There was a snarl of cars when we arrived. We could hear chanting. Someone was waving a rebel flag. Overnight news that Damascus had fallen and Syria’s president had fled spurred Syrians in Lebanon to rush to Masnaa, the border crossing closest to their capital.

We’d been planning to spend a day reporting from there, but packed a small overnight bag when we heard the Syrians had abandoned their side. Maybe we would be able to get to Damascus ourselves.

Amid the excitement around us was a tall man with curly hair who was trying to go the other way. I could see he was crying.

He told me his name was Hussein and that he was a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad. He was afraid.

“We don’t know anything about what is going to happen inside. They might kill us, it’s chaos,” he said.

“Anybody who used to work with the regime or the army, they say they are going to give them a safe exit, but nobody knows. If it’s not going to be true, they’re going to pay the consequences.”

He had brought his family with him, but didn’t have the documents to cross into Lebanon.

An hour later, we entered Syria. The road to Damascus was wide open. As we neared the capital we could see signs of an army in retreat – military jeeps and tanks, abandoned. Army uniforms littered the road where soldiers had torn them off.

There was traffic in the streets but shops were closed. People had gathered in the central Umayyad Square, overcome by the extraordinary end to more than five decades of authoritarian rule by the Assad regime – father and son.

Armed men were firing into the air in a constant cacophony of celebration – we saw one little boy who had been injured carried away.

Civilians were driving around in their cars, flashing peace signs, saying things would be so much better now that Assad was gone. One elderly woman was crying.

“Thank you, thank you,” she exclaimed as if praying. “The tyrant has fallen. The tyrant has fallen!”

Many in her family had died under Assad’s rule, she said, some in prison.

I approached a couple with four young children, their parents fairly bursting with joy.

“It’s an indescribable feeling. We are so happy,” said the man. “After all the years of dictatorship we have lived in our lives! We were in prison in 2014 and now we’re out thank God. We won because of our men, our fighters, and now we are at the moment that we are going to build the greatest Syria!”

“We call our sisters and brothers who left the country to come back,” he added. “Our hearts and homes are open for you.”

The whereabouts of Assad were a mystery until Russian reports said he’d turned up in Moscow. We made our way to his Damascus residence – now a tourist attraction, stripped bare of anything valuable, of anything at all.

We saw people carrying out furniture, with no one trying to stop them. The rebels may have brought freedom, but not security.

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Looters had also been breaking into other buildings nearby – deepening anxiety about this in-between-time without a government in charge.

“The transition has to happen in a proper and correct way,” said Alaa Dadouch, a 36-year-old father of three standing outside with his neighbours. “And the fact that he just left, you know…”

“Bashar al-Assad?” I prompted.

“Yes, you see I’m still scared to even mention this,” he said. “But the fact that he just left, that is selfish. Our president should have taken the proper measures that are needed for him to give at least the army or the police control over those areas until a new presidency comes in.”

He paused. “You know, two days back, I wasn’t able to say that he’s selfish, it would have been a big problem. A lot of everything is different.

“You can actually breathe, you can walk around. You can actually give your opinion. You can say what bothers you without being scared. So, yes, there is a change. I hope it’s a good change. But we’ve been living under false hope for 13 years [of civil war].”

This country is caught between joy and fear, hoping for peace and worried about chaos.

The Syrian civil defence group known as the White Helmets says it is investigating reports from survivors of the country’s notorious Saydnaya prison that people are being detained in hidden underground cells.

Writing on X, the group says it has deployed five “specialised emergency teams” to the prison, who are being helped by a guide familiar with the prison’s layout.

Saydnaya is one of the prisons to have been liberated as rebels took control of the country.

Authorities in Damascus province reported that efforts were continuing to free prisoners, some of whom were “almost choking to death” from lack of ventilation.

The Damascus Countryside Governorate has appealed on social media to former soldiers and prison workers in the Assad regime to provide the rebel forces with the codes to electronic underground doors.

They say they have been unable to open them in order to free “more than 100,000 detainees who can be seen on CCTV monitors”.

Video has been circulating online and through news outlets including Al Jazeera of what appears to be efforts to access lower parts of the prison.

In it, a man can be seen using a type of post to knock out a lower wall, revealing a dark space behind.

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Other footage has shown prisoners being freed – including a small child being held with his mother. He is shown in a video of women being released that was posted by the Turkey-based Association of Detainees and The Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).

“He [Assad] has fallen. Don’t be scared,” a voice on the video says, apparently trying to reassure the women that they were now safe.

Video verified by AFP showed Syrians rushing to see if their relatives were among those released from Saydnaya, where thousands of opposition supporters are said to have been tortured and executed under the Assad regime.

Rebel forces have swept across Syria, freeing prisoners from government jails as they went.

Throughout the civil war, which began in 2011, government forces held hundreds of thousands of people in detention camps, where human rights groups say torture was common.

On Saturday Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) said it had freed more than 3,500 detainees from Homs Military Prison as the group took over the city.

As they entered the capital hours later early on Sunday, HTS announced an “end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Saydnaya”, which has become a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad’s era.

In a 2022 report, ADMSP said Saydnaya “effectively became a death camp” after the start of the civil war.

It estimated that more than 30,000 detainees had either been executed or died as a result of torture, lack of medical care or starvation between 2011 and 2018. Citing accounts from the few released inmates, at least another 500 detainees had been executed between 2018 and 2021, it said.

In 2017, Amnesty International described Saydnaya as a “human slaughterhouse”, in a report that alleged that executions had been authorised at the highest levels of the Assad government.

The government at that time dismissed Amnesty’s claims as “baseless” and “devoid of truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.

Video cited by Reuters showed rebels shooting the lock off Saydnaya prison gate and used more gunfire to open closed doors leading to cells. Men poured out into the corridors.

Other footage, which the Reuters news agency says was taken on the streets of Damascus, appears to show recently freed prisoners running down the street.

In it, one asks a passer-by what happened.

“We toppled the regime,” they respond, eliciting an excited laugh from the former prisoner.

Of all the symbols of the repressive nature of the Assad regime, the network of prisons into which those expressing any form of dissent were disappeared cast the longest and darkest shadow.

In Saydnaya, torture, sexual assault and mass execution were the fate of thousands. Many never re-emerged, with their families often not knowing for many years whether they were alive or dead.

One of those who survived the ordeal, Omar al-Shogre, told the BBC on Sunday about what he endured during three years of incarceration as a teenager.

“I know the pain, I know the loneliness and also the hopelessness you feel because the world let you suffer and did nothing about it,” he said.

“They forced my cousin whom I loved so much to torture me, and they force me to torture him. Otherwise, we would both be executed.”

A Syrian human rights network estimates that more than 130,000 people have been subjected to detention in these conditions since 2011. But the history of these intentionally terrifying institutions goes back much further.

Even in neighbouring Lebanon, the fear of being disappeared to a Syrian dungeon was pervasive during the many years that Damascus was the dominant foreign power.

The deep hatred of the Assad regime – both father and son – that simmered under the surface in Syria was due in large part to this industrial-scale mechanism of torture, death and humiliation that was intended to frighten the population into submission.

For that reason, rebel factions in their lightning drive through Syria that toppled President Assad made sure in each city they captured to go to the central prison in each one and release the thousands held there.

The image of these people emerging into the light from a darkness that had shrouded some for decades will be one of the defining images of the downfall of the Assad dynasty.

Israel’s prime minister has announced its military has temporarily seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the rebel takeover of the country.

Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and “commanding positions nearby” from the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan.

“We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he said.

A UK-based war monitor said Syrian troops had left their positions in Quneitra province, part of which lies inside the buffer zone, on Saturday.

On Sunday, the IDF told residents of five Syrian villages inside the zone to stay in their homes until further notice.

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus.

Israel seized the Golan from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. The move was not recognised internationally, although the US did so unilaterally in 2019.

The Israeli move in the buffer zone came after Syrian rebel fighters captured the capital, Damascus, and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He and his father had been in power in the country since 1971.

Forces led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus in the early hours of Sunday morning, before appearing on state television to declare Syria to now be “free”.

Netanyahu said the collapse of the Assad regime was a “historic day in the Middle East”.

“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” he said.

He said events in Syria had been the result of Israeli strikes against Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Assad’s allies, and insisted Israel would “send a hand of peace” to Syrians who wanted to live in peace with Israel.

The IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found”, he said.

“If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said.

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After more than a year of war in the Middle East, Israel already has its hands full.

But the pace of events in Syria, it’s northern neighbour, will be of real concern.

The IDF had already moved reinforcements to the occupied Golan.

In normal times, its warning to residents in several villages to stay in their homes because Israel would not hesitate to act if it felt it needed to would be seen as hugely provocative and enough to start a war.

Israel is especially concerned about who might get their hands on Bashar al-Assad’s alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.

The leader of the Syrian rebellion is Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His family roots are in the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of Israeli settlers now live alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on after it was captured.

Israel will have no intention of giving that land up and is determined to protect its citizens.

During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, despite being an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, was a better bet than what might follow his regime.

Israel will now be trying to calculate what comes next in Syria. Like everyone, it can only guess.

For nearly a decade it was Russian firepower that had kept Bashar al-Assad in power.

Until the extraordinary events of the last 24 hours.

Damascus has fallen, Syria’s president has been toppled and has, reportedly, flown to Moscow.

Quoting a source in the Kremlin, Russian news agencies and state TV reported that Russia has granted Assad and his family asylum “on humanitarian grounds”.

In a matter of days, the Kremlin’s Syria project has unravelled in the most dramatic circumstances, with Moscow powerless to prevent it.

In a statement the Russian foreign ministry announced that Moscow was “following the dramatic events in Syria with extreme concern.”

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

By sending thousands of troops in 2015 to shore up President Assad, 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, it had seemed. In 2017 President Putin visited Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and declared that it was mission accomplished.

Despite regular 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 naval base in Tartous.

Russia had secured an important foothold in the eastern Mediterranean. The bases became important hubs for transferring military contractors in and out of Africa.

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

The statement announcing Assad’s arrival in Moscow also mentioned that Russian officials were in contact with representatives of “the Syrian armed opposition”.

The state TV anchor said opposition leaders had guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions on the territory of Syria.

Russia’s foreign ministry says the bases in Syria have been put “on a state of high alert”, but claims there is “no serious threat to them at the current time.”

Bashar al-Assad was Russia’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. The Kremlin had invested heavily in him. The Russian authorities will struggle to present his toppling as anything but a setback for Moscow.

Still, they’re trying… and looking for scapegoats.

On Sunday night Russian state TV’s flagship weekly news show took aim at the Syrian army, apparently blaming it for not fighting back against the rebels.

“Everyone could see that the situation was becoming more and more dramatic for the Syrian authorities,” anchor Yevgeny Kiselev said.

“But in Aleppo, for example, positions were given up virtually without a fight. Fortified areas were surrendered one after another and then blown up, despite [government troops] being better equipped and outnumbering the attacking side many times over. It’s a mystery!”

The anchor claimed that Russia “had always hoped for reconciliation [between different sides] in Syria.”

Then his final point:

“Of course we are not indifferent to what is happening in Syria. But our priority is Russia’s own security – what is happening in the zone of the Special Military Operation [Russia’s war in Ukraine].”

There’s a clear message here for the Russian public.

Despite nine years of Russia pouring resources into keeping Bashar al-Assad in power, Russians are being told they have more important things to worry about.

The speed and magnitude of Bashar al-Assad’s “historic” downfall has stunned the White House. But President Biden is also taking part of the credit.

In his statement, he portrayed the extraordinary shift in Syria’s control as a result of US strategy which has fundamentally weakened the roles of Russia and Iran in the region, helping precipitate Assad’s demise.

In reality, Washington never foresaw that its military support for Israel since the Hamas attacks last October and for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 would contribute to the collapse of half a century of Assad rule in Syria.

But it has, and now the US has to deal with the aftermath – a “historic opportunity” but a moment of “risk and uncertainty”, according to Biden.

Washington is trying to work out what comes next. Who rules Syria? The president met his national security team at the White House on Sunday morning.

