government is “not ready” for the sort of extreme weather brought by Storm Darragh, the new head of the Climate Change Committee has warned.

Emma Pinchbeck, who heads the government’s independent climate advisory body, told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the UK is “off track” and must do more to prepare for scenarios like flooding and intense heat.

Storm Darragh brought 96mph gusts on Saturday, with two men dying during the storm and thousands being left without power. It was the fourth serious storm to hit the UK since mid-October.

The UK government has committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, as scientists warn the rate of extreme weather events will increase as the climate warms.

However, Pinchbeck said adaptations to homes and communities were needed immediately “regardless of what you think we should do in terms of reducing emissions”.

In her first televised interview since taking up the post of chief executive at the Climate Change Committee, she said: “We’re off track against where we should be – and that’s things like flood defences, or are our houses built on flood plains?

“In the summer are our cities ready for extreme heat? These basic things.”

Pinchbeck said the UK must plan for more extreme weather events like Saturday’s storm, adding: “We have to prepare our infrastructure for it.

“We have to prepare the economy for it. We have to prepare our homes for it.”

The government’s own climate risk assessment, published in 2022, warned the impacts of a changing environment could cost the UK billions of pounds a year.

It said that efforts must be undertaken to prepare for the effects of 4C of warning, regardless of international agreements with targets to limit warming to 1.5C.

Pinchbeck continued: “There are risks to our food yields, there are risks to where we can build safe homes for people, and risks to our towns and cities which are built on coastlines.

“These things are very obvious and we should be acting now to tackle them.”

Pressed on whether enough is being done to prepare for an increased rate of extreme weather events, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told the BBC the government has already put more money into flood defences.

She also said environmental factors will be taken into consideration as ministers press ahead with plans to build 1.5m new homes across the UK over the next five years.

BBC News has asked the government to respond to Pinchbeck’s remarks.

In New York City, sometime in the late 1980s, a group of friends sat in a bar near Central Park and flicked through a magazine.

One man, after looking at the stories of boxing, wrestling, and judo, turned to his friends and said, with some regret: “We don’t do any of those things.”

Almost 40 years later, on a coach on the M40 in England, a different man opened a Mars bar.

When he noticed the bar was smooth, rather than rippled, he posted a picture on Facebook. The post was picked up by the media – including the BBC – and the story of the unusually-smooth chocolate was read by millions of people around the world.

The friends in Manhattan, and the man with the Mars bar, do not know each other – but they are linked by a trans-Atlantic thread. Their stories mark the founding, and perhaps the high point, of a growing fellowship: the Dull Men’s Club.

Grover Click, now 85, was one of those friends in the New York bar in the 1980s.

“When my friend said ‘we don’t do any of those things’, someone else said: ‘We’re kind of dull, aren’t we?’ So I said: ‘OK – let’s start a club for us dull men.'”

The club began as a joke. They raced lifts (or elevators) to see which was fastest, and once organised a bus tour that started and finished in Manhattan, without going anywhere in between.

“We walked round the outside and the driver explained tyre pressures,” Grover remembers. “Silliness like that.”

In 1996, after Grover moved to England, his nephew offered to build a website for “that silly Dull Men’s Club”. And from there, says Grover, “it kind of morphed, and has really caught on now”.

Grover’s Dull Men’s Club Facebook group – it’s the one with the copyright symbol in the title, there are copycats – now has 1.5 million members. On it, men and women of all ages celebrate their observations and obsessions, without fear of ridicule (ridicule is against the rules, as is politics, religion, and swearing).

Posts this week include praise for the £2 coin design; before and after pictures of brass instrument repair; and how long it takes to fill a water bottle. One person comments: “Every morning at work I refill my water bottle and it takes 47 seconds… sometimes I close my eyes and count to 47.”

But the Dull Men’s Club is more than just a Facebook page: it also has a newsletter, a calendar, real-life meet-ups, and awards – including the coveted Anorak of the Year, for the truly dedicated dullster (Grover prefers dullster – “The opposite of hipster,” he says – to dullard).

This year’s winner was Tim Webb, 68, from Orpington in south-east London. He takes pictures of potholes with plastic ducks in.

Tim started taking his pictures in January last year, after a pothole in his area wasn’t repaired properly.

“I had a word with a council official, and he recommended that I look at the manifesto of the Monster Raving Loony Party from 2017. In there, it says residents should highlight potholes with plastic ducks – seriously, this is true. And I thought, OK, I’ll put plastic ducks in potholes.”

After taking the pictures (for safety reasons, he works at quiet times and takes a friend to help) he sent them to the council, and posted them on a local Facebook group. Encouraged by the feedback, he progressed from plastic ducks to other visual jokes.

“I put a toad in a pothole – not a real toad – and wrote: ‘This is my favourite Sunday dish.’ And people either get it or they don’t.”

Tim does not know how many potholes he has photographed – he guesses 100 to 150 – but now the pothole art is the “interesting bit” of his campaign. The dull bit, he admits, is his spreadsheet of every road defect in the borough, which allows him to chase up repairs.

“There are about 2,500 entries on there,” he says.

Grover encouraged Tim to join the Dull Men’s Club after seeing the pothole pictures online. Tim did so, and was happy to accept the Anorak of the Year award in the good-natured spirit in which it was offered.

But for Tim, there is a serious side to his hobby, even if it could seem… well, less glamorous than others.

“I don’t do it for money or fame,” he says. “I do it because I want to make a difference to my community.”

It’s an outlook shared by the Dull Men’s Club Anorak of the Year from 2021 – who, it turns out, is neither dull, nor a man.

In 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, Rachel Williamson was looking at a socially-distanced queue outside a chemist in her hometown of Rhyl in Denbighshire.

“My twin sister joined the queue. They’re all looking miserable, and I’m in the car waiting for her. And I just wondered – could I put a sparkly hat on the post box to make this queue smile?”

Although Rachel – a 61-year-old retired police detective – had knitted since she was a girl, she couldn’t crochet. With little else to do in lockdown, she tried, and within two days had a sparkly hat for the post box outside the chemist. Another one, for the box outside the Post Office, soon followed.

“My sister went in the Post Office and she said: ‘Nobody’s talking about Covid any more, they’re talking about the post box topper outside the door.'”

She has since topped more than 300 post boxes, and made countless other decorations for the community. She does requests from elsewhere in the UK – “I’ve sent one to Scotland, one to Nantwich [in Cheshire]” – and local people chip in with supplies.

“My living room is full of wool,” she says. “I don’t know where the Christmas tree is going to go.”

During lockdown, Rachel’s toppers featured in a charity book and calendar, which brought her to the attention of the Dull Men’s Club. So how does it feel for a woman to be invited to such a club?

“I’d never heard of it, but I felt very privileged,” she says.

Yet despite being an Anorak of the Year, is Rachel’s hobby even dull? Is it not colourful, life-enhancing, even – dare we say – ?

“I’ve got three grown-up sons, and when they come round, all I talk about is my knitting,” she says. “I am the dullest person on the planet to them. I’ve gone from a fast-moving detective to fluff and stuff.”

Like Tim, Rachel has found purpose in her (arguably) dull hobby.

“After 18 years in the police, it has restored my faith in people. The people of Rhyl have been absolutely great. And we’ve made lots of people smile.”

She picked up her Anorak of the Year award in a ceremony in a pub near Llangollen.

“The people who haven’t got hobbies are the dull people.” says Rachel.

It’s a realisation that also came to Grover Click – the original Dull Man – while compiling the club’s calendar, decades after that first conversation in the New York bar.

“We started writing about these people and thought it was kind of funny,” he says. “But then you see these guys are onto something. They’ve got their act together.”

To sum it up, Grover points to his foreword to the 2024 Dull Men’s Club calendar.

“What they [the dull men] are doing is referred to in Japan as ,” he writes. “It gives a sense of purpose, a motivating force. A reason to jump out of bed in the morning.”

At least five people have died and four others injured after explosions rocked a block of flats in The Hague in the Netherlands, authorities have said.

Firefighters rushed to the three-storey building following the blasts that caused the collapse of several homes in the Tarwekamp area at around 06:15 (05:15 GMT) on Saturday.

The city’s mayor, Jan van Zanen, said it was unknown how many people were still missing.

The cause of the explosions is not yet clear, but Dutch police said a car drove away “at very high speed” shortly after, and have appealed for witnesses.

Van Zanen said the chance of survivors being pulled from the rubble was slim, and urged the community to prepare for a “worst case scenario”.

It was earlier thought up to 20 people may have been in the flats at the time of the blast, but the mayor refused to speculate on this.

The Dutch fire service said five people are confirmed dead.

Dutch media reported five flats were destroyed in the explosion.

Rescue teams with sniffer dogs have been deployed to sift through the debris, but parts of the site remain too dangerous to access.

A large excavator has been brought in to remove debris and lighting erected at the site.

Fourteen-year-old Adam Muller told the AFP news agency the explosion “felt like an earthquake”.

“I was asleep and suddenly there was this huge bang,” he said.

“I looked out of the window and just saw flames. It’s a massive shock,” he added.

National police commissioner in the Netherlands Janny Knol said there was “disbelief and uncertainty” in the community.

Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima said in a statement: “We sympathise with all those who have been personally affected or who fear for the fate of their loved ones.”

Not long after buying and publicly consuming a $6.2m banana as part of an artworld stunt, Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun made another eye-catching purchase, investing $30m ($23.5m) into a cryptocurrency firm called World Liberty Financial.

The company had foundered since its October launch, investors seemingly leery of its prospects and its terms.

But it boasted a potentially enticing feature: the chance to do business with a firm partnering with and promoted by none other than Donald Trump.