The administration will not mourn Assad’s end, Iran’s emasculation or Russia’s humiliation in Syria.

Its fear is about a vacuum in which what it saw as an undesirable but relatively stabilised balance of forces could be filled by something it wants even less: a power grab by Islamist insurgents, including factions designated as terrorists by the US, unresponsive to the breadth of Syria’s wider population, potentially triggering further chaos and new risks for the region.

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As Damascus echoes with celebratory gunfire at Assad’s downfall, most Syrians won’t share the American handwringing. The US will briefly join in on a moment to hail the demise of a brutal autocrat – but more profoundly it will fret about what fills the gap.

The Pentagon is already making clear American troops will stay put in eastern Syria, where it has a small number of forces officially to counter the Islamic State group.

Deputy US Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Daniel Shapiro has called on all parties to protect civilians, particularly minorities, and to respect international norms.

“We are aware that the chaotic and dynamic circumstances on the ground in Syria could give Isis space to find the ability to become active, to plan external operations, and we’re determined to work with those partners to continue to degrade their capabilities,” he said.

US troops also train and equip what Washington sees as moderate Arab and Kurdish forces east of the Euphrates River and at the al-Tanf military base, close to the border with Iraq and Jordan.

We don’t know yet what approach Damascus will take to the US presence in Syria, but it seems likely Washington will now push for a negotiated stabilisation of the country leaning heavily on its favoured factions.

Earlier in Syria’s civil war, President Obama gave his permission for limited backing for what the US saw as moderate rebels elsewhere in the country. That was later abandoned as extremists began dominating the battlefield and Russia entered the war on Assad’s behalf.

Washington had since backed a United Nations process for a negotiated settlement between Assad and opposition forces. It’s likely this will transition into US calls for a mediated outcome between the rebels and the remnants of Assad’s regime.

The group that led the fortnight-long charge to Damascus – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – has repeatedly signalled its apparent rebrand, rejecting violent revenge and abandoning its former links to al-Qaeda. Washington will be deeply distrustful of the group, which it has designated as a foreign terrorist organisation.

But some from the region in close contact with US officials see this approach as reductive, even cynical. They urge Washington to embrace a process of transition in Damascus taking account of the breadth of Syrian opposition.

Mouaz Moustafa from the Washington-based Syrian Emergency Task Force – which coordinates with the US military and partner forces in Syria – has described what is unfolding as an “indescribable good” that the Americans must not reduce to the actions of one faction.

“There is an operations room that has multiple factions of different political stripes – some are secular, some are conservative – but they agree on one thing. They are going to liberate Syria from al-Qaeda, Isis, Iran, Russia, and they will allow people to have their country back,” he told the BBC.

In his statement, President Biden said some the groups in Syria were “saying the right things now” but he would judge them on their actions.

Meanwhile President-elect Trump has been posting about Syria, describing it as a “mess” that the US should stay out of. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” he said.

In his comments he points blame at Obama and says Russia should now wash its hands of the country, apparently using its “weakened state” as a reason Moscow and Kyiv should engage in a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.

“I know Vladimir well. This is his time to act,” says Trump.

As president in 2019, Trump famously made a surprise announcement withdrawing US troops from Syria. His officials gradually rowed that back, fearing ceding control to Russia and a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

Trump may well have an eye to resuming his previous position.

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will look at pardons for those involved in the 2021 US Capitol riot on his first day back in office next month.

“These people are living in hell,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in his first broadcast network interview since winning November’s election.

The Republican also vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the country, but offered to work with Democrats to help some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.

In the wide-ranging sit-down, which was recorded on Friday, Trump promised to issue “a lot” of executive orders, including on immigration, energy and the economy, after he is inaugurated on 20 January.

While he suggested he would not seek a justice department investigation into Joe Biden, he said that some of his political adversaries, including lawmakers who investigated the Capitol riot, should be jailed.

Trump was asked whether he would seek to pardon the hundreds of people convicted of involvement in that riot, when supporters of his stormed Congress three months after his defeat in the 2020 election.

“We’re going to look at independent cases,” he said. “Yeah, but I’m going to be acting very quickly.”

“First day,” he added.

Trump continued: “You know, by the way, they’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”

The president-elect made other news in the NBC interview aired on Sunday:

• He offered a caveat on whether he would keep the US in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato): “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re doing a fair – they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I’d stay with Nato”
• Trump said he would not seek to impose restrictions on abortion pills, though when asked to make a guarantee, he added: “Well, I commit. I mean…things change”
• The Republican said Ukraine should “probably” expect less aid when he returns to the White House
• Trump said he thinks “somebody has to find out” if there is a link between autism and childhood vaccines – an idea that has been ruled out by multiple studies around the world. Trump suggested his nominee for health secretary, vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr, would look into the matter
• The president-elect repeated his promise that he will not seek to cut Social Security, nor raise its eligibility age, though he said he would make it “more efficient”, without offering further details
• Pressed on whether his plan to impose tariffs on imports from major US trading partners would raise consumer prices for Americans, he said: “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow”

On the subject of immigration, Trump told NBC he would seek through executive action to end so-called birthright citizenship, which entitles anyone born in the US to an American passport, even if their parents were born elsewhere.

Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that “all persons born” in the United States “are citizens of the United States”.

“We’re going to have to get it changed,” Trump said. “We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.”

Trump also said he would follow through on his campaign pledge to deport undocumented immigrants, including those with family members who are US citizens.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” he said, “so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

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Trump also said he wants to work with Congress to help so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were shielded under an Obama-era programme, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which Trump once attempted to scrap.

“I will work with the Democrats on a plan,” he said, adding that some of these immigrants have found good jobs and started businesses.

Trump seemed to offer mixed signals on whether he would follow through on his repeated vows to seek retribution against political adversaries.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden this week issued a sweeping pardon to his criminally convicted son, Hunter. The Democrat is reported to be considering other blanket pardons for political allies before he leaves office next month.

Trump seemed to indicate that he would not seek a special counsel investigation into Biden and his family, as he once vowed.

“I’m not looking to go back into the past,” he said. “I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.”

But he also said that members of the now-defunct, Democratic-led House of Representatives committee that investigated him “should go to jail”.

One member of the panel, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, hit back at Trump on Sunday.

She said his comment that members of the committee should be jailed was a “continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic”.

In his NBC interview Trump also said he would not direct the FBI to pursue investigations against his foes.

But he also told the network: “If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably.

“They went after me. You know, they went after me, and I did nothing wrong.”

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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.

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 to put it on a chain and wear it around her neck.

President Joe Biden has said the US will try to bring home one of the longest-held American hostages following the sudden collapse of the Syrian government.

Speaking at the White House, Biden said the US believes Austin Tice is alive, but they must pinpoint his location in the war-torn country.

Mr Tice, a freelance journalist, is thought to have been taken captive close to Damascus on 14 August 2012 while he was covering the country’s civil war.

On Sunday, rebel fighters seized the Syrian capital in the culmination of a lightning offensive launched two weeks ago. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country.

Biden said Assad’s exit was a “fundamental act of justice” after decades of repression, but also “a moment of risk and uncertainty” for the Middle East.

“We are mindful that there are Americans in Syria,” Biden said on Sunday, “including those who reside there, as well as Austin Tice, who was taken captive more than 12 years ago.

“We remain committed to returning him to his family.”

On his way out of the room, Biden turned to answer a question from the media about Tice.

“We believe he’s alive,” said the president. “We think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”

The president added: “We have to identify where he is.”

Mr Tice, 43, was last seen in a video, blindfolded and in apparent distress, posted online weeks after his capture.

While no government or group claimed responsibility for his disappearance, US officials soon said they believed that the former US Marine was being held by the Syrian government.

• Follow updates as rebels capture Damascus
• US will fear the vacuum that could replace Assad
• What just happened in Syria?
• Steve Rosenberg: Fall of Assad is a blow to Russia’s prestige

Mr Tice’s sister, Abigail Edaburn, told the BBC on Friday they believe he is still in Syria.

“We don’t know the exact circumstances of the place that he’s being held, but we do know it is in Syria and that he is healthy and well,” she said.

“I don’t know how much I can say, but there have been independent, trusted sources that have been able to verify this information,” she added.

The FBI said in a statement on Sunday that a $1m reward was still on offer for information that leads to Mr Tice’s “safe location, recovery and return”.

The US has about 900 troops in Syria, and Biden said on Sunday he planned for those forces to remain.

The president also said US forces had conducted “dozens” of what he called “precision air strikes” on Sunday against Islamic State group camps and operations in eastern Syria.

President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US should not intervene militarily in Syria. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT,” he wrote on social media.

The Syrian opposition that brought down Assad is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has been designated a terrorist group by the Biden administration.

The US, UK, UN and others consider HTS to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, though HTS says it broke off ties with the Sunni Islamist organisation years ago.

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.

“The forest is our supermarket,” says Anice Justin. “We get almost everything from the forests on these islands. It is what we survive on.”

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has grown up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands straddling India’s east coast. A federally-administered territory, the ecologically-fragile region consists 836 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a distinct group of islands in the southern part of the territory, located some 150 km (93 miles) south of the Andaman Island.

Now Mr Justin watches with trepidation as India plans a multi-billion ‘Hong Kong-like’ development project on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the largest and most secluded parts of the Nicobar archipelago.

Built on a budget of 720bn rupees ($9bn or £6bn) and spread over 166 sq km, the project includes a transshipment harbour, a power plant, an airport and a new township, all designed to link the area to crucial global trade routes along the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Positioned near the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the project promises to boost international trade and tourism – the government reckons that some 650,000 people will be living on the island by the time the project is completed in 30 years.

Experts say the multi-billion plan is also a part of India’s larger goal to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

But the scheme has sparked alarm among the islanders who fear the loss of their land, culture, and way of life, with the project threatening to push them to the brink of extinction.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to some of the most isolated and vulnerable tribes in the world, with five groups classified as “particularly vulnerable.”

These include the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge, and Shompen. While the Jarawas and North Sentinelese remain largely uncontacted, the Shompen – some 400 people – of the Great Nicobar Islands are also at risk of losing their way of life due to external pressures.

A nomadic tribe, most of them live deep inside the forest where they forage for survival – not much is known about their culture as very few of them have ever had contact with the outside world.

“The loss will be especially huge and traumatic for them,” says Mr Justin, who has been documenting the island since 1985.

“Whatever we call development in the outside world is not of interest to them. They have a traditional life of their own.”

Environmentalists say there are also huge environmental costs of the project.

Spread across 921 sq km (355.6 sq miles), around 80% of the Great Nicobar island is covered with rainforests, which are home to more than 1,800 animals and 800 flora species, many of which are endemic.

The federal environment ministry has said that only 130 sq km or 14% of the total area of the island will be cleared for the project – but that’s still about 964,000 trees. Experts warn the actual number could be much higher.

“The government always claims only a part of the forest will be cleared. But the infrastructure you’re building would lead to more pollution, which in turn would impact the entire habitat,” says Madhav Gadgil, an ecologist.

The environment ministry did not respond to BBC’s request for comment.

But Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav in August had said that the project “will not disturb or displace” tribespeople and that it had received environmental clearances based on the “rigour of environmental scrutiny and after incorporating consequent safeguards”.

Yet, not everyone is convinced.

Earlier this year, 39 international experts from different fields of social sciences had warned that the development project would be a “death sentence” for the Shompen as it would destroy their habitat.

It’s a fear that haunts Mr Justin too: “The Shompen people do not have the knowledge or the means to survive in an industrial world,” he says.

He worries the group could meet the same fate as the Nicobarese, the biggest tribal group on the island, which suffered displacement in 2004, when a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out their villages.

Over the years, the government made efforts to resettle the people to a different area – but that too came at a price.

“Most Nicobarese here are now manual labourers and stay in a settlement instead of their ancestral lands,” Mr Justin says. “They have no place to grow crops or keep animals.”

There are fears that the project could also expose the Shompen to diseases.

“Uncontacted peoples have little to no immunity to outside diseases like flu and measles which can and do wipe them out – they typically lose around two thirds of their population after contact,” says Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation group.

There are other wider environmental concerns as well, especially about the marine life of the region.

Ecologists warn of the effect on the Galathea Bay on the south-eastern side of the island, which has been the nesting place for giant leatherback sea turtles for centuries.

Dr Manish Chandi, a social ecologist, says the project will also affect saltwater crocodiles and the island’s water monitors, fish and avifauna.

A government statement has said these nesting and breeding grounds of these species would not be altered.

But Mr Chandi points out that there are several other species which nest in the area in large numbers. “The government is proposing to translocate corals in locations where they are not found naturally. What are they going to do with these other species?”

Even though the project would take 30 long years to finish, people can’t help but feel anxious about how it will irreversibly alter the delicate balance of both the environment and the lives of the island’s indigenous people.

Australian breaker Rachael Gunn’s legal team has stopped a musical parody about her journey to the Paris Olympics from taking to the stage.

The show titled ‘Raygun: The Musical’ was created by Australian comedian Steph Broadbridge, who was also due to feature in the cast.

It was due to debut on Saturday at Kinselas in Darlinghurst, Sydney, but Broadbridge was forced to cancel the show after lawyers sent a cease and desist letter, saying that the Olympian owned the dance moves.

In a statement to the Guardian, Gunn’s legal and management team said it was committed to protecting her intellectual property and ensuring that her brand remained strong and respected.

Some of Gunn’s unconventional moves – such as the sprinkler and kangaroo-hop – went viral after her Olympics performance.

Now, Gunn’s lawyers have reportedly trademarked the poster for the musical and advised Broadbridge that she was “not allowed” to do the kangaroo dance because Gunn “owns” it.

“That one did puzzle me – I mean, that’s an Olympic-level dance,” Broadbridge said in her Instagram video. “How would I possibly be able to do that without any formal breakdancing training?”

Broadbridge said on Instagram that she planned for the show to be “back soon” and “with a whole new story arc”. Everyone who was due to attend the trial show would be offered a refund for their A$10 ticket, she added.

She said: “They [Gunn’s legal team] were worried I was damaging her brand, which I would never.”

Gunn failed to receive a single point from judges at this summer’s Olympic games and was subsequently eliminated from the round-robin stage which led to a torrent of abuse online.

Despite being defended by officials, her performance divided opinion within the breaking community, with some saying she made a mockery of the scene.

Gunn had initially planned to keep competing after the Olympics, but in November said the saga had been so “upsetting” that she changed her mind and had decided to retire.

She ended her video saying that she intends to change the name of her character to “Raygun with an I” in hopes that “fixes everyone’s concerns”.

In their statement to The Guardian, Gunn’s legal team said: “While we have immense respect for the credible work and effort that has gone into the development of the show, we must take necessary steps to safeguard Rachael’s creative rights and the integrity of her work.

“This action is not intended to diminish the contributions of others, but rather to ensure her brand is properly represented and protected in all future endeavours.”

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

Although the election has generally been peaceful, two people were shot dead on Saturday in separate incidents, while the electoral commission office in the northern town of Damongo has been destroyed, allegedly by NDC supporters angry at the delays in announcing the results.

Ghanaians had expected the first results to be announced within hours of the polls closing, however the head of the Electoral Commission has asked for patience, noting that it has 72 days to declare the results.

Warehouses have also been looted in both Damongo, and Tamale, also in the north.

Bawumia said he was basing his concession 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.”

The new president will be sworn in on 7 January 2025.

• 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

Wicked, Conclave, Anora and The Brutalist are a few of the films expected to pick up Golden Globe nominations, which are announced on Monday.

It is the first major film ceremony to announce its shortlists, and will offer some clues as to how the awards race is shaping up.

In a year with several strong contenders, there is currently no consensus on what will ultimately win best picture at the Oscars on 2 March.

The Golden Globe nominations will be announced by US actors Mindy Kaling and Morris Chestnut on Monday from around 13:15 GMT.

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

Although the Globes are the first big milestone of awards season, smaller precursor events such as the Gotham Awards and various critics’ ceremonies have been taking place in recent weeks.

Unlike the Baftas and Oscars, the Globes split their awards by genre, with films competing either in the drama or comedy and musical categories. They also have six slots available in each acting category.

That means the Globes are able to nominate 36 acting performances in total, compared with the 20 at the Oscars, allowing them to spread the wealth and more easily avoid the perception of snubs.

This year’s Golden Globes will take place in Los Angeles on 5 January.

Unlike last year, when Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer steamrolled its way through awards season, there are several films expected to have a decent shot at the top prize, making for a more exciting and unpredictable race.

The contenders include Anora, the story of a New York stripper who falls for the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.

Similarly acclaimed by critics, The Brutalist follows a Hungarian architect who tries to build a new life for himself in America following World War Two.

Conclave, based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, depicts a group of gossipy and scheming cardinals who gather in Rome to select the new Pope.

There are several blockbusters competing too. Musical adaptation Wicked, sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two and historical epic Gladiator II could all make waves this season, thanks in part to their huge box office success.

Sing Sing, about a group of inmates at a US prison who take part in a performing arts programme, and musical Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican drug lord who changes gender, are also in the running.

Other hotly tipped films include September 5, a re-telling of the terror attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, A Real Pain, which follows two cousins dealing with familial grief, and Nickel Boys, about two friends in a reform school in 1960s Florida.

Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, assisted dying drama The Room Next Door, World War Two film Blitz, body horror The Substance, and the gothic vampire remake Nosferatu could also show up.

Babygirl, an erotic drama about an age-gap affair, I’m Still Here, about the disappearance of a Brazilian congressman, and the psychedelic 1950s romance Queer could also squeak in.

And there could be room for dystopian drama Civil War, tennis love triangle Challengers, animated adventure The Wild Robot, and Saturday Night, which goes behind the scenes of a live variety show.

Comeback narratives are strong in the best actress category this year, with Demi Moore (The Substance), Angelina Jolie (Maria) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) all expected to return to the awards conversation.

But they face competition from Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), and a breakout performance from relative newcomer Mikey Madison (Anora).

Other likely contenders are Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door), Nicole Kidman (Babygirl), Lily-Rose Depp (Nosferatu) and Saoirse Ronan (The Outrun).

In best actor, the frontrunners include Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) and Colman Domingo (Sing Sing).

They could be joined by Hollywood A-listers Daniel Craig (Queer) and Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown).

Elsewhere, Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain) and John David Washington (The Piano Lesson) could show up, while Sebastian Stan has two possibilities for a nomination (A Different Man and The Apprentice).

Supporting actors likely to be considered include Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) Denzel Washington (Gladiator II), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Yura Borisov (Anora), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice) and Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing).

Supporting actress, meanwhile, could see nominations for Ariana Grande (Wicked), Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) and Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez (both Emilia Pérez).

But it’s a crowded category, with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (Nickel Boys), Saoirse Ronan (Blitz), Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Natasha Lyonne (His Three Daughters) and Felicity Jones (The Brutalist) also in contention.

The Globes also have a tendency to lean in to big celebrity names, which means some stars who are perhaps slightly less likely to be in the Oscars race still have a strong chance of showing up here.

They include Hugh Grant (Heretic), Glen Powell (Hit Man), Kate Winslet (Lee), Paul Mescal (Gladiator II), Amy Adams (Nightbitch) and Zendaya (Challengers).

Unlike some other awards ceremonies, the Golden Globes also have television categories in addition to film.

This year, that could mean nominations for dramas and limited series such as Baby Reindeer, Shogun, The Penguin, Ripley, Slow Horses and Mr & Mrs Smith.

Comedies which could get a look-in include Nobody Wants This, Hacks, The Bear, Only Murders in the Building and Abbott Elementary.

The Golden Globes have been controversial in recent years (we’ll get to that in a minute), but they are also one of the the most fun ceremonies of awards season.

Fresh from the Christmas holidays, the celebrities are usually in a good mood, ready to mingle over a few drinks and likely to have some fun with their acceptance speeches.

The Globes also tend to book an acerbic host to make cutting jokes about the A-list guests. This year, that job falls to US comic Nikki Glaser – a terrific choice if her recent appearance on The Roast of Tom Brady is anything to go by.

But the body which used to be behind the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, was criticised in 2021 for corruption and a lack of diversity in its voting body.

The group was accused of accepting “freebies” in exchange for nominations and other ethical lapses.

The Globes held a dramatically pared-down ceremony the following year, which was not even televised, as the organisation got its house in order.

The body expanded and diversified its membership and implemented a new code of conduct, including a ban on gifts and new rules on members accepting travel and other perks. The group’s name was changed to The Golden Globe Foundation.

After a year in Hollywood’s doghouse, the industry broadly endorsed the reforms and stars returned to the event in 2023. US network CBS has since signed a new five-year deal to keep broadcasting the Globes.

The Golden Globe winners don’t necessarily always match up with the Oscars, but they can be a good indicator of support for a film, and a well-received acceptance speech can help give an awards campaign momentum as Oscar voters are considering their options.

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.”

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“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.

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.'”

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 warming, 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.

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.

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has dropped that nom de guerre associated with his jihadist past, and been using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in official communiques issued since Thursday, ahead of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

This move is part of Jawlani’s effort to bolster his legitimacy in a new context, as his Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), leading other rebel factions, announces the capture of the Syrian capital, Damascus, solidifying its control over much of the country.

Jawlani’s transformation is not recent, but has been carefully cultivated over the years, evident not only in his public statements and interviews with international outlets but also in his evolving appearance.

Once clad in traditional jihadist militant attire, he has adopted a more Western-style wardrobe in the past years. Now, as he leads the offensive, he has donned military fatigues, symbolising his role as the commander of the operations room.

But who is Jawlani – or Ahmed al-Sharaa – and why and how has he changed?

A 2021 PBS interview with Jawlani revealed that he was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as an oil engineer until 1989.

In that year, the Jawlani family returned to Syria, where he grew up and lived in the Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus.

Jawlani’s journey as a jihadist began in Iraq, linked to al-Qaeda through the Islamic State (IS) group’s precursor – al-Qaeda in Iraq and, later, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

After the 2003 US-led invasion, he joined other foreign fighters in Iraq and, in 2005, was imprisoned at Camp Bucca, where he enhanced his jihadist affiliations and later on was introduced to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the quiet scholar who would later go on to lead IS.

In 2011, Baghdadi sent Jawlani to Syria with funding to establish al-Nusra Front, a covert faction tied to ISI. By 2012, Nusra had become a prominent Syrian fighting force, hiding its IS and al-Qaeda ties.

Tensions arose in 2013 when Baghdadi’s group in Iraq unilaterally declared the merger of the two groups (ISI and Nusra), declaring the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), and publicly revealing for the first time the links between them.

Jawlani resisted, as he wanted to distance his group from ISI’s violent tactics, leading to a split.

To get out of that sticky situation, Jawlani pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, making Nusra Front its Syrian branch.

From the start, he prioritised winning Syrian support, distancing himself from IS’s brutality and emphasising a more pragmatic approach to jihad.

In April 2013, al-Nusra Front became al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, putting it at odds with IS.

While Jawlani’s move was partly an attempt to maintain local support and avoid alienating Syrians and rebel factions, the al-Qaeda affiliation ultimately did little to benefit this effort.

It became a pressing challenge in 2015 when Nusra and other factions captured Idlib province, forcing them to co-operate in its administration.

In 2016, Jawlani severed ties with al-Qaeda, rebranding the group as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and later as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017.

While initially appearing superficial, the split revealed deeper divisions. Al-Qaeda accused Jawlani of betrayal, leading to defections and the formation of Hurras al-Din, a new al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which HTS later crushed in 2020. Members of Hurras al-Din, however, have remained cautiously present in the region.

HTS also targeted IS operatives and foreign fighters in Idlib, dismantling their networks and forcing some to undergo “deradicalisation” programmes.

These moves, justified as efforts to unify militant forces and reduce infighting, signalled Jawlani’s strategy to position HTS as a dominant and politically viable force in Syria.