Mr Sun’s investment tipped the company over the threshold that allowed the president-elect to begin profiting from the venture. Trump and his family are now in the position to collect roughly $20m – and potentially far more.

Mr Sun, who is currently fighting fraud charges in the US related to his own crypto business, did not respond to questions about what prompted his interest in the tokens, which cannot be traded.

But the episode set off alarm bells among government ethics experts, who see it as an indication that Trump’s expanding business ventures have made it easier than ever for those hoping to influence US policy to steer money his way.

“The conflicts have grown substantially with the scope of his business empire,” said Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer during the George W Bush administration.

In a statement to the BBC, Trump’s team shrugged off the worries.

In his first term, “President Trump removed himself from his multi-billion-dollar real estate empire to run for office and forewent his government salary,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.

“Unlike most politicians, President Trump didn’t get into politics for profit – he’s fighting because he loves the people of this country and wants to make America great again.”

But Trump has taken little action in response to concerns about the potential for corruption, or appearance of it, as he prepares for a return to the White House.

Trump has faced questions about conflicts of interest before.

During his first term as president, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC became a symbol of the issue, as a go-to place for lobbyists, foreign diplomats, and allies to stay and spend.

Critics argued that the hotel created a way for Trump to profit indirectly from his office. He faced accusations and lawsuits alleging he violated the US Constitution’s ban on presidents receiving foreign emoluments – or profiting from their office.

But experts said the growth of his business empire, which now includes a publicly traded social media company, a cryptocurrency firm, and ties to a Saudi-backed golf league, makes it possible for anyone hoping to curry favour to move money more quietly and in much greater sums.

“The scale has increased and the ease has increased,” said Michael Ohlrogge, a law professor at New York University, who has studied Trump Media, which operates Truth Social and currently represents the bulk of Trump’s $6bn fortune. “You can only book so many hotel rooms.”

On Truth Social, for example, Prof Ohlrogge said a foreign government or business could purchase ads convincing investors the firm was gaining traction, prompting a pop in its share price.

Though Trump Media commands a market value of more than $7bn, there has been little sign of such activity so far. The company reported less than $5m in ad sales this year.

But given the stock market’s “amplifying” effect, Prof Ohlrogge said it would not require a lot of spending to lead to potentially significant gains for Trump, who owns more than half the shares of the company.

Nowhere is the entanglement between Trump’s business interests and his public duties as stark as in the crypto industry, where he has deepened his personal involvement, while simultaneously promising to champion it while in the White House.

His plans include regulatory rollback and ideas such as a national Bitcoin reserve, in which the government would stockpile the cryptocurrency.

“One of the most important issues to be determined over the next couple years is how crypto is regulated,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Well now, he’s an active player in the crypto market. How it could be regulated [could] affect his personal wealth, what kind of position he takes.”

Nik Bhatia, founder of Bitcoin Layer, a firm that advocates investments in Bitcoin, said it would be a mistake to dismiss Trump’s stance on crypto as driven only by his own financial interests.

“I don’t see these moves motivated by self-interest – I see them representing the electorate,” he said.

But still, he said: “I think there probably is a conflict of interest in that his pro-crypto stance will benefit his company.”

This week, Trump said he would nominate Paul Atkins, who has lobbied for the industry, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

He is widely expected to dial back enforcement at the agency, which polices publicly traded firms such as Trump Media for issues such as fraud and insider trading. The SEC oversaw a crackdown on the crypto industry under President Joe Biden.

Mr Sun, the World Liberty Financial investor, was caught up in the SEC crackdown last year, after the agency charged him and his company with failing to properly register with the government while selling certain digital assets, among other charges.

Under new leadership, the agency could very well drop the case, said John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in securities law.

“The leading characteristic of Mr Atkins is that he does not like enforcement and wants to greatly restrict the range of cases the SEC will bring,” he said.

In announcing his investment last month, Mr Sun did not mention the SEC complaint – which he has said lacks merit – but did cite Trump’s views on crypto.

“The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump!” he wrote on X. “TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation. Let’s go!”

There is little in US law that sets limits on conflict-of-interest – presidents are not bound by the same rules that regulate other government employees and cabinet officials.

Though the US Constitution in theory bars presidents from taking presents from foreign governments while in office, the Supreme Court already has dismissed two previous lawsuits from Trump’s first term involving potential conflicts of interests.

Last summer, in a case involving Trump, it also ruled that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution while in office.

In the past, Trump has argued that his business was actually hurt by his time in the White House, as partners worried about controversy cut ties, and he faced investigations and lawsuits.

Now preparing to enter the White House a second time, Trump has yet to unveil an ethics plan, as is customary, and has given little sign he plans to bow to such concerns.

He has vowed to hold onto his Trump Media stake, continues to hawk Trump-branded merchandise and lend his name to ventures like World Liberty Financial. His Mar-a-Lago club remains a place where the wealthy willing to pay for membership can gain access to the president with little to no transparency.

Ethics experts worry that Trump has opened a door that will be difficult to close again.

“Trump’s got the message he can do whatever he wants, because he won,” Mr Painter said. “Future presidents are going to look at this and think, ‘ can do whatever we want.'”

Since it was legalised in the UK, the number of medicinal cannabis prescriptions has surged. With demand showing no signs of slowing, one company has ambitions to take production of the drug to a new level.

The BBC has been given access to the factory on the condition the location remains secret.

To enter, we need to prove our identities, go through two secure gates, and finally, pass through a bulletproof door.

The security team is ex-military.

“We have hundreds of CCTV cameras around the place – all infrared,” says James Leavesley, one of the founders of Dalgety.

According to the company, this hi-tech facility is the first in the UK where cannabis can be grown, packaged and sold directly to pharmacies from a single location.

James first became interested in growing legal cannabis six years ago.

Although he comes from an agricultural background, for many years he worked in the oil and gas industry.

In 2018, when cannabis was legalised for medicinal use in the UK, the apparent demand for the drug caught his attention.

“There was a government survey showing there are 1.8 million people in the UK sourcing illicit cannabis to help alleviate their medical conditions,” he says.

That same year, he discussed the issue while sitting around the dinner table with his father and a family friend.

The friend revealed he was also keen to get into the cannabis sector – so they decided to go into business together, and formed Dalgety.

Crucially however, they needed someone who had real-world experience of producing cannabis on a large scale.

They looked to Canada, where the drug has been legal since 2018.

“We knew we wanted to go and look outside the UK for a skilled grower and Canada has been at the forefront of this for so long,” says James.

“Growing cannabis is completely different to any other crop really and we wanted somebody who had experience.”

After extensive research, they decided to headhunt a grower called Brady Green.

Brady had previously designed and set up several licensed cannabis facilities in his native country, and was renowned for his work, says James.

He acted as a consultant for the company for three years, before being recruited as their head grower.

Brady went on to design the entire set-up, including the robust security needed to protect the site.

“We have various access control points, restricted access [controlling] which employees and visitors can go to certain areas,” adds James.

“It’s really important for the amount of cannabis that we’re growing on site that the UK Home Office have comfort that we take our security measures seriously.”

Despite the huge investment for James and his business partners, their efforts came with no guarantee of success.

Growing and selling cannabis legally requires a licence from the Home Office.

Cannabis also needs to be grown to a certain standard, and sent away for testing before it can be approved for sale.

But James and his partners were convinced it was worth the risk, given the strong growth of markets in countries like Canada, the US and Germany.

“We knew that the demand for the product was going to be there,” says James.

In January 2023, Dalgety secured a Home Office licence to grow cannabis, and in April that year they began cultivating.

The crops grown were clones – genetically identical – but despite this, multiple batches still had to be tested to ensure the product was consistent.

In total, more than 600 samples were sent to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The business had spent £8m to £10m to reach this point, so the stakes were high.

I’m expecting to walk into a cavernous room filled with cannabis plants, and an overwhelming smell.

Instead, I find a series of hospital-style corridors, each leading to several small laboratories.

“The lighting has been bespoke-made, and we actually create artificial wind in the room to ensure there are no microclimates,” James says.

It’s so bright, we’re issued a pair of specially-made glasses to protect our eyes.

James explains it takes about 12 to 14 weeks to create the finished product.

Two weeks of that is spent in the drying room. As the door slides open, the surroundings are notably different – darker and cooler.

Once dried, the plants need to be prepared before being packaged.

James takes us into a larger lab where there are six people, suited up in overalls, hair nets and gloves.

They have been handpicked due to their experience in agriculture, or interest in the business.

The flowers will go on to be packaged and sent to patients.

In September this year, James and the team secured their second licence, which gave them permission to sell cannabis.

James believes the challenge of getting both licences is the reason no-one else has been able to build an “all-in-one” facility.

“It’s almost two industries combined into one, so it’s an agricultural business and it’s a medical and pharmaceutical business as well, and most people have the ability to specialise in one or the other but not both,” he says.

The company aims to take its product to market in January. By this point, James says they will be able to produce enough for 4,000 prescriptions a month – and the company already has a partnership with prescribers and clinics.

There are currently about 50,000 users of medicinal cannabis, receiving prescriptions from 33 private pharmacies.

However, very few people are being given the drug on the NHS.

The reason for this is that not all medicinal cannabis products are approved for use by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Those which are, only use certain parts of the plant.

Specialist NHS doctors can prescribe unapproved products if they think the patient will benefit, but they have to ask NHS England to pay for individual cases and are often turned down.

Private specialists can prescribe products unapproved by the NHS, but this often comes at a high cost for patients.

A gram of legal medicinal cannabis in flower form costs between £5 and £10.

With an average patient consuming 0.5g a day, this can add up to as much as £150 per month.

The average price of illegal cannabis is widely reported to be about £10 per gram.

But legal clinics also require patients to attend regular check-ups, which can cost a minimum of £180 a year.