Despite the public split from al-Qaeda and name changes, HTS continued to be designated by the UN, US, UK and other countries as a terrorist organisation, and the US maintained a $10m reward for information about Jawlani’s whereabouts. Western powers considered the break-up to be a façade.

Under Jawlani, HTS became the dominant force in Idlib, north-west Syria’s largest rebel stronghold and home to about four million people, many of whom were displaced from other Syrian provinces.

To address concerns about a militant group governing the area, HTS established a civilian front, the so-called “Syrian Salvation Government” (SG) in 2017 as its political and administrative arm.

The SG functioned like a state, with a prime minister, ministries and local departments overseeing sectors such as education, health and reconstruction, while maintaining a religious council guided by Sharia, or Islamic law.

To reshape his image, Jawlani actively engaged with the public, visiting displacement camps, attending events, and overseeing aid efforts, particularly during crises like the 2023 earthquakes.

HTS highlighted achievements in governance and infrastructure to legitimise its rule and demonstrate its ability to provide stability and services.

It has previously praised the Taliban, upon their return to power in 2021, lauding them as an inspiration and a model for effectively balancing jihadist efforts with political aspirations, including making tactical compromises to achieve their goals.

Jawlani’s efforts in Idlib reflected his broader strategy to demonstrate HTS’s ability not only to wage jihad but also to govern effectively.

By prioritising stability, public services and reconstruction, he aimed to showcase Idlib as a model of success under HTS rule, enhancing both his group’s legitimacy and his own political aspirations.

But under his leadership, HTS has crushed and marginalised other militant factions, both jihadists and rebel ones, in its effort to consolidate its power and dominate the scene.

For over a year leading up to the HTS-led rebel offensive on 27 November, Jawlani faced protests in Idlib from hardline Islamists as well as Syrian activists.

Critics compared his rule to Assad’s, accusing HTS of authoritarianism, suppressing dissent and silencing critics. Protesters labelled HTS’s security forces as “Shabbiha”, a term used to describe Assad’s loyalist henchmen.

They further alleged that HTS deliberately avoided meaningful combat against government forces and marginalised jihadists and foreign fighters in Idlib to prevent them from engaging in such actions, all to appease international actors.

Even during the latest offensive, activists have persistently urged HTS to release individuals imprisoned in Idlib allegedly for expressing dissent.

In response to these criticisms, HTS initiated several reforms over the past year. It disbanded or rebranded a controversial security force accused of human rights violations and established a “Department of Grievances” to allow citizens to lodge complaints against the group. Its critics said these measures were just a show to contain dissent.

To justify its consolidation of power in Idlib and the suppression of plurality among militant groups, HTS argued that unifying under a single leadership was crucial for making progress and ultimately overthrowing the Syrian government.

HTS and its civilian arm, the SG, walked a tightrope, striving to project a modern, moderate image to win over both the local population and the international community, while simultaneously maintaining their Islamist identity to satisfy hardliners within rebel-held areas and HTS’s own ranks.

For instance, in December 2023, HTS and the SG faced a backlash after a “festival” held at a glossy new shopping mall was criticised by hardliners as “immoral”.

And this August, a Paralympic Games-inspired ceremony drew sharp criticism from hardliners, prompting the SG to review the organisation of such events.

These incidents illustrate the challenges HTS faces in reconciling the expectations of its Islamist base with the broader demands of the Syrian population, who are seeking freedom and coexistence after years of authoritarian rule under Assad.

As the latest offensive unfolded, global media focused on Jawlani’s jihadist past, prompting some rebel supporters to call for him to step back, viewing him as a liability.

Although he previously expressed willingness to dissolve his group and step aside, his recent actions and public appearances tell a different story.

HTS’s success in uniting rebels and nearly capturing the whole country in under two weeks has strengthened Jawlani’s position, quieting hardline critics and accusations of opportunism.

Jawlani and the SG have since reassured domestic and international audiences.

To Syrians, including minorities, they promised safety; to neighbours and powers like Russia, they pledged peaceful relations. Jawlani even assured Russia its Syrian bases would remain unharmed if attacks ceased.

This shift reflects HTS’s “moderate jihad” strategy since 2017, emphasising pragmatism over rigid ideology.

Jawlani’s approach could signal the decline of global jihad movements like IS and al-Qaeda, whose inflexibility is increasingly seen as ineffective and unsustainable.

His trajectory might inspire other groups to adapt, marking either a new era of localised, politically flexible “jihadism” or just a temporary divergence from the traditional path in order to make political and territorial gains.

“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.

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“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-backed militias known as the Syrian National Army who, like the HTS, dominated a corner of northwest Syria. In the northeast, the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic 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.

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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.

“The forest is our supermarket,” says Anice Justin. “We get almost everything from the forests on these islands. It is what we survive on.”

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has grown up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands straddling India’s east coast. A federally-administered territory, the ecologically-fragile region consists 836 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a distinct group of islands in the southern part of the territory, located some 150 km (93 miles) south of the Andaman Island.

Now Mr Justin watches with trepidation as India plans a multi-billion ‘Hong Kong-like’ development project on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the largest and most secluded parts of the Nicobar archipelago.

Built on a budget of 720bn rupees ($9bn or £6bn) and spread over 166 sq km, the project includes a transshipment harbour, a power plant, an airport and a new township, all designed to link the area to crucial global trade routes along the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Positioned near the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the project promises to boost international trade and tourism – the government reckons that some 650,000 people will be living on the island by the time the project is completed in 30 years.

Experts say the multi-billion plan is also a part of India’s larger goal to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

But the scheme has sparked alarm among the islanders who fear the loss of their land, culture, and way of life, with the project threatening to push them to the brink of extinction.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to some of the most isolated and vulnerable tribes in the world, with five groups classified as “particularly vulnerable.”

These include the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge, and Shompen. While the Jarawas and North Sentinelese remain largely uncontacted, the Shompen – some 400 people – of the Great Nicobar Islands are also at risk of losing their way of life due to external pressures.

A nomadic tribe, most of them live deep inside the forest where they forage for survival – not much is known about their culture as very few of them have ever had contact with the outside world.

“The loss will be especially huge and traumatic for them,” says Mr Justin, who has been documenting the island since 1985.

“Whatever we call development in the outside world is not of interest to them. They have a traditional life of their own.”

Environmentalists say there are also huge environmental costs of the project.

Spread across 921 sq km (355.6 sq miles), around 80% of the Great Nicobar island is covered with rainforests, which are home to more than 1,800 animals and 800 flora species, many of which are endemic.

The federal environment ministry has said that only 130 sq km or 14% of the total area of the island will be cleared for the project – but that’s still about 964,000 trees. Experts warn the actual number could be much higher.

“The government always claims only a part of the forest will be cleared. But the infrastructure you’re building would lead to more pollution, which in turn would impact the entire habitat,” says Madhav Gadgil, an ecologist.

The environment ministry did not respond to BBC’s request for comment.

But Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav in August had said that the project “will not disturb or displace” tribespeople and that it had received environmental clearances based on the “rigour of environmental scrutiny and after incorporating consequent safeguards”.

Yet, not everyone is convinced.

Earlier this year, 39 international experts from different fields of social sciences had warned that the development project would be a “death sentence” for the Shompen as it would destroy their habitat.

It’s a fear that haunts Mr Justin too: “The Shompen people do not have the knowledge or the means to survive in an industrial world,” he says.

He worries the group could meet the same fate as the Nicobarese, the biggest tribal group on the island, which suffered displacement in 2004, when a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out their villages.

Over the years, the government made efforts to resettle the people to a different area – but that too came at a price.

“Most Nicobarese here are now manual labourers and stay in a settlement instead of their ancestral lands,” Mr Justin says. “They have no place to grow crops or keep animals.”

There are fears that the project could also expose the Shompen to diseases.

“Uncontacted peoples have little to no immunity to outside diseases like flu and measles which can and do wipe them out – they typically lose around two thirds of their population after contact,” says Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation group.

There are other wider environmental concerns as well, especially about the marine life of the region.

Ecologists warn of the effect on the Galathea Bay on the south-eastern side of the island, which has been the nesting place for giant leatherback sea turtles for centuries.

Dr Manish Chandi, a social ecologist, says the project will also affect saltwater crocodiles and the island’s water monitors, fish and avifauna.

A government statement has said these nesting and breeding grounds of these species would not be altered.

But Mr Chandi points out that there are several other species which nest in the area in large numbers. “The government is proposing to translocate corals in locations where they are not found naturally. What are they going to do with these other species?”

Even though the project would take 30 long years to finish, people can’t help but feel anxious about how it will irreversibly alter the delicate balance of both the environment and the lives of the island’s indigenous people.

You might not expect one of the world’s best-known video game actors to suffer from imposter syndrome.

But, as Troy Baker will tell you, no-one’s immune.

His most famous role is Joel Miller, the main character of post-apocalyptic adventure The Last of Us – a game regularly praised for its storytelling and performances.

He’s also appeared in celebrated series including Bioshock, Uncharted and Batman: Arkham.

But stepping into the lead role of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was a different matter.

Troy says taking on the character made famous by Oscar nominee Harrison Ford was daunting, even for him.

“I turned it down,” he tells BBC Newsbeat, thinking back to when he was first offered the job.

“I was scared. I felt the weight of what this character meant.”

Troy says the performance capture team at developer MachineGames convinced him to change his mind, but there was one more person he had to win over.

Todd Howard, the boss of publisher Bethesda, had long dreamed of making an Indiana Jones game and oversaw the project.

But, Troy says, he “rolled his eyes” when the actor was first put forward.

Howard felt it would ruin the experience for players so used to hearing him.

“I never thought that my success would actually work against me,” says Troy.

Rather than walk into the role, Troy says, he had to audition with dozens of others.

It eventually came down to him and and one other actor. The decision was left to a test audience and a “blind taste test” where they had to choose the performance they preferred.

“Todd Howard said they picked you every time,” Troy says.

“And I thought that was a compliment.

“He was like: ‘No, it’s a challenge. That’s the standard’.”

The weight of expectation isn’t only resting on Troy’s shoulders – anticipation for Indiana Jones’s first video game outing in over 15 years is high.

Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax was bought by Microsoft in 2020, before it acquired Activision-Blizzard last year for a record-breaking $69bn.

The games it got hold of in that deal – including Call of Duty and Warcraft – have continued to be successful, but its gaming division hasn’t had a new in-house hit this year.

They’re hoping Indiana Jones can change that.

Troy says the production for the game’s sets was lavish, with crews building accurate representations of boats, airships and other locations on giant motion-capture stages.

That’s not unusual for a blockbuster video game in 2024, but it will mean The Great Circle needs to sell well to recover the costs of making it.

The game will initially come out on Xbox and PC, and Microsoft recently announced plans to release it on rival platform PlayStation 5.

This angered Xbox fans, who accused it of going back on promises to keep the game exclusive, but the company has said its main goal is to get its games on as many devices as possible.

Axel Torvenius, creative director at Swedish developer MachineGames, speaks to Newsbeat as the final touches are being worked out prior to The Great Circle’s release.

He doesn’t get deep into the details of exclusivity but says he’s “happy” the game will be widely available.

Axel says his bigger concern was figuring out how to use the team’s expertise to create an adventure that felt authentic to its inspiration.

The studio is known for its work on the rebooted Wolfenstein series.

Like Indiana Jones, the 3D shooter’s hero William “B.J.” Blazkowicz takes on Nazi enemies, but he does so using a range of increasingly devastating firearms.

That wouldn’t sit quite right with the adventurous archaeologist, says Axel.

“That’s not Indiana Jones, that’s not the brand we’re working with. That’s something else,” he says.

Indiana Jones relies more on stealth than direct confrontation, and the game contains plenty of puzzles.

The game is also played from a first-person perspective, a decision Axel says was made early in the game’s development.

“We’ve been trying to make you feel like Indiana Jones, like literally stepping into his shoes and seeing the world through his eyes,” he says.

“There’s an intimacy you can’t achieve in third-person.”

Marios Gavrilis, who plays The Great Circle’s villain, Voss, had a slightly less rocky road to landing the part.

Like Troy, he’s worked in video games before, mainly re-voicing characters from English into German.

This is one of the first times he’s been part of an original cast, and his character’s appearance is modelled on his own.

Marios, who’s also got TV credits to his name in Germany, says there’s potential for more crossover with video games.

While understanding of motion-captured performance – the issue currently at the centre of an actors’ strike – is growing, he tells Newsbeat not everyone appreciates the work they do.

“Very often we’re referred to as voice actors,” says Marios.

“What we’re actually doing is full-on acting.

“This is something people forget, like we’re not just doing the voice.

“It’s the entire body, it’s the entire performance that’s being captured.”

Early verdicts on The Great Circle’s acting are positive, with many critics praising Troy’s version of Indiana Jones

It’ll come as a relief to the actor, who tells Newsbeat he spent the first days on set worrying he’d be fired after Todd Howard’s early scepticism.

But, he says, an email from the boss during recording helped to settle his nerves.

“He said: ‘You’re doing a hell of a job’,” says Troy.

“And I was like: ‘You have no idea how much I needed to hear that right now’.”

The final verdict will come from players when they get their hands on the game, and Troy says he plans to join them.

“I’ve already experienced it one way, as a performer,” he says.

“But there is nothing like picking up the controller and now you are Indiana Jones. so that’s what I’m looking forward to.

“If you get to the end of the game and you feel like ‘I was Indiana Jones’, then I’ve done my job.”

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

With winter nights drawing in across North America, Canadian “snowbirds” – citizens who flee their freezing temperatures for sunnier climes every year – are planning their annual trips to Florida or the Caribbean.

Traditionally, Cuba has been hugely popular among Canadians, drawn to the pristine white sands of beach resorts like Varadero.

They fill the void left by Americans wary of the travel restrictions imposed on them under the continuing US economic embargo of the largest island in the Caribbean.

Figures show that almost one million Canadian tourists visited Cuba last year, the top country of origin for visitors by some margin.

As such, a recent decision by the Canadian tour operator, Sunwings Vacations Group – one of Cuba’s leading travel partners – to remove 26 hotels from its Cuba portfolio is a blow to the island’s struggling tourism industry.

Sunwings took the decision after Cuba endured a four-day nationwide blackout at the end of October, caused by failures with the country’s aging energy infrastructure.

This was followed by another national power cut last month, when Hurricane Rafael barrelled its way across the island, worsening an already-acute electricity crisis.

A third countrywide blackout then happened on Wednesday, 4 Dec, after Cuba’s largest power plant broke down.

“Cuba has had some volatility in the last few weeks and that may shake consumer confidence,” Sunwings’ chief marketing officer, Samantha Taylor told the Pax News travel website last month.

“There are incredible places to go in Cuba,” she stressed, keen to emphasise that the company isn’t pulling out of Cuba altogether. “But we also recognise that if clients are a little uncomfortable, we need to give them options.”

Specifically, that involved drawing up a list of what they called “hidden gems” – alternative holiday destinations in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Colombia.

The implications for Cuba are clear.

With tourism now the island’s principal economic motor, and the main source of foreign currency earnings after remittances, that an important tour operator is pointing its customers towards other countries’ beaches over crumbling energy infrastructure is a real concern.

“Our message to Canadians is that tourism is one of the economy’s priorities,” said Lessner Gómez, director of the Cuban Tourism Board in Toronto in a statement. “The Ministry of Tourism has been preparing for the winter season to deliver better services, uninterrupted supplies, a better airport experience, and more and new car rentals.”

While Cuba’s tourism agency tries to ease fears about the extent of the electricity blackouts, few can deny that these have been extremely difficult months on the island. Hurricane Rafael was only the latest storm to hit Cuba in a frenetic Atlantic hurricane season in which more powerful and more frequent storms are the new normal.

Of course, severe weather is a problem across the Caribbean. But for Cuba, there are other complications in play.

Donald Trump’s re-election to the White House and his choice for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, stand to make life even more complicated for Cubans than it already is.

“This is probably the Cuban Revolution’s hardest moment,” says former Cuban diplomat, Jesús Arboleya. “And unfortunately, I see nothing on the horizon whatsoever which allows for an optimistic view of the future of US-Cuba relations.

“Donald Trump has handed US policy towards Cuba to those sectors of the Cuban American right who have essentially lived off anti-Castro policies since their origins.”

Mr Arboleya adds that Marco Rubio, currently a US Senator for Florida, is the leading voice among them. He is a Cuban American long opposed to the communist government in Havana.

His parents were Cubans who moved to the US in 1956, three years before Fidel Castro seized power, but his grandfather fled the Castro-led turn to communism on the island.

“People are horrified by the idea of another Donald Trump presidency. It spells real trouble,” echoes Cuban political commentator and editor of Temas magazine, Rafael Hernández.

Current US policy towards Cuba is “somewhat schizophrenic”, he argues.

“On the one hand, the State Department facilitates support to the private sector, and [pushes for] economic changes in Cuba. But on the other hand, Congress and Senate seem to freeze any advances on those reforms.”

The expectation is, however, that a future Secretary of State Rubio will coalesce the US’s Cuba policy around a single idea – maximum pressure on the island by tightening the already-harsh sanctions.

Cubans fear that could mean the suspension of commercial flights to Cuba, or even the closure of the US Embassy in Havana, which was officially reopened in 2015 after decades of frosty relations.

If implemented, such steps would be deliberately designed to further harm Cuba’s floundering tourism trade, the aim to hit the communist-run nation when it’s down. Tourist numbers to Cuba have almost halved since the high point of nearly five million visitors during the Obama-era détente with Cuba.

Between 2015-2017 US visitors flocked to the island under more relaxed travel restrictions, keen to experience a country that had long been denied them. Around the same time, the Cuban government embarked on a major hotel-building spree, confident that demand would remain strong over the next decade.

However, there followed a double blow to Cuban tourism from which it hasn’t fully recovered. First, the Trump Administration rolled back President Obama’s engagement policies, and then the Covid-19 pandemic sent the industry into freefall.

With many of those hotels now registering much lower occupancy rates than originally predicted, and real difficulties in providing the five-star customer experience as advertised amid the blackouts and shortages, some question the strategy of putting so many eggs in the tourism basket in the first place.

“Why has Cuba invested 38% [of government funds] on average over the past decade in hotels and infrastructure connected to international tourism, but only 8 to 9% on energy infrastructure?” asks economist Ricardo Torres at the American University in Washington DC. “It doesn’t make sense. The hotels run on electricity.”

Even with all the current challenges, most visitors agree that Cuba remains a unique travel experience. The cliches – classic cars, cigars and mojitos – still appeal to many, while others prefer to travel the island absorbing its history, culture and music.

Yet as tour operator Sunwings’ decision to step back shows, some tourists are finding it hard to appreciate Cuba during its energy crisis, especially if it’s about to be exacerbated by a hostile administration – and Secretary of State – in Washington.

It is among the most delicate and controversial challenges in modern medicine – how to determine whether the benefits of puberty blockers (or drugs that delay puberty) outweigh the potential harms.

This question came to the fore in June 2023 when NHS England proposed that in the future, these drugs would only be prescribed to children questioning their gender as part of clinical research.

Since then, a new government has arrived in Westminster and Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he is committed to “setting up a clinical trial” to establish the evidence on puberty blockers. The National Institute for Health and Care Research is expected to confirm soon that funding is in place for a trial.

The dilemma that remains is, how will such a trial work?

Eighteen months since the announcement there is still a lack of consensus around how the trial should be conducted. It will also need to be approved by a committee of experts who have to decide, among other things, whether what’s being tested might cause undue physical or psychological harm.

But there is a second unanswered question that some, but by no means all, scientists have that is more pressing than the first: is it right to perform this particular trial on children and young people at all?

When the Gender and Identity Development Service (GIDS) was established at London’s Tavistock Clinic in 1989, it was the only NHS specialist gender clinic for children in England, and those referred there were typically offered psychological and social support.

Over the last 10 years, however, there has been a rapid increase in referrals – with the greatest increase being people registered female at birth. In a separate development, around the same time the approach of typically offering psychological and social support moved to one of onward referrals to services that prescribed hormone drugs, such as puberty blockers.

Known scientifically as gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogues, puberty blockers work on the brain to stop the rise in sex hormones – oestrogen and testosterone – that accompany puberty. For years, they were prescribed to young patients with gender dysphoria (those who feel their gender identity is different from their biological sex). But in March 2024, NHS England stopped the routine prescribing of puberty blockers to under 18s, as part of an overhaul of children’s gender identity services.

NHS England said in a policy statement: “There is not enough evidence to support the safety or clinical effectiveness of PSH [puberty suppressing hormones] to make the treatment routinely available at this time.”

The ban was later tightened to apply to private clinics as well.

In April 2024, a review of gender identity services for children and young people, led by Dr Hilary Cass, a past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, published its final report, which called out the “field of gender care” for not taking a cautious and careful approach.

She also reported that the change in practice at GIDS away from one primarily relying on psychological and social support was largely based on a single study that looked at the effect of medical interventions such as puberty blockers on a very narrowly defined group of children and there was a lack of follow up in the longer term.

Elsewhere, some other countries were re-examining puberty blockers too. Scotland paused the use of them while Finland, Sweden, France, Norway, and Denmark have all re-evaluated their positions on medical intervention for under 18s – including puberty blockers – to differing degrees. In other places there is still support for the use of puberty blockers.

In medicine, when there is genuine uncertainty as to whether the benefits of a treatment outweigh the harms – called equipoise – some ethicists argue there’s a moral obligation to scientifically study such treatments. But there are some from across the debate who don’t think there is equipoise in this case.

The BBC has learned details about the arguments going on around the concept of a trial and how it could look. Some argue that there is already evidence that puberty blockers can help with mental health, and that in light of this it would be unethical to perform a trial at all because this would mean some young people experiencing gender distress would not be given them.

The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has expressed their concern about the trial for this reason. They support the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery. WPATH, who have faced increasing criticism of their guidelines from some clinicians, say that it is ethically problematic to make participation in a trial the only way to access a type of care that is “evidence based, widely recognised as medically necessary, and often reported as lifesaving.”

Meanwhile other clinicians believe there is no good evidence that puberty blockers can help with mental health at all. They also point to research that questions the negative impact that the drugs might have on brain development among teenagers, as well as evidence around the negative impact on bone density.

Dr Louise Irvine is a GP and co-chair of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender which says it is cautious about using medical pathways in gender dysphoric children. She says: “Given that puberty blockers by definition disrupt a crucial natural phase of human development, the anticipated benefits must be tangible and significant to justify the risk to children.

“In pushing ahead with a puberty blockers trial, we are concerned that political interests are being prioritised over clinical, ethical and scientific concerns, and over the health and wellbeing of children.”

The NHS adult gender services holds data that tracks 9,000 young people from the youth service. Some argue that this should be scrutinised before any trial goes ahead as it could provide evidence on, among other things, the potential risks of taking puberty blockers.

But there is a third view held by some others, including Gordon Guyatt, a professor at McMaster University in Canada, who points out that randomised trials are done in “life-threatening stuff all the time” where no-one can be sure of the long-term effects of a treatment. In his view it would be “unethical not to do it”.

“With only low quality evidence, people’s philosophies, their attitudes or their politics, will continue to dominate the discussion,” he argues. “If we do not generate better evidence, the destructive, polarised debate will continue.”

– Dr Cass found the existing research in the field was poor quality and that there was not a reliable enough evidence base to base clinical decisions on. Young people involved in many of the existing studies may have also had interventions including psychological support and other medical treatments and so it was not always possible to disentangle the effect of each different treatment.

– When it comes to suppressing puberty by using drugs, the rationale for doing so “remains unclear”, Dr Cass said. One of the original reasons given was to allow time to think by delaying the onset of puberty. But the evidence suggests the vast majority who start on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones – oestrogen or testosterone. It is not clear why but one theory, the Cass report suggests, is that puberty blockers may, in their own right, change the “trajectory” of gender identity development.