To qualify for a prescription through legal medicinal clinics, patients need to have first tried other medicines without success.

The Department of Health and Social Care said there was a need for more research on the effects of medical cannabis before any changes could be made to how it was prescribed on the NHS.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: “The NHS already offers several licensed cannabis-based treatments that have been proven to be clinically effective, approved by the medicines regulator and recommended by NICE.

“Many doctors and professional bodies rightly remain concerned about unlicensed products, and manufacturers should engage with the UK medicines regulatory process to seek a licence and provide doctors with the confidence to use their products.”

Laura, a teacher from Nottinghamshire, has bought black market cannabis in the past to help with various medical conditions.

“Mostly musculoskeletal, but I have widespread nerve damage,” she says. “Lots of things going on, which cause me daily pain and difficulties with mobility.”

Laura is not her real name – she has chosen to stay anonymous due to the stigma of using the drug.

Her conditions were so painful she was prescribed the strongest of drugs, including ketamine.

Having been referred to a specialist doctor, it was suggested she might want to look into using cannabis.

“I had to decide if I wanted to do something that would put my career in jeopardy or feel well,” she says.

She started using cannabis illegally, but was worried about not only the legality, but also the safety.

“You’re talking about drugs you buy off the street, you don’t know what strain they are, you don’t know the strength of them,” she says.

When legal cannabis pharmacies emerged, Laura applied for a prescription.

Having tried a couple of different companies, she now uses a UK-based pharmacy that operates online.

She says she’s not concerned about side effects sometimes associated with the drug – such as impaired thinking or memory problems – because legal cannabis is grown in clean conditions, whereas the black market product can contain contaminants.

And because the drug is prescribed and monitored by a doctor, she says her use is well managed.

But if there turned out to be any long-term negatives, she feels the benefits would overshadow them.

“I wouldn’t want to be without it as I’d be in so much pain,” she says. “If I wake up late and I haven’t had any, I can start to feel the pain creeping in.”

Despite the relief cannabis gives her, Laura is unable to tell anyone beyond her close family and friends.

“I do still feel a bit funny doing it in public,” she says. “I find myself hiding away with my portable vaporiser to fill it or open my tubs of medication. There is an issue that many think everyone who takes marijuana is a stoner.”

They’ve headlined Glastonbury twice, performed all over the globe and had several number one albums. But on a foggy Friday evening in November 2003, The Killers found themselves playing a small club above a pub in Lincoln. Little did the crowd know, they were witnessing history in the making.

“I thought, where the hell have you been?” Steve Hawkins recalls of the day a little-known band from Las Vegas landed at his Bivouac club.

The windowless venue was known for sticky floors and black walls, but that night The Killers played an anthemic set worthy of Wembley stadium.

“I watched the sound check and within three seconds I knew this band were going to be absolutely massive,” Steve says.

A crowd of 200, squished inside the venue and illuminated by stage lights, soon became united in their amazement.

“We didn’t know who they were,” Steve explains.

“I remember rushing up to the band afterwards and saying, you are the new Duran Duran,” he adds with a laugh.

Before The Killers became a household name, they paved their way by playing at small venues around the UK.

On that night in Lincoln, they were second on the bill to the alternative-rock band British Sea Power.

Martin Noble, who plays guitar in the critically acclaimed English outfit (now known as Sea Power), says the American musicians were struck by the city’s historic landmarks – and weather.

“They were amazed by the fog,” Martin remembers. “They had never been to the UK before and it was a very foggy day.

“We took them up to see the cathedral and they saw the cobbled streets. It blew their minds.”

The Killers’ 30-minute set that night included soon-to-be-famous tracks such as Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me, which would become global hits in the following year.

Few in the audience could have imagined the extent of the success that was just around the corner, however.

“They weren’t quite as glamorous as they are now,” Martin laughs. “You could have mistaken them for a band from York.

“We all thought, yeah, they are all right this lot, they might go somewhere.”

Steve ran the Bivouac club, which was based above the Duke of Wellington pub, until 2009.

“I knew the city needed a little venue that nurtured new bands and Lincoln didn’t have one,” he says.

The Killers gig came out of the blue.

“Their booking agent contacted me and said we have got this band, and we know no one has heard of them, but would you do us a favour?” he explains. “I said of course.”

That favour soon became history.

Six months after their performance at the Bivouac, The Killers released their first album, Hot Fuss, which reached number one in the UK and set them on the road to superstardom.

Steve tried to book The Killers for a second time, but was outbid by Leeds University.

Regardless, the Bivouac gained a strong reputation for live music and hosted the likes of The Kaiser Chiefs and the Scottish rock group Biffy Clyro.

Steve’s Friday music nights certainly allowed new talent to grow, even all the way from a tiny stage to global arenas.

For Steve, the memories of the foggy night when The Killers landed in Lincoln will always stay with him.

“The four guys were incredibly professional and within seconds I knew they knew what they were doing,” he says.

“The are the nicest people I have ever had come through my doors at the Bivouac.”

Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds latest episode of Look North here.

In the latest sign of a dramatic deterioration in relations, Niger’s military rulers appear increasingly determined to drive France out of any significant sector in their economy – and particularly uranium mining.

This week the French state nuclear company Orano announced that the junta – which deposed France’s ally, President Mohamed Bazoum, in a coup in July 2023 – had taken operational control of its local mining firm, Somaïr.

The company’s efforts to resume exports have for months been blocked by the regime and it is being pushed into financial crisis.

And the impact could be felt more widely – although Niger accounts for less than 5% of the uranium produced globally, in 2022 it accounted for a quarter of the supply to nuclear power plants across Europe.

So the timing could hardly be more awkward, as Western countries struggle to meet the challenge of climate change and cut their carbon emissions from electricity generation.

For French President Emmanuel Macron, already wrestling with political crisis at home, the potential departure of Orano from Niger is certainly awkward in image terms.

For it coincides with bruising news from other long-standing African partners – Chad has suddenly announced the ending of a defence agreement with Paris, while Senegal has confirmed its insistence on the eventual closure of the French military base in Dakar.

But in any case, the crisis facing Orano in Niger represents a significant practical challenge for French energy supply.

With 18 nuclear plants, totalling 56 reactors, which generate almost 65% of its electricity, France has been ahead of the game in containing carbon emissions from the power sector.

But the country’s own limited production of uranium ended more than 20 years ago.

So, over the past decade or so, it has imported almost 90,000 tonnes – a fifth of which has come from Niger. Only Kazakhstan – which accounts for 45% of global output – was a more important source of supply.

The continuing paralysis, or the definitive shutdown, of Orano’s operations in Niger would certainly force France to look elsewhere.

This should be achievable, as alternative supplies can be obtained from countries including Uzbekistan, Australia and Namibia.

Last year, as West African neighbours responded to the coup in Niger by imposing a trade blockade that paralysed uranium exports, other suppliers readily stepped into the breach.

The European Union’s imports of the mineral from the country plunged by a third, but these were largely replaced by Canada.

But there was also a politically awkward price to pay. EU imports of uranium from Russia rose by more than 70%, despite the heavy sanctions imposed on Moscow because of its invasion of Ukraine.

And of course, it is Russia which has become the new best friend of the military leaders who have seized power in Niger and its allied neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, since 2020.

Russian military contractors fight alongside the Malian army in its campaign against jihadists and ethnic Tuareg separatists, while they also help to protect the senior leadership of the juntas in Niger and Burkina Faso.

So although France, and Europe more generally, would be able to find ways to cope with a definitive loss of Niger’s uranium supply, the shift would not be entirely comfortable.

In the short-term at least, EU states would probably become more reliant on Russia and its central Asian neighbours, thus undermining their own effort to maintain economic pressure on President Vladimir Putin during a potentially crucial period in the Ukraine crisis.

Moreover, Niger’s regime, whose attitude towards the EU as a whole has become almost as mistrustful as its broken relationship with France, continues to seek alternatives to its old Western partnerships.

And Iran – a potential customer, of course, for uranium – has emerged as an option.

Contacts between the two governments have deepened, with Niger’s Prime Minister Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine visiting Tehran in January. Rumours of a possible deal for the supply of uranium “yellowcake” (concentrate) briefly circulated a few months ago.

Meanwhile, the outlook for Orano’s hopes of restoring normal uranium operations and exports from Niger look dim, given the hostile attitude of the military regime in Niamey.

That antipathy is partly explained by Macron’s vocal condemnation of the July 2023 overthrow of Bazoum, who had been one of his closest African political and security partners.

Paris firmly endorsed the tough stance of the West African regional grouping Ecowas, and there were even rumours that it might have been ready to provide tacit support had the bloc ever gone ahead with its short-lived threat to intervene militarily in Niger to reinstate Bazoum.

In this poisonous atmosphere of hostility and mistrust, Orano was an obvious and convenient target for junta retaliation.

The French company’s predominant role in the uranium sector had for years fuelled resentment among many Nigériens, amidst claims that the French company was buying their uranium on the cheap, despite periodic renegotiations of the export deal. Although the mining operations only started years after independence, they were seen as emblematic of France’s ongoing post-colonial influence.

After last year’s coup, Orano itself tried to stay out of the diplomatic row, keep a low profile and carry on operating normally.

But the Ecowas trade blockade prevented it from exporting the output from the Somaïr mine, near Arlit, in the Sahara Desert.

And even after the sanctions were lifted in late February, the usual uranium export route, via Benin’s port of Cotonou, remained blocked, because the junta kept the border closed in an ongoing political row with Benin.

Orano offered to fly the uranium out, but the regime shunned this suggestion.

In June the junta cancelled the French company’s rights to develop a new mine at the large Imouraren deposit, which had been seen as the uranium sector’s principal new hope for future growth.

Meanwhile, the export blockage was pushing Somaïr, which by November was sitting on 1,150 tonnes of blockaded stocks of uranium concentrate worth $210m (£165m), into financial crisis.

And when Orano decided to halt further production and prioritise the payment of workforce salaries, relations with the government deteriorated further into this week’s almost total breakdown.

Of course, it is not just the company but also Niger’s economy that pays a price for this situation, in lost export earnings and risking hundreds of jobs.

For Arlit and other communities in the desert north, this would be a devastating blow, despite talk of revived activity at a Chinese mining project in the region and some interest in the sector among other potential partners.

But Niger’s junta feels no need to make concessions to Orano because it is now buoyed by a sharp rise in oil exports, thanks to a new Chinese-built pipeline.

With that financial cushion, the regime appears prepared to bear the cost of paralysing and probably dismantling the traditional uranium partnership with France – now its main international opponent.

• Niger drops French place names to honour local heroes
• ‘France takes us for idiots’ – inside coup-hit Niger
• How Russia is trying to influence Africa

“‘.”

This weekend will be a bittersweet goodbye for Taylor Swift and her fans.

When she plays the final notes of Karma in Vancouver on Sunday night, the Eras Tour will be over, forever.

First announced in November 2022, it’s been even bigger than Swift could have wildest-dreamed – with 149 shows in 53 cities seen by 10.1 million fans.

Along the way, it hoovered up $2bn in ticket sales, stimulated local economies and triggered seismic events.

Swift has called it “the most exhausting, all-encompassing, but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has ever happened” in her life.

Writing in her recently-published tour book, Swift said the 45-song, career-spanning setlist was inspired by the decision to re-record her first six albums, which made her fall “back in love” with her past work.

She went on to play concerts in “the pouring rain, in the blazing heat, in the thickest of humidity, in the wildest of winds and in the bitter cold,” she wrote, even when she was “sick or exhausted or injured,” or working through a “broken heart”.

But the concerts were about more than the music. Fans swapped friendship bracelets and made lifelong friends with strangers. Outside the stadiums, ticketless Swifties gathered in car parks to sing along.

At one show in Munich, 40,000 people congregated on a nearby hill just to catch a glimpse of the show, almost outnumbering the fans inside the city’s former Olympic Stadium.

For many, the chance to hear these songs live for the first time was overwhelming.

“I did a lot more weeping than I expected,” says Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry, who first saw the tour in Santa Clara last year.

“I wept at the start, just because it was exciting. Obviously I wept during [epic break-up ballad] All Too Well. Then I cried in The Archer. Don’t know why.”

Online, the faithful watched nightly livestreams and downloaded a free, fan-run app – SwiftAlert – that allowed them to speculate on the outfits Swift might wear, and the surprise songs she might play in her nightly acoustic set. Those at the top of the leaderboard would win prizes.

There’s an unparalleled sense of community around the gigs. When I took my daughter to one of the Wembley Stadium gigs in June, taller people moved back to give her a better view – something I’ve rarely seen in years of concert-going.

For other families, the Eras Tour has even brought them closer together.

• Why is Taylor Swift so big? ‘She wants it more than anyone’
• Eras Tour review: Pop’s heartbreak princess dazzles in Edinburgh

Michelle, from Seattle, Washington, is attending one of the final concerts in Vancouver with her daughter this weekend, and says the anticipation has helped them stay in touch.

“I got the tickets almost 13 months ago, and even though she doesn’t live at home full time, I doubt even a week has gone by where we’ve not had a fun conversation about Taylor, and spoke about looking forward to the show, and what our plans for the weekend may entail,” she says.

The conclusion of the tour leaves Swift at a crossroads. This Eras Tour will be the yardstick against which the rest of her career will be measured – and her next move will be watched closely by fans and critics alike.

So what options does she have?

“Taylor is a very future-minded thinker, so I imagine she has the next few years already completely planned out.” says Bryan West, a dedicated Taylor Swift reporter for USA Today and The Tennessean, who has seen the Eras tour 89 times.

Noting Swift’s tendency to dovetail her projects, he thinks there will be some sort of “news-making” announcement at her final show.

Most likely, this will be the reveal of Reputation (Taylor’s Version) – the latest instalment of her re-recorded album series, complete with bonus tracks from the vault.

That said, fans have been anticipating that announcement all year and the album is yet to materialise, despite numerous, tantalising hints it’s on its way.

West has some other theories, too.

“We’ve seen film crews at many of the gigs, so I’d not be shocked if she’s been shooting a documentary this entire time.

“And in her new book, she said, ‘See you next era’, so there have been reports that she’s working on new music.”

A longer term prospect is that Swift will pivot to film. In December 2022, she signed a deal to direct a film for Searchlight Pictures, based on her own original script.

Making the announcement, Searchlight presidents David Greenbaum and Matthew Greenfield called her “a once in a generation artist and storyteller”, but the trail has gone cold since then. Perhaps she’ll return to the director’s chair in 2025?

West has also tracked several trademarks filed by the star this year, including Taylor-Con and Female Rage: The Musical “which could be anything from a television show to a documentary series to a Broadway production”.

But maybe we’re expecting too much?

“She needs to take some time off, first and foremost,” says Jack Saunders, host of Radio 1’s New Music Show, “because it’s completely unrealistic to expect a human being to operate at the performance level that she has been doing for the last couple of years and dive straight back in.

“We’ve heard a lot from Taylor – so it’s healthy for us and it’s healthy for her to step back and take some time away, so that she can fuel herself for whatever’s next.”

Indeed, Swift has hinted she’s tiring of the music industry grind.

Clara Bow, a track from her latest album The Tortured Poets Department, is a barbed commentary on the industry’s lust for new blood.

Other songs find her daydreaming about wedding rings and “pushin’ strollers” – so there’s every possibility Swift will take a year off to focus on her romance with American football star Travis Kelce.

“She probably will take a break,” says West, “but she’s not one that necessarily sits still. She’s always creating. She’s always coming up with new projects.”

If Swift does head back to the studio, singer-songwriter Self Esteem hopes she’ll spend the cultural (and financial) capital she’s built up over the last two years to do something unexpected.

“If I was her, I’d indulge myself in making music in all the different genres and styles I hadn’t been able to explore because of branding and expectations,” she says.

“And it sounds really worthy, but I can’t wait until I have enough money to fund working class people who can’t get access to music – so if I was her, I’d do that.”

(It’s worth noting that Swift has a history of charitable giving, including donations to local foodbanks on every stop of the Eras tour).

Whatever happens, a left-hand swerve makes sense; in her Eras Tour book, the star says she “hates to do the same thing twice”.

But for this weekend, Michelle just wants to savour the final moments of a one-off phenomenon.

“We love concerts in my family. I love the buzz of being in a whole crowd of people excited about the same thing,” she says, “but this feels different.

“I love how the tour has brought people all over the world together.

“It will certainly be interesting to see what her next move is,” she adds, “but I can’t bring myself to speculate.

“I’ll just wait and see – because, whatever she does next, Taylor and her team should be very proud of the joy that was brought to so many during the Eras Tour run.”

It’s that quintessential British tradition that we have been enjoying for hundreds of years.

The answer to every crisis, a bonding ritual when you welcome someone into your home and the first drink many people wake up to.

“Fancy a cuppa?” or even simply “Tea?” is music to your ears, right?

Well, maybe not for everyone.

“I suppose there’s kind of an association with tea as an old person’s drink,” says Gillie Owen, aged 20.

The student from London says he and his friends prefer water or diet soda drinks.

Layba, meanwhile, doesn’t drink tea at all.

“I have never liked tea,” the 20-year-old says. “I just think it tastes really off, like, really weird.”

It’s a stark contrast to her parents who, she says, “really love” tea.

So is it a generational thing? As a nation, are we falling out of love with tea?

Last week, one of Britain’s oldest tea firms, Typhoo Tea, collapsed after a drop in sales.

The 120-year-old company has been rescued by vape maker Supreme, whose boss says he wants to develop new products under the brand.

Sandy Chadha told the BBC the tea market was in decline but said Supreme would look to appeal to the younger generation who preferred “things like iced tea and healthier drinks”.

Tea sales volumes have fallen by 4.3% compared with two years ago, according to analysts at NielsenIQ.

And a recent survey by Mintel suggested less than half the nation, 48%, now drink tea at least once a day.

Kiti Soininen, food and drink researcher at Mintel, says traditional tea is facing “intense competition” from fruit, herbal, green and speciality black tea.

Twenty-one-year-old student Dylan says he drinks tea, but not the usual builder’s tea – black with a smidge of milk – and prefers to go caffeine free.

“I drink less tea than my parents definitely. I drink Redbush tea and other less ‘tea’ teas,” he says.

Shayma, 18, says she also prefers herbal tea, while most of her friends drink coffee. She says there are “so many drinks now” and she hasn’t even heard of Typhoo.

Ms Soininen points to the huge difference between sales of tea and coffee.

“Sales of ordinary tea stood at £377m in 2023, leaving it far behind instant coffee, at [almost] £1bn,” she says.

Even instant coffee’s popularity is being challenged by the fast-growing ready-to-drink coffee market, she adds, which has seen sales more than double over the last five years.

Polina Jones from NielsenIQ says while people “are not falling out of love with tea per se”, the landscape is changing with huge offerings from bubble tea, herbal teas, kombuchas and energy drinks attracting the younger generation.

If this trend continues, she believes brands should reinvent themselves and figure out how to get into the ready-to-drink space. Twinings, for example, has started to offer canned sparkling tea, while bottled kombuchas appeal to students and young professionals buying a meal deal, she says.