– Clinicians “are unable to determine with any certainty” which young people “will go on to have an enduring trans identity”, Dr Cass wrote. In other words, there’s a lack of clarity about which young people might benefit in the long term and which may be harmed overall by the process.

Recruitment for the trial is due to start in 2025, months later than originally anticipated. Young people will likely be referred after a full assessment by specialist clinicians. A lot is still to be determined, including how many participants there will be.

Ultimately the scientists running the trials will need to establish whether people who get an intervention are better off than those who do not. In this case, do the puberty blocking drugs and their effect make the young people better off?

“Better off” in this instance includes the extent to which a young person’s mental health may be improved if they are happy with their body. Quality of life is determined by various factors including self-confidence and self-esteem. As well as getting the personal views from the young people and parents, the trial could measure actual real life changes, such as time spent in education and time spent with family and friends.

But there are potential harms to study too, such as the possibility of reduced bone density. Some scientists suggest examining the impact on learning using a form of IQ test.

Normal brain development is influenced by both puberty and chronological age, which usually act in tandem during adolescence. It’s not clear how this is affected when puberty is suppressed. Brain scans are one way of understanding any effect.

Some scientists believe it may be possible to simply randomly assign trial participants into two groups where one gets puberty blockers, the other gets a placebo and nobody is aware which group they’re in.

But others believe a placebo group is impossible. They say the placebo group would go through puberty, realise they weren’t on puberty blockers and potentially drop out of the trial or even find other ways to obtain puberty blockers. Either scenario would reduce the validity of the results.

Professor Gordon Guyatt and others have outlined a potential trial where the group of patients not receiving drugs would be made up entirely of children who are keen to socially transition, such as by changing how they dress and altering their name and pronouns. Researchers could then monitor the difference between the groups.

A second possibility is that both trial groups are given puberty blockers but one group gets them after a delay, during which time they receive psychological and emotional support. This would help researchers determine, among other things, whether their gender-related distress subsides during that delay while receiving the support.

Alongside this there would be a “matched” control group that doesn’t take a placebo or puberty blockers, whether for health reasons or because they don’t want to, that get similar tests and scans.

Puberty occurs in stages when different bodily changes occur. A third proposal could involve a second group being given drugs at a later stage in puberty than the first.

This would allow researchers to explore when the right time to give puberty blockers might be. For example, it would enable the researchers to see if starting the drugs early improves wellbeing by reducing gender-specific body changes. They would also be able to see whether starting the drugs earlier has a greater negative impact on bone density and brain development.

Children referred to GIDS also experienced higher rates of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and autism compared to the general child population. Trial participants would continue to receive treatment related to these conditions but – so we know any differences in the results from the groups are down to the drug – they will need to be balanced for the above conditions.

All these considerations demonstrate the complexity of trying to obtain evidence in this area that is reliable and definitive.

Many parents are watching closely to see how it will play out. Annabel (not her real name) is one of them. She is part of the Bayswater Group, a collection of parents with children who are questioning their gender who say they are “wary of medical solutions to gender dysphoria”. She began looking into puberty blockers when her own daughter began questioning her gender in her early teens, an option put on the table by GIDS.

Ultimately her daughter decided not to take them. Annabel was not convinced there was enough evidence to show they were beneficial and she was unsure what it would mean for her daughter’s long-term physical and psychological health.

Today, she still has unanswered questions – including some further ones around the trial. “A big concern for me is will this new trial, if it gets approval, give us the evidence that we want? Or will we end up with more weak data that Dr Cass said undermined decision making in this area?”

Natacha Kennedy, a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London who researches transgender issues, has examined the results of a survey of 97 parents of young people with gender-related distress that took place following the puberty blockers ban. She believes that puberty blockers should be an option available for young people questioning their gender and that many will not accept being part of a placebo group in a trial.

“These parents are desperate and if [they] get to a trial and it turns out their child is not being given the actual puberty blockers, then there is no point in them being there,” she says.

“There may be some parents who would… find another way [to obtain the drugs].”

Whatever trial format is settled on, more scrutiny will follow. And there will no doubt be fierce debate about the merits of the trial and what it can tell us, as many scientists around the world are watching to see what happens in the UK.

But inevitably, there will be a long wait to fully understand the longer term effects on physical and mental health of those who take puberty blockers – and the long-term effects on those with gender-related distress who don’t. Nor do we know how many people detransition, though the Cass report says, “there is suggestion that numbers are increasing”.

“We really need to have long-term follow up,” argues Annabel. “Can a child possibly understand what that means to their fertility and a loss of sexual function and what that will mean for their future life?”

For now, she and the scores of parents, carers and young people, can only watch and wait for the trial to begin and for its verdict – and what that means for whether puberty blockers will be prescribed to children once again in the future.

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.

Zambian rapper and human rights activist Samuel Miyoba, known by his stage name Smack Jay, believes that a country’s music reveals a lot about its character and culture.

He is visiting Northern Ireland in partnership with the peacebuilding charity Beyond Skin and its Zambian partner organisation OpenNet 40.

Smack Jay uses music to promote hope and advocate for social change, and has been collaborating with local artists in Belfast.

“If you want something to change, music is one of the best tools for advocacy,” he said.

On Friday, he conducted workshops at Rathcoole Primary School in north Belfast, performing songs that carried powerful messages.

His lyrics highlight the fight for fundamental rights, such as education and access to food and water, by young people in Zambia.

The broader messages, however, are not so distant from some of the debates in Northern Ireland’s society today.

Smack Jay asked a class of children: “What is your race?”

The pupils respond with a variety of answers: British; Northern Irish; White.

He challenges the latter.

“Am I black?” he asks.

“No, I’m kind of brown.”

“Are you white?”

“You’re more of a peach colour” he said, and the children began checking their hands.

Identity, he tells them, is often “more personal” than the collective ideas that are known and understood.

The rapper also read from The Children’s Code – a landmark law passed by Zambia’s parliament in 2022 which the government said has transformed education in the country.

It was the first time children’s rights had been formally codified in Zambia.

“You have the right to education, to freedom of expression. You have the right to a name and a national identity,” the rapper read to the class.

The chorus of one of Smack Jay’s songs features the mantra: “I know my rights.”

During the workshop at Rathcoole Primary, he got the children involved, encouraging them to stand and join in as he raps into the microphone.

He told BBC News NI: “We can only move forward if the young ones come with even better ideas.

“If they come with bad ideas, they will cut ties with the good people around them, so it’s really important that drug abuse and other things are fought seriously.”

In June, Smack Jay was a special guest at the Refugee Picnic, an event hosted by Belfast City of Sanctuary, the outreach group for migrants and asylum seekers in Northern Ireland.

“I met fellow Africans from Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa, Sudan and many other countries,” he said.

“The way these people have been welcomed in Northern Ireland proved how important it is to care for one another.

“I’ve built relationships with rap artists in Northern Ireland and I find them very welcoming.

“If we try to advocate more on peaceful issues through music, we are really going to get it right.”

President-elect Donald Trump has said he will look at pardons for those involved in the 2021 US Capitol riot on his first day back in office next month.

“These people are living in hell,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in his first broadcast network interview since winning November’s election.

The Republican also vowed to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in the country, but offered to work with Democrats to help some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children.

In the wide-ranging sit-down, which was recorded on Friday, Trump promised to issue “a lot” of executive orders, including on immigration, energy and the economy, after he is inaugurated on 20 January.

While he suggested he would not seek a justice department investigation into Joe Biden, he said that some of his political adversaries, including lawmakers who investigated the Capitol riot, should be jailed.

Trump was asked whether he would seek to pardon the hundreds of people convicted of involvement in that riot, when supporters of his stormed Congress three months after his defeat in the 2020 election.

“We’re going to look at independent cases,” he said. “Yeah, but I’m going to be acting very quickly.”

“First day,” he added.

Trump continued: “You know, by the way, they’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”

The president-elect made other news in the NBC interview aired on Sunday:

• He offered a caveat on whether he would keep the US in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato): “If they’re paying their bills, and if I think they’re doing a fair – they’re treating us fairly, the answer is absolutely, I’d stay with Nato”
• Trump said he would not seek to impose restrictions on abortion pills, though when asked to make a guarantee, he added: “Well, I commit. I mean…things change”
• The Republican said Ukraine should “probably” expect less aid when he returns to the White House
• Trump said he thinks “somebody has to find out” if there is a link between autism and childhood vaccines – an idea that has been ruled out by multiple studies around the world. Trump suggested his nominee for health secretary, vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr, would look into the matter
• The president-elect repeated his promise that he will not seek to cut Social Security, nor raise its eligibility age, though he said he would make it “more efficient”, without offering further details
• Pressed on whether his plan to impose tariffs on imports from major US trading partners would raise consumer prices for Americans, he said: “I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow”

On the subject of immigration, Trump told NBC he would seek through executive action to end so-called birthright citizenship, which entitles anyone born in the US to an American passport, even if their parents were born elsewhere.

Birthright citizenship stems from the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that “all persons born” in the United States “are citizens of the United States”.

“We’re going to have to get it changed,” Trump said. “We’ll maybe have to go back to the people. But we have to end it.”

Trump also said he would follow through on his campaign pledge to deport undocumented immigrants, including those with family members who are US citizens.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” he said, “so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

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Trump also said he wants to work with Congress to help so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who were shielded under an Obama-era programme, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which Trump once attempted to scrap.

“I will work with the Democrats on a plan,” he said, adding that some of these immigrants have found good jobs and started businesses.

Trump seemed to offer mixed signals on whether he would follow through on his repeated vows to seek retribution against political adversaries.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden this week issued a sweeping pardon to his criminally convicted son, Hunter. The Democrat is reported to be considering other blanket pardons for political allies before he leaves office next month.

Trump seemed to indicate that he would not seek a special counsel investigation into Biden and his family, as he once vowed.

“I’m not looking to go back into the past,” he said. “I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success.”

But he also said that members of the now-defunct, Democratic-led House of Representatives committee that investigated him “should go to jail”.

One member of the panel, former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, hit back at Trump on Sunday.

She said his comment that members of the committee should be jailed was a “continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic”.

In his NBC interview Trump also said he would not direct the FBI to pursue investigations against his foes.

But he also told the network: “If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably.

“They went after me. You know, they went after me, and I did nothing wrong.”

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For nearly a decade it was Russian firepower that had kept Bashar al-Assad in power.

Until the extraordinary events of the last 24 hours.

Damascus has fallen, Syria’s president has been toppled and has, reportedly, flown to Moscow.

Quoting a source in the Kremlin, Russian news agencies and state TV reported that Russia has granted Assad and his family asylum “on humanitarian grounds”.

In a matter of days, the Kremlin’s Syria project has unravelled in the most dramatic circumstances, with Moscow powerless to prevent it.

In a statement the Russian foreign ministry announced that Moscow was “following the dramatic events in Syria with extreme concern.”

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

By sending thousands of troops in 2015 to shore up President Assad, 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, it had seemed. In 2017 President Putin visited Russia’s Hmeimim air base in Syria and declared that it was mission accomplished.

Despite regular 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 naval base in Tartous.

Russia had secured an important foothold in the eastern Mediterranean. The bases became important hubs for transferring military contractors in and out of Africa.

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

The statement announcing Assad’s arrival in Moscow also mentioned that Russian officials were in contact with representatives of “the Syrian armed opposition”.

The state TV anchor said opposition leaders had guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions on the territory of Syria.

Russia’s foreign ministry says the bases in Syria have been put “on a state of high alert”, but claims there is “no serious threat to them at the current time.”

Bashar al-Assad was Russia’s staunchest ally in the Middle East. The Kremlin had invested heavily in him. The Russian authorities will struggle to present his toppling as anything but a setback for Moscow.

Still, they’re trying… and looking for scapegoats.

On Sunday night Russian state TV’s flagship weekly news show took aim at the Syrian army, apparently blaming it for not fighting back against the rebels.

“Everyone could see that the situation was becoming more and more dramatic for the Syrian authorities,” anchor Yevgeny Kiselev said.