Supreme’s purchase of Typhoo includes two herbal tea brands, Heath & Heather and the London Fruit & Herb Company, as well as specialty tea brand Ridgeways. Analyst Susannah Streeter from Hargreaves Lansdown believes Supreme will incorporate these into wellness brands it already owns.

Another challenge for black tea is that even for those for whom it is a staple, costs are rising and so they are buying in smaller volumes.

In 1974, the average family purchased 68g – about 30 tea bags – of tea per person, per week. By 2023, that had gone down to 19g – about 10 tea bags – per person, according to government figures.

“What’s particularly telling of the potential long-term threat for black tea is that while all age groups have similarly high usage of tea in the early morning and with breakfast, younger groups are much less likely than older ones to reach for the drink later in the day,” says Mintel’s Kiti Soininen.

She concludes with a stark warning for traditional tea makers – if younger generations continue with these habits as they get older, this will ultimately “chip away” at the size of the market.

And as one BBC reader commented on the Typhoo collapse story: “You know things are bad when a tea company in the UK goes bust.”

We asked our readers to send in their best pictures on the theme of “fluids”. Here is a selection of the photographs we received from around the world.

The next theme is “bright lights” and the deadline for entries is 17 December 2024.

The pictures will be published later that week and you will be able to find them, along with other galleries, on the In Pictures section of the BBC News website.

You can upload your entries directly here or email them to yourpics@bbc.co.uk.

Terms and conditions apply.

Further details and themes are at: We set the theme, you take the pictures.

All photographs subject to copyright.

The Prince of Wales has served Christmas lunch at a homeless shelter that he first visited with his mother.

Prince William has previously spoken about the profound impact of visits he made to The Passage when he was a child, and how it helped him see “outside the palace walls”.

He first visited the London-based homelessness charity more than 30 years ago with his mother, Princess Diana.

On Thursday, he served carrots and parsnips among a long line of volunteers dishing out lunch while chatting with attendees.

In a video posted to the Prince and Princess of Wales’s X account on Sunday, he was seen hugging the charity’s head chef Claudette Hawkins and saying “Come on birthday girl… I won’t ask you what birthday it is”.

Ms Hawkins is later seen explaining that “he was helping serve the lunch for the clients today”.

William is also seen congratulating a client on getting engaged.

The man was wearing a Boston Celtics basketball team Christmas jumper and asked William “have you heard, I’m getting married?”

The Prince of Wales smiled and responded: “I know, I did hear about that, and congratulations.”

The Westminster-based charity provides assistance and friendship for London’s homeless and helps them into secure accommodation.

In an ITV documentary earlier this year, William said “inspiration and guidance” from Diana had been a driving force behind his personal commitment to tackle homelessness.

He also recalled first visiting the passage with his mother, which included playing chess and chatting to people at the shelter.

“I must have been about 11, I think, probably, at the time. Maybe 10. I’d never been to anything like that before. And I was a bit anxious as to what to expect,” he said.

“I remember at the time, kind of thinking, well, if everyone’s not got a home, they’re all going to be really sad.

“But it was incredible how happy an environment it was,” he said.

“That’s when it dawned on me that there are other people out there who don’t have the same life as you do.”

In the documentary, William admitted he sometimes felt guilty about not being able to do more – and wanted to share with his own children a sense of empathy for those facing hardship.

“When I was very small, my mother started talking about homelessness, much like I do now with my children on the school run,” the prince said.

The prince has continued visiting the charity throughout his life and became its official patron in 2019.

Authorities in the Dominican Republican say cocaine discovered in the country’s largest-ever seizure was headed to Europe.

Hidden in a banana shipment, officials found 9,500kg of the drug at a port in the capital, Santo Domingo.

The cocaine was hidden in 320 bags with an estimated street value of $250 million (£196 million).

At least 10 people linked to the port are under investigation with early investigations showing the bananas had arrived from Guatemala, according to the National Drug Control Directorate.

Communications chief Carlos Denvers said: “Many unknown individuals tried to transfer the drugs to another container that would be shipped on a vessel to Belgium.”

The haul far exceeds the 2,580kg seizure made by Dominican authorities at the same port in 2006.

Monitoring agencies have reported that the Caribbean is resurfacing as a major drug trafficking route from Colombia to Europe.

A report last year found the use of cocaine is increasing in several western European countries including the UK, Belgium, France and Spain.

Europe accounted for 21% of the world’s cocaine users in 2020, according to a United Nations report.

Evidence suggests use of the drug is bringing dire health consequences, with recent data showing drug-poisoning deaths in England and Wales hit the highest level in 30 years, fuelled by a 30% rise in fatalities involving cocaine.

The Prince of Wales met US President-elect Donald Trump while visiting France for the ceremonial reopening of Notre-Dame cathedral.

Prince William joined other dignitaries in Paris to mark the restoration of the world-famous landmark, which was devastated by a fire five years ago.

After shaking hands at the ceremony, the pair also met afterwards, with the president-elect describing the prince as a “good man” doing a “fantastic job”.

During the event, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in which he said of the restoration: “We must treasure this lesson of fragility, humility and will”.

Other leaders and dignitaries at the event included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and outgoing US First Lady Dr Jill Biden, who was representing President Joe Biden.

Prince William was expected to discuss the importance of the US-UK “special relationship” with both Trump and the first lady during their respective meetings.

Greeting the prince at the ceremony, Trump gave William a pat on the shoulder before the two shook hands and spoke for a few seconds.

He last met Trump in 2019 when the then-president made a state visit to the UK.

Prince William, who attended at the request of the UK government, joined French President Emmanuel Macron and dozens of other heads of state at the ceremony on Saturday.

William and Trump met at the residence of the British ambassador in Paris.

The prince was standing in the foyer when Trump arrived. The pair shook hands and greeted one another again, before Trump gestured to the Prince of Wales and said: “Good man, this one”.

Prince William asked the president-elect if he had warmed up, and Trump replied that he had and that “it was a beautiful ceremony”.

Kensington Palace has described the meeting between as “warm and friendly.”

During their 40 minutes together, William and Trump discussed a range of global issues but focused on the importance of the UK/US special relationship.

The president-elect also shared some warm and fond memories of the late Queen for which the prince was said to be “extremely grateful.”

William had also been due to meet Trump and Dr Biden earlier in the day but Kensington Palace said he had been delayed by weather on his journey from the UK to France.

At the ceremony, The Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich led more than 1,500 guests through the reopening service.

A choir sang out as Macron took his seat next to Trump. A message from the Pope was read aloud before the French president delivered his address.

Parts of the event had to be reconfigured due to the stormy weather – with a concert that was due to take place on the esplanade actually being staged on Friday.

The prince’s last official trip to Paris was in 2017, when he visited with the Princess of Wales for a two-day trip in the aftermath of the Brexit result.

He joined other world leaders in Normandy earlier this year for the 80th anniversary commemorations of the Second World War D-Day landings.

The medieval cathedral has been closed since a major fire tore through it in 2019, destroying its wooden interiors before toppling its spire.

Some 600 firefighters battled the blaze for 15 hours. The main structure of the 850-year-old building was saved, including its two bell towers.

Macron set a five-year goal for the reconstruction of the Catholic church shortly after the fire.

An estimated 2,000 masons, carpenters, restorers, roofers, foundry-workers, art experts, sculptors and engineers worked on the project, which reportedly cost €700m (£582m).

Tickets for the first week of Masses in the cathedral were snapped up in 25 minutes, the cathedral’s rector said.

Prince William has been scrambled, like in his old air ambulance days, to rush to this meeting in Paris with President-elect Donald Trump.

Although what’s in need of rescue on this occasion is the well-being of the special relationship between the US and the UK.

It’s an important connection for both sides – and for wider military links such as Nato – but there’s not a lot of obvious empathy between Starmer’s Labour government and the incoming Republicans.

So the royals, who are funded by taxpayers, are being deployed to smooth the path, with Prince William taking on the statesman role, meeting Trump before attending the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral.

Trump is a royal fan, so that might make for a more positive connection. Prince William last met Trump in 2019, during the then-president’s visit to the UK, where Trump spoke very enthusiastically about his meeting with the late Queen Elizabeth II.

But there’s a massive contrast in their styles. Prince William’s flagship project is his Earthshot environmental awards, while Trump has dismissed efforts to boost green energy as a “scam”.

This week Prince William went to serve dinner at the Passage homelessness charity and on Friday night he was helping with a “kindness tree” outside Westminster Abbey.

A kindness tree and campaigning on housing and climate-change aren’t exactly the ‘Make America Great Again’ style.

But the aim of this hurriedly-arranged meeting will be for a royal charm offensive to help build bridges at an uncertain time for western alliances.

Bashar al-Assad has “stepped down” as president and “left Syria”, his ally Russia says, hours after rebel forces took control of the capital Damascus.

The Russian foreign ministry gave no further details about Assad’s whereabouts, but it was the first official statement saying he had fled the country.

Assad has not been pictured since he met Iranian foreign minister in Damascus a week ago. That day, he vowed to “crush” the rebels seizing territory with dizzying speed.

Early on Sunday morning, after their fighters entered the city without resistance, the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies declared that “the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled”.

• Syria’s Assad falls – follow live updates
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• Where is Bashar al-Assad?

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, also reported that a plane believed to be carrying Assad “left Syria via Damascus international airport before the army security forces left” the facility. Rami Abdul Rahman said he had information that the plane was meant to take off at 22:00 (20:00 GMT) on Saturday.

The Flightradar24 website did not record a departure around that time, although a Cham Wings Airlines Airbus A320 passenger plane did leave at around 00:56 on Sunday bound for Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The plane landed in Sharjah on time. But a diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates told reporters in Bahrain that he did not know if Assad was in the UAE.