“But in Aleppo, for example, positions were given up virtually without a fight. Fortified areas were surrendered one after another and then blown up, despite [government troops] being better equipped and outnumbering the attacking side many times over. It’s a mystery!”

The anchor claimed that Russia “had always hoped for reconciliation [between different sides] in Syria.”

Then his final point:

“Of course we are not indifferent to what is happening in Syria. But our priority is Russia’s own security – what is happening in the zone of the Special Military Operation [Russia’s war in Ukraine].”

There’s a clear message here for the Russian public.

Despite nine years of Russia pouring resources into keeping Bashar al-Assad in power, Russians are being told they have more important things to worry about.

The Syrian civil defence group known as the White Helmets says it is investigating reports from survivors of the country’s notorious Saydnaya prison that people are being detained in hidden underground cells.

Writing on X, the group says it has deployed five “specialised emergency teams” to the prison, who are being helped by a guide familiar with the prison’s layout.

Saydnaya is one of the prisons to have been liberated as rebels took control of the country.

Authorities in Damascus province reported that efforts were continuing to free prisoners, some of whom were “almost choking to death” from lack of ventilation.

The Damascus Countryside Governorate has appealed on social media to former soldiers and prison workers in the Assad regime to provide the rebel forces with the codes to electronic underground doors.

They say they have been unable to open them in order to free “more than 100,000 detainees who can be seen on CCTV monitors”.

Video has been circulating online and through news outlets including Al Jazeera of what appears to be efforts to access lower parts of the prison.

In it, a man can be seen using a type of post to knock out a lower wall, revealing a dark space behind.

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Other footage has shown prisoners being freed – including a small child being held with his mother. He is shown in a video of women being released that was posted by the Turkey-based Association of Detainees and The Missing in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).

“He [Assad] has fallen. Don’t be scared,” a voice on the video says, apparently trying to reassure the women that they were now safe.

Video verified by AFP showed Syrians rushing to see if their relatives were among those released from Saydnaya, where thousands of opposition supporters are said to have been tortured and executed under the Assad regime.

Rebel forces have swept across Syria, freeing prisoners from government jails as they went.

Throughout the civil war, which began in 2011, government forces held hundreds of thousands of people in detention camps, where human rights groups say torture was common.

On Saturday Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) said it had freed more than 3,500 detainees from Homs Military Prison as the group took over the city.

As they entered the capital hours later early on Sunday, HTS announced an “end of the era of tyranny in the prison of Saydnaya”, which has become a by-word for the darkest abuses of Assad’s era.

In a 2022 report, ADMSP said Saydnaya “effectively became a death camp” after the start of the civil war.

It estimated that more than 30,000 detainees had either been executed or died as a result of torture, lack of medical care or starvation between 2011 and 2018. Citing accounts from the few released inmates, at least another 500 detainees had been executed between 2018 and 2021, it said.

In 2017, Amnesty International described Saydnaya as a “human slaughterhouse”, in a report that alleged that executions had been authorised at the highest levels of the Assad government.

The government at that time dismissed Amnesty’s claims as “baseless” and “devoid of truth”, insisting that all executions in Syria followed due process.

Video cited by Reuters showed rebels shooting the lock off Saydnaya prison gate and used more gunfire to open closed doors leading to cells. Men poured out into the corridors.

Other footage, which the Reuters news agency says was taken on the streets of Damascus, appears to show recently freed prisoners running down the street.

In it, one asks a passer-by what happened.

“We toppled the regime,” they respond, eliciting an excited laugh from the former prisoner.

Of all the symbols of the repressive nature of the Assad regime, the network of prisons into which those expressing any form of dissent were disappeared cast the longest and darkest shadow.

In Saydnaya, torture, sexual assault and mass execution were the fate of thousands. Many never re-emerged, with their families often not knowing for many years whether they were alive or dead.

One of those who survived the ordeal, Omar al-Shogre, told the BBC on Sunday about what he endured during three years of incarceration as a teenager.

“I know the pain, I know the loneliness and also the hopelessness you feel because the world let you suffer and did nothing about it,” he said.

“They forced my cousin whom I loved so much to torture me, and they force me to torture him. Otherwise, we would both be executed.”

A Syrian human rights network estimates that more than 130,000 people have been subjected to detention in these conditions since 2011. But the history of these intentionally terrifying institutions goes back much further.

Even in neighbouring Lebanon, the fear of being disappeared to a Syrian dungeon was pervasive during the many years that Damascus was the dominant foreign power.

The deep hatred of the Assad regime – both father and son – that simmered under the surface in Syria was due in large part to this industrial-scale mechanism of torture, death and humiliation that was intended to frighten the population into submission.

For that reason, rebel factions in their lightning drive through Syria that toppled President Assad made sure in each city they captured to go to the central prison in each one and release the thousands held there.

The image of these people emerging into the light from a darkness that had shrouded some for decades will be one of the defining images of the downfall of the Assad dynasty.

Israel’s prime minister has announced its military has temporarily seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the rebel takeover of the country.

Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the buffer zone and “commanding positions nearby” from the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan.

“We will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,” he said.

A UK-based war monitor said Syrian troops had left their positions in Quneitra province, part of which lies inside the buffer zone, on Saturday.

On Sunday, the IDF told residents of five Syrian villages inside the zone to stay in their homes until further notice.

The Golan Heights is a rocky plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus.

Israel seized the Golan from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. The move was not recognised internationally, although the US did so unilaterally in 2019.

The Israeli move in the buffer zone came after Syrian rebel fighters captured the capital, Damascus, and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime. He and his father had been in power in the country since 1971.

Forces led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus in the early hours of Sunday morning, before appearing on state television to declare Syria to now be “free”.

Netanyahu said the collapse of the Assad regime was a “historic day in the Middle East”.

“The collapse of the Assad regime, the tyranny in Damascus, offers great opportunity but also is fraught with significant dangers,” he said.

He said events in Syria had been the result of Israeli strikes against Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Assad’s allies, and insisted Israel would “send a hand of peace” to Syrians who wanted to live in peace with Israel.

The IDF seizure of Syrian positions in the buffer zone was a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found”, he said.

“If we can establish neighbourly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the State of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said.

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After more than a year of war in the Middle East, Israel already has its hands full.

But the pace of events in Syria, it’s northern neighbour, will be of real concern.

The IDF had already moved reinforcements to the occupied Golan.

In normal times, its warning to residents in several villages to stay in their homes because Israel would not hesitate to act if it felt it needed to would be seen as hugely provocative and enough to start a war.

Israel is especially concerned about who might get their hands on Bashar al-Assad’s alleged arsenal of chemical weapons.

The leader of the Syrian rebellion is Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani. His family roots are in the occupied Golan Heights, where thousands of Israeli settlers now live alongside about 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze, who stayed on after it was captured.

Israel will have no intention of giving that land up and is determined to protect its citizens.

During the 2011 Syrian uprising, Israel made the calculation that Assad, despite being an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, was a better bet than what might follow his regime.

Israel will now be trying to calculate what comes next in Syria. Like everyone, it can only guess.

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.

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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.

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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.

There was a snarl of cars when we arrived. We could hear chanting. Someone was waving a rebel flag. Overnight news that Damascus had fallen and Syria’s president had fled spurred Syrians in Lebanon to rush to Masnaa, the border crossing closest to their capital.

We’d been planning to spend a day reporting from there, but packed a small overnight bag when we heard the Syrians had abandoned their side. Maybe we would be able to get to Damascus ourselves.

Amid the excitement around us was a tall man with curly hair who was trying to go the other way. I could see he was crying.

He told me his name was Hussein and that he was a supporter of President Bashar al-Assad. He was afraid.

“We don’t know anything about what is going to happen inside. They might kill us, it’s chaos,” he said.

“Anybody who used to work with the regime or the army, they say they are going to give them a safe exit, but nobody knows. If it’s not going to be true, they’re going to pay the consequences.”

He had brought his family with him, but didn’t have the documents to cross into Lebanon.

An hour later, we entered Syria. The road to Damascus was wide open. As we neared the capital we could see signs of an army in retreat – military jeeps and tanks, abandoned. Army uniforms littered the road where soldiers had torn them off.

There was traffic in the streets but shops were closed. People had gathered in the central Umayyad Square, overcome by the extraordinary end to more than five decades of authoritarian rule by the Assad regime – father and son.

Armed men were firing into the air in a constant cacophony of celebration – we saw one little boy who had been injured carried away.

Civilians were driving around in their cars, flashing peace signs, saying things would be so much better now that Assad was gone. One elderly woman was crying.

“Thank you, thank you,” she exclaimed as if praying. “The tyrant has fallen. The tyrant has fallen!”

Many in her family had died under Assad’s rule, she said, some in prison.

I approached a couple with four young children, their parents fairly bursting with joy.

“It’s an indescribable feeling. We are so happy,” said the man. “After all the years of dictatorship we have lived in our lives! We were in prison in 2014 and now we’re out thank God. We won because of our men, our fighters, and now we are at the moment that we are going to build the greatest Syria!”

“We call our sisters and brothers who left the country to come back,” he added. “Our hearts and homes are open for you.”

The whereabouts of Assad were a mystery until Russian reports said he’d turned up in Moscow. We made our way to his Damascus residence – now a tourist attraction, stripped bare of anything valuable, of anything at all.

We saw people carrying out furniture, with no one trying to stop them. The rebels may have brought freedom, but not security.

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Looters had also been breaking into other buildings nearby – deepening anxiety about this in-between-time without a government in charge.

“The transition has to happen in a proper and correct way,” said Alaa Dadouch, a 36-year-old father of three standing outside with his neighbours. “And the fact that he just left, you know…”

“Bashar al-Assad?” I prompted.

“Yes, you see I’m still scared to even mention this,” he said. “But the fact that he just left, that is selfish. Our president should have taken the proper measures that are needed for him to give at least the army or the police control over those areas until a new presidency comes in.”

He paused. “You know, two days back, I wasn’t able to say that he’s selfish, it would have been a big problem. A lot of everything is different.

“You can actually breathe, you can walk around. You can actually give your opinion. You can say what bothers you without being scared. So, yes, there is a change. I hope it’s a good change. But we’ve been living under false hope for 13 years [of civil war].”

This country is caught between joy and fear, hoping for peace and worried about chaos.

“The forest is our supermarket,” says Anice Justin. “We get almost everything from the forests on these islands. It is what we survive on.”

Mr Justin, an anthropologist, has grown up in the Andaman and Nicobar islands straddling India’s east coast. A federally-administered territory, the ecologically-fragile region consists 836 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The Nicobar Islands are a distinct group of islands in the southern part of the territory, located some 150 km (93 miles) south of the Andaman Island.

Now Mr Justin watches with trepidation as India plans a multi-billion ‘Hong Kong-like’ development project on the Great Nicobar Island, one of the largest and most secluded parts of the Nicobar archipelago.

Built on a budget of 720bn rupees ($9bn or £6bn) and spread over 166 sq km, the project includes a transshipment harbour, a power plant, an airport and a new township, all designed to link the area to crucial global trade routes along the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal.

Positioned near the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, the project promises to boost international trade and tourism – the government reckons that some 650,000 people will be living on the island by the time the project is completed in 30 years.

Experts say the multi-billion plan is also a part of India’s larger goal to counter China’s growing influence in the region.

But the scheme has sparked alarm among the islanders who fear the loss of their land, culture, and way of life, with the project threatening to push them to the brink of extinction.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are home to some of the most isolated and vulnerable tribes in the world, with five groups classified as “particularly vulnerable.”

These include the Jarawas, North Sentinelese, Great Andamanese, Onge, and Shompen. While the Jarawas and North Sentinelese remain largely uncontacted, the Shompen – some 400 people – of the Great Nicobar Islands are also at risk of losing their way of life due to external pressures.

A nomadic tribe, most of them live deep inside the forest where they forage for survival – not much is known about their culture as very few of them have ever had contact with the outside world.

“The loss will be especially huge and traumatic for them,” says Mr Justin, who has been documenting the island since 1985.