• Syria in maps
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• Watch: Presidential palace stormed in Damascus

Reuters news agency meanwhile cited two unnamed senior Syrian army officers as saying that Assad had boarded a Syrian Air plane at Damascus airport early on Sunday.

It noted that a Syrian Air Ilyushin Il-76T cargo plane took off from the airport at 03:59 local time (01:59 GMT) with an undisclosed destination.

According to data from Flightradar24, the plane initially flew east away from the capital before turning to the north-west and heading towards the Mediterranean coast, which is a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and is also home to Russian naval and air bases.

After flying over the central city of Homs – which fell to the rebels on Saturday night – at an altitude of 20,000ft (6,095m) the plane made a U-turn and started flying eastwards again while also losing altitude.

The plane’s transponder signal was lost at around 04:39 (02:39 GMT), when it was about 13km (8 miles) west of Homs and flying at an altitude 1,625ft (495m).

Flightradar24 said in a post on X that the aircraft “was old with an older transponder generation, so some data might be bad or missing”, that it was “flying in an area of GPS jamming, so some data might be bad”, and that there was not aware of any airports in the area where the signal was lost.

There have not been any reports of a plane crash in the same area.

The fall of Bashar al-Assad was almost unthinkable just a week ago, when rebels started their astonishing campaign against the regime from their base in Idlib, in Syria’s north-west.

This is a turning point for Syria. Assad came to power in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who ruled the country for 29 years – and very much like his son, with an iron fist.

Assad junior inherited a tightly controlled and repressive political structure, where opposition was not tolerated.

At first, there were hopes that he could be different – more open, less brutal. But those were short lived.

Assad will forever be remembered as the man who violently repressed peaceful protests against his regime in 2011, which led to a civil war. More than half a million people were killed, six million others became refugees.

With the help of Russia and Iran, he crushed the rebels, and survived. Russia used its formidable air power while Iran sent military advisors to Syria and Hezbollah, the militia it supports in neighbouring Lebanon, deployed its well-trained fighters.

This did not happen this time. His allies, preoccupied with their own affairs, essentially abandoned him. Without their help, his troops were unable – and, in some places, apparently unwilling – to stop the rebels, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

First, they seized Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, last week, almost without resistance. Then Hama, and days later, the key hub of Homs. With insurgents also advancing from the east and the south, the offensive isolated Damascus. In a matter of hours, fighters entered the capital, the seat of Assad’s power.

• LIVE: Reaction to the fall of Damascus
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The end of the Assad family’s five-decade rule will reshape the balance of power in the region.

Iran, again, is seeing its influence suffer a significant blow. Syria under Assad was part of the connection between the Iranians and Hezbollah, and it was key for the transfer of weapons and ammunition to the group.

Hezbollah itself has been severely weakened after its year-long war with Israel and its future is uncertain.

Another Iranian-supported faction, the Houthis in Yemen, have been repeatedly targeted in air strikes. All these factions, plus militias in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza, form what Tehran describes as the Axis of Resistance, which has now been seriously damaged.

This new picture will be celebrated in Israel where Iran is viewed as an existential threat.

Many believe this offensive could not have happened without the blessing of Turkey. Turkey, which supports some of the rebels in Syria, has denied backing HTS.

For some time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had pressed Assad to engage in negotiations to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict that could allow the return of Syrian refugees.

• Syrian rebels capture Damascus, saying President Assad has fled
• Watch: Crowds gather in Damascus after rebels declare city ‘free
• ‘No-one slept in Syria last night’ – how news of Assad’s toppling spread

At least three million of them are in Turkey, and this is a sensitive issue locally.

But Assad had refused to do so.

A lot of people are happy to see Assad go.

But what happens next? HTS have their roots in al-Qaeda, and a violent past.

They have spent the last years trying to rebrand themselves as a nationalist force, and their recent messages have a diplomatic and conciliatory tone.

But many are not convinced, and are concerned about they might be planning to do after toppling the regime.

At the same time, the dramatic changes could lead to a dangerous power vacuum and eventually result in chaos and even more violence.

It was Russian firepower that had helped keep Bashar al-Assad in power for the last nine years.

But, in a matter of days, the Kremlin’s Syria project has unravelled, with Moscow, apparently, powerless to do anything about it.

In a statement the Russian foreign ministry announced that Assad had left the post of president – and the country (without providing any details about where he’d gone).

It added that Moscow was “following the dramatic events in Syria with extreme concern”.

• Follow updates as rebels capture Damascus
• Syria in maps

The fall of the Assad regime is a blow to Russia’s prestige.

By sending thousands of troops to shore up President Assad in 2015, one of Russia’s key objectives had been to assert itself as a global power. It was Vladimir Putin’s first major challenge to the power and dominance of the West, away from the former Soviet space.

And a successful one, too, so it seemed. In 2017, President Putin visited Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and declared that it was mission accomplished. Despite widespread reports that Russian airstrikes were causing civilian casualties, the Russian defence ministry felt confident enough to fly international media out to Syria to witness the Russian military operation.

On one such trip I remember an officer telling me that Russia was in Syria “for the long haul”.

But this was about more than just prestige.

In return for military assistance, the Syrian authorities awarded Russia 49-year leases on the air base in Hmeimim and its naval base in Tartus. Russia had secured an important foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean. The bases became hubs for transferring military contractors in and out of Africa.

A key question for Moscow is: what will happen to these Russian bases now?

In its statement, the Russian foreign ministry announced that its bases in Syria had been put “on a state of hight alert”, but claimed there was “no serious threat to them at the current time”.

Assad was Russia’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. The Kremlin had invested heavily in him. It had poured resources – financial, military, political – into keeping him in power. The Russian authorities will struggle to present his toppling as anything but a setback for Moscow.

But in a post on social media, Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, wrote: “What’s happening in Syria is very difficult for everyone, without exception…a tragedy for everyone.

“For Russians our priority is to ensure the security of our citizens, both civilians, including diplomats and their families, and of course servicemen.”

Police have released two new images of a suspect in the hunt for the gunman who killed a health insurance chief executive in New York.

UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson, 50, was shot in the back as he made his way to a conference on Wednesday, in what police believe was a targeted attack.

On Saturday, city mayor Eric Adams said the “net is tightening” around the gunman, who has so far evaded police despite an extensive search and the use of facial recognition technology.

The FBI has offered a $50,000 (£39,000) reward for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.

The latest images of the man being sought are both taken from a vehicle. In one, he can be seen in the back of a taxi wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a disposable face covering.

In the second, he is seen outside of the car, again wearing a facemask.

The new appeal came as US media reported a backpack thought to belong to the suspect recovered near the scene contained a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and paper money from the board game Monopoly.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot as he made his was to an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan where he had been scheduled to speak later that day.

Police said the gunman first fled the scene on foot, before riding a bike towards Central Park.

The motive for the killing is still being investigated. Authorities have confirmed the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were written on the bullet casings found close to the victim’s body – language which could be associated with critics of the US’s private health insurance industry.

On Friday, a person familiar with the matter told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that investigators believed the suspect was no longer in New York City and may have boarded a bus to the city of Atlanta in the state of Georgia.

Some 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Volodymyr Zelensky has said in a rare admission of the extent of the nation’s casualties.

In a post on social media, the Ukrainian president said 370,000 injuries had been reported, though this figure included soldiers who had been hurt more than once and some of the injuries were said to be minor.

He also claimed that 198,000 Russian soldiers had been killed and a further 550,000 wounded.

The BBC has not been able to verify either side’s figures.

While both Kyiv and Moscow have regularly published estimates of the other side’s losses, they have been reluctant to detail their own.

The new figure marks a significant increase in Ukrainian deaths since the start of the year.

The last time Zelensky gave an update on Ukraine’s casualties was in February, when he put deaths at 31,000.

The Ukrainian president is thought to have been compelled to make the admission after incoming US President-elect Donald Trump wrote on social media that Ukraine had “ridiculously lost” 400,000 soldiers, while close to 600,000 Russians had been killed or wounded. Trump did not state where these figures were from.

The incoming president, who has long made clear he wants to bring an end to the war, said too many lives had been “needlessly wasted”.

Zelensky’s estimates of Russian losses are similar to those provided by senior Western officials, who estimate Russia has suffered around 800,000 casualties, both killed and injured.

The UK’s defence ministry says Russia suffered 45,680 casualties in November alone – more than during any month since its full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

According to the latest UK Defence Intelligence estimates, an average of 1,523 Russian soldiers are being killed and wounded every day.

On 28 November, it says, Russia lost more than 2,000 men in a single day, the first time this has happened.

Moscow disputes those figures. In a statement, the Kremlin claimed that Ukrainian losses were “many times higher” than Russian ones.

Outside of Russia, the consensus is that Russian casualty figures are far higher than Ukraine’s due to their “meat grinder” tactics.

Recent developments in the war have only added to the number of dead.

Russian forces continue to make incremental advances along the eastern front line, capturing and retaking about 2,350 sq km of territory (907 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s western Kursk region since the start of the year.

Ukrainian forces maintain control over a small amount of Russian territory which was captured during a surprise offensive into Russia in August.

The Russian defence ministry says more than 38,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Kursk alone – a number that cannot be verified.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country’s south and east.

Zelensky mentioned Ukraine’s war dead in a broader post about the prospects for an eventual end to the war.

It follows talks in Paris on Saturday with French President Emmanuel Macron and Trump, who has sought to capitalise on views held by around a quarter of Americans that the US is providing too much support to Ukraine.

During the campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day” – but has yet to specify how he intends to do so.

In his post, Zelensky stressed that any peace deal had to be backed by effective international guarantees for his country’s security.

He said he told Macron and Trump that Kyiv needs an “enduring peace” which Moscow would not “destroy in a few years”.

Responding to Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire, the Kremlin said it was open to negotiations, but the conditions for a cessation of hostilities had been set by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June.

His demands included Ukraine giving up more of its territory and abandoning ambitions to join Nato, which Kyiv has rejected.

• Listen to Theo read this article

“Jaguar has no desire to be loved by everybody,” said Gerry McGovern as he strode across the stage on a slightly chilly evening in Miami last week. It was a bold statement from Jaguar Land Rover’s creative director, but it summed up the aura around the relaunch of one of the UK’s most famous brands.

On 18 November, a short teaser ad was released that ignited social media. Lasting just 30 seconds, it showed models in bizarre and brightly coloured outfits but did not feature a single car.

The New York Post described it as “the latest example of idiotic and woke corporate virtue signalling”. Elon Musk took a dig on X, asking Jaguar’s official account: “Do you sell cars?”

Then came the actual launch at a Miami art fair. Mr McGovern stood on stage beside two cars, resplendent in “Miami Pink” and “London Blue” shades. Both were examples of Jaguar’s new Type 00 – a concept car that won’t ever go on sale, but is meant to showcase the brand’s plans for the future. Angular, aggressive, with a huge bonnet and more than a hint of Batmobile, the new design also polarised opinions.

“Even Gen Z hate the new ‘woke’ Jaguar!” declared the Daily Mail. “Mark my words, Jaguar will go bust,” Reform Party leader Nigel Farage predicted on X. But the former Top Gear presenter James May told the BBC that the fact the ad was being talked about so widely has “got to be a bit of a result for Jaguar, hasn’t it”?

Jaguar’s managing director Rawdon Glover also hit back, insisting the company needed to be “bold and disruptive” in order to get its message across.

But some insiders argue that Jaguar’s problems run deeper than a five-minute frenzy on social media.

Even before the furore over the advert, “the brand was on a steady road to nowhere”, argues Matthias Schmidt, founder of industry intelligence firm Schmidt Automotive Research.

“The traditional Jaguar demographic was slowly being diluted through natural attrition and customers jumping ship to other brands.”

So, the publicity that the ad and the launch have drawn appear to have been welcomed within the business.

As Gerry McGovern drily quipped from the stage: “We’re delighted to have your attention.”

Controversy, he added, had always surrounded British creativity when it was at its best.

Behind all the noise, what is happening at Jaguar is pretty simple. It is being re-launched as an all-electric brand as part of a major restructuring at JLR, instigated by its parent company, the Indian conglomerate Tata.

Jaguar’s current models, including the I-Pace, the E-Pace and the F-Type, are no longer being sold in the UK. Instead, the first of a new generation of cars will hit the road in 2026.

Alongside this transition to battery power comes a move upmarket, with the new models expected to cost upwards of £100,000.

The reasons for doing all this are twofold. Firstly, Jaguar has been struggling to sell enough cars or to make enough money. Secondly, JLR needs to build more electric cars to satisfy regulators, who are working to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel models.

It’s a far cry from the brand’s glory days, when the E-Type placed Jaguar firmly at the heart of swinging-sixties British cool. Steve McQueen owned one. So did Frank Sinatra. Peter Sellers gave one to his wife, Swedish superstar Britt Ekland. George Best, who knew a thing or two about fast cars and a fast lifestyle, had several.

But for decades, the stereotype of a Jaguar buyer has been a well-to-do company boss – almost certainly male, with expensive cufflinks and a set of golf clubs in the boot. Not so long ago he might have been seen smoking a cigar as well.

That might be a little unfair on Jaguar. It has has clearly tried to appeal to female buyers and to families, with offerings such as the F-Pace. Nicknamed the “She-Type”, this was praised by Good Housekeeping magazine after its launch for its seats designed with women in mind.

But Jaguar continues to be perceived by many as a supplier of upmarket exec-mobiles – and this is a segment of the market where competition is fierce.

“They’ve been chasing BMW and Audi sales for years and despite some decent cars have struggled to be profitable,” explains Rachel Burgess, magazine editor at Autocar.

“Now, they’re trying to target the likes of Bentley and Porsche, looking at high net-worth individuals, who would be spending far more on a car than the level at which Jaguars used to be priced.”

The reinvention of Jaguar has been brewing for many years. Tata bought the brand from Ford in 2008, following nearly two decades under American ownership. During that period, Ford invested significant sums and overhauled its manufacturing and quality control processes. But it failed to make the business profitable and, at the height of the global financial crisis, put Jaguar up for sale.

After taking control of both Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata merged the two into JLR: that brought stability and removed immediate doubts over Jaguar’s future.

But while JLR has performed relatively well over the past decade, despite the downturn caused by the Covid pandemic, it is the part of the business that used to be Land Rover that has been driving recent growth.

This has been largely thanks to strong demand for luxury SUVs in markets such as North America and China, as well as in the UK.

In April, the company reported an increase in annual sales across its Range Rover, Defender and Discovery brands of nearly 25%, helping to drive revenues and profits up across the business. Jaguar’s sales did rise as well – by 7%. But that came after five years of steady decline.

In the 2018-19 financial year, Jaguar sold more than 180,000 vehicles. In 2023-24, the figure was 66,866 – a relatively small proportion of JLRs overall sales of 431,737.

By 2021, other pressures were mounting on JLR, not least the introduction of increasingly stringent environmental rules in the UK and the EU. At the time, JLR had only one electric model in its line-up, the I-Pace.

In February 2021, JLR’s chief executive Thierry Bolloré announced a new strategy: a wholesale revamp of its range, with all models to become available in electric form by the end of the decade. But crucially, he said Jaguar would be “re-imagined” as an all-electric brand.

Although Mr Bolloré would leave at the end of the following year, his plan was picked up by his successor, Adrian Mardell – who promised the company would invest £15bn to turn it into reality.

Within JLR, there is widespread recognition that something had to change.

“Jaguar’s performance over the past 10 years has been challenging,” Rawdon Glover admitted in a previous BBC interview. He pointed out that Jaguar had been trying to succeed in a high-volume market, where the bigger players can keep their costs down through economies of scale.

“While our vehicles were highly competent, and critically acclaimed, actually the ability to commercially succeed in that environment was challenging,” he said.

The move upmarket, in theory at least, gives Jaguar the opportunity to sell fewer cars, but with much bigger profit margins.

“I’m fully in agreement that they had to do something,” says Andy Palmer, an industry veteran and former CEO of Aston Martin who has also been a leading executive at Nissan.

“But it’s very brave to be planning to walk away from 85% of your customer base. They are going to have to find new customers to replace them. And acquisition of new customers is always more expensive than retaining existing ones.”

The big question, though, is whether the changes being made are the correct ones.

Arguably, one of the reasons why Jaguar’s rebrand has attracted such attention is because although relatively few people buy the actual cars, the name itself still resonates with cultural significance, thanks to a heritage going back more than seven decades.

In its early days, under founder Sir William Lyons, Jaguar was truly innovative, and it knew how to grab attention. In 1948, it launched the XK120, an elegant two-seater sports car with swooping lines and a powerful six-cylinder engine. As the name implied, it had a top speed of 120mph, making it the world’s fastest production car at the time.

In a country still recovering from the ravages of World War Two, this was a revelation. Jaguar had originally planned to build just 200, but demand was so high, it ended up making more than 12,000.

Victories in motorsport put Jaguar’s name in lights, especially at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans – but the company continued to produce striking machines off track as well.

A number of these have stood the test of time, not least the Mark II and its successor, the S-Type. First produced in 1959, this was a luxury saloon that happened to have plenty of bad-boy appeal.

Arguably Jaguar’s greatest moment, however, came with the launch of the E-Type in 1961, which came with 150mph performance, and movie-star cachet. It was the car to be seen in and gave the Jaguar badge a lustre that lasted for decades.

But nostalgia alone will not sell cars. Jaguar has been harking back to former glories for a long time.

“I would certainly say they’ve been trading off nostalgia for decades,” says Matthias Schmidt.

Prior to the relaunch, he says Jaguar has been “like a luxury hotel that doesn’t feel the need to refurbish its brand”. He adds: “The failure to look over one’s shoulders and see what the competition is doing can be fatal.”

This week’s relaunch seems designed to get the brand out of a comfortable rut and attempt to make it edgy again, while retaining at least some of its past cachet. Or, as Gerry McGovern put it from the Miami stage, “recapture the essence of Jaguar’s original creative conviction”.

Under normal circumstances, the debut of a new car might gain a certain amount of attention in motoring magazines and websites, but it would rarely, if ever, get onto the front pages.

The company has not said who was behind the teaser ad that went viral – generating more than three million views on YouTube – but JLR has been working with Accenture’s creative marketing arm, Accenture Song, for three years.

Accenture has not commented.

Branding experts have mixed views about the campaign.

“What we had was a really bold advertising campaign, that has now been followed through seamlessly with a concept car that completely matches the campaign,” says Mark Beaumont, founder of branding agency Dinosaur.

“It is potentially a masterclass in advertising awareness”.

But Tim Parker, strategy director at Conran Design thinks it is a risky strategy. “They have indeed copied nothing that has come before in the brand’s rich heritage, but at what cost?

“Few brands ever succeed by alienating their traditional customer base over the longer term,” he continues. “If the goal is to build relevance in a crowded luxury EV market, then differentiation makes sense – but only if the underlying strategy is coherent.”

What we have not seen yet, however, or at least in any detail, is an actual road-going car. The concept is just that – an idea.

Jaguar is in the process of developing three new models, the first of which is unlikely to go on sale until late 2026. All we have been told is that it will be powerful, with more than 575hp, and have a range of more than 430 miles.

It has begun road-testing, and a handful of leaked photos show a large boxy machine that is both similar to the concept – and very different.