“Whatever we call development in the outside world is not of interest to them. They have a traditional life of their own.”

Environmentalists say there are also huge environmental costs of the project.

Spread across 921 sq km (355.6 sq miles), around 80% of the Great Nicobar island is covered with rainforests, which are home to more than 1,800 animals and 800 flora species, many of which are endemic.

The federal environment ministry has said that only 130 sq km or 14% of the total area of the island will be cleared for the project – but that’s still about 964,000 trees. Experts warn the actual number could be much higher.

“The government always claims only a part of the forest will be cleared. But the infrastructure you’re building would lead to more pollution, which in turn would impact the entire habitat,” says Madhav Gadgil, an ecologist.

The environment ministry did not respond to BBC’s request for comment.

But Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav in August had said that the project “will not disturb or displace” tribespeople and that it had received environmental clearances based on the “rigour of environmental scrutiny and after incorporating consequent safeguards”.

Yet, not everyone is convinced.

Earlier this year, 39 international experts from different fields of social sciences had warned that the development project would be a “death sentence” for the Shompen as it would destroy their habitat.

It’s a fear that haunts Mr Justin too: “The Shompen people do not have the knowledge or the means to survive in an industrial world,” he says.

He worries the group could meet the same fate as the Nicobarese, the biggest tribal group on the island, which suffered displacement in 2004, when a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean wiped out their villages.

Over the years, the government made efforts to resettle the people to a different area – but that too came at a price.

“Most Nicobarese here are now manual labourers and stay in a settlement instead of their ancestral lands,” Mr Justin says. “They have no place to grow crops or keep animals.”

There are fears that the project could also expose the Shompen to diseases.

“Uncontacted peoples have little to no immunity to outside diseases like flu and measles which can and do wipe them out – they typically lose around two thirds of their population after contact,” says Callum Russell, an official at Survival International, a conservation group.

There are other wider environmental concerns as well, especially about the marine life of the region.

Ecologists warn of the effect on the Galathea Bay on the south-eastern side of the island, which has been the nesting place for giant leatherback sea turtles for centuries.

Dr Manish Chandi, a social ecologist, says the project will also affect saltwater crocodiles and the island’s water monitors, fish and avifauna.

A government statement has said these nesting and breeding grounds of these species would not be altered.

But Mr Chandi points out that there are several other species which nest in the area in large numbers. “The government is proposing to translocate corals in locations where they are not found naturally. What are they going to do with these other species?”

Even though the project would take 30 long years to finish, people can’t help but feel anxious about how it will irreversibly alter the delicate balance of both the environment and the lives of the island’s indigenous people.

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.

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani has dropped that nom de guerre associated with his jihadist past, and been using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in official communiques issued since Thursday, ahead of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

This move is part of Jawlani’s effort to bolster his legitimacy in a new context, as his Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), leading other rebel factions, announces the capture of the Syrian capital, Damascus, solidifying its control over much of the country.

Jawlani’s transformation is not recent, but has been carefully cultivated over the years, evident not only in his public statements and interviews with international outlets but also in his evolving appearance.

Once clad in traditional jihadist militant attire, he has adopted a more Western-style wardrobe in the past years. Now, as he leads the offensive, he has donned military fatigues, symbolising his role as the commander of the operations room.

But who is Jawlani – or Ahmed al-Sharaa – and why and how has he changed?

A 2021 PBS interview with Jawlani revealed that he was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as an oil engineer until 1989.

In that year, the Jawlani family returned to Syria, where he grew up and lived in the Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus.

Jawlani’s journey as a jihadist began in Iraq, linked to al-Qaeda through the Islamic State (IS) group’s precursor – al-Qaeda in Iraq and, later, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

After the 2003 US-led invasion, he joined other foreign fighters in Iraq and, in 2005, was imprisoned at Camp Bucca, where he enhanced his jihadist affiliations and later on was introduced to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the quiet scholar who would later go on to lead IS.

In 2011, Baghdadi sent Jawlani to Syria with funding to establish al-Nusra Front, a covert faction tied to ISI. By 2012, Nusra had become a prominent Syrian fighting force, hiding its IS and al-Qaeda ties.

Tensions arose in 2013 when Baghdadi’s group in Iraq unilaterally declared the merger of the two groups (ISI and Nusra), declaring the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), and publicly revealing for the first time the links between them.

Jawlani resisted, as he wanted to distance his group from ISI’s violent tactics, leading to a split.

To get out of that sticky situation, Jawlani pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, making Nusra Front its Syrian branch.

From the start, he prioritised winning Syrian support, distancing himself from IS’s brutality and emphasising a more pragmatic approach to jihad.

In April 2013, al-Nusra Front became al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, putting it at odds with IS.

While Jawlani’s move was partly an attempt to maintain local support and avoid alienating Syrians and rebel factions, the al-Qaeda affiliation ultimately did little to benefit this effort.

It became a pressing challenge in 2015 when Nusra and other factions captured Idlib province, forcing them to co-operate in its administration.

In 2016, Jawlani severed ties with al-Qaeda, rebranding the group as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and later as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017.

While initially appearing superficial, the split revealed deeper divisions. Al-Qaeda accused Jawlani of betrayal, leading to defections and the formation of Hurras al-Din, a new al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which HTS later crushed in 2020. Members of Hurras al-Din, however, have remained cautiously present in the region.

HTS also targeted IS operatives and foreign fighters in Idlib, dismantling their networks and forcing some to undergo “deradicalisation” programmes.

These moves, justified as efforts to unify militant forces and reduce infighting, signalled Jawlani’s strategy to position HTS as a dominant and politically viable force in Syria.

Despite the public split from al-Qaeda and name changes, HTS continued to be designated by the UN, US, UK and other countries as a terrorist organisation, and the US maintained a $10m reward for information about Jawlani’s whereabouts. Western powers considered the break-up to be a façade.

Under Jawlani, HTS became the dominant force in Idlib, north-west Syria’s largest rebel stronghold and home to about four million people, many of whom were displaced from other Syrian provinces.

To address concerns about a militant group governing the area, HTS established a civilian front, the so-called “Syrian Salvation Government” (SG) in 2017 as its political and administrative arm.

The SG functioned like a state, with a prime minister, ministries and local departments overseeing sectors such as education, health and reconstruction, while maintaining a religious council guided by Sharia, or Islamic law.

To reshape his image, Jawlani actively engaged with the public, visiting displacement camps, attending events, and overseeing aid efforts, particularly during crises like the 2023 earthquakes.

HTS highlighted achievements in governance and infrastructure to legitimise its rule and demonstrate its ability to provide stability and services.

It has previously praised the Taliban, upon their return to power in 2021, lauding them as an inspiration and a model for effectively balancing jihadist efforts with political aspirations, including making tactical compromises to achieve their goals.

Jawlani’s efforts in Idlib reflected his broader strategy to demonstrate HTS’s ability not only to wage jihad but also to govern effectively.

By prioritising stability, public services and reconstruction, he aimed to showcase Idlib as a model of success under HTS rule, enhancing both his group’s legitimacy and his own political aspirations.

But under his leadership, HTS has crushed and marginalised other militant factions, both jihadists and rebel ones, in its effort to consolidate its power and dominate the scene.

For over a year leading up to the HTS-led rebel offensive on 27 November, Jawlani faced protests in Idlib from hardline Islamists as well as Syrian activists.

Critics compared his rule to Assad’s, accusing HTS of authoritarianism, suppressing dissent and silencing critics. Protesters labelled HTS’s security forces as “Shabbiha”, a term used to describe Assad’s loyalist henchmen.

They further alleged that HTS deliberately avoided meaningful combat against government forces and marginalised jihadists and foreign fighters in Idlib to prevent them from engaging in such actions, all to appease international actors.

Even during the latest offensive, activists have persistently urged HTS to release individuals imprisoned in Idlib allegedly for expressing dissent.

In response to these criticisms, HTS initiated several reforms over the past year. It disbanded or rebranded a controversial security force accused of human rights violations and established a “Department of Grievances” to allow citizens to lodge complaints against the group. Its critics said these measures were just a show to contain dissent.

To justify its consolidation of power in Idlib and the suppression of plurality among militant groups, HTS argued that unifying under a single leadership was crucial for making progress and ultimately overthrowing the Syrian government.

HTS and its civilian arm, the SG, walked a tightrope, striving to project a modern, moderate image to win over both the local population and the international community, while simultaneously maintaining their Islamist identity to satisfy hardliners within rebel-held areas and HTS’s own ranks.

For instance, in December 2023, HTS and the SG faced a backlash after a “festival” held at a glossy new shopping mall was criticised by hardliners as “immoral”.

And this August, a Paralympic Games-inspired ceremony drew sharp criticism from hardliners, prompting the SG to review the organisation of such events.

These incidents illustrate the challenges HTS faces in reconciling the expectations of its Islamist base with the broader demands of the Syrian population, who are seeking freedom and coexistence after years of authoritarian rule under Assad.

As the latest offensive unfolded, global media focused on Jawlani’s jihadist past, prompting some rebel supporters to call for him to step back, viewing him as a liability.

Although he previously expressed willingness to dissolve his group and step aside, his recent actions and public appearances tell a different story.

HTS’s success in uniting rebels and nearly capturing the whole country in under two weeks has strengthened Jawlani’s position, quieting hardline critics and accusations of opportunism.

Jawlani and the SG have since reassured domestic and international audiences.

To Syrians, including minorities, they promised safety; to neighbours and powers like Russia, they pledged peaceful relations. Jawlani even assured Russia its Syrian bases would remain unharmed if attacks ceased.

This shift reflects HTS’s “moderate jihad” strategy since 2017, emphasising pragmatism over rigid ideology.

Jawlani’s approach could signal the decline of global jihad movements like IS and al-Qaeda, whose inflexibility is increasingly seen as ineffective and unsustainable.

His trajectory might inspire other groups to adapt, marking either a new era of localised, politically flexible “jihadism” or just a temporary divergence from the traditional path in order to make political and territorial gains.

Bashar al-Assad and his family have arrived in Moscow and been granted asylum “out of humanitarian considerations”, Russian news agencies are quoting a Kremlin source as saying.

Russian state TV also reported the news, which put an end to speculation about the whereabouts of Syria’s former president after rebel forces seized control of Damascus.

Earlier, the Russian foreign ministry had announced that Assad “decided to resign the presidency and left the country, giving instructions for a peaceful transfer of power”.

Russia, which has two key military bases in Syria, is a staunch ally of Assad and had intervened in Syria’s 13-year civil war in an effort to keep him in power.

But it was unable to stop the collapse of his government in the face of a lightning rebel offensive that took advantage of his other key allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, being distracted by other conflicts.

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• Watch: BBC sees looting at Bashar al-Assad’s residence
• Steve Rosenberg: Fall of Assad is a blow to Russia’s prestige
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• Where is Bashar al-Assad?

Assad has not been pictured since he met the 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”.

With no official confirmation from the Syrian presidency, military or state media, rumours swirled about Assad’s whereabouts.

The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, 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.

People also followed flights in and out of Damascus to work out when Assad might have left and where he might have gone.

Reuters news agency 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 towards the Mediterranean coast, which is a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and is also home to two key Russian military bases – Hmeimim airbase and the naval base in Tartous.

But after flying over Homs, the plane made a U-turn and started flying eastwards again while also losing altitude. The plane’s 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 of only 1,625ft (495m).

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It was not clear what happened to the plan, but Flightradar24 said 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 the aircraft tracker was not aware of any airports in the area where the signal was lost. There were also no reports of any plane crashes.

Data from Flightradar24 also showed that a Russian military plane took off on Sunday from Latakia’s international airport, next to Hmeimim, and flew to Moscow. Once again, it was not known who was on board.

As well as reporting the arrival of Assad in Moscow, Russian state TV said Russian officials were in contact with representatives of “the Syrian armed opposition” and that they had guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions.

Russia insisted its air strikes only targeted “terrorists” during its nine-year air campaign in support of Assad, but they regularly killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.

The SOHR said in September that more than 21,000 people, including 8,700 civilians, had been killed in Russian military operations.