For any car company, trying to negotiate the transition to electric vehicles without alienating any of its customers is going to be challenging. And for a brand like Jaguar, with the scent of petrol and the sound of six and 12 cylinder engines built into its DNA, it likely to be even harder.

But among all of this is another question that hasn’t yet been asked. That is, does that DNA even matter any more – and how useful really is it when it comes to selling cars today?

Andy Palmer puts it more bluntly: Jaguar, he thinks, may well be disposable.

“I think it’s a very fair question to ask – does JLR actually need the Jaguar brand? Does the world need the Jaguar brand?”

We won’t find out the answer until 2026. In the meantime, we know what Jaguar’s plan is. Now it has to deliver.

The Assad family ran Syria for 53 years with an iron fist. Now that has come to an end.

President Bashar al-Assad took power in 2000, after his father had ruled for almost three decades.

Thirteen years ago, he brutally crushed a peaceful, pro-democracy uprising – which turned into a devastating civil war. More than half a million people were killed and 12 million were forced to flee their homes.

But last Wednesday, an Islamist anti-government group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) successfully led a major offensive in the north-west, together with allied factions.

The rebels captured Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and then swept southwards down the highway to the capital Damascus, as the Syrian military collapsed.

Many Syrians say they feel a new sense of freedom – though some are worried about the future.

For years, it felt like the full-scale war in Syria was effectively over after Assad’s government regained control of most of Syria’s cities with the help of Russia, Iran and Iranian-backed militias.

The front lines remained largely frozen. But large parts of the country were still out of the government’s control.

These included northern and eastern areas controlled by a Kurdish-led alliance of armed groups supported by the United States, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

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The rebels’ last stronghold was in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, which border Turkey and where more than four million people were living, many of them displaced.

The enclave was dominated by HTS, but a number of allied rebel factions and jihadist groups were also based there. Turkish-backed rebel factions – known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) – also controlled territory there with the support of Turkish troops.

The Islamist militant group was set up in 2012 under a different name, al-Nusra Front, and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda the following year.

Al-Nusra Front was regarded as one of the most effective and deadly of the groups ranged against President Assad. But its jihadist ideology appeared to be its driving force rather than revolutionary zeal – and it was seen at the time as at odds with the main rebel coalition known as the Free Syrian Army.

In 2016, Al-Nusra broke ties with al-Qaeda and took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when it merged with other factions a year later.

However, the UN, US, UK and a number of other countries continue to consider HTS as an al-Qaeda affiliate and frequently refer to it as al-Nusra Front. The US has named the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, as a specially designated global terrorist and offered a $10m reward for information that leads to his capture.

HTS consolidated its power in Idlib and Aleppo provinces by crushing its rivals, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) group cells. It set up the so-called Syrian Salvation Government to administer the territory according to Islamic law.

Jawlani said in a CNN interview on Friday that “the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime” and that he planned to create a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people”.

For several years, Idlib remained a battleground as Syrian government forces tried to regain control.

But in 2020, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib. The ceasefire largely held despite sporadic fighting.

HTS and its allies said on 27 November that they had launched an offensive to “deter aggression”, accusing the government and allied Iran-backed militias of escalating attacks on civilians in the north-west.

But it came at a time when the government had been weakened by years of war, sanctions and corruption, and its allies were preoccupied with other conflicts.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which was crucial in helping push back rebels in the early years of the war, had suffered recently from Israel’s offensive in Lebanon. Israeli strikes had also eliminated Iranian military commanders in Syria and degraded supply lines to pro-government militias there. Russia had also been also distracted by the war in Ukraine.

Without them, Assad’s forces were left exposed.

The HTS-led rebels took control of most of Aleppo – Syria’s second largest city – on 30 November, only three days after launching their surprise offensive. They said they faced little resistance on the ground after the government rapidly withdrew its troops and security forces.

Assad vowed to “crush” the rebels with the help of his allies. Russian warplanes intensified their strikes on rebel-held areas and Iran-backed militias sent reinforcements to bolster the military’s defensive lines around Hama – the next city south on the Aleppo-Damascus highway.

However, Hama fell to the rebels on Thursday after several days of fierce battles that eventually prompted the military to withdraw.

The rebels immediately declared that their next goal was to take Homs, Syria’s third largest city, and achieved that on Saturday night after only a day of fighting.

At the same time, other rebel factions based in the south-west of the country, which borders Jordan, reached the suburbs of Damascus after taking control of the cities of Deraa and Suweida within only 24 hours.

Early on Sunday morning, the HTS-led rebels announced that they had entered Damascus and released detainees at the country’s most notorious military prison, Saydanaya, where thousands of opposition supporters are believed to have been executed during the civil war.

Less than two hours later, they declared: “The tyrant Bashar al-Assad has fled.”

“After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and [forced] displacement… we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria,” they said.

Senior army officers said the president flew out of the capital for an unknown destination shortly before the rebels arrived.

Assad’s Prime Minister, Mohammed al-Jalali, then announced in a video that he was “ready to co-operate with” any leadership that was “chosen by the Syrian people”.

Jawlani ordered his forces not to approach official institutions, saying they would remain under the authority of the prime minister until they were “officially” handed over.

The White House said US President Joe Biden and his team were “closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria and staying in constant touch with regional partners”.

Residents in Damascus have told of an anxious wait for news on what was happening in Syria’s capital city overnight.

After several hours of reports of rebels getting closer and closer, the forces declared Damascus “free” of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in the early hours of Sunday.

Unverified videos circulating on social media show people cheering in the streets and welcoming the rebel fighters, as well as inmates being freed from the notorious Saydnaya prison.

“No-one slept in Syria last night… no Syrian abroad slept,” Rania Kataf, who runs the Humans of Damascus Facebook page, said.

“The whole community was holding their phones waiting for the final news.

“How do I feel? Overwhelmed.. We all feel like we’ve been under water, literally, for thirteen years, and we all just took a breath.

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“And I know that there are so many people who are much older than me who have been through too much.”

She said she had “mixed feelings” since the offensive by rebel groups began, but that she was no longer afraid.

In the past, she said, she had been “scared of sharing an opinion I was so scared of even putting a like, putting a heart on someone from the opposition.”

Danny Makki, a journalist living in Damascus, described the scenes on Sunday morning in Umayyad Square, which is home to key government agencies, including the Ministry of Defence and the Syrian Armed Forces.

“People were firing guns into the air, people were dancing, taking photos and crying,” he said.

“I spoke to soldiers from the militia. One said he had been preparing for this for a long time.

“He wasn’t taking part in the offensive in Aleppo, but when he saw the rebels arrive on the outskirts of Damascus, that’s when he took up arms.”

He said some of the rebel fighters were using abandoned Syrian army vehicles.

“When I was driving around Damascus, I saw the Syrian army walking in civilian clothes on the road, not knowing where to go.”

Although there are celebrations, he said peoples’ immediate concern was security, and “making sure there is no infighting within the opposition ranks.”

Another Damascus resident, who asked to be anonymous, told the BBC: “For the very first time, there is a true feeling of freedom.”

“What we’re feeling really resembles what we felt during the revolution when it began in 2011. This is the continuation of a dream that had started that year.”

He said that Syrians feel fear and worry about the future, but “today, all the Syrian people will only celebrate.”

Further south, Yazan Al Amari runs a small phone shop in the city of Deraa, where civilian militias affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have already taken control.

He told the BBC that he is travelling with friends to the Syrian capital today to celebrate.

“When we woke up and saw the news, at first we couldn’t comprehend or fully grasp it at all. People were very scared of rumours.

“But when we realised it was actually true, we got in our cars, and now we are on our way to Damascus to celebrate.”

“People felt like they were in a dream,” he said.

“You could see people crying. We were very afraid until today.”

Al Amari says this is the first time in many years that he has been able to talk freely.

“I used to be unable to leave my small town or move freely at all. But now, I can go wherever I want,” he said.

But many people fear the unknowns of the future.

A Syrian man in London told me of fears for his family living on the coastal region of Syria.

“We are Eastern Orthodox Christians, I am afraid my family will be slaughtered,” the man, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

“Everybody is in a panic mode. They are trying to find a way out of the country.”

His family are making preparations to leave Syria, but the borders with Lebanon and Jordan are closed.

“Bags are packed, we are just waiting to see if any of the airports would open a flight to any surrounding country. Or if the land borders would allow any special groups to leave Syria,” he said.

“It is a fact that people are celebrating out of fear,” he said.

“They are celebrating because they are afraid they’ll be slaughtered if they don’t pretend to be excited. On one hand, we are all glad the regime is gone, on the other hand, we don’t know the outcome of the alternative government. After all, this rebel group is an offshoot of al-Qaeda.”

The group which has taken control of large parts of the country, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have said that Christians are safe.

“We just don’t know how true this statement is,” he said.

A man has admitted creating more than 400 child abuse images and videos and having a pornographic picture involving a dog.

Gary Cary, from Ipswich, pleaded guilty to three counts of making an indecent photograph/pseudo-photograph of a child and one count of having a prohibited image of a child.

The 30-year-old, of Rapier Street, was also charged with possessing an extreme pornographic image, or images, portraying an act of intercourse or oral sex with a dead or alive animal.

Cary entered his pleas at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court and is due to be sentenced at the town’s crown court on 3 January.

Cary made 75 Category A images (those defined by law as the most severe) of a child between 17 May and 15 December 2022, as well as 85 in Category B and 133 in Category C.

During the same period he also created 86 Category A videos, 53 Category B and 30 Category C.

The court heard the age of the children in the images ranged from six months to teenaged.

Cary was also found with an “extreme pornographic image” portraying a person performing a sexual act with a dog.

He was told sentencing would need to take place at Ipswich Crown Court rather than at magistrates’ court due to the offences being “so serious”.